Israel has long used terror on the populations under its control in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This I have witnessed with my own eyes and the historical record is pretty clear. And yet I confess to being astounded by this morning's attack of a Free Gaza Movement convoy in international waters, in which 10 humanitarian activists appear to have been killed.
Israel's public information on fatal incidents is often wrong, and often changes once the facts become undeniable, as happened with the killing of two Palestinians at Awarta in the spring. But on this occasion even their immediate spin is feeble. The people whose boat we just boarded in international waters to thwart their effort to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza again..."were dead set on confrontation"!
This is not a typical oppressive state. This is not Saudi Arabia, North Korea or Burma, whose regimes brutalise their own. This is a belligerent anomaly whose agenda is the slow but irrevocable crushing of those who dare to have roots in the land they have conquered, who will be starved out if they cannot be driven out, who will be legislated off their land if they don't accept the law of the almighty incomers.
The story of states is almost always soaked in blood: Israel's birth is nothing compared to that of the USA. Our countries have no moral high ground. But if we care about justice and freedom we should no longer be cowards in the face of the vile acts perpetrated in the name of the Middle East's only "democracy". If Obama has any guts, this is his moment to prove it.
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World: Global March Against the Syrian Dictator
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March 15 will mark the anniversary of the start of the Syrian revolution.
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On the 'confrontation' point.
A blockade - even an immoral and illegal on such as this - is a fact on the ground. If you try to get past it, you are seeking a confrontation.
The confrontation happened because of Israeli intransigence. No-one on the flotilla was "seeking confrontation". The activists were dead-set on ignoring Israel's effective claim to sovereignty over another people's territory and water. Confrontation was neither a means nor an end, any more than for, say, the Sikhs gathered at Jallianwala Bagh.
To say that either case occurred because the slaughtered were "dead-set on confrontation" is an insult to the dead that only the most power-addled mind could formulate. Confrontation happened at the point state-backed pirates boarded ships in international waters.
Of course it is plausible that Israel went in guns blazing - that sort of thing has been known.
But it is also plausible that there were activists on the flotilla who sought martyrdom. That sort of thing is also quite common in this conflict. Not least because of all the publicity that it gets.
The video of activists hitting soldiers with metal bars seems to indicate it was the latter - although it was Israel's video.
The fact that we disagree with the blockade doesn't change the fact that it exists, and that anybody trying to pass through it should expect to be boarded.
Had you not heard about the flotilla before? It's a pretty regular civil resistance action not some unprecedented anomaly as the press seem to be reporting it, and everyone involved has to sign a nonviolence pledge.
Why would a non-violence pledge make a difference in any blockade?
And why sign such a pledge and then attack the anticipated boarding party with metal poles?
I refer you to my earlier answer! Confrontation happened at the point state-backed pirates boarded ships in international waters.
Someone tells you that you're not allowed to take medicines to a dying relative. You continue to do so because you don't recognise their right to tell you what to do. They intercept you at gunpoint on the way to deliver the drugs and you attempt to resist their attacks using your body - oh go on then, with a pole. You are dead-set on confrontation?
The cargo at dispute was the construction materials not the drugs. The drugs were offered safe passage via Ashdod.
But yes. Attacking someone better armed than yourself, is seeking confrontation and martyrdom, whoever is initially in the wrong.
The blockade isn't illegal or immoral. Check your legal facts before making those accusations. The idiots who went along with the terrorists who organized the whole thing, and ended up used as human shields, are the main problem. The terrorists were just doing what they always do - try to kill as many Jews as possible before going to their 72 virgins. The IDF bent over backwards to NOT have casualties (using paintball guns yet!) because of those 'peaceful activists' on board - and nearly got themselves beaten to death for their trouble.
Legality is contested, but it is also something of a red herring.
The Free Gaza Movement is now "terrorist?" Nine dead thanks to paintball guns? It's startling how low Israel's apologists will stoop.
"I think the Israeli military went out to commit murder."
Are these the comments of Israeli government spin artists? They certainly appear so. They have turned the Gaza strip into a ghetto. Time and again when the British have turned former protectorates over to the leaders of their terrorist "Freedom Fighters" they have established the most brutal regimes imaginable, just look at Zimbabwe and Burma. The most shocking aspect here is the refusal to learn from history. What the nazis did in the mid 20th Century almost defies belief and any right-minded person will do all they can to stop the unspeakable depravity they now know humans are capable of. You would think that with the closeness of so many of its people to this depravity, their government would have some empathy with similarly repressed peoples, yet they are among the small but alarming band of shocking perpetrators in the world. We were all shocked when we learned of the ghettos created by the nazis and what is particularly abhorant about this is that the children of the victims have gone on to create their own ghetto in Gaza. Just as with other "inhuman" acts such as child abuse, the victims have grown into the perpetrators.
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