- 10 juni 2010
Israeli Official Threatens to Kill Turkish PM
Uzi Dayan, former deputy Chief of General Staff in Israel, says the Jewish state should consider a possible Turkish military escort of Gaza aid ships an act of war. If the Turkish prime minister joins such a flotilla, Dayan told Israeli army radio, according to the Jerusalem Post, we should make clear beforehand this would be an act of war, and we would not try to take over the ship he was on, but would sink it.
It is unprecedented for a top level state official to threaten a head of another state with murder.
Israel has refused to cooperate with an independent investigation of the incident that resulted in the death of between nine and nineteen activists. The Turkish government remains unequivocal in its condemnation of the action taken by the Israeli Navy. Most of the victims were Turkish citizens.
On June 5, the Turkish PM, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said he is not only planning to dispatch the Navy on the next flotilla, but that he is considering accompanying them personally. Erdogan reportedly raised the idea in conversations with close associates and even informed the United States of his intention to ask the Turkish Navy to accompany another aid flotilla to Gaza. The Americans asked Erdogan to delay his plans because of tensions on the region, the Lebanese newspaper al-Mustaqbal reported on Saturday.
Uzi Dayan is the nephew of Moshe Dayan, the fourth Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Defense Minister and later Foreign Minister of Israel.
http://info-wars.org/2010/06/10/israeli-official-threatens-to-kill-turkish-pm/
They're Coming: Freedom Flotilla Two and Others Planned
They're Coming: Freedom Flotilla Two and Others Planned - by Stephen Lendman
The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) is "an umbrella body" of 34 European human rights and humanitarian organizations supporting the right of Palestinians "to live in peace and dignity," to be free from occupation, and to have "their own independent and sovereign state, (and) encourages all peoples of conscience and human rights advocates to intensify their efforts to highlight this life-theatening issue and end the catastrophe."
On its June 6 web site posting (savegaza.eu), ECESG reported that preparations for an even larger Freedom Flotilla Two are well advanced, and will be launched in the coming weeks, saying their mission is humanitarian, and others will keep coming until the siege is lifted and aid can enter freely.
Its members helped organize Freedom Flotilla One along with Free Gaza Movement (FG), Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), Ship to Gaza Greece, and Ship to Gaza Sweden. ECESG says that if governments won't help, activist groups like them and others will keep working until justice for Palestinians is achieved.
It condemned the Freedom Flotilla 1 massacre, the appalling propaganda that followed, explained that more missions are coming, and said funding for "the first three ships" of Freedom Flotilla Two has been gotten, Campaign president Arafat Madi saying:
"The extensive calls are taking place to launch a new fleet to the Gaza Strip, involving many ships that will be carrying on board more aid and more peace activists than Freedom 1 which was carrying (10,000) tons of aid and hundreds of peace activists from more than forty countries around the world."
Other Aid Missions Planned
The Iranian Red Crescent Society is part of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the world's largest humanitarian organization, comprised of 186 Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
On June 7, it announced it will send three aid ships to Gaza "by the end of the week," two with humanitarian supplies, the other with volunteer Iranian relief workers, and a plane with 30 tons of medical equipment. Iranian Red Crescent director Abdolraoof Adibzadeh said it will deliver aid through Egypt's Rafah border crossing.
On June 1, Egypt opened it, saying it will be "indefinite (and) Additional crews at the harbor are working on carrying out the president's instructions so that procedures for Palestinians to pass into Egypt can be implemented quickly." In addition, those with Arab or other passports, students enrolled to study abroad, and medical patients will be granted free passage in and out.
In December 2008, Iran's Red Crescent sent a ship with food and medicine, then interdicted by Israel's navy and prevented from reaching Gaza. This time, Iranian ships "reportedly" will escort the flotilla, setting up a possible serious confrontation.
Turkey also promised to send aid, this time with a naval escort and perhaps more after Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he's considering coming to break the siege and show solidarity with besieged Gazans.
Washington is trying to dissuade him. Israel called it a political maneuver. Erdogan perhaps is serious and intends to come. If so along with Turkish warships, it will be a significant development to watch.
Turkey also, along with Brazil, struck a deal with Iran to further process much of its enriched uranium, then return it as fuel rods for a medical research reactor. Erdogan also met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at this week's Istanbul regional security summit, prompting Council on Foreign Relations member Steven Cook to complain that he's "running around the region doing things that are at cross-purposes to what the big powers (read Washington and Israel) want," then asked - "How do we keep the Turks in their lane?"
According to Bilgi University Professor Soli Ozel, "The Americans, no matter what they say, cannot get used to a new world where regional powers want to have a say in regional and global politics. This is our neighborhood, and we don't want trouble. The Americans create havoc, and we are left holding the bag."
http://www.opednews.com/articles/They-re-Coming-Freedom-Fl-by-Stephen-Lendman-100610-468.html
Advantage Hamas After Flotilla Fiasco
RAMALLAH, - Israel may allow soft drinks, juice, canned fruit, salads, biscuits and potato chips into the Gaza Strip from next week. What should be an unremarkable event is making news headlines and portends unseen consequences.
After four years of a crippling Israeli blockade, which has reduced the poverty-stricken territory to a humanitarian basket-case, the international powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, have reached the conclusion that the above mentioned items do not, in fact, represent a threat to Israel's security.
Israel is currently under intense international pressure to lift its siege on Gaza and to allow ordinary everyday items into the coastal territory, including toilet paper, toothpaste, seedlings, school books, uniforms, cigarettes and reconstruction material.
Most of these items, and others, were banned, following Israel and Egypt's hermetic sealing of the Gaza Strip after Hamas won free and fair elections in January 2006. Israel has argued the blockade was necessary for "security" reasons.
Human rights organisations counter that the siege is a collective punishment of Gaza's 1.5 million mostly civilian residents and that the coastal territory has been turned into the largest open-air prison in the world. They further argue the siege is illegal under international law.
The latest developments follow the international media spotlight on, and the political ramifications in international power circles, of the Free Gaza (FG) flotilla's attempt to break Israel's siege on Gaza.
Nine people lost their lives and dozens of others were injured after Israeli commandos attacked the six boats, with approximately 700 people on board, in international waters as the flotilla tried to deliver desperately needed aid to the besieged civilian population of Gaza in the early hours of May 31.
Although Gaza's plight has been a festering sore on the collective conscience of the international community it has largely been ignored until now.
"Hamas has emerged from the latest debacle victorious. Not only is the group, according to Israeli intelligence, militarily stronger than prior to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) military assault on the strip during Operation Cast Lead at the end of 2008, beginning of 2009, but it is also significantly stronger politically," Prof. Moshe Ma'oz from Jerusalem's Hebrew University told IPS.
"It has not bowed to Israeli pressure to give up power, neither has it forsaken the armed struggle and Israel still has not secured the release of an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas fighters in 2006," added Ma'oz. Some analysts have argued that this capture was one of the main reasons behind the blockade.
Following the Flotilla attack Israel has been subjected to a fresh barrage of global criticism, coming shortly after the Goldstone report. Increasingly the Jewish state is being portrayed as a bully and a pariah state which operates above international law.
Israel's decision to ease the blockade is largely the result of a quid pro quo understanding that it would escape a credible international inquiry into the bloodshed on the FG flotilla.
Instead the Israeli government and military will be investigating themselves, with possibly several token international observers, in a move which has already been laughed off by legal experts, including Israelis, as a whitewash of the affair.
Nevertheless, facts on the ground have turned dramatically in Hamas favour. The enormously unpopular regime of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak decided to lift its blockade at the Rafah crossing indefinitely, after Mubarak was placed in an untenable situation.
This followed a meeting between Mubarak, and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden, a strong Israeli supporter, in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm El-Sheikh recently where both men agreed that the blockade would be lifted gradually. The Hamas authorities have responded positively to another European Union (EU) proposal to allow EU monitors back into Gaza to help monitor border crossings as well as launch a sea patrol so that Gaza port can be reopened.
But the biggest change has come from U.S. President Barack Obama who stated that the blockade was unsustainable. Obama has also offered to provide Gaza with aid as long as it is closely monitored. Formerly, the U.S. only provided aid for the Palestinian Authority (PA)-controlled West Bank.
Another breakthrough has been in the U.S., hitherto very much biased in Israel's favour. NBC Tonight recently aired a groundbreaking programme covering the hardships in Gaza. Americans in general have not been well-informed on the contextual background to the Gaza crisis.
However, the biggest change yet to be seen, which works against Israel and ergo in favour of Hamas, is the new balance of power which appears to be unfolding in the Mideast. There are indications that the West's, and particularly the U.S., strategy to divide the region along a Shi'ite crescent v/s a Sunni power-base could backfire badly.
Turkey could well be the new power broker regionally. Israel has lost a strong ally - in a hostile Muslim region - with which it shared intelligence and military manoeuvres.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's moderate Islamic Justice and Development party is winning influence away from Turkey%u2019s traditionally secular military.
Israel's erstwhile foe, Syria, has promised Turkey unconditional support for any further action in Gaza as their relationship strengthens. Meanwhile, Israel's nemesis, an increasingly cocky and confident Iran has offered to send two Iranian Red Crescent aid ships to Gaza escorted by Revolutionary Guard frigates. Such a move could trigger war.
Simultaneously, an increasingly weak and unpopular PA president Mahmoud Abbas - who has been relegated to newspaper back pages of late - was given some desperately needed life support on Wednesday.
Obama met with Abbas in the White House and promised not only political support but economic aid to the beleaguered Abbas.
Proximity peace talks with Israel have ground to a halt. Growing numbers of Palestinians see no gain from negotiations with Israel. Many instead see Hamas as steadfast, a view increasingly reflected in the region.
Under the new political scenario, Obama is probably praying that the PA can be saved.
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51789
Activists dare Congressman to arrest them
Washington (CNN) -- Activists with several free Gaza groups will symbolically surrender Thursday at a Congressman's office, after the lawmaker called for the prosecution of Americans who were aboard a flotilla raided last week by Israeli authorities.
On a conference call organized by the non-profit Israel Project last week, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, said that the Justice Department should prosecute any U.S. citizen aboard the well-publicized flotilla that was stopped by the Israeli military on its way to Gaza last week. Nine people were killed in the May 31 incident.
"So what is illegal is helping Hamas," Sherman said. "I will be asking the attorney general to prosecute all Americans involved in what was a clear effort to give items of value to a terrorist organization."
The U.S. State Department considers Hamas a foreign terrorist organization.
Sherman said the activists could be prosecuted under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which makes it illegal to give supplies to terror groups
Members of Gaza Freedom March said its group and others would offer themselves up for arrest Thursday at 2 p.m. ET.
"Should Rep. Sherman seek to arrest us, we have faith that no jury in America would possibly convict us for our humanitarian and human rights work in Palestine," the organizers said in a statement.
If Sherman does not have them arrested, the group said it will hold a memorial service for people who died in the raid.
The raid has sparked international condemnation and calls for an investigation.
Aid groups said they were trying to get supplies directly to those in Gaza that need it.
Israel said the ships violated their blockade of Gaza and that its troops were attacked with knives, metal poles and other objects when they boarded a ship.
Israel has said its naval blockade is in place to stop weaponry from reaching militants in Gaza intent on attacking Israel. But critics say the three-year blockade -- imposed after Hamas took over Gaza -- has deepened poverty in the Palestinian territory.
The U.N. Security Council has called for an inquiry into the flotilla raid, and the U.N. Human Rights Council has condemned the assault and voted to launch an investigation.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/US/06/10/gaza.flotilla.protest/
Turkey calls for Palestinian unity in "new era" after Israel attack
Davutoglu said that unity and integrity should immediately be secured in Palestine would be the best response to Israel's attacks.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday that unity and integrity should immediately be secured in Palestine would be the best response to Israel's attacks.
Speaking at the foreign ministers meeting of the Turkish-Arabic Cooperation Forum, Davutoglu said division in Palestine should never be allowed to become chronical.
Davutoglu thanked to the participants of the meeting as they responded affirmatively to the invitation of Turkey at a time when very critical developments were occurring in the region.
Davutoglu said, "we also envisage to organize Turkish-Arabic Media Forum in Turkey for the first time".
"Arab support for independent probe"
Turkish foreign minister thanked to Arab League Ministers Council that held an emergency session on June 2 and decided to condemn Israel following Israel's attack on ships carrying aid to Gaza.
Davutoglu said this decision made an important contribution to the efforts of Turkey carried out in international platform and noted that Turkey relied on full support to Arab League in other initiatives that would take place in the future.
Turkish foreign minister said Israel raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31 constituted a "new landmark" in the region noting that, "despite the grave dimensions threatening regional peace and security, this incident at the same time constituted an opportunity in giving a shape to regional order".
"It will not be possible for us to remain silent against the acts violating the most essential principles of the international law and tramping on human honor," Davutoglu said.
Davutoglu said, "no state can be superior to law. Israel has to account for its unlawful and reckless stances. Reactions coming all over the world reveal that international public share this expectation. We should all step up efforts for a more fair and equitable regional and global order."
Davutoglu said Turkey asked for formation of an independent commission as the first step of the efforts in question and underlined that Turkey expected all members of Arab League to support and pursue this process.
Over the situation in Iraq, Davutoglu said a stable and prosperous Iraq, whose territorial integrity and political unity is preserved and have peaceful relations with its neighbours has a key importance in its geography.
