The day the world became Gaza
By Ali Abunimah | Al-Jazeera | June 3, 2010
Since Israel’s invasion and massacre of over 1,400 people in Gaza 18 months ago, dubbed Operation Cast Lead, global civil society movements have stepped up their campaigns for justice and solidarity with Palestinians.
Governments, by contrast, carried on with business as usual, maintaining a complicit silence.
Israel’s lethal attack on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza may change that, spurring governments to follow the lead of their people and take unprecedented action to check Israel’s growing lawlessness.
Lip service
One of the bitterest images from Operation Cast Lead was that of smiling European Union heads of government visiting Jerusalem and patting Ehud Olmert, the then Israeli prime minister, on the back as white phosphorus still seared the flesh of Palestinian children a few miles away.
Western countries sometimes expressed mild dismay at Israel’s “excessive” use of force, but still justified the Gaza massacre as “self-defence” – even though Israel could easily have stopped rocket fire from Gaza, if that was its goal, by returning to the negotiated June 2008 ceasefire it egregiously violated the following November.
When the UN-commissioned Goldstone Report documented the extensive evidence of Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the willful killings of unarmed civilians, few governments paid more than lip service to seeing justice done.
Even worse, after Cast Lead, EU countries and the US sent their navies to help Israel enforce a blockade on Gaza which amounts to collective punishment of the entire population and thus violates the Fourth Geneva Convention governing Israel’s ongoing occupation.
Not one country sent a hospital ship to help treat or evacuate the thousands of wounded, many with horrific injuries that overwhelmed Gaza’s hospitals.
Carrot and stick
The blockade has never been – as Israel and its apologists claim – to stop the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.
Its goal has always been political: to cause the civilian population as much suffering as possible – while still politically excusable – in order for the Palestinians in Gaza to reject and rise up against the Hamas leadership elected in January 2006.
The withholding of food, medicine, schoolbooks, building supplies, among thousands of other items, as well as the right to enter and leave Gaza for any purpose became a weapon to terrorise the civilian population.
At the same time, Western aid was showered on the occupied West Bank – whose ordinary people are still only barely better off than in Gaza – in a “carrot and stick” policy calculated to shift support away from Hamas and toward the Western-backed, unelected Palestinian Authority leadership affiliated with the rival Fatah faction, who have repeatedly demonstrated their unconditional willingness to collaborate with Israel no matter what it does to their people.
“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,” senior Israeli government advisor Dov Weisglass notoriously explained in 2006. By this standard the blockade – supported by several Arab governments and the Quartet (the US, EU, UN secretary-general, and Russia) has been a great success, as numerous studies document alarming increases in child malnutrition as the vast majority of Gaza’s population became dependent on UN food handouts. Hundreds have died for lack of access to proper medical care.
Filling the ‘moral void’
While inaction and complicity characterised the official response, global civil society stepped in to fill the moral and legal void.
In the year and a half since Cast Lead, the global, Palestinian-led campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions on Israel (BDS) has been racking up impressive victories.
From the decisions by Norway’s pension funds and several European banks to divest from certain Israeli companies, to university divestment initiatives, the refusals by international artists to perform in Israel, or the flashmobs that have brought the consumer boycott to supermarkets around the world, Israel sees BDS as a growing “existential threat”.
At this point, the effect may be more psychological than economic but it is exactly the feeling of increasing isolation and pariah status that helped push South Africa’s apartheid rulers to recognise that their regime was untenable and to seek peaceful change with the very people they had so long demonised, dehumanised and oppressed.
Indeed, the BDS movement is only likely to gather pace: world-best-selling Swedish author Henning Mankell who was among the passengers on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara kidnapped and taken to Israel, said on being freed: “I think we should use the experience of South Africa, where we know that the sanctions had a great impact.”
The Freedom Flotilla represented the very best, and most courageous of this civil society spirit and determination not to abandon fellow human beings to the cruelty, indifference and self-interest of governments.
The immediate response to Israel’s attack on the Flotilla may indicate that governments too are starting to come out of their slumber and shed the paralysing fear of criticising Israel that has assured its impunity for so long.
Growing gap
Indeed, the global reaction demonstrates the growing gap between the US and Israel on one side and the rest of the world on the other.
While Israeli officials scrambled to offer justifications from the ludicrous (elite commandos armed with paint ball guns) to the benign (the attack was an “inspection”), the US has once again stood behind its ally unconditionally.
