Israeli Arab MK defends Gaza rockets
Posted: 11 Apr 2011 07:52 AM PDT
Firas Press quotes Maariv as reporting that Israeli MK Haneen Zoabi said that Gaza armed groups have a right to fire rockets at Israel - her country.
She said, "Those who live under siege and hardship will do everything for their freedom and Israel understands that."
Zoabi was on the flotilla that included the Mavi Marmara last summer.
Would any democracy in the world tolerate a member of their parliament publicly supporting war against their own country?
Elder of Ziyon
Showing posts with label flotilla. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flotilla. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Palestinian Nazi Flotilla March
“Peace Activists” From Gaza Flotilla Flying Nazi Flag (hat tip Weasel Zippers)
The Mufti's dream lives............ then as now, the leftist/Islamic genocidal alliance.
Will Obama maintain his malevolent "neutrality?"
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Obama Administration will Support anti-Israel Resolutio
Sources: Obama Administration to Support Anti-Israel Resolution at UN Next Week
By William Kristol
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has learned that senior Obama administration officials have been telling foreign governments that the administration intends to support an effort next week at the United Nations to set up an independent commission, under UN auspices, to investigate Israel's behavior in the Gaza flotilla incident. The White House has apparently shrugged off concerns from elsewhere in the U.S. government that a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations; b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas; and c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.
While UN Ambassador Susan Rice is reported to have played an important role in pushing for U.S. support of a UN investigation, the decision is, one official stressed, of course the president's. The government of Israel has been consulting with the U.S. government on its own Israeli investigative panel, to be led by a retired supreme court justice, that would include respected international participants, including one from the U.S. But the Obama administration is reportedly saying that such a “kosher panel” is not good enough to satisfy the international community, or the Obama White House.
Atlas Shrugs
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
POTUS Expressed Sorrow Over Loss of Jihadist Life
There is something terribly horribly wicked when the leader of the free world cannot distinguish between good and evil, barbarity and humanity, bloodlust and self defense. The Post-American Presidency:
The following testimony was forwarded by Dina Moskowitz to an Israeli forum.
Below, a first hand account from Amir, an Israeli soldier who was there.
"Hello Uncle Erwin,
This is Amir writing you after reading what you sent to my father, Eitan.
As you know, it was my unit and my friends who were on the ship. My commander was injured badly as a result of the "pacifists" violence.
I want to tell you how he was injured so you could tell the story. It shows just how horrible and inhuman were the activists.
My commander was the first soldier that rappelled down from the helicopter to the ship. When he touched ground, he got hit in the head with a pole and stabbed in the stomach with a knife. When he drew out his secondary weapon-a handgun (his primary weapon was a regular paintball gun: "Tippman 98 custom") he was shot in the leg. He managed to fire a single shot before he was tossed from the balcony by 4 Arab activists, to the lower deck (a 12 feet fall). He was then dragged by other activists to a room in the lower deck were he was stripped down by 2 activists. They took off his vest, helmet and shirt, leaving him with only his pants and shoes on.
When they finished they took a knife and expanded the wound he already had in his stomach. They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out.
When they finished they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that, here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commander's body so they will be demoralized and scared.
Luckily, when they walked him on the deck a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non-lethal bullet that didn't kill him.
My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body, and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved.
The activists that did this to him are alive, now in Turkey, and treated as heroes.
I'm sorry if I described this with too many details, but I thought it was necessary for the credibility. Please tell this story to anyone who will listen. I think that these days you are one of Israel's best spokesman.
Thanks uncle Erwin, Shabbat shalom!
Amir
Atlas Shrugs
The following testimony was forwarded by Dina Moskowitz to an Israeli forum.
Below, a first hand account from Amir, an Israeli soldier who was there.
"Hello Uncle Erwin,
This is Amir writing you after reading what you sent to my father, Eitan.
As you know, it was my unit and my friends who were on the ship. My commander was injured badly as a result of the "pacifists" violence.
I want to tell you how he was injured so you could tell the story. It shows just how horrible and inhuman were the activists.