Referring to the joint statement announced together with Iran and Brazil, Davutoglu said this deal formed an important opportunity and a new ground for the solution of the problem permanently. "Joint statement is the victory of diplomacy and dialogue," he underlined.
Davutoglu said next meeting of Turkish-Arabic Cooperation Forum would take place in Morocco next year.
http://www.worldbulletin.net/news_detail.php?id=59772 16 oct 2010, 01:01 , Respect -
Maria 11 juni 2010
Flotilla Survivor: Israelis using my seized credit card in Tel Aviv
A Freedom Flotilla Survivor provided bank statements proving her card, seized during Israel's raid on the flotilla, has been used in Tel Aviv.
Probe: $3.5mn stolen from Gaza flotilla survivors by Israel.
Lauren Booth, Press TV, London
http://palestinevideo.blogspot.com/2010/06/flotilla-survivor-israelis-using-my.html
Twee Belgische vrouwen van hulpkonvooi Free Gaza plannen klacht in te dienen
Twee van de vier Belgische vrouwen die aan boord waren van het hulpkonvooi "Free Gaza" dat door Israëlische commando's werd bestormd, zijn van plan op korte termijn een klacht in te dienen bij het parket-generaal op basis de genocidewet (de wet op de universele competentie). Dat heeft de advocate van Kenza Isnasni en van Fatima El Mourabiti aangekondigd.
"We zijn van plan een klacht in te dienen bij het parket-generaal, maar moeten het dossier in detail bestuderen. We willen niet snel snel een klacht indien, met het risico dat ze wordt verworpen", kondigde mr. Joke Callewaert vandaag in Brussel op een persconferentie aan in aanwezigheid van de vier Belgische vrouwen.
De advocate wil zich onder meer beroepen op de Conventie van Genève over humanitaire konvooien, of het maritiem recht om de klacht te motiveren. "Ik sta in contact met advocaten in andere landen om onze actie te coördineren", preciseerde ze. Bij de actie van de Israëlische marine in de nacht van 30 op 31 mei vielen negen doden en tal van gewonden.
Geen contact met autoriteiten
Mr. Callewaert betreurde dat de Belgische minister van Justitie geen gebruik heeft gemaakt van zijn injunctierecht om de opening van een onderzoek te vragen, en zelfs geen contact opnam met de vier vrouwen.
"Ze zijn nu een week in België en werden zelfs niet gecontacteerd door de autoriteiten, gewoon om te vernemen hoe ze het stellen of wat ze hebben meegemaakt. Ik vind dat werkelijk onaanvaardbaar", verklaarde ze.
http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/957/Belgie/article/detail/1117307/2010/06/11/Twee-Belgische-vrouwen-van-hulpkonvooi-Free-Gaza-plannen-klacht-in-te-dienen.dhtml
Sail participants to sue Barak in France
French activists who took part in Gaza flotilla plan to file legal claim with local court, ICC against Israeli defense minister over deadly Navy raid. State official tells Ynet visit to Paris won't be canceled, but security measures around Barak to be tightened during trip
French activists who took part in the Gaza-bound flotilla were expected to declare Friday that they would be filing a legal claim against Defense Minister Ehud Barak with the courts in France and with the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
Barak is expected to leave for France on Sunday on a two-day official visit, during which he will inaugurate the Israeli stand at a military exhibition and meet with the French foreign and defense ministers.
Legal Entanglement
The plaintiffs said they were being helped by three French parliament members.
State officials clarified that Barak would not cancel his plans and that the Foreign Ministry's legal department, together with additional elements in the justice system, were working to provide legal protection should the French activists file the lawsuit
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3903695,00.html
German Activists File War Crimes Complaints
Left Party parliamentarians Annette Groth (l.) and Inge Höger (r.) together with human rights activist Norman Paech (c.).
Public prosecutors in Germany are looking into a war crimes complaint filed against Israel by two members of parliament with the far-left Left Party and a human rights activist who were on board the Mavi Marmara when Israeli troops stormed it 11 days ago.
Eleven days ago, the Israeli military stormed the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla carrying pro-Palestinian activists toward the Gaza Strip in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade. Now, it has become a case for German prosecutors.
Human rights activist Norman Paech and two German parliamentarians from the far-left Left Party, Annette Groth and Inge Höger, have filed criminal complaints for "numerous potential offences, including war crimes against individuals and command responsibility ... as well as false imprisonment."
At 5:10 a.m. on May 31, the complaint reads, Höger, Groth and Paech heard from the captain of the Mavi Marmara via the ship's loudspeaker that the Israeli soldiers who had boarded the ship as part of the commando operation were taking over control of the ship. An hour later, Israeli soldiers ordered the Germans on deck, where their backpacks and other belongings were searched. Their hands were temporarily bound.
German Jurisdiction?
It wasn't until 9:10 p.m. that parliamentarian Annette Groth was given the possibility of contacting the German Embassy. At 2 a.m. on June 1, the Germans were brought to the airport in a prisoner transport vehicle for their flight back home.
According to international criminal law expert Florian Jessberger of Berlin's Humboldt University, "there is cause to believe that false imprisonment was perpetrated as understood by German law." He says that German criminal law would have jurisdiction "irrespective of the fact that the act was perpetrated on the high seas."
German public prosecutors told SPIEGEL ONLINE that they were currently investigating whether there was enough evidence to warrant pursuing the case further.
'Barbaric'
The Israeli raid of the Mavi Marmara, which resulted in the deaths of nine activists onboard the ship, unleashed a storm of criticism against Israel and its ongoing blockade of the Gaza Strip. It has also severely damaged Israel's relations with Turkey.
The blockade began in 2007 after the Islamist militants from Hamas took over power in Gaza. Israel claims that many of those traveling with the flotilla had ties to Hamas or other terrorist groups, but the activists deny the charge.
Upon returning home to Germany, Höger told reporters that "we felt like we were in a war, like we had been kidnapped." Her colleague Groth spoke of a "barbaric act."
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,700127,00.html 16 oct 2010, 01:21 , Respect -
Maria 12 juni 2010
EXCLUSIVE: NETANYAHU EXPLAINS VIDEO OF ISRAELI RAID
Yesterday, eleven days after Israeli commandoes raided in international waters a convoy of vessels bearing humanitarian aid for Gaza, an hour-long, unedited video of the raid (http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/unedited-video-of-israeli-raid-posted-online/?hp) was posted online by Iara Lee, a Brazilian-American filmmaker who was shooting a documentary on the convoy's mission and was aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara when the raid occurred. In an oped (http://www.culturesofresistance.org/op-ed) published by the San Francisco Chronicle on June 5, Ms. Lee claims that the Mavi Marmara had no guns or weapons of any kind, as confirmed by Turkish customs agents before it sailed; that the ship carried "hundreds of civilian passengers" bent on aiding Palestinians who have been suffering "under an illegal siege" maintained by Israel in what Amnesty International calls "a flagrant violation of international law"; and that Israeli "commandoes and navy soldiers shot and killed at least nine civilians and seriously injured dozens more." In view of these tendentious allegations and the video itself, which appears to confirm them, I asked my good friend Benjamin Netanyahu for his comments on both. He replied as follows:
First of all, let me make one thing clear. Whenever it is attacked, Israel will defend itself, and that is exactly what it has done in this case. Many people in this world--including those who consider themselves good friends of Israel--can be deplorably naïve about what constitutes an "attack." They think an attack requires things like guns, rockets, and stinger missiles. And if they don't see any of those things on a ship, they fail to see how the ship can be "attacking" Israel. They don't realize that even a digital video camera can be a weapon just as deadly as a gun or missile--especially when the camera is deliberately aimed at an Israeli helicopter that is merely doing its job, shooting away in the middle of the night to defend the state of Israel against all those who would provoke it under the specious cover of "international law."
The video itself is an attack on Israel, a gross invasion of our privacy. To protect that privacy, we arrested everyone we found on board the Mavi Marmara, confiscated all of their video equipment, hard drives with video footage, cell phones, and notebooks. That Ms. Lee could smuggle her video out of Israel even as we generously released her is bad enough; that she posts it online for all to see is a flagrant affront to our dignity as well as our privacy.
But let us look closely at the video itself. What many people do not realize is that no unedited video can speak for itself--especially not this one. To an untrained eye, the video seems to show a shipful of unarmed civilians being gunned down by Israeli commandoes. But to a trained Israeli eye, the video shows something quite different.
Take for instance the bulky orange boxes that many of the passengers are shown wearing over their shoulders. To the untrained eye, these appear to be life jackets, and at one point, in fact, the video shows a large white chest on the deck of the ship labelled LIFE JACKETS 36 PCS. But Israeli eyes can see these would-be "life jackets" for what they truly are: suicide vests. Our own intelligence agents have confirmed to us that the men and women on the Mavi Marmara aimed to get as close as they could to Tel Aviv, jump in the water, detonate their vests, and thus generate a tidal wave that would overwhelm our beautiful city on the sea.
Furthermore, those who claim that the civilians on this ship had no weapons at all have obviously overlooked two things plainly visible in the video: broomsticks and slingshots. Though no one on the ship is actually shown using a broomstick against our heroic Israeli soldiers, the video does show something even more outrageous: as our heroic helicopter hovers gently, solicitously, and unprovocatively over the ship, two people--a man and a woman--are each plainly caught in the very act of shooting straight at it with rubber-banded wooden slingshots. The video does not show exactly what they were shooting, but as David once taught Goliath, even a small stone can be deadly when fired with sufficient force. In fact, microscopic inspection of the helicopter after the raid has revealed at least four tiny dents in the tail section. The point is simply this: whenever one of our helicopters is fired upon--whether with a stinger missile or a wooden slingshot--Israeli has the right to defend itself with deadly force, even against so-called "innocent" civilians.
One thing more. The idea that we are collectively punishing all the people of Gaza is sheer nonsense. We have nothing against those people and would be happy to see them go anywhere they wish--off to Jordan, for instance--anytime they wish. We just cannot tolerate Hamas because they are a bunch of anti-semitic thugs whose murderous rockets have deliberately killed at least one Israeli civilian for every hundred or so Gazan civilians that we have killed accidentally. And even though Hamas legally won the right to govern Gaza, it did so only by suckering voters with social services like education and health care--services that the so-called "corrupt" party of al-Fatah quite rightly skimps on because unlike the Israelis, the Palestinians are notoriously pampered. By denying all aid to Gaza that does not come through our sensitive hands, we just want to make the people of Gaza see that Hamas can bring them nothing but misery and pain, that their political salvation lies with al-Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, our peace partner on the West Bank. Let's get one thing straight: we cannot and will not tolerate the existence of any government that refuses to recognize our right to exist, our right to occupy and rule just as much of Palestine as we want to claim. After all, since we are the chosen people, anything we choose to do must be right.
And one last thing about the video. The fact that only Israeli eyes can see what it truly reveals proves the folly of launching an international investigation of this unprovoked attack on Israel. Whether or not the evidence is visual or verbal, video or spoken testimony, no one but an Israeli can judge the evidence properly. That is why we are perfectly willing to investigate the incident ourselves, and thus to show how decently, honestly, and sensitively we have exercised the right to defend ourselves.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-heffernan/exclusive-netanyahu-expla_b_609948.html
Finally released. Mirrors here http://tc.indymedia.org/files/flotilla-footage/index.html
JUST RELEASED: ONE HOUR OF FOOTAGE FROM MAVI MARMARA
Footage taken aboard largest ship in Gaza Freedom Flotilla in hour before and during raid by Israeli military
A full hour of raw footage taken aboard the Mavi Marmara in the hour leading up to and during the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has just been made available to view at: (62:13) Israeli Attack on the Mavi Marmara // Raw Footage 1 x viewed
The footage is also available for download at: http://tinyurl.com/flotilla-footage/
Despite the Israeli government's efforts to confiscate all of the footage taken during the attack, CULTURES OF RESISTANCE filmmaker Iara Lee was able to smuggle one hour of footage back to the United States and is releasing it raw to the public today.
Yesterday at the United Nations, Ms. Lee presented the footage for the first time to the international press corps after the following statement:
"I want first to thank the United Nations Correspondents Association for organizing this event on such short notice.
"My name is Iara Lee. I am a dual U.S.-Brazilian citizen of Korean descent. I am a filmmaker and a human rights activist.
"I decided to join the Freedom Flotilla after going to Gaza a few months ago and seeing first hand the devastation there. After hearing the pleas of the people living in Gaza to have the blockade lifted, I felt I must do something.
"The Gaza Freedom Flotilla was on a humanitarian mission.Ê We expected to be deterred from delivering our aid to Gazans, but we did not expect to be attacked.
"We started filming from the moment we boarded the Mavi Marmara right through the Israeli assault on the ship. Although all of our equipment was confiscated, we managed to smuggle this footage out.
"Mine is high-definition footage of the Flotilla attack and also the only sustained footage of the ship and its passengers preceding the deadly Israeli commando raid. Watching this raw, unedited footage, you will get a sense of the mood on the ship and of the passengers on it.
"Undoubtedly, many of you will be scrutinizing it for clues to resolve the mysteries that still surround what happened that fateful night.
"During this past week the Israeli government has repeatedly alleged that these passengers -- or some of them -- laid a trap for Israel, duped the Israeli military, and plotted a lynching. Israel has repeatedly alleged that we were anti-Semitic Muslim fanatics connected to terrorist organizations.