As the Obama administration forced a watered-down presidential statement in the UN Security Council, Israeli apologists in the mainstream US media repeatedly attempted to excuse Israel’s actions as lawful and legitimate.
Senior administration officials, including Joe Biden, the vice president, openly began to echo their Israeli counterparts that Israel’s attack was not only legitimate but justified by its security needs.
Despite the predictable and shameless US reaction, international condemnation has been unusually robust.
In his speech to the Turkish parliament following the attack, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, denounced Israeli “state terrorism” and demanded that the international community exact a price.
Erdogan vowed that “Turkey will never turn its back on Gaza,” and that it would continue its campaign to lift the blockade and hold Israel accountable even if it had to do so alone.
There are hopeful signs it may not have to.
European and other countries summoned Israeli ambassadors and several recalled their envoys from Tel Aviv.
Franco Frattini, the Italian foreign minister and one of Israel’s staunchest apologists in Europe, said his country “absolutely deplored the slaying of civilians” and demanded that Israel “must give an explanation to the international community” of killings he deemed “absolutely unacceptable, whatever the flotilla’s aims”.
Small countries showed the greatest courage and clarity. Nicaragua suspended diplomatic ties completely, citing Israel’s “illegal attack”. Brian Cowen, Ireland’s prime minister, told parliament in Dublin that his government had “formally requested” of Israel that the vessel Rachel Corrie still heading toward Gaza, be allowed to proceed, and warned of the “most serious consequences” should Israel use violence against it.
The boat – named after the young American peace activist killed by Israeli occupation forces in Gaza in 2003 – is carrying Malaysian and Irish activists and politicians including Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire.
Crossed a threshold
These are still small actions, but they indicate Israel may have crossed a threshold where it can no longer take appeasement and complicity for granted.
It is a cumulative process – each successive outrage has diminished the reserve of goodwill and forbearance Israel enjoyed.
Even if most governments are not quite ready to go from words to effective actions, growing public outrage will eventually push them to impose official sanctions.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, may have hastened that day with his fulsome pride in, and praise for, the slaughter at sea even after the outpouring of international condemnation.
Despite its intensive efforts to hide and spin what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara in the early hours of May 31, the world saw Israel use exactly the sort of indiscriminate brutality documented in the Goldstone Report.
This time, however, it was not just “expendable” Palestinians or Lebanese who were Israel’s victims but people from 32 countries and every continent. It was the day the whole world became Gaza. And like the people of Gaza, the world is unlikely to take it lying down.
‘If you express solidarity with Palestinians, then you will have Palestinian experiences’
By Philip Weiss on June 3, 2010
Two thoughts on the meaning of the Israeli violence.
There is of course a big effort in the western press now to make the flotilla members into violent people, provocateurs, engaged by cool Israeli commandos. I must tell you my one actual experience of this dynamic.
In January, I attended a demonstration against the occupation in the West Bank village of al-Masara. I wrote about it here: “An English politician watches Israeli soldiers lose control at a peaceful demonstration and vows to bear witness.”
The headline sums it up. About 100 demonstrators, Israelis and Palestinians and internationals, marched toward an illegal settlement (Efrat) and the confiscatory wall. They were stopped by a line of Israeli soldiers, some of whom were young and obviously nervous, standing at a line of concertina wire. The demonstrators shouted at the Israeli soldiers. I saw fear on a couple of the young men’s faces. And before you knew it the Israeli soldiers were pushing people back forcefully, even dragging them, and then firing stun grenades at us.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a stun grenade go off, but it’s pretty terrifying, the first time, when a soldier hurls a black cylinder and it explodes; you think it’s live. And I have seen reports that these grenades were used on board the boat.
The soldiers ran the demonstrators a half mile back into the village amid mayhem. The lesson of the experience was the one that English politician took away– Catharine Arakelian, a candidate for Parliament, whom I met– that the Israelis had turned a nonviolent demonstration into an out-of-control situation.
So when people say that flotilla passengers tried to lynch the Israeli soldiers, or started the violence, I find that extremely doubtful.
I saw the way that Israel turns to violence as a tool, outside its own borders.
The second thought I have is also from that trip to the Middle East.
When I was in Egypt with the Gaza Freedom March last December, blocked by the Egyptians from entering Gaza, an older member of the group said to me, “When you express solidarity with Palestinians, you will find that you have Palestinian experiences, and you will experience their bitterness.”