My commander was the first soldier that rappelled down from the helicopter to the ship. When he touched ground, he got hit in the head with a pole and stabbed in the stomach with a knife. When he drew out his secondary weapon-a handgun (his primary weapon was a regular paintball gun: "Tippman 98 custom") he was shot in the leg. He managed to fire a single shot before he was tossed from the balcony by 4 Arab activists, to the lower deck (a 12 feet fall). He was then dragged by other activists to a room in the lower deck were he was stripped down by 2 activists. They took off his vest, helmet and shirt, leaving him with only his pants and shoes on.
When they finished they took a knife and expanded the wound he already had in his stomach. They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out.
When they finished they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that, here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commander's body so they will be demoralized and scared.
Luckily, when they walked him on the deck a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non-lethal bullet that didn't kill him.
My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body, and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved.
The activists that did this to him are alive, now in Turkey, and treated as heroes.
I'm sorry if I described this with too many details, but I thought it was necessary for the credibility. Please tell this story to anyone who will listen. I think that these days you are one of Israel's best spokesman.
Thanks uncle Erwin, Shabbat shalom!
Amir
Atlas Shrugs
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Turkey's Links to Flotilla Terrorists
The Turkish Islamic charity behind a flotilla of aid ships that was raided by Israeli forces on its way to Gaza had ties to terrorism networks, including a 1999 Al Qaeda plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, France's former top anti-terrorism judge said Wednesday.
The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, had "clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad," former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Bruguiere, who led the French judiciary's counterterrorism unit for nearly two decades before retiring in 2007, didn't indicate whether IHH now has terror ties, but said it did when he investigated it in the late 1990s.
"They were basically helping Al Qaeda when (Usama) bin Laden started to want to target U.S. soil," he said.
Some members of an international terrorism cell known as the Fateh Kamel network then worked at the IHH, he said. Kamel, an Algerian-Canadian dual national, had ties to the nascent Al Qaeda, Bruguiere said.
Among Kamel's followers was Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who was arrested in the U.S. state of Washington in December 1999 on his way to bomb Los Angeles International Airport as part of an Al Qaeda plot.
"IHH had a role in the organization that led to the plot," Bruguiere said, reiterating sworn testimony he made in a U.S. Federal Court during Ressam's trial. Ressam is serving a 22-year prison sentence.
Bruguiere issued an international warrant for Kamel, Ressam's former mentor, who was extradited from Jordan to France in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison on terror-related charges.
IHH vehemently denies ties to radical groups. The group is not among some 45 groups listed as terrorists by the U.S. State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (surprise, surprise!). Nine people on board the IHH flotilla were killed by Israeli forces on Monday.
"We are a legal organization," IHH board member Omer Faruk Korkmaz said late Wednesday in response to Bruguiere's statements. "We have nothing to do with any illegal organization," he said.
"We don't know Ahmed Ressam or Fateh Kamel," Korkmaz said. "We don't approve of the actions of any terrorist organization in the world." (How about HAMAS, which is on the State Department list?)
French investigators found in the 1990s that "several members of Fateh Kamel's network worked at the IHH as a cover," Bruguiere said. "It was too systematic and too widespread for the NGO (non-governmental organization) not to know" their real goal, he said.
The former judge, renowned for tracking down convicted terrorist Carlos the Jackal, said he didn't believe the IHH could have been infiltrated by terrorists without its knowledge.
"It's hard to prove, but all elements of the investigation showed that part of the NGO served to hide jihad-type activities," Bruguiere said. "I'm convinced this was a clear strategy, known by IHH."
The judge said he was personally involved in a raid with French and Turkish police at IHH headquarters in Istanbul in 1998, where they found weapons, false documents and other "incriminating" material.
"It was clearly proven that some of the NGO's work was not charity, it was to provide a facade for moving funds, weapons and mujahedeen to and from Bosnia and Afghanistan" — areas focused on by Islamic militants then.
In Istanbul, Korkmaz, of IHH, confirmed the late '90s police raid but denied that any weapons were found and said there was no evidence found of links to militancy.
Bruguiere would not specify how many members of Kamel's terror cell worked at IHH or give their names, but he said one of the suspects, a man from Bosnia, appeared in another terror-related case as recently as 2005 — though there was no indication at the time that the man still had ties to IHH.
Elements within the charity supported jihadi operations in the 1990s, Bruguiere said, before adding: "I don't know whether they continued to do so" more recently.