"In fact, the passengers on our mission came from many countries and religious and ethnic backgrounds.Ê Our one common denominator was that we wanted to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by highlighting the injustice of Israel's blockade.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu said, "This wasn't the 'love boat,' this was a flotilla of terror supporters." Our footage will help you decide whether we were a love boat or a hate boat. You will see secular and devout passengers. You will see people at prayer and people working at their laptops.
"Was this a lynch-mob moved by hatred of Israelis or was it a cross-section of humanity moved by the plight of Gaza? Did we lay a trap for the Israeli commandos or did they unnecessarily attack us? Did we take them by surprise or did they take us by surprise?
"Do you see a premeditated ambush, or do you see some passengers using items at hand to protect themselves from an unprovoked assault by heavily armed commandos?
"You decide."
http://www.demonoid.com/files/details/2275431/
US accepts Israeli probe of Flotilla
Despite calls for an international inquiry into a recent deadly Israeli attack on a Gaza-bound aid convoy, the US and Israel have agreed on an independent Israeli committee to probe the attack.
The White House on Friday dismissed reports of backing a proposal by the United Nations for an international commission to investigate the assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on May 31.
UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon had put forward a proposal for the establishment of a panel headed by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer to look into the incident. The panel would have included representatives from Turkey, Israel and the United States.
The proposal was made after the assault by Israeli commandos left at least 20 activists, including nine Turkish nationals, dead and dozens of others injured.
Meanwhile, White House spokesman Tommy Vietor issued a statement saying that the Obama administration supported "the swift, credible, independent and transparent probe that Israel plans to launch."
The White House statement added that intensive talks were currently being held with Israeli officials in order to ensure progress in the matter.
Earlier in the week, Tel Aviv had rejected the call by the UN chief for the international investigation, which has been passed by the UN Human Rights Council.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=130038§ionid=351020202...Read more 16 oct 2010, 02:06 , Respect -
Maria 13 juni 2010
Will Erdogan Blink?
Obama as Moral Dupe
A recent article by Patrick Cockburn, one of the ablest reporters covering the Middle East, provides an excellent character portrait of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan. It is certainly consistent with what little I have been able to learn about this fascinating politician. Regardless of what you may think of Erdogan, and he has many detractors (I am not one), he is certainly establishing himself as an influential world leader who must be reckoned with in an emerging multi-polar world.
Cockburn's report is must reading, because Erdogan has maneuvered himself onto the moral high ground in a very serious crisis he did not create. Consider please the following:
By standing tall against Israel's murderous commando attack on the unarmed ship in international waters that was carrying aid to the besieged inhabitants of Gaza, and by promising to be on another ship trying to break the blockade, Erdogan has set an example that contrasts sharply with the latest generation of pusillanimous leaders in the United States. They have refused to condemn Israel's attack, even though a US citizen was among those murdered -- thus continuing the pattern of unprincipled moral weakness that began when President Johnson refused to act decisively after the Israelis deliberately attacked the USS Liberty in international waters in June 1967, murdering over 30 American sailors.
Not surprisingly, Erdogan has become the newest bête noire of the neocons. They have embarked on a concerted effort in their media outlets to smear him as well as to trash our relations with Turkey, starting with screeds in the Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard. Their hypocrisy is stunning. Many of these same neocons assiduously cultivated the so-called strategic Israeli-Turkish alliance in the 1990s and, in fact, lobbied Congress on the behalf of Turkey. AIPAC is lobbying Congress for a resolution of support for Israel's attack, or failing that, is pressuring congressmen to not criticize Israel. AIPAC and the neocons are also stoking up the Armenian lobby to criticize the modern Turkish Republic for the genocidal crimes which occurred during the waning days of a decrepit Ottoman Empire. This is logically equivalent to criticizing German Chancellor Angela Merkel for Adolf Hitler's crimes. Some congressmen have already made strong public statements of support for Israel, and by extension a condemnation for Turkey, while the majority -- like the good Germans of the 1930s -- have done likewise by remaining silent. Israel just hoisted Obama on his petard (again) by requesting increased arms aid from the United States which, of course, will be rubber stamped by a compliant Congress. Meanwhile, according to the Jerusalem Post, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, just threatened to sink any Turkish warships carrying Erdogan, if it was escorting another flotilla of aid ships trying to break the blockade of Gaza. The threat is serious, because it was made on Israeli Army Radio, an outlet for policy pronouncements intended to lather up the Israeli citizens for battle.
To add final insult to this march of folly, Sheera Fenkle just reported that the blockade of Gaza is not about stopping arms shipments to Hamas, because in her words, 'McClatchy obtained an Israeli government document that describes the blockade not as a security measure but as "economic warfare" against the Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Palestinian territory.' Put another way, Israel's own documents suggest that the Israeli government understands the blockade is about an illegal collective punishment of the Gazan people for having the temerity to elect Hamas to govern Gaza in a free election. Ironically, it was the short-sighted Israelis who promoted Hamas in its early years during the late 1980s as a tactical means to divide and weaken Palestinian allegiances to the PLO.
So Turkey and Israel are maneuvering themselves and the United States into a trap between the moral high ground and the moral low ground for very different reasons. In the eyes of most of the world, Turkey is playing a constructive grand strategic card, while Israel is playing a destructive strategic card. One holds out hope for peace and justice while the other continues its warlike business as usual. But there is more. An Israeli attack on Turkey would be also an attack on the NATO Alliance. Under the terms of the NATO Treaty, such an attack should trigger what is known as an Article 5 response -- an attack on a NATO ally is an attack on all. This is what the US used to justify a NATO response to 9-11 in Afghanistan, even though the Afghan case was far less clear than the Turkish-Israeli imbroglio, because the Taliban was at most an accomplice to the 9-11 crime and may not have known about it in advance. If Israel carries through on its threat to attack a NATO warship, it would be a clear act of war. If the US (and the rest of NATO) does not respond, you can kiss NATO and Turkey goodbye, and the US would lose moral standing in the world to a greater degree than that engineered by George Bush and his fellow neocon travelers -- which is no small achievement. Nobody could ever trust the United States to live up to its formal treaty obligations. Our relations with Russia and China would be weakened dangerously, and Iran's position in the Middle East would be strengthened. The fall of dominoes would go on in all sorts of directions.
To borrow the unforgettable words of British Foreign Minister Edward Grey in the fateful summer of 1914, "the lights are going out all over" the Middle East, in NATO headquarters, and in the White House (assuming they were turned on). If Erdogan presses forward with his public promise to be on another Gaza aid ship or an escorting Turkish warship and if Israel acts on its threat to sink the ship carrying him, then like the chain of events of August 1914, the march to war could very well take on a life of its own.
We know what Israel will do if, as is likely, the US stands passively on the sidelines again, so the questions of the hour seem to be: Will Erdogan blink? Will the US force him to blink?
Study Cockburn's report and judge for yourself if blinking is a part of Erdogan's character, particularly, when he has maneuvered himself onto the moral high ground, and it is obvious to all but a few that the low grounders, like PM Netanyau, are playing the hapless Mr. Obama for a moral dupe -- again.
Franklin %u201CChuck%u201D Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at [email protected]
By FRANKLIN C. SPINNEY
http://www.counterpunch.org/spinney06112010.html
No Regrets
Obama, the ADC and the Gaza Flotilla
By JENNIFER LOEWENSTEIN
Imagine the media coverage that would have awaited us in our local and national newspapers, our radio, facebook, twitter and television news alerts and special bulletins had Iran or another enemy nation killed and in some cases executed 9 or more Israeli or American Jewish peace activists aboard a Turkish vessel (and therefore a NATO partner). What if that vessel were leading a convoy of 700 unarmed activists aboard ships filled with humanitarian aid to a million and a half Jewish political prisoners held hostage by that nation on spurious and sinister claims of national security?
Imagine, in the wake of these events, President Obama not even bothering to respond to an invitation to deliver the keynote address at AIPAC, the US most influential pro-Israel lobby, as Jews and their supporters from across the United States traveled to Washington DC for AIPAC's most important annual event one that coincided with the 30th anniversary of its founding? The political fallout from such an offense would have created a storm of controversy.
Of course, none of this happened because the event at hand involved the murder of 9 Turkish-Muslim activists (one an American citizen) aboard a convoy of ships on behalf of the Gaza Freedom Movement, a movement organized and participated in by citizens from around the world, including Israel, fed up with the craven, gutless responses of their governments to more than half a century of dispossession, expulsion, theft, abuse and killing of Arabs and Muslims from, or supporting, Palestine. Faced with the imminent threat of having to cease its illegal siege and blockade of Gaza and perhaps from there begin dismantling its occupation by letting the aid ships in Israel seized the occasion to halt the flotilla in international waters and storm the ship with the maximum amount of force at its disposal. Taking these already violent and illegal actions to levels of absurdity bordering on madness, Israel then made the cynical and preposterous claims that it had been forced to use self-defense against al-Qaeda-allied terrorists on the high seas. By then even some of Israel's most egregious defenders had begun to voice some complaints.
At this year's Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) gala dinner on Saturday night, June 5th 2010, long-time Lebanese-American activist (on behalf of the American people) and former presidential contender Ralph Nader gave the keynote speech to some 350-400 people. Halfway through his speech, Nader noted that President Obama had been the original choice of the ADC as the keynote speaker. When I asked Dr. Safa Rifka, Chairman of the ADC's Board of Directors, if he would verify that President Obama had been invited to address the audience that evening, Rifka responded in undisguised contempt, Absolutely; and you can mention my name as well. He said he himself had sent the invitation and that the Whoite House hadn't even bothered to reply.
Fortunately, there were no killings aboard the MV Rachel Corrie, a boat named after the twenty-three year old American activist crushed to death by an armored D-9 Caterpillar Bulldozer on March 16th 2003 as she attempted to prevent it from demolishing another Palestinian home. (More than 17,000 people from Rafah, Gaza had been made refugees twice and thrice over as a result of Israel's policy of demolishing homes along the Philadelphi Corridor near the Egyptian border). Corrie wore a blaze orange vest and carried an orange bullhorn when the driver of the bulldozer trapped her under a mound of dirt and drove over her body twice, breaking her back shortly before she died.
Unsurprisingly the US has yet to insist that an independent investigation into Rachel Corrie's death take place. Neither has the US approved even the least critical of the independent investigations into Israel's attack on Gaza in December-January 2008-9, the Goldstone Report. Operation Cast Lead was the very embodiment of the supreme international crime of aggression and should have led to the arrest and incarceration of its perpetrators for war crimes at the International Court of Justice at the Hague; but of course, it did not. Hence, it should come as no surprise that US representatives stood alone again at the United Nations last week just after the deadly raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, arguing that Israel should be allowed to investigate its latest crime of aggression and murder all by itself.
Arab and Muslim-Americans are hardly surprised that state terror directed against their people here or overseas requires no special attention or concern within any US administration. Obama's insult to the ADC occurred exactly one year after his widely acclaimed speech in Cairo, Egypt in which he promised a change in US foreign policy toward Middle East and Islamic nations.
What distinguishes the Obama administration's Middle East foreign policy from that of the Bush administration and those before it is the rhetoric in which its fundamental continuity is enveloped. This is especially disappointing and dangerous for anyone who hoped that non-violent solutions and a basic adherence to international law would finally prevail.
Like its US patron, Israel continues to promote state-of-the art-global violence even when that means executing citizens of US-allied nations for resisting its spiral into madness. When US politicians, pundits and media spokespeople congratulate Israel and its special Naval Commando units for assaulting a NATO partner's ship carrying 700 peace activists tired and ashamed of the persistent international silence over the sadistic destruction of the land, culture and identity of the Palestinians, Arab-Americans are not the only group of people who should be both sickened and aghast.
Jennifer Loewenstein is a Faculty Associate of Middle East Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is also a freelance journalist who has lived, worked and traveled extensively in the Middle East. She can be reached at [email protected]
http://www.counterpunch.org/loewenstein06102010.html
Poster Boy for "Dual Loyalties"
Joe Biden: In Israel's Service
By JEFFREY BLANKFORT
Israel appears to be in more serious trouble diplomatically than at any time in its history following the botched attack by an elite commando squad on the Mavi Marmara in the early morning hours of June 1 that left at least nine dead and scores wounded. Thanks to Al-Jazeera and Iran's PressTV, whose reporters were aboard the ship, much of the world was able to watch the attack unfold on its TV and computer screens and the result has been an avalanche of outrage and ongoing protests against the Jewish state. Within Israel this has led to finger-pointing and calls for resignations while its hasbara machinery has gone rapidly into damage-control and disinformation mode.
Lest we forget, the first U.S. official to give Israel's bloody assault a thumbs up sign was Vice President Joe Biden. The former Delaware senator has been a key part of Israel's hasbara branch, American section, since entering the Senate in 1973 and on the Wednesday following the Israeli attack, he appeared on the Charlie Rose Show where he showed no hesitation in defending Israel's handling of the raid, something that President Obama had been reluctant to do.
On the following morning, Jerusalem Post Editor David Horvitz speaking for 45 minutes to Congressional staffers and AIPAC members on a conference call praised Biden's performance. It is not entirely clear in Israel where America stands, he said, but Israel was very pleased with what Joe Biden had to say.