He meant that if you walked a ways in the Palestinians’ shoes, you’d experience actual persecution. You’d find that governments and authorities dole out to you some of what the Palestinians experience–from actual violence to being silenced. And so you’d understand the Palestinian experience– and try to hurry back into your privileged life.
This seems to me the lesson of the Turkish boat, and also of Emily Henochowicz, the 21-year-old Cooper Union student who was blinded by Israeli soldiers in a protest of the flotilla raid, whose face is now having to be reconstructed. All these people have now had doled out to them some of the violence and abuse — and lies — that has been the Palestinian experience since 1948.
Of course it makes their courage all the more impressive.
But more important, it shows that the Palestinian experience under fearful Israeli rule is not the experience of animals or terrorists. It is a human experience. It could be you.
Israeli MP’s Terror on Aid Ship: ‘Plan Was to Kill Activists’
By Jonathan Cook – June 2, 2010
An Arab member of the Israeli parliament who was on board the international flotilla that was attacked on Monday as it tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza accused Israel yesterday of intending to kill peace activists as a way to deter future convoys.
Haneen Zoubi said Israeli naval vessels had surrounded the flotilla’s flagship, the Mavi Marmara, and fired on it a few minutes before commandos abseiled from a helicopter directly above them.
Terrified passengers had been forced off the deck when water was sprayed at them. She said she was not aware of any provocation or resistance by the passengers, who were all unarmed.
She added that within minutes of the raid beginning, three bodies had been brought to the main room on the upper deck in which she and most other passengers were confined. Two had gunshot wounds to the head, in what she suggested had been executions.
Two other passengers slowly bled to death in the room after Israeli soldiers ignored messages in Hebrew she had held up at the window calling for medical help to save them. She said she saw seven other passengers seriously wounded.
“Israel had days to plan this military operation,” she told a press conference in Nazareth. “They wanted many deaths to terrorise us and to send a message that no future aid convoys should try to break the siege of Gaza.”
Released early yesterday by police, apparently because of her parliamentary immunity, she said she was speaking out while most of the hundreds of other peace activists were either being held by Israel for deportation or were under arrest.
Three other leaders of Israel’s large Palestinian Arab minority, including Sheikh Raed Salah, a spiritual leader, were arrested as their ships docked in the southern port of Ashdod. Lawyers said that under Israeli law they could be held and questioned for up to 30 days without being charged.
Contradicting Israeli claims, Ms Zoubi said a search by the soldiers after they took control of the Marmara discovered no arms or other weapons.
It was vital, she added, that the world demand an independent UN inquiry to find out what had happened on the ship rather than allow Israel to carry out a “whitewash” with its own military investigation.
Ms Zoubi spoke as Palestinians inside both Israel and the occupied territories observed a general strike called by their leaders. A statement from the High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, described the raid on the flotilla as “state-sponsored terrorism”.
Demonstrations and marches in most of the main Palestinian towns and villages in Israel passed off quietly. Local analysts described the mood as angry but subdued, not least because of the openly hostile climate that has developed towards Palestinian citizens since crackdowns on their protests during the Israeli attack on Gaza 18 months ago.
However, police were reported to have been put on high alert, with thousands of extra officers drafted into the north, where most Palestinian citizens live.
On Monday, clashes between protesters and police broke out close to the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City and in the northern town of Umm al Fahm after false rumours circulated that Sheikh Salah, the leader of Israel’s main Islamic Movement, had been killed in the Israeli naval operation.
Even before the attack on the flotilla, the country’s Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population, had been braced for a backlash from the government and Jewish public for its leaders’ participation in the flotilla. As the ships set sail, Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, had asked whether Ms Zoubi was an “MP in the service of Hamas”.
But faced with the severe diplomatic fall-out from Israel’s killing of peace activists, Israel’s Palestinian leaders warned that they were likely to come under even fiercer criticism in coming days.
Yesterday right-wing parties launched their first attacks on Ms Zoubi, demanding the revocation of her immunity and her expulsion from the parliament. Danny Danon, a member of the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, called for her to be “tried for treason”.
In her statement on the attack, Ms Zoubi said that at 4am on Monday she had seen at least 14 Israeli boats surround their ship 130km out at sea, in international waters.
She said the passengers had been gripped with fear at the noise and confusion as the commandos abseiled on to the deck. “I did not believe we were going to survive more than five minutes,” she said.
