16 replies to this topic

[Vortigern]

http://news.bbc.co.u...st/10195838.stm

More than 10 people have been killed after Israeli commandos stormed a convoy of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army says.

Armed forces boarded the largest vessel overnight, clashing with some of the 500 people on board.

It happened about 40 miles (64 km) out to sea, in international waters.

Israel says its soldiers were shot at and attacked with weapons; the activists say Israeli troops came on board shooting.

There has been widespread condemnation of the violence, while the European Union has called for an inquiry to establish what happened.

'Guns and knives'

The six-ship flotilla, carrying 10,000 tonnes of aid, left the coast of Cyprus on Sunday and had been due to arrive in Gaza on Monday.

This was always going to be a high-risk operation for Israel both in terms of reputation and diplomatic repercussions.

Taking over vessels at sea is no easy task, even if the units carrying out the mission are well-trained, and it is especially difficult if the people already on board the vessels resist.

The full details of what happened will emerge in time, but in political terms the damage has already been done.

The deaths threaten to make what was always going to be a potential public relations disaster for Israel into a fully-fledged calamity.

"Unfortunately this group were dead-set on confrontation," Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC.

"Live fire was used against our forces. They initiated the violence, that's 100% clear," he said.

Organisers of the flotilla said at least 30 people were wounded in the incident. Israel says 10 of its soldiers were injured, one seriously.

A leader of Israel's Islamic Movement, Raed Salah, who was on board, was among those hurt.

Audrey Bomse, a spokesperson for the Free Gaza Movement, which is behind the convoy, told the BBC Israel's actions were disproportionate.

"We were not going to pose any violent resistance. The only resistance that there might be would be passive resistance such as physically blocking the steering room, or blocking the engine room downstairs, so that they couldn't get taken over. But that was just symbolic resistance."

She said there was "absolutely no evidence of live fire".

Israel is towing the boats to the port of Ashdod and says it will deport the passengers from there. It says it will deliver the ships' aid to Gaza.

Condemnation

The footage showed a number of people, apparently injured, lying on the ground. A woman was seen holding a blood-stained stretcher.

Al-Jazeera TV reported from the same ship that Israeli navy forces had opened fire and boarded the vessel, wounding the captain.

The Al-Jazeera broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, saying: "Everybody shut up!"

Israel's deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said his country "regrets any loss of life and did everything to avoid this outcome".

He accused the convoy of a "premeditated and outrageous provocation", describing the flotilla as an "armada of hate".

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Israel's actions, saying it had committed a massacre.

Most of the people on board the boats were Turkish.

Turkey accused Israel of "targeting innocent civilians".

"We strongly denounce Israel's inhumane interception," it said, warning of "irreparable consequences" to the two countries' relations.

Turkey was Israel's closest Muslim ally but relations have deteriorated over the past few years.

In Turkey, thousands of protesters demonstrated against Israel in Istanbul, while several countries have summoned Israeli ambassadors to seek an explanation as to what happened.

Greece has withdrawn from joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the raid on the flotilla.

Blockade

Israel had repeatedly said it would stop the boats, calling the campaign a "provocation intended to delegitimise Israel".

Israel and Egypt tightened a blockade of Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas took power there in 2007.

Israel says it allows about 15,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid into Gaza every week.

But the United Nations says this is less than a quarter of what is needed.

The incident comes a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet US President Barack Obama in Washington after one of the most strained periods in US-Israeli relations in years.

[Námo]

Report: 14 killed, 50 injured in Jew Hating Flotilla After Muslim "Militants" Open Fire on Israel Soldiers - "It was like a well-planned lynch," one IDF officer said. "These people were anything but peace activists"

from Atlas Shrugs:

Get ready for a tsunami of Jew hating propaganda from the jihad loving media. This marks the first time EU law makers were involved in an open attack on Israel ...
19 EUROPEAN LEGISLATORS WERE ALONG FOR THE RIDE IN PLANNED TERRORIST ATTACK AGAINST THE ISRAELI NAVY.

"It was like a well-planned lynch," one IDF officer said. "These people were anything but peace activists"

According to IDF reports, at least 10 acitivists were killed during the ensuing clashes as well as six Navy commandos, some of them from gunfire and at least one in serious condition with a head wound. Foreign reports claimed that the number of dead was close to 15. Some of the wounded were evacuated to Israeli hospital by Air Force helicopters.