But isn't that why Joe was picked for the job? Was it not to get the vote and the money from those Jews who were afraid that Barack Obama --who they suspected of being a closet Muslim was no true friend of Israel?
Obama picked Biden who is about as close to the pro-Israel community as any member of either house, observed MJ Rosenberg, a former AIPAC staffer, on TPM Café, just after Biden's selection. Biden is rated 100 per cent by AIPAC When he goes to the synagogues in Florida, he goes not as a visitor but as mishpocha [family]. The Jews simply love the guy.
Bottom line, concluded Rosenberg, the Biden choice pretty much eliminated Obama's Jewish problem. " That was then and now it doesn't seem to matter what position Obama takes, Biden seems to answer to his real boss. And it ain't Barack.
Appearing on the Charlie Rose show was but the latest assignment for Biden in his long career of serving Israel, the first 35 years of which he was drawing salary and gaining political clout as a US Senator for a state whose population is only slightly larger than that of San Francisco (783,600 to 776,733).
Look, Biden told Rose in a rambling monologue in which he confused Ehud Barak with Ariel Sharon, you can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not ... but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know they're at war with Hamas has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in. And up to now, Charlie, what's happened? They've said, Here you go. You're in the Mediterranean. This ship if you divert slightly north you can unload it and we'll get the stuff into Gaza. So what's the big deal here? What's the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza? Well, it's legitimate for Israel to say, don't know what's on that ship. These guys are dropping eight 3,000 rockets on my people.
No big deal, Joe, at least nine dead, or four less than the number of Israelis killed since the first Palestinian rocket was fired from Gaza. And notice how easily he says my and pretends that rockets are still being fired from Gaza.
That my was not a Freudian slip. Like scores of other US politicians who have traded their political souls for access to the seemingly bottomless checking accounts of Israel's American supporters, Biden has become a poster boy for dual loyalty. Given that he has done this as a member of Congress and continues to do so while now a heartbeat from the White House should probably qualify him for a treason trial and a cell next to Jonathan Pollard.
Back in 2007, on one of his many visits to Israel, he told a Shalom TV interviewer that the Jewish state was "the single greatest strength America has in the Middle East." Going beyond the standard AIPAC scripted boilerplate, Biden stated, "When I was a young senator, I used to say, 'If I were a Jew I'd be a Zionist.' I am a Zionist," he said. "You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist."
Asked about his prospective cell neighbor, sentenced to life-imprisonment in 1985 for turning over mounds of top secret information to Israel, Biden spoke of leniency for Pollard but not a pardon.
"There's a rationale, in my view, why Pollard should be given leniency, said Biden. But there is not a rationale to say, 'What happened did not happen and should be pardoned.'" In other words, should Biden become president, it is likely that Pollard would be freed.
Looking at Biden's track record, it would seem that he has not just been a key cheerleader for Israel; he has aspired to be a member of its coaching staff.
Speaking to an AIPAC meeting in 1992, he was quoted by the organization's Near East Report as saying that it was time to tell the American people straight out that it's in our naked self-interest to see to it that the moral commitment and political commitment is kept with regard to Israel and that Israel is not the cause of our problem, but the essence of the solution. This was in response to President George H.W. Bush's second refusal to support Israel's demand for $10 billion in loan guarantees. Which of America's problems Israel was able to solve Biden didn't mention.
In December, 1995, two years after Oslo, he spoke at an AIPAC meeting in San Francisco and told a lunchtime audience that included most of the Bay Area's public officials that they needed to spend more time educating new members of Congress about the wonders of Israel and its strategic value to the US:
Be prepared to both convert and be prepared to deal with those who are not converted....
Israel is taking more chances on her security today than any time in her history....Arabs make peace with Israel only when they realize that they can t drive a wedge between the US and Israel. We cannot afford to publicly criticize Israel. This past March, back in Israel on a fence-mending assignment, just before he was blindsided by the announcement of Israel's plan to build 1600 new Jewish housing units in East Jerusalem, Biden had modified his can't drive a wedge to read there is no space between.
At that time Biden gave his San Francisco speech, he had taken in over $100,000 from pro-Israel PACs which was small change compared to what he had received in individual donations. By far the largest of these came in 1988, when he made his first bid for the presidency. It was a $1.5 million gift from San Francisco financial real estate magnate Walter Shorenstein, who was, by no coincidence, AIPAC's main man in California as well a major player in the state's Democratic Party. It turned out to be a poor investment since that was the year that Biden was caught plagiarizing a speech by British Labor leader Neil Kinnock and had to withdraw from the race.
In 2007, true to form, Biden took the lead in the Senate in rejecting the Iraq Study Group's conclusion that the United States would not be able to achieve its goals in Iraq unless it "deals directly with the Arab-Israeli conflict, a view taken more recently by Gen. David Petraeus.
"I do not accept the notion of linkage between Iraq and the Arab-Israeli conflict," Biden said during his opening remarks at a January 17, 2007, Senate hearing. "Arab-Israeli peace is worth pursuing vigorously on its own merits, but even if a peace treaty were signed tomorrow, it would not end the civil war in Iraq. It was not that the study group said that it would but it was convenient straw man for Biden.
It was not his first comment on Iraq. It may be recalled that on May 1, 2006, Biden had co-authored an op-ed piece for the NY Times with his guru, Leslie Gelb, a former Times columnist and president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, that called for Iraq to be divided into three confessional states. It was starkly similar to what had been written in a policy paper back in 1982 by Oded Yinon, a senior Israeli foreign affairs official, in which he wrote that, To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria. In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. Gelb had first raised the issue in an op-ed in the Times in November, 2003.
During the 2008 election campaign Biden was outraged to find his loyalty to Israel being questioned by what he reportedly thought was AIPAC but which turned out to be the Republican Jewish Coalition. The RJC had accused him of not towing the AIPAC line on one or two occasions which caused Biden to defend his willingness to oppose AIPAC on some pieces of legislation.
In a 20-minute conference call with members of the Jewish media that September, Biden said it was up to the Israelis to make decisions about war and peace, including whether to launch a strike aimed at disrupting Iran's nuclear program.
This is not a question for us to tell the Israelis what they can and cannot do, said the Democratic vice presidential candidate. "Israel has the right to defend itself and it doesn't have to ask, just as any other free and independent country. I have faith in the democracy of Israel. They will arrive at the right decision that they view as being in their own interests. That as vice-president his job would be to protect US interests and not Israel's and that an attack on Iran might jeopardize American interests either had not occurred to him or was of no concern.
In the interview, Biden tried to position himself as being even more pro-Israel than AIPAC, vigorously defending his record of occasionally breaking ranks with the pro-Israel lobby. AIPAC does not speak for the entire American Jewish community, he said. There's other organizations as strong and as consequential.
Moreover, Biden insisted, "I will take a back seat to no one, and again, no one in AIPAC or any other organization, in terms of questioning my support of the State of Israel."
Insiders at the lobby were more bemused than offended by the outburst wrote the Jewish Telegraphic Agency's Ron Kampeas, saying they regarded Biden as essentially pro-Israel. Sources familiar with the situation said the Obama camp's explanation was that Biden had mistakenly thought it was AIPAC who had criticized him, as opposed to the RJC.
Upset at the RJC's questioning of Biden's pro-Israel credentials The New Republic's Marty Peretz, entered the lists in his behalf. Wrote Peretz in TNR and the Jerusalem Post in September,2008:
If ever there was a true friend of Israel in the United States Senate it is Joe Biden. Oh yes, there were also Owen Brewster, Republican from Maine, and Guy Gillette, Democrat from Iowa. But that goes back to the very founding of the state.
This is not hyperbole about Biden. It is true. And it is so not just on a philosophical basis but in deeds, too. Biden is a true friend on both a higher and a deeper level, and he has been that for three and a half decades. It is reckless for Jews to trifle with such allies. We have, as I've said, many friends. But what we do not have is many such allies - formidable, expert, truly passionate.
Following the election and now, as vice-president, Biden continued to merit Peretz's confidence. Speaking at AIPAC's 2009 policy conference in Washington, he began by describing how he had been warmly welcomed on a visit to Israel in 1973 as a freshman senator by Prime Minister Golda Meir and befriended by Yitzhak Rabin. Then, to loud rounds of applause, he told his audience:
[W]e have to pursue every opportunity for progress while standing up for one core principle: First, Israel's security is non-negotiable. Period. Period. [sic]Our commitment is unshakeable. We will continue to provide Israel with the assistance that it needs. We will continue to defend Israel's right to defend itself and make its own judgments about what it needs to do to defend itself.
Toward the end of his speech, Biden timorously advanced a position that has long been official US policy. You're not going to like my saying this, he said, but [do]not build more settlements, dismantle existing outposts, and allow the Palestinians freedom of movement. There was no applause.
In 1994, Biden was a key player in one of the ugliest episodes in American political history and one that characterizes the subservience of Washington to Israel in its way much as did the cover-up of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty 53 years ago on June 8th.
It featured a star chamber recantation before a confirmation hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Biden, of Strobe Talbott, former Soviet affairs analyst for Time, of an article he had written, following his nomination as Deputy Secretary of State by Bill Clinton. Talbott was facing the inquisition as a result of a major article he had written for the magazine in 1981, What to do about Israel (9/7/81). In it, Talbott had advocated a new policy towards Israel-US relations that would rescue that relationship starting with the delusion that Israel is, or ever has been, primarily a strategic ally.
While expressing the obligatory degree of affection for Israel, Talbott had not been equivocal. Referring to problems that had been created for the Reagan administration by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Talbott wrote in words, especially pertinent today, His country does need the US for its survival, but the sad fact is that Israel is well on its way to becoming not just a dubious asset but an outright liability to American security interests, both in the Middle East and worldwide.
Talbott was referring to Israel's destruction of the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak and a deadly bombing raid over Beirut that killed over 100 people and wounded 600 more, most of them civilians. Talbott had advised that, If Israel continues to take international law into its own hands as violently and as embarrassingly to the US as it did in Baghdad and Beirut, then the next display of US displeasure ought to be more sustained and less symbolic. It might include severe cutbacks in American military aid, which is $1.2 billion for fiscal 1981 alone.[It is now officially $3 billion].
Pressed to recant, Talbott uttered the required response. As reported by the New York Times Steven Greenhouse, do want to set the record straight on the question of my view of Israel as a strategic asset, he said, sounding chastened and contrite. On that I have simply changed my opinion.
On the other hand, straining to reassure supporters of Israel, Mr. Talbott said, I have always believed that the US-Israeli relationship is unshakable. Second, I have always believed that a strong Israel is in America's interest because it serves the cause of peace and stability in the region
During his 21 years at Time, Mr. Talbott often criticized Israel. Today he took a markedly different tone, portraying himself as a friend of Israel.
In the article Talbott, had written that Begin recognized that American Jews wield influence far beyond their numbers, but he also knew that there is considerable pent-up irritation in the US with the power of the pro-Israel lobby (which includes, of course, many non-Jews). It was clearly his own opinion, as well.
Biden, according to the NY Times, jumped on that statement, calling it, totally inappropriate, to which Talbott, sserting that no sight was intended, noted that this was simply a statement of fact, and turned to Sen. Bernard Metzenbaum from his home state of Ohio for confirmation. Metzenbaum said that he was satisfied with Talbott's remarks, but, Maybe, in retrospect, he might have changed some phrases or some paragraphs.
Mind you, Talbott had questioned Israel's strategic value to the US in 1981, in the heart of the Cold War when he was considered one of the main stream media's ranking Soviet experts. Before going before the Senate, he had become a senior advisor on the former Soviet Union to the Clinton White House. By 1994, with the Soviet bloc no longer in the picture, it was generally agreed, even in Tel Aviv, that Israel's value to the US had been severely diminished.
Biden went on, citing the same article, noted that Talbott also had written: "Israel has been a credit to itself and its American backers."
Playing the role of Torquemada, he asked Talbott, Do you believe that?"
"Yes, senator, I do," he obediently replied.
His conversion process having been completed, Talbott received the senator's and subsequently the Senate's approval.
The reader should not be left with the impression that Joe Biden's prime passions are limited to the love of Israel.
While in the Senate, he was a key supporter of the credit card industry, much of which is based in Delaware thanks to its cozy industry friendly tax laws and he was a key beneficiary of its campaign contributions. In return, he became a leading supporter of the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005" which, despite its title, made it harder for consumers to get protection under bankruptcy.
Biden was one of the first Democratic supporters of the bill and voted for it four times until it finally passed in March, 2005. Twisting the truth, a spokesman for Sen. Obama told the NY Times, "Senator Biden took on entrenched interests and succeeded in improving the bill for low-income workers, women and children."
But even the Times wasn't buying that. Biden, the paper noted, was one of only five Democrats who voted against a proposal that would require credit card companies to provide more effective warnings to consumers about the consequences of paying only the minimum amount due each month. Obama had voted for it.
Biden differed with Obama again when he helped to defeat amendments which would have strengthened protections for people forced into bankruptcy who have large medical debts or are in the military. He was also one of four Democrats who sided with Republicans to defeat an effort, supported by Obama, to shift responsibility in certain cases from debtors to the predatory lenders who helped push them into bankruptcy.
So why did Obama pick Biden for his running mate? We already know the answer.