Taleb al Sana, another Arab MP, supported Ms Zoubi’s contention that Israeli claims that the commandos shot only at the passengers’ legs were false. “I have visited the wounded in hospital and they all have shot wounds to the head and body,” he said.
Adalah, a legal centre for Israel’s Arab minority, said nine lawyers had been given limited access yesterday afternoon to the hundreds of activists detained in the southern city of Beersheva and were trying to take testimonies “in very difficult circumstances”.
Its lawyers and human rights groups were also trying to track down who had been injured and where they being treated.
“Our view is that Israel is intentionally trying to obstruct this work and is enforcing an information blackout,” said Gaby Rubin, a spokeswoman for Adalah.
– 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.
Concern grows over flotilla missing and prisoners
Free Gaza Movement & ISM London | June 1, 2010
International Solidarity Movement volunteers today expressed grave concern over the fate of wounded, imprisoned and missing flotilla activists.
The group said, with an information blackout from Israel preventing news of their plight reaching the media, speculation is mounting about the Internationals’ safety.
Theresa MacDermott (Scotland) Ewa Jasiewicz (Britain/Poland) and Caoimhe Butterly (Ireland) along with hundreds of other civilian passengers have not been heard from since before the Israeli attack on Monday morning.[1]
Israel has today refused Free Gaza lawyers permission to make contact with the human Rights defenders.
Sharyn Lock (England), founding member of The FreeGaza Movement and author of Gaza: Beneath the Bombs, said today:
“Through my experience volunteering with ambulances in Palestine, I know Israel regularly lets civilians die without allowing medical aid reach them.”[2]
She went on to say:
“It is deplorable that family and friends are being refused contact or information and we can only speculate as to their whereabouts and injuries.”
“We call on the EU member States to fulfil their obligation to protect the safety of human rights defenders.[3] We demand that Israel allows access to the injured and imprisoned immediately.” added Vittorio Arrigoni (Italy) who was himself injured by Israeli gunboats in 2008.
ISMers and former flotilla passengers Eva Bartlett (Canada) and Alberto Arce (Spain) are also waiting to hear from their missing colleagues.
“All of us are nonviolent activists who have personally come under fire from Israeli forces, and several of us have been wounded or detained. It is common for Israeli forces to open fire with live rounds on unarmed civilians, both Palestinian and Internationals.” said Eva, from Gaza.[4]
Human rights defenders in Gaza are attacked on a daily basis. Amongst them are Bianca Zammit (Malta), who was shot while accompanying farming families in Gaza on April 25th, 2010[5] and Adie Mormech (England),who was kidnapped and imprisoned after the FreeGaza boat The Spirit of Humanity was forcibly boarded by Israel on June 30, 2009.
All the ISMers mentioned in this release are available now for comment.
Contact
- Sharyn Lock (Free Gaza Movement, England) +44 7881651 259
- ISM London, +44 7913 067 189
- Vittorio Arrigoni (Italy, based in Gaza) +972 5977 50820
- Eva Bartlett (Canada, based in Gaza) +972 5987 10648
- Adie Mormech (England, based in Gaza) +972 5977 17696
- Bianca Zammit (Malta, based in Gaza) +972 5975 89688
- Alberto Arce (Spain) +0034 6556 50048
Notes
- Ewa Jaciezicz is a freelance journalist. She and Caoimhe Butterly have trained as First Responder Medics. Theresa MacDermott is a postal worker.
- Alongside flotilla passengers Caoimhe and Ewa, Eva Bartlett, Sharyn Lock, Alberto Arce, and Vittorio Arrigoni worked daily with Palestinian medics during Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, with Eva and Alberto filming the shooting by an Israeli sniper of medic Hassan as he tried to retrieve a body. The footage taken by Alberto and Mohammed Rujailah became their award-winning film “To Shoot an Elephant” Alongside flotilla passenger Theresa MacDermott in 2008, Vittorio Arrigoni, Eva Bartlett, and Sharyn Lock came under regular fire as they accompanied unarmed Gaza fishermen, who are often shot at not only within three miles of the Gaza shore, but actually on the beach.
- EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders:http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cmsUpload/GuidelinesDefenders.pdfWith related resources here:
http://www.ishr.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=189&Itemid=267
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/defenders/docs/Frontlinehandbook.pdf
- Bianca Zammit received a gunshot to the thigh when Israeli soldiers fired on farming families, Gaza, 2010. Vittorio Arrigoni required ten stitches after Israeli gunboats attacked the fishing boats he was accompanying, Gaza sea 2008. Caoimhe Butterly recieved a gunshot to the thigh while rescuing Palestinian children, West Bank 2002. Sharyn Lock was shot in the stomach from an Israeli armoured personel carrier while walking backwards with her hands in the air, one of ten internationals injured, West Bank 2002.
- Bianca says:
Israeli soldiers fire live ammunition at unarmed civilians, farmers and activists without any inhibition. On the day they shot me soldiers were shooting aggressively at the demonstrators. It was clear they had a policy of at least “shooting to injure”. I was filming and documenting when the bullet struck my leg. For me this was a clear message that Israeli soldiers do not hesitate to shoot at internationals but also that they feel threatened by our work.
Released Detainees Deny Being Armed, Say Israel Used Bullets, Gas, Electroshock
Al-Manar TV – June 1, 2010
Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi, who was on board the Marmara ship when it was raided by Navy fighters, held a press conference in Nazareth on Tuesday, in which she accused Israel of committing crimes during its takeover of the Gaza-bound aid ship. She called for an international inquiry into the incident.
Zoabi added, “It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.”
She said the flotilla’s participants did not have any violent intentions: “Our goal was to break the siege. We had no plans for a confrontation. Israel carried out a provocative military operation. Israel is used to doing as it pleases with the Palestinians. The main problem is not the ship, but the siege.”
She also demanded the activists held in Beersheba be allowed visitation. “We also demand a UN inquiry commission probe the Israeli claims. This is an international issue, because the passengers were from different nations.”
Of the raid itself, she said, “I entered the captain’s room. He was asked to stop by the Israeli soldiers. He said, ‘We are a Turkish ship.’ We were 130 miles off. It was 11:30 pm. We saw four Israel vessels, they were at a distance because we were in international waters. At 4:15 am we saw the ships approaching. They were dinghies and choppers. At 4:30 am the forces landed quickly. I did not hear any warning from the ships, because noise was coming from the ships and the choppers. Within 10 minutes there were already three bodies. The entire operation took about an hour.”
She denied any resistance from the ship’s passengers. “There was not a single passenger who raised a club. We put on our life vests. From where I was standing, I didn’t see any clubs or anything of the sort. There were gunshots, I don’t know if they were live bullets or not. There were gunshots fired from the ships in our direction.”
“A clear message was being sent to us, for us to know that our lives were in danger. We convened that we were not interested in a confrontation. What we saw was five bodies. There were only civilians and there were no weapons. There was a sense that I many not come out of it alive. Israel spoke of a provocation, but there was no provocation.”
Zoabi was released to her home Tuesday morning after being questioned.
Shortly before the takeover, Zoabi said, “We are part of the Palestinian people. They are trying to break us. The ships took us by surprise and started to call out to us. For four years, no one spoke about Gaza. Only in this past week did the entire world get to the war crimes of Israel, a country that occupies and violates basic humanitarian rights.”
GREEK ACTIVIST: ISRAELIS USED BULLETS AND ELECTROSHOCK
Moreover, a Greek activist told of the moment Israeli troops stormed the ill-fated Gaza-bound aid flotilla, using rubber bullets, tear gas and electroshock weapons to subdue those aboard. “Israeli troops jumped onto the boat around 0530 on Monday,” Michalis Grigoropoulos said of the pre-dawn raid by Israeli forces.
Grigoropoulos was aboard the Eleftheri Mesogeio, smaller than the lead boat, the Mavi Marmara, which Israeli troops had attacked earlier. “They fired rubber coated bullets, tear gas and then used electroshock weapons on some activists,” he told Skai television shortly after Israel deported him and five compatriots to Athens.
“An hour beforehand, at 0430 local time, we heard gunfire on the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, the Israelis jumped from helicopters onto the boat,” he said.
Israel is still holding hundreds of the 686 passengers they seized and took back to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where Grigoropoulos said he was kept incommunicado, denied access to a lawyer and made to sign papers he did not understand.
Grigoropoulos criticized “the wretched detention conditions at Ashdod (where) 500 people were packed in together” saying that “two Greek activists were beaten up” there by Israeli police. “They made me sign papers on my expulsion, without me knowing what was on the papers because I did not have the right to a translator, a lawyer or to communicate with my family,” he said.