"But it seemed clear at the time that it was thanks to a measure of political backing within the Turkish government that it (IHH) could continue to operate," despite the strong suspicions against it, Bruguiere said.
Bruguiere retired from the judiciary in 2007 when he took part in an election to become a lawmaker in the conservative party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He lost his bid.
Bruguiere, 67, is now the coordinator for the European Union in a terrorism finance tracking program jointly run with the United States.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Wednesday that "we know that IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years. That is obviously of great concern to us."
Anti Mullah
The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, had "clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad," former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Bruguiere, who led the French judiciary's counterterrorism unit for nearly two decades before retiring in 2007, didn't indicate whether IHH now has terror ties, but said it did when he investigated it in the late 1990s.
"They were basically helping Al Qaeda when (Usama) bin Laden started to want to target U.S. soil," he said.
Some members of an international terrorism cell known as the Fateh Kamel network then worked at the IHH, he said. Kamel, an Algerian-Canadian dual national, had ties to the nascent Al Qaeda, Bruguiere said.
Among Kamel's followers was Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who was arrested in the U.S. state of Washington in December 1999 on his way to bomb Los Angeles International Airport as part of an Al Qaeda plot.
"IHH had a role in the organization that led to the plot," Bruguiere said, reiterating sworn testimony he made in a U.S. Federal Court during Ressam's trial. Ressam is serving a 22-year prison sentence.
Bruguiere issued an international warrant for Kamel, Ressam's former mentor, who was extradited from Jordan to France in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison on terror-related charges.
IHH vehemently denies ties to radical groups. The group is not among some 45 groups listed as terrorists by the U.S. State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism (surprise, surprise!). Nine people on board the IHH flotilla were killed by Israeli forces on Monday.
"We are a legal organization," IHH board member Omer Faruk Korkmaz said late Wednesday in response to Bruguiere's statements. "We have nothing to do with any illegal organization," he said.
"We don't know Ahmed Ressam or Fateh Kamel," Korkmaz said. "We don't approve of the actions of any terrorist organization in the world." (How about HAMAS, which is on the State Department list?)
French investigators found in the 1990s that "several members of Fateh Kamel's network worked at the IHH as a cover," Bruguiere said. "It was too systematic and too widespread for the NGO (non-governmental organization) not to know" their real goal, he said.
The former judge, renowned for tracking down convicted terrorist Carlos the Jackal, said he didn't believe the IHH could have been infiltrated by terrorists without its knowledge.
"It's hard to prove, but all elements of the investigation showed that part of the NGO served to hide jihad-type activities," Bruguiere said. "I'm convinced this was a clear strategy, known by IHH."
The judge said he was personally involved in a raid with French and Turkish police at IHH headquarters in Istanbul in 1998, where they found weapons, false documents and other "incriminating" material.
"It was clearly proven that some of the NGO's work was not charity, it was to provide a facade for moving funds, weapons and mujahedeen to and from Bosnia and Afghanistan" — areas focused on by Islamic militants then.
In Istanbul, Korkmaz, of IHH, confirmed the late '90s police raid but denied that any weapons were found and said there was no evidence found of links to militancy.
Bruguiere would not specify how many members of Kamel's terror cell worked at IHH or give their names, but he said one of the suspects, a man from Bosnia, appeared in another terror-related case as recently as 2005 — though there was no indication at the time that the man still had ties to IHH.
Elements within the charity supported jihadi operations in the 1990s, Bruguiere said, before adding: "I don't know whether they continued to do so" more recently.
"But it seemed clear at the time that it was thanks to a measure of political backing within the Turkish government that it (IHH) could continue to operate," despite the strong suspicions against it, Bruguiere said.
Bruguiere retired from the judiciary in 2007 when he took part in an election to become a lawmaker in the conservative party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He lost his bid.
Bruguiere, 67, is now the coordinator for the European Union in a terrorism finance tracking program jointly run with the United States.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Wednesday that "we know that IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years. That is obviously of great concern to us."