Jeffrey Blankfort can be contacted at [email protected]
http://www.counterpunch.org/blankfort06112010.html 16 oct 2010, 02:32 , Respect -
Maria 13 juni 2010
Video reveals European, American weapons used in Israeli attack on Gaza Flotilla
Sa'ar class corvette warship
In this still taken from the CoR video at 1hr 26sec, an Israeli warship appears:
On Friday 11 June, the Cultures of Resistance Foundation (CoR) released a full hour of video taken aboard the Mavi Marmara before and during the Israeli assault on the ship in the early hours of 31 May in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea about 80 miles west of the coast of Israel. At least nine people were killed and dozens injured in the Israeli attack.
CoR director Iara Lee and camera operators from her organization were aboard the ship and managed to smuggle the raw footage out of Israel despite Israel's confiscation of all other recordings and images from journalists and passengers when they were taken against their will to Israel and later expelled from the country.
This video reveals information about some of the weapons used by Israel. In using these weapons to enforce an illegal blockade on Gaza and to carry out an illegal attack on civilian ships in international waters, Israel may have acted in violation of the US Arms Export Control Act of 1976, the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports or other international law or human rights laws of the exporting countries.
http://aliabunimah.posterous.com/
Officials Try to Strip Haneen Zoubi of Citizenship
An Israeli parliamentary committee recommended stripping an Arab MP of her privileges yesterday in a move to prepare the ground for putting her on trial for participating last week in the Gaza-bound aid flotilla attacked by Israeli commandos.
Haneen Zoubi, who has become a national hate figure since challenging Israel's account of the confrontation, said yesterday she was facing a witch-hunt.
The interior minister, Eli Yishai, has submitted a request for her citizenship to be revoked, and a bill -- labelled the Zoubi Law- is being considered that would allow a serving MP to be expelled for inciting against the state.
Ms Zoubi has been provided with a bodyguard after receiving a spate of death threats. A popular Facebook page in Hebrew is calling for her execution and an online petition for her expulsion from the parliament has attracted tens of thousands of supporters.
Last week, in unprecedented scenes as she tried to address parliament, Ms Zoubi was heckled into silence by Jewish legislators shouting out terrorist and traitor. Guards only narrowly prevented a far-right parliamentarian from attacking her.
Yesterday's hearing of the parliament's house committee was originally intended to consider revoking the immunity of six Arab MPs, including Ms Zoubi, who travelled to Libya in April. All the Arab MPs boycotted the meeting.
However, the committee chairman, Yariv Levin, of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, switched the focus to Ms Zoubi's involvement in the flotilla.
Legal advisers said the MP was still being investigated for attempting to enter a closed military area and violence against the commandos. After she disembarked from the Mavi Marmara in Ashdod last week, Ms Zoubi said she had been questioned by police about possessing a weapon.
The committee approved by a majority of 7-1 stripping her of parliamentary privileges that take away her diplomatic passport, reportedly to prevent her fleeing the country, and withdraw help with litigation fees. Parliament must approve the decision.
Mr Levin accused Ms Zoubi of betraying the country and said she must be put on trial. What Zoubi did crossed the line and even in a democracy there must be red lines. Whoever sails to Hamas is a supporter of terror, he said.
Ms Zoubi responded: They conducted a kangaroo court against me. They have called on the public to harm me.
An editorial in the liberal Haaretz newspaper warned yesterday that an atmosphere of dangerous incitement was developing against Israel's Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population. Two other Arab MPs, Ahmed Tibi and Taleb al Sana, revealed that they too had received death threats.
In addition to the removal of Ms Zoubi's privileges, she is also facing the revocation of her citizenship. The measure has been used only twice before in Israel's history -- both times against Palestinian citizens accused of terrorism.
Last week, Mr Yishai wrote to the attorney general asking for the go-ahead, saying Ms Zoubi had headed a group of terrorists and was undoubtedly aware of the activists preparations for the attack against IDF troops. This is a premeditated act of treason.
Orna Kohn, a lawyer with Adalah, a legal centre for the country's Palestinian minority, said Mr Yishai's move was uncharted legal territory that could leave Ms Zoubi stateless, in violation of international law. There is simply no precedent for revoking the citizenship of an MP, she said.
After Ms Zoubi's release last week, she said she had seen three passengers shot in the head by soldiers, and two more left to bleed to death. According to autopsies conducted in Turkey, five of the nine dead passengers were shot in the head, and many of the lethal shots were fired from close range.
During her address to the parliament last week, Ms Zoubi called for an international investigation and demanded to know why Israel had not published photographs and video footage it confiscated from passengers that related to the nine dead and dozens of wounded.
After the session, she said: It was so hostile in the chamber that, had MPs been allowed to carry guns, I am sure someone would have shot me.
Israel has been swept by rightwing demonstrations in support of the raid on the flotilla over the past few days.
A Hebrew Facebook page Execute MP Haneen Zoubi features a cartoon image of the MP with crosshairs on her forehead as the figure waves a Palestinian flag with a bloody Star of David at its centre.
Ms Zoubi said she had been surprised to learn that the armed bodyguard -- normally reserved for government ministers and the head of state -- was supposed to remain with her even inside the parliament chamber. What does that say about the threat posed by my fellow MPs?
Four other leaders of Israel's Palestinian community who were on the ships are being investigated by police. After the mass release of detainees last week, they were freed to house arrest but are banned from leaving the country.
At his remand hearing, Sheik Raed Salah, a leader of Israel's Islamic Movement, said of the flotilla episode: The soldiers tried to kill me. They fired in the direction of someone else they thought was me.
Rumours circulating widely that Sheikh Salah had been killed in the commando raid eight days ago were not denied by Israeli officials and only ended when his family identified that a body brought to an Israeli hospital was not his.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair(Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
By JONATHAN COOK
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook06082010.html
Rabbi Weiss of neturei Karta visits the wounded injured in the Israeli Attack on Humanitarian Flotilla to Gaza
Rabbi Yisroel D. Weiss of Neturei Karta flew to Turkey to visit the wounded victims of the Zionist attack on the humanitarian aid flotilla headed to Gaza.
Read Statement issued by Neturei Karta and view reports of protests and events concerning the humanitarian aid flotilla
http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Demonstrations/20100607Weiss_visits_wounded.cfm#
Barak Cancels French Visit for Fear of Arrest Involving Gaza Flotilla Attack
Ehud Barak's office announced tonight that he had cancelled a planned trip to France, where he was to take part in the dedication of the Israeli pavillion at the Eurosatory International Defense Week there and have consultations with the French foreign and defense ministers. The purported reason for the cancellation as relayed by his spokesperson, was that he had to remain in Israel to help assemble the panel of experts to investigate the Gaza flotilla massacre.
A confidential Israeli source informs me (and AP confirms) that the real reason was that Palestinian activists in France had filed legal complaints against him over his involvement in the flotilla affair. He was afraid he might be arrested.
I understand as well that his advance security detail discovered an inordinate number of pudgy dark-skinned tennis players in dark glasses running around the hotel where he planned to stay. For those lacking a sense of satire, that was a joke.
I have written a number of times here about the international campaign demanding accountability for Israel%u2019s behavior. The more outrageous the acts that country engages in the more its leaders will be constrained from exercising their right to travel abroad to defend those acts. Both BDS and the use of international law have contributed to an ostracism of Israel on the world stage. If Israel continues along the path it has chosen this will only get worse.
That is why the Israeli government and its right wing apologists like Alan Dershowitz, Elie Wiesel, Gerald Steinberg and Im Tirtzu have so savagely attacked the Goldstone Report, Judge Goldstone and the Israeli human rights NGO community.
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2010/06/13/barak-cancels-french-visit-for-fear-of-arrest-involving-gaza-flotilla-attack/
Arrestatiebevelen gevraagd voor Benjamin Netanyahu en Ehud Barak
(Belga) De Israëlische minister van Defensie Ehud Barak is volledig verantwoordelijk voor de militaire operatie tegen het humanitaire scheepskonvooi waarbij negen vredesactivisten gedood werden. Dat melden de organisaties Vlaams Palestina Komitee, CODIP vzw (Centrum voor Ontwikkeling, Documentatie en Informatie Palestijnen) en ATTAC Vlaanderen dinsdag in een persbericht.
Tegen minister van Defensie Barak en de Israëlische premier Benjamin Netanyahu moeten dan ook internationale arrestatiebevelen worden uitgevaardigd wegens misdaden tegen de menselijkheid, zo luidt het verder. De organisaties vragen dat de Europese Unie onmiddellijk de bijzondere associatieverdragen met Israël opschort tot alle blokkades van Palestijnse gebieden zijn opgeheven, en tot herstelbetalingen door Tel Aviv aan de Palestijnen zijn overgemaakt, zo staat te lezen in het persbericht. Voorts eisen ze dat de mensenrechten gerespecteerd worden.
http://www.skynet.be/nieuws-sport/nieuws/buitenland/detail_arrestatiebevelen-gevraagd-voor-benjamin-netanyahu-ehud-barak?id=665384&pagenb=2 16 oct 2010, 22:24 , Respect -
Maria 13 juni 2010
Israel's Impunity From International Law
Both the Attack on the Flotilla and the Siege of Gaza are Illegal
Israel's deadly attack on the Gaza "Freedom Flotilla" was flagrantly illegal. The flotilla, carefully searched for arms before disembarkation, enjoyed the right of free navigation in international waters, and Israel had no legal justification to interrupt its peaceful mission.
Flotilla passengers were entitled to defend themselves against Israel's forcible boarding of the Mavi Marmara, whether or not Israeli commandos fired immediately on landing on the ship's deck, as the passengers maintain. Dropping 100 armed soldiers on a ship from the sky is not a peaceful maneuver. Nor can Israeli armed commandos claim self-defense, any more than a purse snatcher facing a victim who elects to fight back. Hence, Israel is culpable for the killings that followed.
Israel has claimed that it is in "armed conflict" with the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip and that its actions on the high seas to enforce the blockade of the Gaza Strip are therefore permissible. That claim is wrong.
In fact, under customary international law that Israel accepts as binding, Israel continues to occupy the Gaza Strip, despite the withdrawal of its ground troops and settlers from that region in 2005. A territory is "occupied" when foreign forces exercise "effective control" over it, whether accomplished through the continuous presence of ground troops or not.
Israel patrols the territorial waters and airspace of the Gaza Strip, regulates Gaza's land borders, restricts internal movements by excluding Gazans from a "buffer zone" that includes 46 percent of the strip's agricultural land, and controls the Gaza Strip's supplies of electricity, heating oil, and petrol. Together these factors amount to remote but "effective control." Thus, the Gaza Strip remains occupied, as the United Nations, the U.S. government and the International Committee of the Red Cross have all recognized.
Israel has authority to halt arms imports into the Gaza Strip. But it also owes a general duty of protection to civilians under its control, and has specific duties to allow them access to adequate food and medical supplies, and to maintain public health standards - duties it has deliberately violated in imposing the siege on Gaza. Currently 77.2 percent of Gaza Palestinians either face or are vulnerable to hunger; of these, 65 percent are children younger than 18. According to UNICEF, 10 percent of Gaza children show signs of stunting, while the World Health Organization maintains that another 10 percent face chronic malnutrition.
Moreover, collective punishment is specifically barred under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that the objective of the blockade is to weaken the Gaza economy and undermine support for Hamas. That is a political, not a military, objective, and it is impermissible under international law to target innocent civilians to achieve nonmilitary goals.
Actions taken to enforce an illegal siege cannot themselves be legal. Israel's blockade violates the human rights of Gaza Palestinians and must be brought to an end.
Israel's attack on the "Freedom Flotilla" is the logical consequence of years of Israeli impunity from international law - abetted by the diplomatic cover provided it by our government. At some point, genuine friends of both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs must impress on Israel that its serial lawlessness is good for no one, multiplying resentment and pain, and pushing the prospects of regional peace into a more distant future.
George Bisharat is a professor at Hastings College of the Law and writes frequently about law and politics in the Middle East.
By GEORGE BISHARAT
http://www.counterpunch.org/bisharat06092010.html
This is "State Terrorism" with "Irreversible Consequences"
Turkey Condemns Israel
By PATRICK COCKBURN
AIsrael's relations with its most powerful Muslim ally have plunged to a historic low, with the Turkish Prime Minister denouncing the killing of peace activists off the coast of Gaza as "state terrorism" and more than 10,000 protesters taking to the streets of Istanbul, with some trying to storm the Israeli consulate.
The Turkish government had not directly organized the flotilla of six ships including the Turkish cruise ship Mavi Marmara aiming to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, but the foreign ministry had made clear before the Israeli assault that it supported the voyage as a humanitarian operation.
As Turkey recalled its ambassador yesterday, and cancelled three joint military exercises with Israel, Huseyin Celik, a spokesman for the ruling AK Party declared: "Our relations with Israel will never be the same."
The once-warm relationship has turned more sour and acrimonious over the past several years, but the attack on the Mavi Marmara, the fact that most of the dead are Turkish, and the pictures of Israeli commandos stalking past railings draped with the Turkish flag, will have an explosive impact.
The Turkish army used to favor links to Israel and the military used to control Turkish foreign policy. This is no longer the case. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Islamic AKP have weakened the military's grip on power since they formed a government in 2002. Willingness to co-operate with the US and support its alliance with Israel is no longer true of the younger officers as it is of the older generals. Yesterday's action against the Gaza aid flotilla was only the latest in a series of incidents between Israel and Turkey. In 2009, Mr Erdogan stormed out of a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres in Davos when he was not given enough time to respond to Peres's defense of the bombardment of Gaza.