The Eleftheri Mesogeio’s captain, Zaharias Stilianakis, who was among those returned to Athens, said that “after their assault on the boat, the commandos cut all means of communication.”
GERMAN WITNESSES: NO ONE ARMED ON GAZA FLOTILLA
Three visibly shaken Germans who experienced the deadly raid by the Israeli military denied on Tuesday that anyone on board was armed. “The Israeli government justifies the raid because they were attacked. This is absolutely not the case,” former Member of Parliament Norman Paech, 72, wrapped in a blue blanket, told reporters in Berlin. “This was not an act of self-defense.”
His comments were backed up by two others on board the convoy when it was raided at dawn on Monday in international waters, MPs Inge Hoeger, 59, and Annette Groth, 56. “We felt like we were in a war, like we were being kidnapped,” Hoeger said. “We wanted to bring aid to Gaza. Nobody had a weapon.”
US activist loses eye after being shot in face with tear gas canister
International Solidarity Movement | 31 May 2010
US citizen Emily Henochowicz was shot directly in the face with a tear gas canister as she non-violently demonstrated against the Flotilla massacre
31 May 2010: An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel’s murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.
21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.
“They clearly saw us,” said Sören Johanssen, a Swedish ISM volunteer standing with Henochowicz. “They clearly saw that we were internationals and it really looked as though they were trying to hit us. They fired many canisters at us in rapid succession. One landed on either side of Emily, then the third one hit her in the face.”
Henochowicz is an art student at the prestigious Cooper Union, located in East Village, Manhattan.
The demonstration was one of many that took place across the West Bank today in outrage over the Israeli military’s attack on the Gaza freedom flotilla and blatant violation of international law. Demonstrations also took place in inside Israel, Gaza and Jerusalem, with clashes occurring in East Jerusalem and Palestinian shopkeepers in the occupied Old City closing their businesses for the day in protest.
Henochowicz lost her left eye after being shot directly in the face with a tear gas canister
Tear gas canisters are commonly used against demonstrators in the occupied West Bank. In May 2009, the Israeli State Attorney’s Office ordered Israeli Police to review its guidelines for dispersing demonstrators, following the death of a demonstrator, Bassem Abu Rahmah from Bil’in village, caused by a high velocity tear-gas projectile. Tear-gas canisters are meant to be used as a means of crowd dispersal, to be shot indirectly at demonstrators and from a distance. However, Israeli forces frequently shoot canisters directly at protesters and are not bound by a particular distance from which they can shoot.
###
Israeli version doesn’t begin to pass laugh test
Moshe Yaroni on the Israeli response:
… every once in a while, things take a turn, and that turn is punctuated by a singular, stunning event. The murderous raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla this day was one such event.
I waited to start writing this until there was some official statement from Israel. I did that because I want to start off with Israel’s explanation for this horror. Here’s what the IDF spokesperson said, in part:
During the intercept of the ships, the demonstrators onboard attacked the IDF Naval personnel with live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs. Additionally one of the weapons used was grabbed from an IDF soldier. The demonstrators had clearly prepared their weapons in advance for this specific purpose.
As a result of this life-threatening and violent activity, naval forces employed riot dispersal means, including live fire. Reports from IDF forces on the scene are that it seems as if part of the participants onboard the ships were planning to lynch the forces.
I am sure, as is always the case, there will be those who believe this version of events. But frankly, I can’t see how anyone can do so unless they are so desperate to justify Israel’s action here that they’ll believe anything. Let’s examine the IDF’s version of events.
We begin with the point that these were civilian ships and Israel boarded them with commandoes—soldiers who are disposed toward combat situations and are not meant to police unarmed civilians. They’re fighters, that’s their purpose. But the IDF claims that an assortment of international activists deliberately provoked a violent confrontation (using potentially deadly weapons, but which still leave them ridiculously overmatched) against heavily armed and trained soldiers in order to “lynch them.”
Does that seem remotely credible? It only seems so if you believe the activists on board these ships were willing to risk and actually sacrifice their lives in order to create a scandal for Israel. Of course, Israeli hasbara (propaganda) is well-practiced in casting all Arabs and Muslims as suicidal lunatics, aided by the suicide bombers who represent an infinitesimal percentage of those populations. But this collection of international activists, including many Jews, Americans and Europeans, apparently are also willing to give their lives, and rather cheaply, according to this story.