Anti Mullah
Liz Cheney Calls out Obama Anti-Israel
Keep America Safe’s Liz Cheney released the following statement on President Obama’s response to the flotilla incident:
“Yesterday, President Obama said the Israeli action to stop the flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip was “tragic.” What is truly tragic is that President Obama is perpetuating Israel’s enemies’ version of events. The Israeli government has imposed a blockade around Gaza because Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction, refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist and using territory under their control to launch attacks against Israeli civilians. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, in order to prevent the re-arming of Hamas, is in full compliance with international law. Had the Turkish flotilla truly been interested in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, they would have accepted the Israeli offer to off-load their supplies peacefully at the Israeli port of Haifa for transport into Gaza. President Obama is contributing to the isolation of Israel, and sending a clear signal to the Turkish-Syrian-Iranian axis that their methods for ostracizing Israel will succeed, and will be met by no resistance from America. There is no middle ground here. Either the United States stands with the people of Israel in the war against radical Islamic terrorism or we are providing encouragement to Israel’s enemies—and our own. Keep America Safe calls on President Obama to reverse his present course and support the state of Israel immediately and unequivocally.”
Atlas Shrugs
“Yesterday, President Obama said the Israeli action to stop the flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip was “tragic.” What is truly tragic is that President Obama is perpetuating Israel’s enemies’ version of events. The Israeli government has imposed a blockade around Gaza because Hamas remains committed to Israel’s destruction, refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist and using territory under their control to launch attacks against Israeli civilians. The Israeli blockade of Gaza, in order to prevent the re-arming of Hamas, is in full compliance with international law. Had the Turkish flotilla truly been interested in providing humanitarian aid to Gaza, they would have accepted the Israeli offer to off-load their supplies peacefully at the Israeli port of Haifa for transport into Gaza. President Obama is contributing to the isolation of Israel, and sending a clear signal to the Turkish-Syrian-Iranian axis that their methods for ostracizing Israel will succeed, and will be met by no resistance from America. There is no middle ground here. Either the United States stands with the people of Israel in the war against radical Islamic terrorism or we are providing encouragement to Israel’s enemies—and our own. Keep America Safe calls on President Obama to reverse his present course and support the state of Israel immediately and unequivocally.”
Atlas Shrugs
Saturday, June 5, 2010
In Conflict Always Side with the Civilized Man
The killing flotilla has become the rallying cry for the global jihadists who are hell-bent on fulfilling the express command to kill the Jews, as prescribed over and over in Islamic teaching. Remember: Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, said that the end times would only come when Muslims started mass-murdering Jews: “The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”
The only suffering in Gaza is not being caused by Israel. It is coming at the hands of the barbarians, Hamas. The first paragraph of the Hamas Charter, by the way, calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Mere details, I know.
So if the Flotilla incident and the outrage that has followed it is not about humanitarian aid, much less about “occupied” land, then what is it about? This is about jihad. This is about Islamic supremacism and annihilating the Jews. 56 ginormous Muslim countries, one tiny Jewish state, and they are in a constant bloodthirsty frenzy over it.
The level of anti-Semitism in my email box and in the comments at my website AtlasShrugs.com since the killing flotilla story broke is full blown out of control. Evil has been unleashed. Pure evil. As Turkey’s Islamic supremacist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said about Israel’s act of self-defense against the killing flotilla: “Today is the beginning of a new age. Things will never be the same again.”
This is not about borders or land or aid. This is about good vs. evil. Stand against this latest libel against the Jews. You saw the video. You saw the vicious jihadis attack. This is the war against the West. Even if you are not Jewish or give a fig about Israel, in any war between the civilized man and the savage, always side with the civilized man.
Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs
The only suffering in Gaza is not being caused by Israel. It is coming at the hands of the barbarians, Hamas. The first paragraph of the Hamas Charter, by the way, calls for the destruction of the Jewish state. Mere details, I know.
So if the Flotilla incident and the outrage that has followed it is not about humanitarian aid, much less about “occupied” land, then what is it about? This is about jihad. This is about Islamic supremacism and annihilating the Jews. 56 ginormous Muslim countries, one tiny Jewish state, and they are in a constant bloodthirsty frenzy over it.