Upon boarding the ships, the soldiers encountered fierce resistance from the passangers who were armed with knives, bats and metal pipes. The soldiers used non-lethal measures to disperse the crowd. The activists succeeded in stealing the weapon from one of the IDF’s soldiers and reportedly opened fire, leading to an escalation in violence.

Hamas Flotilla member stabbed IDF soldier in stomach. (including some Youtube videos)

The IDF reports that the crew of the Gaza-bound flotilla lay in wait for the IDF to board their vessel and then attacked IDF soldiers. One crew member reportedly snatched a gun from an IDF soldier and then opened fire on the troops. One soldier was stabbed in the stomach with a sharp object. The soldier is in moderate condition and was transferred for medical treatment by helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa. Doctors there determined he would require surgery. Two other soldiers were also wounded and were transferred to Tel Hashomer hospital.

Late Sunday night, the Israeli Navy surprised the six-boat flotilla bound for Hamas-controlled Gaza in international waters and hundreds of IDF soldiers who came by air and sea boarded the ships and announced to all passengers that they are under arrest.

One of the crew said that one “Navy warship” had contacted the six boats in the flotilla and asked them to identify themselves. They were told the Navy would board the boats if the ships's crew and passengers do not agree to head for the Ashdod port instead of the Gaza Coast, where Israel maintains sovereignty under the Oslo Accords and does not allow ships to approach without searching them for arms.

International law allows for countries to ask suspicious boats to identify themselves. The vessels' passengers did not cooperate and called the move "scare tactics" on their streamed broadcasts.

The IDF searched the boats for arms immediately after the takeover. The soldiers were forced to use tear gas after they were attacked with knives, daggers and cudgels, putting their lives in danger. Unofficial reports that ten persons have been killed and another ten wounded were admitted to Rambam Hospital in Haifa were changed by the Arab television station Al Jazeera, to two killed and four wounded. An Al Jazeera reporter on one of the boats reported hearing gunshots.

The IDF has not issued a complete report on casualties or wounded in the operation. However, hospitals were put on alert to accept possible wounded.

Edited by Námo, 31 May 2010 - 12:20 PM.

[duke_Qa]

I was about to create an article myself on the topic, but I see you got me covered.

Anyways, this is another step for Israel transforming from David to Goliath. It's understandable that they would attempt to stop this convoy from reaching it's position, but they should have expected the people aboard the ships to cause trouble for them. Blowing up their propellers or disabling the ships away from the civillians would have been a better option than dropping down on top of the ships filled with angry demonstrators primarily from Turkey aboard.

And thus they got into a no-win situation, get lynched by the civillians out in international waters, or shoot down the most aggressive ones to cool the rest off. That they started this mission out in international waters to begin with was one of the biggest mistakes. Doing it in Israeli waters would have been more sensible, but I guess the waterline between Gaza and Israel is "contested" territory.

They've just lost a former friend in Turkey, which most likely have lost a dozen or more of its citizens to a Israeli termination of a PR-oriented first-aid convoy. As usual, many other neighbors will react negatively, and the Palestinian president has also responded negatively. In my eyes, Israel is nothing more than another anger-fueled middle-east nation now, and it does not deserve our sympathies.

[Námo]

Hamas Gaza jihad flotilla organizers not humanitarian, wanted massacre for propaganda purposes

from Jihad Watch:

The Israel Navy this morning blocked the Hamas backed "Gaza Freedom Flotilla", a group of ships carrying up to 800 people from entering the Gaza Strip.

Israel was well aware that this was not a humanitarian love boat trek but rather an exercise in Islamic digital PR.

The organizers of the Palestine Flotilla to Gaza consisted of some of the worst global terror groups including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda and their fund raisers the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation.

What made this Palestine PR stunt or electronic Jihad exercise even more barbaric was the blatant use of volunteers on the ship who had good and true humanitarian intentions.

Some of these humanitarian volunteers were unaware that they were being used by the terror group Hamas as Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation used both diplomats and volunteers from the UK, the US, Sweden, France, Germany and other countries as human shields as Hamas attacked a peaceful IDF boarding force with guns, knives and clubs.