No, the IDF version of these events doesn’t begin to pass the laugh test… Full article
NATO to hold emergency session at Turkey’s request
Ma’an/Agencies – 31/05/2010
NATO will hold emergency talks on Tuesday at Turkey’s request after an Israeli commando unit stormed an aid convoy en route to Gaza, killing at least 10 passengers, spokesman James Appathurai said.
“Planning is underway for a meeting… at the request of the Turkish authorities tomorrow afternoon,” Appathurai told the Agence France-Presse. The talks will gather ambassadors from the 28 NATO member countries at its Brussels HQ.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Santiago, Chile that his government was demanding the NATO council gather to address the deaths and accused Israel of committing “inhuman state terror” with its deadly raid on a fleet of aid ships bound for Gaza, the Turkish daily Hurriyye reported.
“It should be known that we will not stay silent and unresponsive in the face of this inhuman state terror,” Erdogan said in live televised remarks ahead of his departure from Chile to Turkey, cutting short a Latin American tour, the daily wrote.
“International law has been trampled underfoot,” he added.
Israel is not a member state of NATO. Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cut a Canada trip short, and canceled a Washington meeting, saying he regretted the deaths caused in the incident but asserted that Israel had a right to defend itself, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported.
He further said that Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip would continue, despite renewed international calls to immediately lift the siege following reports of the deaths.
Facing armed attack in international waters
By Paul Woodward on May 31, 2010
When a civilian passenger ship comes under military attack in international waters, should we be surprised — or even critical — when some of the passengers mount a defense?
According to CNN, which has made itself into a mouthpiece for the Israeli Defense Forces, the flotilla massacre was a “skirmish”, which the dictionary defines as a “minor battle in war, as one between small forces.”
CNN/the IDF would have the world believe that Israel’s elite commandos unexpectedly met an armed force on the decks of the Mavi Marmara. Some of the Israeli soldiers were so afraid they jumped into the sea to save themselves from Arabic-speaking assailants, Israeli officials claimed.
Turkish officials have denied claims leveled by Israeli authorities that weapons were onboard one of the six aid ships attacked by Israel on Monday.
Officials from the Customs Undersecretariat said every passenger was searched before getting on the ship with the help of X-ray machines and metal detectors. Senior officials from the undersecretariat said Israel’s allegations were tantamount to “complete nonsense.”
Israel and its lackeys in the US media might try to characterize what happened in the Mediterranean today as an “incident,” or “skirmish,” or an “ambush.”
But if the IDF met “unexpected resistance,” what exactly did they expect? A reception committee with tea and breakfast? Didn’t they see the resistance the Viva Palestina convoy put up last year when challenged by Egyptian security forces?
The live video feed coming from the Mavi Marmara during its voyage from Turkey would have provided invaluable intelligence for the IDF and I have little doubt that they watched it carefully. A number of observations the Israelis must have made may have significantly influenced their calculations and miscalculations.
One of the striking demographic features of the group of passengers was the average age — having watched many hours of the feed, I’d put the average age at about 35-40 with a significant number of “retirees” — this was not a bunch of young hotheads.
Also, the group was overwhelmingly Middle Eastern and Turkish and male. The risk that Israeli violence would result in the death of another Rachel Corrie was relatively low.
Put together these two factors — the expectation that the age of the passengers might make them somewhat less volatile and the fact that they largely came from countries that Israel has less concern about offending — and you get the perfect cocktail for Israeli hubris.
As for the fact that elite Israeli soldiers can in one instant be portrayed as invincible and yet the next as hapless victims — that is a paradox that can be resolved only in the minds of Israelis.
In the eyes of much of the world, this was a massacre, the dead will be seen as martyrs, and the moral bankruptcy of the Jewish state revealed in sharper clarity than ever before.
World in shock at Israel’s deadly Gaza ship raid
Israel’s foes and allies close ranks in condemning deadly raid against aid ship heading for Gaza.
Middle East Online | May 31, 2010
ANKARA – Shock and outrage swept the globe Monday after Israeli commandos stormed a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza, as Tel Aviv’s foes and allies closed ranks in condemning the deadly raid.
Police struggled to hold back an angry crowd of hundreds outside the Israeli consulate in Turkey’s biggest city Istanbul, while furious protesters shouted “Damn Israel” outside the residence of the Israeli ambassador in Ankara.