The level of anti-Semitism in my email box and in the comments at my website AtlasShrugs.com since the killing flotilla story broke is full blown out of control. Evil has been unleashed. Pure evil. As Turkey’s Islamic supremacist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said about Israel’s act of self-defense against the killing flotilla: “Today is the beginning of a new age. Things will never be the same again.”
This is not about borders or land or aid. This is about good vs. evil. Stand against this latest libel against the Jews. You saw the video. You saw the vicious jihadis attack. This is the war against the West. Even if you are not Jewish or give a fig about Israel, in any war between the civilized man and the savage, always side with the civilized man.
Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugs
Friday, June 4, 2010
Pro Israel Flotilla Rally
And the good marched against the global forces of evil. Juniper in the Desert has loads of pics and video here:
IT WAS FABULOUS!
There were about 2000 of us, including the EDL, JewishEDL set up by the wondrous Joe Bloggs who set up the LGBT EDL.
There was a fantastic sense of optimism and pride in Israel! The truth about the terrorist flotilla is coming out in great lumps all over the internet. Unfortunately, the Muslim Broadcasting Corpse(BBC) is WAY behind the real news, as are other dhimmi news media such as Daily Mail, Times and Telegraph. Its pointless mentioning the totally-submitted others.
We had tons of support from passers-by, who waved Israeli flags from the top of buses, from taxis and from posh cars. We even got the thumbs-up from a muslim girl on the top of a bus - unless that is a rude sign in her country!
There were hundreds of lovely young people - possibly half the Tottenham football club supporters, which really gave the rally a huge injection of energy and happiness: good to know the future is in their hands!
Also a number of Orthodox Jews, a charming Portuguese man, plenty of Israelis and a very beautiful and clever Brazilian woman! ;) (photos courtesy cassandra
Atlas Shrugs
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Israel is Guilty until Proven Guilty
Statement by Republican 22nd Congressional Candidate Allen West on Situation in Israel
(Deerfield Beach, FL) "Recent developments in the State of Israel are disturbing, and unfortunately predictable. Since 2009, the Obama Administration has shown an unprecedented disregard for the sovereignty of the State of Israel - America's strongest ally in the world. Whether browbeating Israel for building homes in their rightful capitol, or disrespecting Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, President Obama has clearly demonstrated that he is no friend of the Jewish State.
Liberals in Congress, including Ron Klein, have provided nothing but lip service while the rest of the world continues to condemn a nation's right to defend itself against continued terror and aggression by Hamas - a terror organization whose very charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel - and its supporters. A blockade is a recognized and accepted means to mitigate specific threats from our enemies. This can be demonstrated by President Kennedy's blockade in October of 1962 off the coast of Florida, as well as by President Obama's call for a blockade of Iran. How would we react if these were U.S. Navy SEALs that were ruthlessly attacked?
In the days and weeks ahead, our friends in Israel - the only true and stable democracy in the Middle East - need more than words from America's leaders. Above all, the Jewish State needs stronger representation in Congress and a solid voice that will not be afraid to stand up to the Obama Administration's appeasement of Islamic Terrorism. As a Combat Veteran who has faced our common enemy, my commitment to Israel will rise above mere statements of support."
For more information or to schedule interviews with Allen West, please contact Valentina Weis at (561) 603-8188 or vweis@AllenWestforCongress.com.
(Deerfield Beach, FL) "Recent developments in the State of Israel are disturbing, and unfortunately predictable. Since 2009, the Obama Administration has shown an unprecedented disregard for the sovereignty of the State of Israel - America's strongest ally in the world. Whether browbeating Israel for building homes in their rightful capitol, or disrespecting Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House, President Obama has clearly demonstrated that he is no friend of the Jewish State.
Liberals in Congress, including Ron Klein, have provided nothing but lip service while the rest of the world continues to condemn a nation's right to defend itself against continued terror and aggression by Hamas - a terror organization whose very charter calls for the destruction of the State of Israel - and its supporters. A blockade is a recognized and accepted means to mitigate specific threats from our enemies. This can be demonstrated by President Kennedy's blockade in October of 1962 off the coast of Florida, as well as by President Obama's call for a blockade of Iran. How would we react if these were U.S. Navy SEALs that were ruthlessly attacked?