Later that year, Turkey postponed an air force exercise because of Israeli participation; in retaliation, Israel sought stronger relations with Cyprus and Greece.
Other incidents followed. In an episode widely criticized as puerile in Israel, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon summoned the Turkish ambassador this year to protest at a Turkish television program which depicted Mossad agents snatching babies to convert them to Judaism. Mr Ayalon crowed that he had deliberately sat the ambassador in a lower chair than his own and removed the Turkish flag. Turkey later called for an apology.
Turkey is a more essential ally for the United States in the Middle East than it has been for years. It is playing a critical role in Iraq, helping the US to withdraw its forces more easily and Ankara's alliance with Israel has been a key plank of US diplomacy in the Middle East. The Turkish Foreign Ministry had warned earlier that Israeli action on the flotilla would have "irreversible consequences" and for once this diplomatic cliché may turn out to be true.
Patrick Cockburn is the Ihe author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick06012010.html
Mad-Dog of the Planet
Notch Up Another Disaster for Israel's Well-Oiled Propaganda Machine
By PATRICK COCKBURN
An old Israeli saying describing various less-than-esteemed military leaders says: "He was so stupid that even the other generals noticed." The same derisive remark could be applied almost without exception to the present generation of Israeli politicians.
Such healthy skepticism among Israelis about the abilities of their military and political leaders has unfortunately ebbed in recent decades. As a result, Israelis are left perplexed as to why their wars, military interventions and armed actions have so often ended in failure since the 1973 war, despite the superiority of their armed forces.
The latest example of this is the assault on the Gaza aid convoy by naval commandos, a confrontation initiated by Israel which thereby ensured that the convoy's organizers achieved their objectives to a degree beyond their wildest dreams. By using assault troops in a police action against civilians with predictably bloody results Israel managed to focus international attention on its blockade of Gaza, which the world had hitherto largely ignored. The Israeli action infuriated Turkey, once its strongest ally in the region, and strengthened the claim of Hamas to Palestinian leadership.
The capacity of Israel to shoot itself in the foot needs explanation. From the beginning the operation was idiotic, since Israel was always likely to look bad after any confrontation between élite troops and civilian protesters. Even more ludicrous is the Israeli explanation that their élite and heavily armed soldiers were at risk of their lives because they had to use thick gloves to protect their hands when sliding down cables from a helicopter and therefore could not use their weapons.
The nature of the fiasco should cause little surprise because such botched Israeli military actions have been the norm for years. The 1982 invasion of Lebanon was discredited by the massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Christian militias loosed on them by Israeli army commanders. Syria, not Israel, became the predominant power in Lebanon. In south Lebanon, the Israeli army fought a long and unsuccessful guerrilla war against Hizbollah. The bombardments of Lebanon in 1996 and 2006 left Hizbollah stronger, and a similar attack on Gaza in 2008 failed to weaken Hamas.
The problem is that nobody believes Israeli propaganda as much as Israelis. Pro-Palestinian activists often lament the fluency and mendacity of Israeli spokesmen on the airwaves and the pervasive influence of Israel's supporters abroad. But, in reality, these PR campaigns are Israel's greatest weakness, because they distort Israelis' sense of reality. Defeats and failures are portrayed as victories and successes.
The slaughter of civilians is justified as a military necessity or somehow the fault of the other side. Opponents are demonized as bloodthirsty terrorists. Comforted by such benign accounts of their activities, Israeli leaders are consumed by arrogance because they come to believe they have never made a mistake. Denial that errors have occurred makes it extremely difficult to sack generals or ministers, however gross their incompetence or record of failure.
Many Israelis privately take their own propaganda with a pinch of salt, though the number is diminishing. But abroad, the most third-rate Israeli politicians strut before fawning audiences as heroic defenders of the state. Not surprisingly they return home with a dangerously inflated idea of their own abilities and in a perilously self-important mood.
The Israeli propaganda machine, official and private, has been running full throttle in the last few days justifying the assault on the aid convoy to Gaza. Probably spokesmen feel they are performing well given the weakness of their case. In fact, they do nothing but harm to Israel. The greater their success in denying gross and culpable mistakes, the more likely it is that the perpetrators will hold their jobs %u2013 and the more likely it is that the mistakes will be endlessly repeated.
Patrick Cockburn is the author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
http://www.counterpunch.org/patrick06022010.html
"Mad Dog" Diplomacy
A Cornered Israel is Baring Its Teeth
By JONATHAN COOK
Moshe Dayan, Israel's most celebrated general, famously outlined the strategy he believed would keep Israel's enemies at bay: Israel must be a like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.
Until now, most observers had assumed Dayan was referring to Israeli military or possibly nuclear strategy, an expression in his typically blunt fashion of the country's familiar doctrine of deterrence.
But the Israeli commando attack on Monday on the Gaza-bound flotilla, in which nine activists have so far been confirmed killed and dozens were wounded as they tried to break Israel's blockade of the enclave, proves beyond doubt that this is now a diplomatic strategy too. Israel is feeling cornered on every front it considers important and like Dayan's mad dog, it is likely to strike out in unpredictable ways.
Domestically, Israeli human rights activists have regrouped after the Zionist left's dissolution in the wake of the outbreak of the second intifada. Now they are presenting clear-eyed and extremely ugly assessments of the occupation that are grabbing headlines around the world.
That move has been supported by the leadership of Israel s large Palestinian minority, which has additionally started questioning the legitimacy of a Jewish state in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
Regionally, Hizbullah has progressively eroded Israel's deterrence doctrine. It forced the Israeli army to exit south Lebanon in 2000 after a two-decade occupation; it stood firm in the face of both aerial bombardment and a ground invasion during the 2006 war; and now it is reported to have accumulated an even larger arsenal of rockets than it had four years ago.
Iran, too, has refused to be intimidated and is leaving Israel with an uncomfortable choice between conceding to Tehran the room to develop a nuclear bomb, thereby ending Israel's regional nuclear monopoly, and launching an attack that could unleash a global conflagration.
And internationally, nearly 18 months on from its attack on Gaza, Israel's standing is at an all-time low. Boycott campaigns are gaining traction, reluctant support for Israel from European governments has set them in opposition to home-grown sentiment, and even traditional allies such as Turkey cannot hide their anger.
In the US, Israel's most resolute ally, young American Jews are starting to question their unthinking loyalty to the Jewish state. Blogs and new kinds of Jewish groups are bypassing their elders and the American media to widen the scope of debate about Israel.
Israel has responded by characterizing these threats all as falling within its ever-expanding definition of support for terrorism.
It was therefore hardly suprising that the first reaction from the Israeli government to the fact that its commandoes had opened fire on civilians in the flotilla of aid ships was to accuse the solidarity activists of being armed.
Similarly, Danny Ayalon, the deputy foreign minister, accused the organizers of having connections to international terrorism, including al-Qaeda. Turkey, which assisted the flotilla, is widely being accused in Israel of supporting Hamas and trying to topple Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Palestinians are familiar with such tactics. Gaza's entire population of 1.5 million is now regularly presented in the Israeli media in collective terms, as supporters of terror for having voted in Hamas and therefore legitimate targets for Israeli retaliation. Even the largely docile Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has rapidly been tarred with the same brush for its belated campaign to boycott the settlements and their products.
The leaders of Israel's Palestinian citizens too are being cast in the role of abettors of terror. The minority is still reeling from the latest assault: the arrest and torture of two community leaders charged with spying for Hizbullah. In its wake, new laws are being drafted to require that Palestinian citizens prove their loyalty or have their citizenship revoked.
When false rumors briefly circulated on Monday that Sheikh Raed Salah, a leader of Israel's Islamic Movement who was in the flotilla, had been gravely wounded, Israeli officials offered a depressingly predictable, and unfounded, response: commandoes had shot him after they came under fire from his cabin.
Israel's Jewish human rights community is also under attack to a degree never before seen. Their leaders are now presented as traitors, and new legislation is designed to make their work much harder.
The few brave souls in the Israeli media who try to hold the system to account have been given a warning shot with the exile of Haaretz's investigative journalist Uri Blau, who is threatened with trial on spying charges if he returns.
Finally, Israel's treatment of those onboard the flotilla has demonstrated that the net against human rights activism is being cast much wider, to encompass the international community.
Foreigners, even high-profile figures such as Noam Chomsky, are now routinely refused entry to Israel and the occupied territories. Many foreign human rights workers face severe restrictions on their movement and efforts to deport them or ban their organizations. The Israeli government is agreed that Europe should be banned from interfering in the region by supporting local human rights organizations.
The epitome of this process was Israel's reception of the UN report last year into the attack on Gaza by Richard Goldstone, a respected judge and international law expert who suggested Israel had committed many war crimes during its three-week operation. Goldstone has faced savage personal attacks ever since.
But more significantly, Israel's supporters have characterized the Goldstone report and the related legal campaigns against Israel as examples of lawfare, implying that those who uphold international law are waging a new kind of war of attrition on behalf of terror groups like Hamas and Hizbullah.
These trends are likely only to deepen in the coming months and years, making Israel an ever greater pariah in the eyes of much of the world. The mad dog is baring his teeth, and it is high time the international community decided how to deal with him.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East (Pluto Press) and Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook06032010.html
Sabotaging Peace
The Real Motive Behind the Gaza Flotilla Attack
By RANNIE AMIRI
Worldwide outrage and condemnation of Israel's brazen, unprovoked attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, which killed at least nine activists and injured dozens, was predictable and justified. Many remained puzzled, though, as to why Israel thought it necessary to send in elite, rappelling commandos to confront an unarmed civilian flotilla carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the beleaguered territory. The six-ship convoy was co-sponsored by a Turkish humanitarian organization and sailed under Turkey's flag when it was raided in international waters.
The consensus was that Israel was sending a message. Anyone who dared challenge its naval blockade and siege of Gaza would meet a similar fate.
This is a correct yet superficial analysis. The real motive behind the Israeli assault is far more sinister: to deliberately undermine (if not entirely abort) consequential, substantive peace talks with the Palestinians and Syrians, and repay the Turks for negotiating a nuclear fuel-swap deal with Iran (which significantly set back Israel%u2019s case for military intervention).
In essence, it was done to sabotage peace.
We have to set up a dynamic state bent upon expansion, David Ben Gurion famously stated. And peace, stability and diplomacy are obstacles to Zionism's tenets of land acquisition and subjugation of indigenous peoples.
There have been recent calls to advance the indirect, United States-mediated proximity talks taking place between the Israeli government and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. This now seems unlikely.
The opening sentence of a May 31 Associated Press report inferred similarly:
Israel's bloody, bungled takeover of a Gaza-bound Turkish aid vessel is complicating U.S.-led Mideast peace efforts, deepening Israel's international isolation ...
That was exactly the intent. Israel can easily wither international isolation to the degree the U.S. protects it from meaningful sanction. Israel actually covets isolation; it permits it to operate in nothing to lose mode. Expropriation of Palestinian land accelerates and reckless behavior goes unchecked.
Additionally, the attack effectively severs relations with Turkey. Israel wants no part of a non-military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue like the one just brokered by Turkey and Brazil. Turkey's role in mediating between Syria and Israel, for all the perfunctory plaudits the latter gave it, was actually unwelcome and is now off the table as well.
It would not be the first time Israel deliberately provoked a crisis at the expense of civilian lives to further its expansionist agenda, justify war, or use as a campaign issue:
* Six weeks before Israel's 1996 elections, Prime Minister Shimon Peres launched operation Grapes of Wrath, a two-week military blitz in Lebanon conducted in the midst of a two-decade occupation of the south. During it, the Israelis massacred 106 civilians that had sought shelter at a United Nations compound in Qana.
* In September 2000, four months before his election, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (accompanied by 1,000 riot police), paraded through the Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem, which includes al-Aqsa mosque the third holiest site in Islam leading to the Second Intifada.
The United Nations Human Rights Commission, in a resolution titled Grave and massive violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people by Israel, condemned the provocative visit to Al-Haram al-Sharif on 28 September 2000 by Ariel Sharon, the Likud party leader, which triggered the tragic events that followed in occupied East Jerusalem and the other occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in a high number of deaths and injuries among Palestinian civilians.
Sharon then campaigned on putting down the intifada he instigated.
* 1,500 Lebanese were killed, one million displaced, and the country's civil infrastructure decimated during Israel's failed bid to destroy Hezbollah in the July 2006 war. The conflict started after two Israeli commandos were caught snooping around the Lebanese border town of Aitaa al-Chaab. After years of repeated, illegal violations of Lebanese airspace failed to provoke a response, the soldiers capture was the pretense needed to initiate the disproportionate Israeli onslaught.
* The flimsy rationale upon which the 2008-2009 Gaza invasion was based was previously discussed.
The latest Israeli operation against 700 activists delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza is only the latest in a series of criminal endeavors meant to quash any hope for peace, negotiation or conflict resolution between Israel, its neighbors and the Palestinians.
Mission accomplished.
Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator. He may be reached at: rbamiri [at] yahoo [dot] com.
http://www.counterpunch.org/amiri06042010.html
Spaanse premier wil krachtig standpunt van EU over Gaza
De Spaanse regeringsleider José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero heeft zich vandaag uitgesproken voor een "krachtig gemeenschappelijk standpunt van de Europese Unie" over de situatie in Gaza en de Israëlische blokkade. Spanje neemt momenteel het roterende voorzitterschap van de EU waar.