[...]

Israel provides tons of food, water, medical supplies and fuel to Gaza on a daily basis. Israeli officials repeated that if this was a true humanitarian event, not a PR exercise, Hamas would have used the existing channels - the UN, the EU and Israel to transfer whatever cargo they had.

[Pasidon]

What was that thing Gandhi said again about eyes...

[Námo]

"Gaza flotilla participants created war atmosphere before confronting Israel: Participants chanted Islamic battle cry invoking killing of Jews and called for Martyrdom"

From Palestinian Media Watch:

On the day before the Gaza flotilla confronted the Israeli navy, Al-Jazeera TV documented the pre-battle atmosphere created by men on board the flotilla, who chanted a well-known Islamic battle cry invoking the killing and defeat of Jews in battle:

"[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!"

Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad's army in 628. Many Jews were killed in that battle, which marked the end of Jewish presence in Arabia. There are Muslims who see that as a precursor to future wars against Jews. At gatherings and rallies of extremists, this chant is often heard as a threat to Jews to expect to be defeated and killed again by Muslims.

Al-Jazeera also interviewed a woman who said that the flotilla participants' goal was "one of two happy endings: either Martyrdom or reaching Gaza".

[Mathijs]

What was that thing Gandhi said again about eyes...

+1

[Bart]

Well, we all know the Israelites are cold hard bastards
They used to be an innocent little child. Then somebody stepped on their toes and they turned into a large hulk with a bad temper.

[Pasidon]

I'll guess the toe stamper was Jesus.

[Námo]

What was that thing Gandhi said again about eyes...

"An eye for an eye ends up making the whole world blind".

Indeed, it seems that all the political correct multiculturalists are blind to the atrocities and crimes committed by the Hamas Jihadists against their own people in the Gaza Strip.

From Atlas Shrugs:

... check out the new anti-semites: liberal reaction vs. conservative reaction to the jihad, Jew hating flotilla story.

In the rewriting of reality, a brazen, bloody attack is called a humanitarian mission. If the incompetent and corrupt media could get past their blinding anti-semitism, the West might have a shot. But their self-imposed sharia, "do not defame Islam," has made them the global jihad's most powerful weapon. In the war of ideas, we are thoroughly outgunned.

... some thought-provoking reading.

[Bart]

About the author of that source: http://atlasshrugs20....com/about.html
Everything on that page screams "not objective!".

The reality is, both sides are equally bad, and innocent civilians on both sides are the victims.

[Námo]

About the author of that source: http://atlasshrugs20....com/about.html
Everything on that page screams "not objective!".

... care to prove that? ... or just give some examples on what is "not objective!" on that page.

--------------------

EDIT: a note on "objective" journalism:

It is becoming ever more clear that Islamist terror attacks like this are fiendishly staged theatrical events in which the western media – and beyond them, western governments - play an absolutely essential role in the drama. If those media and governments refused to swallow the lies and instead called operations like this and the players behind it for what they actually are, such terrorist operations would not happen. The Islamist strategy of war against Israel is carefully calibrated to deploy the most effective weapon in its armoury in the cause of jihadi violence – the western media. Right on cue, western governments accordingly deliver their own script in condemning the victims of terror for defending themselves. And so, courtesy of the west’s fifth columnists, yet another nail is driven into the west’s own coffin.

Let’s see whether this time the western elites show any signs of waking from their lethal trance.

source: SPECTATOR /Melanie Phillips

Edited by Námo, 01 June 2010 - 08:32 AM.

[Bart]

She is also the executive director of Stop Islamization of America (SIOA)

And while it's not explicitly mentioned, we can deduce she is Jewish:

Atlas has broken numerous important stories -- notably the questionable and illegal foreign sources of some of the financing of the Obama campaign , the anti-Semitic posts on Obama's website,

The site won the 2005 "Best New Blog" Jewish & Israeli Blog Award, was a finalist in the 2005 Weblog Awards, and finished in third place for "Best Conservative Blog" in the 2008 Weblog Awards.

She speaks regularly to organizations, synagogues and groups across this nation.