In the days and weeks ahead, our friends in Israel - the only true and stable democracy in the Middle East - need more than words from America's leaders. Above all, the Jewish State needs stronger representation in Congress and a solid voice that will not be afraid to stand up to the Obama Administration's appeasement of Islamic Terrorism. As a Combat Veteran who has faced our common enemy, my commitment to Israel will rise above mere statements of support."
For more information or to schedule interviews with Allen West, please contact Valentina Weis at (561) 603-8188 or vweis@AllenWestforCongress.com.
There is no Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza
More on what I have been following for months. The abundance of food and other goods in Gaza is mind blowing. Perhaps that's why Hamas is refusing all humanitarian shipments -- they have nowhere to put it. Stuffed.
This is a propaganda war -- and the information battle space is the front, and big media is aligned with the jihad force.
Charles Krauthammer last night on FOX:
The fundamental deception here is the use of the word “humanitarian.” As we saw, humanitarians don’t wield iron clubs and would have killed the Israelis had the Israelis not drawn their pistols in self-defense. But there’s a larger issue here. What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. There’s no one starving in Gaza. The Gazans have been supplied with food and social services, education, by the U.N., by UNRWA, for 60 years in part with American tax money. Second, when there are humanitarian needs, the Israelis allow every day food and medicine overland into Gaza.
The reason that it did not want to allow this flotilla is because, as the spokesman for the flotilla said herself, this was not about humanitarian relief, it was about breaking the blockade. And the reason the Israelis have a blockade is because they only want to allow humanitarian supplies and not weaponry. Look, the proof of that is the fact that if you look at a map of Gaza, you’ll see that Israelis only control three sides of this rectangle. There’s a fourth side on the Egyptian side. So it is an Egyptian-Israeli blockade. The Egyptians have the same problem with Gaza. People accuse Israelis of having a blockade because they’re racist, they’re anti-Muslim, anti-Arab. The Egyptians are Muslim and Arab, and they’ve gone to war three times on behalf of the Palestinians.
So why do they have exactly the same blockade? Because Gaza is run by Hamas, a terror entity that wants to import weaponry and resume the war against Israel. The man who made the announcement that we saw earlier, explaining the commando raid, is the defense minister of Israel. He’s not right winger. He’s Ehud Barak, who’s the leader of Labor, the party of Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meir, the party of the left, the man who 10 years ago this summer offered the Palestinians a peace agreement that would provide a Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem and an end of the conflict. The Palestinians said no, and Gaza two years ago declared war on Israel. That’s why you’ve got a blockade, and the flotilla was not about humanitarian needs. It was about smashing the blockade. /p>
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Thomas Friedman on the Flotilla
from When America’s Friends Fall Out - NYTimes.com:
I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel's actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria's involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime's killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn't force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.
Thomas Friedman
I have no problem with Turkey or humanitarian groups loudly criticizing Israel. But I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel's actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria's involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime's killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn't force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.
Thomas Friedman
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Israel Attacks Six-ship International Flotilla
On Sunday, Huwaida Arraf, one of the organizers, said the six-ship flotilla began the journey from international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Sunday afternoon after two days of delays. She said they expected to reach Gaza, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) away, on Monday afternoon, and that two more ships would follow in "a second wave."
The flotilla was "fully prepared for the different scenarios" that might arise, and organizers were hopeful that Israeli authorities would "do what's right" and not stop the convoy, she said.
"We fully intend to go to Gaza regardless of any intimidation or threats of violence against us," she said. "They are going to have to forcefully stop us."
After nightfall Sunday, three Israeli navy missile boats left their base in Haifa, steaming out to sea to confront the activists' ships.
Two hours later, Israel Radio broadcast a recording of one of the missile boats warning the flotilla not to approach Gaza.
"If you ignore this order and enter the blockaded area, the Israeli navy will be forced to take all the necessary measures in order to enforce this blockade," the radio message continued.
Al-Jazeera also reported that the ships changed course to try to avoid a nighttime confrontation, preferring a daylight showdown for better publicity.
The flotilla, which includes three cargo ships and three passenger ships, is trying to draw attention to Israel's blockade of Gaza. The boats are carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials. The activists said they also were carrying hundreds of electric-powered wheelchairs, prefabricated homes and water purifiers.
Tia Goldenberg, AP
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