"Wij willen een krachtig gemeenschappelijk standpunt van de EU tot stand brengen over hetgeen er in Gaza is gebeurd en over de humanitaire toestand in dat gebied", verklaarde Zapatero na een onderhoud met de Palestijnse president Palestijns Mahmoud Abbas.
De Spaanse regeringsleider liet ook weten dat zijn minister van Buitenlandse Zaken, Miguel Angel Moratinos, maandag aan de Europese ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken zal voorstellen "dat de Unie zich duidelijk uitspreekt voor het beëindigen van de blokkade van de Gazastrook en dat alle politieke en diplomatieke acties (van de EU) worden ingezet voor dat doel".
Moratinos had eerder deze week al aangekondigd dat de ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken op 14 juni in Luxemburg zullen samenkomen om een gemeenschappelijk standpunt over deze kwestie te ontwikkelen.
http://www.hln.be/hln/nl/960/Buitenland/article/detail/1117715/2010/06/12/Spaanse-premier-wil-krachtig-standpunt-van-EU-over-Gaza.dhtml
EU ready to intensify pressure on Israel to lift Gaza blockade
Spain's prime minister José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero is spearheading EU calls for a stronger stance on Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The European Union is expected to intensify pressure on Israel to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip when its foreign ministers meet in Brussels tomorrow amid calls to adopt a robust position.
Spain, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, will press for a vigorous approach with support from France, Italy and the UK. José Luis Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, called at the weekend for a "strong joint EU position on the siege".
Zapatero said his foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, would argue at the meeting that the EU should "stand up for the end of the blockade on Gaza and that it extends all its political and diplomatic capacity to reach that goal".
Moratinos and his French and Italian counterparts, Bernard Kouchner and Franco Frattini, co-authored an article in the International Herald Tribune last week urging an easing of the blockade.
In the wake of Israel's attack on the flotilla carrying aid to Gaza William Hague, the foreign secretary, described the siege as unacceptable and counterproductive.
The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, told cabinet colleagues today that discussions about Israel's policy towards Gaza, which have included three meetings with the Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair in the past eight days, were continuing.
Blair has been authorised by the Quartet %u2013 the US, UN, EU and Russia %u2013 to try to reach an agreement with Netanyahu on easing the blockade.
He is pressing for Israel to substitute the current "allowed" list of items permitted to enter Gaza %u2013 all items not on the list are forbidden %u2013 for a "banned" list (a limited number of prohibited items, with everything else permitted). The result would be greater transparency and accountability.
Netanyahu told the cabinet: "The principle guiding our policy is clear %u2013 to prevent war material from entering Gaza and to allow the entry of humanitarian aid and non-contraband goods."
Following today's Israeli cabinet meeting, Blair said: "I welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu's clear distinction between Israel's necessity to protect its security and otherwise to allow Gaza people to get the goods and material they require for ordinary life."
Despite the pressure to relax the siege, Israel is reluctant to make a dramatic move which would allow Hamas to claim a victory.
Aid agencies and the UN are also concerned that Israel will restrict any relaxation to essential humanitarian supplies which, although much needed, will not help Gaza's legitimate economy to recover and regain its authority over the black market economy which is based on goods smuggled in via tunnels from Egypt Phil Bloomer, Oxfam's policy director, said: "[Gaza's] conventional economy is in tatters, and without a full lifting of the blockade it will continue on a downward spiral, stopping Gazans rebuild their lives."
Amr Moussa, the secretary-general of the Arab League, arrived in Gaza today in the most high-profile visit by an Arab official since Hamas took control of the territory in June 2007 after winning elections six months earlier.
He was expected to meet the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, to discuss the prospects of reconciliation between Fatah, which dominates the West Bank and is the party of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and Hamas.
He told a press conference in Rafah: "The Palestinians deserve that the world, and not just the Arab world, stand by them in the face of the siege and in the face of what is happening in the occupied territories and Jerusalem."
Two weeks after the lethal attack on the aid flotilla by Israeli commandos, there is still no firm announcement of an inquiry despite international pressure.
There has been speculation that the issue may have become linked to demands for a relaxation of the blockade in that pressure for an independent international inquiry may be eased if Israel agrees to allow more aid into Gaza.
Israel has proposed an internal investigation, headed by a former supreme court judge, Yaakov Tirkel, with up to three international observers. The US has yet to agree to this formula.
Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, today called off a trip to a Paris arms show amid reports that pro-Palestinian groups in France would seek his arrest over the flotilla deaths.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/13/eu-opposes-israel-gaza-blockade 16 oct 2010, 23:08 , Respect -
Maria 14 juni 2010
Israel's Gaza blockade breaks law, says ICRC
ICRC says for first time blockade breaks international law, Urges Hamas to allow Gilad Shalit contact with family By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA,
June 14 (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip violates the Geneva Conventions and called for its lifting.
The neutral humanitarian agency also urged Hamas militants holding Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, captured nearly four years ago in a cross-border raid, to allow his family to have regular contact with him, in line with international law.
Israel's raid on a Gaza aid flotilla two weeks ago, in which nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed, highlighted acute hardships faced by 1.5 million Gazans due to the closure since 2007, it said. They endure unemployment, poverty and warfare, and health care whose quality is at an "all time low". "The whole of Gaza's civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility.
The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law," the ICRC said in a five-page statement. It was the first time the ICRC has said explicitly that Israel's blockade constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law embodied in the Geneva Conventions, an ICRC spokeswoman said.
The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, ratified by Israel, bans collective punishment of a civilian population. Israel is entitled to impose restrictions on military material for legitimate security reasons, but the scope of the closure is disproportionate, covering items of basic necessity, according to the ICRC. "We are urging Israel to put an end to this closure and call upon all those who have an influence on the situation, including Hamas, to do their utmost to help Gaza's civilian population," said Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, head of ICRC operations for the Middle East.
The ICRC said Hamas had continually rebuffed its requests to allow its officials to visit Shalit in detention. "In violation of international humanitarian law, it has also refused to allow him to get in touch with his family," it said.
Under customary international humanitarian law, captors holding detainees must allow them family contacts, while the Geneva Conventions require that they be treated humanely.
Arab League chief Amr Moussa visited the Gaza Strip on Sunday, the highest Arab official to do so since its seizure by Hamas Islamists in 2007, and called for an end to Israel's blockade of the Palestinian territory. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks on Friday with Middle East envoy Tony Blair on the blockade. Netanyahu said on Sunday Israel would continue discussions with the international community to prevent weapons and military equipment from reaching Gaza and to allow in humanitarian aid, an apparent signal it was open to revising blockade procedures.
"Under international humanitarian law, Israel must ensure that the basic needs of Gazans, including adequate health care, are met," the ICRC said. The blockade, about to enter its fourth year, was "choking off any real possibility of economic development", it said.
States are obliged to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief supplies, equipment and personnel, according to ICRC which deploys 100 staff in Gaza."The Palestinian authorities ... must do everything within their power to provide proper health care, supply electricity and maintain infrastructure for Gaza's people," it added. Fuel reserves in Gaza, vital for keeping hospital generators running during daily power cuts, keep drying up, it said. Stocks of essential medical supplies were at an all-time low because of a halt in cooperation between authorities in Ramallah, the Fatah-ruled West Bank, and Gaza, the agency said.
"The state of the health care system in Gaza has never been worse," said ICRC health coordinator Eileen Daly. "Health is being politicised: that is the main reason the system is failing." Only 60 percent of Gazan residents are connected to a sewage collection system, according to the ICRC which voiced concern that drinking water in most of Gaza is unfit for consumption.
http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/56-news/1227-israels-gaza-blockade-breaks-law-says-icrc-
Lord Trimble to be foreign observer in Israel's 'independent' flotilla investigation
Lord Trimble, the Northern Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner, will be a foreign observer in Israel's independent public commission into its naval raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in which nine activists were killed.
A statement from Prime Minister's Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the commission would be chaired by retired Israeli supreme court judge Yaakov Tirkel, while the peer, the former First Minister of Northern Ireland, would be one of two foreign observers along with retired Brig Gen Ken Watkin, the former chief military prosecutor in Canada.
"In light of the exceptional circumstances of the incident, it was decided to appoint two foreign experts who will serve as observers," the statement said.
But it added that Lord Trimble and Brig Gen Watkin "will not have the right to vote in relation to the proceedings and conclusions of the commission".
The Obama administration and the UN have urged Israel to involve foreigners in the investigation, while Turkey and others have demanded an inquiry without Israeli involvement.
The US said they expected the investigation to be carried out "promptly".
"While Israel should be afforded the time to complete its process, we expect Israel's commission and military investigation will be carried out promptly," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
"We also expect that, upon completion, its findings will be presented publicly and will be presented to the international community."
The announcement came after Tony Blair, the Middle East envoy, said he hoped to see movement in the next few days on easing the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, under rising pressure to ease the embargo since a deadly raid on a Turkish-backed aid ship heading to Gaza last month, held talks on the issue with former British Prime Minister Mr Blair on Friday.
Asked when supplies could begin getting through to Gaza, Blair told the BBC: "I think it's got to be pretty soon."
"As fast as the next few days I hope we can get significant movement on this because otherwise I think the pressure will build up," he said.
"As Benjamin Netanyahu has quite rightly said today, there is a way to distinguish between the security aspect and the daily life aspect. And if we keep that distinction in our mind then I think we will get the right answer and we can start that quickly," he said.
Mr Blair said the Palestinian authorities and the European Union, as well as Israel, could play a role in policing the flow of goods into Gaza.
"There are all sorts of different ways that you can help police this material, the main thing is to make whatever policing system you have effective," said Mr Blair, the envoy for the Quartet of international powers the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia seeking peace in the region.
Israel says the embargo it imposed when Hamas rose to power in 2006 is aimed at preventing weapons from reaching the Iranian-backed Islamists who have refused peace initiatives with Israel because they reject its right to exist.
Mr Blair said he believed reconciliation between Hamas and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction was possible.
"For people like myself it would be far better if we were engaging with Hamas constructively. The difficulty is when Hamas are still prepared to say 'we don't give up the use of violence ...'," he said.
"I hope they decide they do want to be part of it (the peace process) because the door is open if they want to go through it," he added.
http://bit.ly/9llr5B
Israel's flotilla probe criticised
Abbas said the Israeli probe did not correspond with UN demands
Turkey and Palestinians have attacked Israel's announcement that it is creating an internal committee to probe its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla last month, saying it did not comply with UN demands.
Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, said Israel was incapable of conducting an "impartial investigation," while Hamas, the body governing the Gaza Strip, said the country's continuing refusal to accept an international probe proved its guilt.
"By refusing the formation of an international committee to investigate the massacre, Israel is condemning itself," said Fawzi Barhum, a Hamas spokesman.
The Israeli cabinet formally ratified the creation of the three-man committee looking into the raid on Monday, following its initial announcement of the probe late on Sunday.
The UN Security Council has demanded that Israel create an impartial and transparent investigation into the attack by Israeli commandos on May 31.
The raid on the flotilla, which was trying to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip, left nine Turkish activists dead.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, said the setting up of an internal committee by Israel did not comply with the UN's demands.
"The proposition made today for the inquiry committee does not correspond to the request of the Security Council," Abbas said in Paris on Monday after meeting Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president.
Turkey had also demanded a UN-led probe and threatened to review its ties with Israel if it did not heed calls for an independent inquiry.
'Uncovering the facts'
The committee set up to investigate the legal aspects of the raid will be chaired by Yaakov Tirkel, 75, a retired Israeli supreme court judge who will work alongside Amos Horev, 86, a retired major general, and Shabtai Rosen, 93, a professor of international law.
It will also include two international observers: David Trimble, 65, an Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Ken Watkin, 55, former judge advocate general of the Canadian military.
It was not clear what powers Trimble and Watkin would have and a statement from Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said they would not be able "to vote in relation to the proceedings and conclusions of the commission".
The two men could also be denied access to information that could "cause substantial harm to national security or to the state's foreign relations," the statement said.
The inquiry will run alongside another internal military probe into the events of May 31, which began last week under Giora Eiland, a retired brigadier general.
Israel has made clear the investigation announced at the weekend will not hear any direct testimony from troops involved in the raid.
"I am convinced that uncovering the facts will prove that Israel acted in an appropriately defensive fashion in accordance with the highest standards," Netanyahu told cabinet members on Monday.
"The committee will clarify to the world that Israel acts according to law with responsibility and full transparency," he said.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201061414383877403.html
Israel appoints Gaza flotilla probe
Two foreign officials will have 'observer' status on the Israeli probe into the May 31 raid [POOL]
Israel has said it will set up its own investigation into a deadly raid on a convoy of Gaza-bound aid ships, and that its panel would include two foreign observers.
A statement from the office of Israel's prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, on Sunday said the commission of inquiry would be headed by Yaakov Turkel, a retired Israeli supreme court judge.
Two non-Israelis, Ken Watkin, a former chief military prosecutor in Canada and David Trimble, a politician and Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Northern Ireland, will have observer status on the probe.
The "independent public commission" proposal will be brought before Israel's cabinet for approval on Monday.