And she has the LOL-factor

Pamela Geller's videoblogs ("vlogs") on a wide range of current events have won enthusiastic acclaim, as have her exclusive Atlas interviews with internationally renowned authorities on jihad, terrorism, and related issues, including John Bolton, Geert Wilders, Bat Ye'or,

Pamela Geller has made appearances on Hannity, Red Eye, and the Mike Huckabee Show on the Fox News channel.

[duke_Qa]

Found this Bradley Burston journalist, he has quite a few good articles about Israel and the current situation.

Most recent article: A Special Place in Hell / The Second Gaza War: Israel lost at sea

A war tells a people terrible truths about itself. That is why it is so difficult to listen.

We were determined to avoid an honest look at the first Gaza war. Now, in international waters and having opened fire on an international group of humanitarian aid workers and activists, we are fighting and losing the second. For Israel, in the end, this Second Gaza War could be far more costly and painful than the first.

In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.

Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel's own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.

Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel's Vietnam.

[...]

He also has a very nice article that pretty much sums up why Israel is doing as it does, and it does give sympathy to the Israeli Civillians.

[...]

In 2005, less than a day after Israeli forces removed every last Jew from Gaza, Palestinians set up rocket launchers on the ruins of settlements that had been just been evacuated. They took aim not only at Sderot, but at some of the very kibbutzim who had most strongly championed the cause of an independent Palestine alongside Israel.

This act, and the thousands of rockets that followed, utterly changed Israelis again. It put a sudden end to the idea of land for peace, because no one, even some of the most ardent advocates of Palestinian statehood in the West Bank, was about to agree to leave Ben-Gurion airport, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem within range of the rockets. Suddenly there was a consensus again. And the peace process, the peace movement, and with it Labor and Meretz, were kicked to the curb.

[...]

Edited by duke_Qa, 01 June 2010 - 11:40 AM.

[Námo]

Update on IHH:

Edited by Námo, 19 June 2010 - 10:37 PM.

[Námo]

German TV (SWT) on peace-activists of the Gaza Flotilla:

Fascists and Communists in alliance:

from Armenian Weekly:

The Problematic Post-Flotilla Discourse in Turkey: ‘Missing Hitler’s Spirit’

On June 5, at a demonstration organized in Istanbul by the Islamic Saadet Party, one of the banners read, in Turkish: “Legendary leader Hitler, our patience is running out, we need your spirit.” The incident was just one of countless anti-Semitic statements, slogans, and banners made during rallies in Turkey after the Israeli attack on the flotilla of ships attempting to break the blockade on Gaza. I spoke to writers and activists from Turkey about the implications of this discourse.

Banner from protest in Turkey:
“Legendary leader Adolf Hitler, our patience is running out, we need your spirit.”

“Israel’s lawless and irrational act of violence unleashed an exaggerated display of bravado on the part of the government in Turkey,” said Ayse Gunaysu, a human rights activist from Turkey. Gunaysu’s concerned about the anti-Semitic discourse used by the protesters and the way that Turkish intellectuals have been overlooking its dangerous undertones, even before the attack on the flotilla. She gives the example of a public rally on May 8, during which one speaker said, “From now on all Jews everywhere in the world and even all Jews in Turkey are our targets”.

“The protesters are not concerned about peace,” Gunaysu explained. “They are calling for more violence and more bloodshed. Because they — particularly Islamic protesters, at times backed by leftists groups as well — are not against a particular Israeli government and its particular policies, but against the existence of Israel itself.”

“It is sickening to hear the government suddenly assume the role of champion of international law, never mind that in 1974, the Turkish armed forces crossed the international waters, invaded a sovereign country [Cyprus], and its occupation continues to date,” she added. “Not to mention the decades-long war in Turkey [against the Kurds], which has caused tens of thousands of deaths, hundreds of disappearances, and the destruction and evacuation of thousands of villages.”

For Gunaysu, the hypocrisy is astounding. “The killing of civilians by the Israeli special forces is outrageous. But it is equally upsetting to know that there is such fury here against what happened to fellow Muslims in another part of the world, while Turkey feels quite alright with its own denial of the genocide of Asia Minor’s Christian population, a legacy on which the Turkish republic was founded.”

Congratulating the Nazis: "Ellerinize Saglik" (Well done!).
Photo from the same demonstration.

Source

[Imagine]

Ahh! more religious BS. Its about time that all religions realised that they're all as retarded as each other.