"In light of the exceptional circumstances of the incident, it was decided to appoint two foreign experts who will serve as observers," the statement from Netanyahu's office said.
"The commission may request any information from the Prime Minister, the Minister of Defence, other ministers and the Israel Defence Forces Chief-of-Staff."
The format of the inquiry was decided on after consultations with Washington but falls short of UN calls for an international investigation into the raid which left nine people dead.
"The demand for a UN investigation shows a clear double standard towards Israel," an official in Netanyahu's office said.
Israeli commandos attacked the flotilla on May 31 and killing nine activists on the largest vessel, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara.
Condemnation
Israel has faced international condemnation since the attack, especially from Turkey which had been an ally prior to the raid.
Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president, has said that Israel's raid has caused "irreparable" damage to his country's relations with Israel, and will "never" be forgiven.
Israel has defended its use of force and said its commandos were attacked by passengers on the flotilla wielding metal rods and knives.
The Israeli military has announced its own investigation, focusing on the operational aspects of the raid, and officers and soldiers will not give testimony directly to the
government-ordered inquiry.
Instead the government appointed commission will rely on statements made to the military panel, Netanyahu's office said.
Some Israeli diplomats in Jerusalem have reportedly expressed doubts about whether a commission where Israel investigates itself will satisfy the international community.
'Fair investigation'
Unconfirmed reports in the Israeli press suggest that 'investigators' will not be able to interview naval commandos who took part in the raid or the head of the Israeli navy who issued the orders.
In a statement on Sunday the White House welcomed the move as an important step and said Israel was capable of conducting a fair investigation into the circumstances surrounding the raid.
"But we will not prejudge the process or its outcome, and will await the conduct and findings of the investigation before drawing further conclusions," Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, told reporters.
Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the United Nations said the "international component" would enhance the credibility of an Israeli inquiry.
The original goal of the flotilla campaign was to pressure Israel to cease its blockade of the Gaza strip.
Netanyahu has confirmed that discussions about ending the blockade have taken place between the US, Israel, and Tony Blair, the envoy of the Quartet of Middle East Peacemakers which includes Russia and the European Union.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/201061321535573808.html
Egypt confronts its role in the Gaza blockade
The silver lining in the tragedy of Israel's brutal raid on the Free Gaza flotilla is a new urgency about lifting the blockade on Gaza and addressing the territory's humanitarian crisis. Calls for the blockade to be lifted have been made in the Arab world, in Europe and even, albeit more timidly, by the Obama administration.
But Israel's siege is not the only thing that has been highlighted: the role of Egypt, Tel Aviv's silent partner in the blockade, has also been brought to the fore. This is an uncomfortable development for Egypt, which denies playing any role in the blockade even as it closed its border with Gaza at Rafah since the June, 2007 Hamas takeover. Even now, after quietly opening the Rafah border crossing to avoid popular outrage, the Egyptians are preventing an aid convoy led by the Alexandria Pharmacists Association from reaching the crossing.
The renewed uproar over Rafah has the potential to destabilize Egypt, exponentially raising the cost of its participation in the Israeli-led, Quartet-endorsed blockade -- an outcome that the Egyptians will seek to avoid but is also a concern for their Arab allies, Israel and the Obama administration.
The Egyptians have for the past three years offered an elaborate explanation to deflect blame for their enforcing of the blockade -- despite the fact that the border, with a few exceptions for a few medical cases and hajj pilgrims, has remained closed since June 9, 2007. Whatever the legal merits of Egypt's position, domestically and regionally it lost the moral and political argument: there has been widespread outrage at what is essentially seen as Egyptian collaboration with Israel to punish Gazans for Hamas's actions.
Its intentions have also been made clear by acts that can be best described as petty and vindictive, such as the treatment of last December's Viva Palestina convoy, which arrived at the southern Sinai port of Nuweiba only to be told to it could not disembark: it was forced to go to the northern Sinai port of al-Arish by heading back to Jordan, driving up to Syria, and then chartering a boat to al-Arish. Its reported intention of building an imposing wall across the border has been the subject of intense debate.
Why has Egypt taken such an unpopular hard line towards the Rafah crossing into Gaza? What will it do now?
Firstly, the Egyptian regime has been concerned about the precedent that Hamas' political electoral success in Palestinian elections in January 2006 set for the region, particularly after Egypt's own Muslim Brotherhood secured an unprecedented 20 percent of parliament.
It wants Hamas to fail. Mustafa al-Fiqi, the chairman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, noted at the time, "Egypt will not accept the establishment of an Islamic emirate along the eastern border." Yet, despite its overt and covert support for Fatah and, until June 2006, a substantial intelligence presence in Gaza, it has failed to contain Hamas. This has been a personal failure of Omar Suleiman, Egypt's intelligence chief, who has now spent five years assuring visiting dignitaries he has a plan to reverse Hamas's rise without anything to show for it.
Secondly, Egypt's ties with Israel and the United States have been prioritized over the Palestinian cause, even if this comes at a domestic cost. Between 2006 and 2009, the U.S. Congress aggressively pressured Egypt to do more to constrain weapons smuggling to Gaza, with military aid threatened for the first time.
In 2009, U.S. and Israeli lobbying resulted in the construction of a metal wall at the border and the intensification of operations against tunnel smugglers. There has been a concurrent increase in support for the Mubarak regime in Washington, notably once the Obama administration came into office: not only have pressures on human rights and democratization vanished, but backlogged military purchases such as a multi-year $3.2 billion F-16 deal have been approved by Congress.
While this is in part because of the new administration's wish to distance itself from Bush administration policies, it is also due to its perception that Cairo is a crucial ally in its handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Of course, Egypt also has legitimate security concerns about Hamas' control of Gaza. It is concerned about radicalization of the territory and believes that Gazan groups more radical than Hamas may have provided training for the terrorists who carried out three major attacks in Sinai between 2004 and 2006. (It is generally believed Hamas has imposed order in Gaza and checked smaller radical groups and criminal gangs.)
The issue of weapons smuggling not only affects Israel's security, but also Egypt's, as stockpiles of explosives discovered in Sinai over the past year suggests. The dismantling of a network of Hizbullah network last year, recognized by Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah to be involved in smuggling to Gaza, has also raised concerns that Egypt could be drawn into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Even worse, officials fear a plan to "dump" the problem of Gaza on Egypt's lap, something Israeli strategists have contemplated for decades. Already facing tense relations with the Bedouin population of Eastern Sinai, the regime has no desire to become responsible for Gaza, one of the most radicalized places on the planet.
But perhaps most importantly, it is the Mubarak regime's own security that is threatened. During the Gaza war, Nasrallah made an unprecedented call for the Egyptian military, as well as citizens, to force the regime to open the border.
Many officials I spoke to during the war felt that the "resistance front" of Iran, Syria, Qatar, Hizbullah and Hamas -- as well as pro-Palestinian activists around the world and media outlets such al-Jazeera or al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper -- was waging war on Egypt as much as Israel. It was a flashback to the 1980s, when Egypt had been kicked out of the Arab League for signing a separate peace deal.
The regime has been suppressing activism on Gaza, despite growing tolerance for activism on other issues in the last decade. Campaigns against the blockade have been thoroughly suppressed, with even the new independent press treading carefully on the issue. Pro-Gaza activists have been arrested and foreign activists deported.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which has organized one of the biggest aid drives for Gaza, has nonetheless refrained from any major demonstration condemning the regime on its Gaza policy since the war. Battered by a wave of arrests in the last three years, the Brotherhood has been unwilling to risk more clashes with the regime. There are few issues as sensitive as Gaza policy in Egypt today. Meanwhile, senior officials such as Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Gamal Mubarak, the president's son, have articulated an "Egypt First" policy that is widely echoed in the official press, often relying on anti-Palestinian stereotypes and chauvinism.
Parts of the opposition have suggested alternatives to the current policy, though. After the flotilla incident, Mohamed ElBaradei -- the former IAEA chief who is campaigning for democratic change in Egypt -- called for the opening of Rafah and slammed the regime, tweeting that "the opening of the Rafah crossing is the demand of every Egyptian and Arab.
In a democracy, foreign policy represents the will of its people." Short of opening full trade relations, providing humanitarian assistance is a more likely scenario. Essam al-Erian, a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Gaza aid organizer, is one of many who argues that opening the border to Gazans is not incompatible with national security, since safeguards can be put in place. This is a reasonable position, albeit one the government has chosen to ignore.
It is not clear how "Egypt First" will fare in the wake of the outcry over the flotilla incident. The very first statement issued by the Egyptian presidency after the incident was that "the blockade can only be lifted when Palestinian reconciliation takes place" -- the standing policy -- only to be overturned hours later by a presidential directive to open the border "for an indefinite time."
With thousands protesting in Cairo and around the country over several days -- and participants chanting anti-Mubarak slogans and making the link between the regime and Israel explicit -- closing Rafah was no longer tenable. More likely, though, is a policy of deliberate ambiguity: while Palestinians have crossed through the Rafah terminal in the last few days, much of the aid is still getting held back or being made to go through Karam Abu Salem. There is no clear commitment to keep Rafah open, and Cairo has lobbied hard at the Arab League to keep diplomacy focused on action at the U.N. Security Council and away from Egyptian policy.
Egypt's next concern will be the future of the blockade. In the short term, international focus will be on providing humanitarian relief and construction materials. Ultimately, though, Gazans and their supporters worldwide want to restore the economic integrity of the Palestinian Occupied Territories -- their ability to trade among themselves and with rest of the world.
For this, international support for Palestinian reconciliation would be necessary. Egypt's position will be that that it is up to Israel to do that, with international support, on its side of the border. The Obama administration is reportedly pushing Israel to relax the enforcement of the blockade.
But what if Israel refuses to budge? If there is no breakthrough, the pressure returns on opening Rafah -- and the last thing Egypt wants is to be seen as responsible for Gaza. Its priority is thus to ensure it does not come out a loser from the fallout of the flotilla incident. The Mubarak regime is being confronted by its complicity in the Gaza blockade just as its legitimacy has plummeted amidst uncertainty over Mubarak's health (he was hospitalized for three weeks in March and is rumored to have cancer) and Egypt's future leadership. That too will play a role in the calculations of not only the Egyptians, but also the Obama administration.
http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/06/04/egypt_confronts_its_role_in_the_gaza_blockade
Q&A: Why Israel's siege is illegal
The International Committee of the Red Cross has described Israel's blockade of Gaza as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
That conclusion rests on the Israeli government' status as an occupying power in Gaza, which assigns it certain obligations to the people of Gaza.
Those obligations are spelt out in detail by the Fourth Geneva Convention. At their most basic, though, they require Israel to provide for the basic needs of the people, particularly food and medical care.
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.
The convention also requires the occupying power to allow sufficient shipments of aid - food, clothing, medical supplies and other essentials - and to take steps to preserve the health care system in the occupied territory.
Many Gazans rely on generators for power; their improper use has killed more than 100 people
Israel does not meet those basic requirements, according to many observers. Eighty per cent of people living in Gaza rely on food aid to survive; 14 per cent of children suffer from stunted growth due to malnutrition.
Power cuts are routine: 98 per cent of the population copes with routine blackouts. Fuel supplies are heavily restricted.
More than 100 basic medicines are unavailable in Gaza, and the territory's few remaining hospitals - several were damaged during the 2008-2009 Israeli war in Gaza - lack basic supplies and equipment.
But didn't Israel withdraw from Gaza? How is it still an occupying power?
It's true that the Israeli government no longer has a presence inside the Gaza Strip. Former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon ordered the withdrawal of all Israelis (including both soldiers and settlers) from the territory in his 2005 "unilateral disengagement plan".
But the Fourth Geneva Convention applies whenever a state has "effective control" over a territory. The Israeli government still controls Gaza's airspace, and its land and sea borders. The only goods and people allowed into Gaza are those approved by the Israeli government.
Last month's raid on the aid flotilla bound for Gaza is an instructive example. The organisers of the flotilla say their boats were on course to travel through Gazan waters, not Israeli waters. But the Israeli army still attacked the flotilla to prevent it from entering Gaza - showing that Israel maintains control over Gaza.
If there was no occupation, would the blockade still be illegal?
The principle of proportionality is central to international law: The military advantage gained by an action must outweigh the harm caused to the civilian population.
Douglas Guilfoyle, a maritime legal expert, says the blockade does not meet the proportionality test
The blockade does not meet this test. It imposes hardships on the entire population of Gaza - 1.5 million people - purportedly in order to achieve a limited military aim: preventing Hamas from firing rockets at Israel.
What's more, documents revealed last week by the Israeli human rights organisation Gisha show that the blockade actually has a political aim, not a military one. A written statement from the Israeli government described the blockade as "economic warfare" and said it was intended to break Hamas's control over the government in Gaza.
What about the Egyptian government?
The Egyptian border crossing with Gaza, at Rafah, has been mostly sealed since Hamas took power in June of 2007. (The Egyptian government reopened the crossing earlier this month following Israel's raid on the aid flotilla.)
But Egypt is not an occupying power in Gaza - it does not exercise "effective control" over the territory - so, whatever the moral and political arguments against its blockade, it is not required to apply the same legal standard as Israel.
(2:53) Gaza's deadly power shortage Many Gazans rely on generators for power; their improper use has killed more than 100 people
(5:55) Is Israel's blockade legal?