Turkey’s foreign ministry warned that the raid on the flotilla, which included Turkish vessels, may lead to “irreparable consequences” in bilateral ties.
“We strongly condemn these inhumane practices of Israel,” a written statement said.
“This deplorable incident, which took place in open seas and constitutes a fragrant breach of international law, may lead to irreparable consequences in our bilateral relations,” it said.
In Europe, condemnation was equally swift.
France said that “nothing can justify” the violence of Israel’s Gaza ship raid, and Franch President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday accused Israel of a “disproportionate use of force” in its deadly raid.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was “deeply concerned” about the deaths.
The European Union demanded Israel mount a “full inquiry” into the killing of at least 10 people in a raid on a flotilla of aid ships bound for Gaza.
EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton warned that Israel’s “continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive,” demanding “an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening” of crossings to Gaza.
Greece withdrew from joint military exercises with Israel in protest at the raid, as it summoned Israel’s ambassador to demand an “immediate” report on the safety of about 30 Greeks on board the flotilla.
A Greek non-governmental organisation said Monday that Israeli forces in helicopters and inflatable boats fired on a Greek vessel in the aid convoy attacked while heading for Gaza.
“There was an attack with live bullets against the Greek boat Sfendoni and the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, with helicopters and inflatable boats,” the Greek organisation said in a statement.
The NGO added that two Greeks were on the Mavi Marmara and 12 others with a Tunisian on Sfentoni, while 22 Greeks and eight Swedish nationals were on the Eleftheri Mesogeio.
Belgium’s foreign minister on Monday “invited” Israel’s ambassador to “explain” the decision to storm the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, his spokesman said.
Steven Vanackere “invited the Israeli ambassador to explain to him this afternoon how events unfolded,” and also to provide news of five Belgian nationals who were on board the flotilla, spokesman Bart Ouvry said.
Italy on Monday “deplored” the loss of civilian life in Israel’s raid on aid ships bound for Gaza.
“I absolutely deplore… the killing of civilians” in the assault on Monday, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told reporters, describing the Israeli pre-dawn military action as “really serious.”
“An investigation must discover the truth about what happened,” he said. “We demand a serious and detailed investigation, and I think the EU must be involved so that it is directly informed of the findings.”
The bloody ending to the high-profile mission to deliver supplies to Gaza came on the eve of a meeting in Washington between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The democratically elected Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip Monday urged Arabs and Muslims to “rise up” in front of Israeli embassies across the globe in protest against Israel’s deadly raid.
“We call on all Arabs and Muslims to rise up in front of Zionist embassies across the whole world,” said Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri.
Ismail Haniya, the movement’s prime minister in Gaza, slammed the “ugly attack” in a statement in which he called for “the United Nations to protect the activists” on board the boats.
“We call on the Palestinian Authority to halt negotiations, direct or indirect, with Israel because of this crime,” said Haniya.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmud Abbas slammed the navy raid as “a massacre” and announced a three-day mourning period.
“We will have to take some difficult decisions this evening,” an official from his office told Palestinian television, without giving further details.
The Palestinian Authority also called for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council “to discuss the piracy, the crime and the Israeli massacre,” said top negotiator Saeb Erakat.
Israel’s Arab community called a general strike in response to an Israeli naval operation and called for protests across the country.
In response, hundreds from across the political spectrum flooded onto the streets of the northern Arab Israeli city of Nazareth to protest against the bloody attack.
Kuwait’s parliament speaker condemned the raid on the flotilla, which was carrying 16 Kuwaitis including an MP, as a “heinous Israeli crime,” as the cabinet prepared for an emergency meeting.
Arab League chief Amr Mussa slammed the raid as a “crime” against a humanitarian mission, saying the 22-country body was consulting to decide on its next step.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said Monday he was “shocked” by the deadly Israeli raid and demanded Tel Aviv conduct a full investigation.
“I am shocked by reports of killings and injuries on boats carrying supplies for Gaza,” the UN chief said at a press conference. “I condemn this violence,” Ban added.
Swedish author Henning Mankell was onboard one of the ships in the Gaza aid flotilla which Israeli commandos attacked early Monday, the Swedish branch of Ship to Gaza said.
The 62-year-old, whose books about world-weary detective Kurt Wallander have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide and have been adapted to film and television, said he was partaking in the flotilla to show his solidarity towards the Palestinian people.
“I think that when one talks about solidarity, one must always know that actions are what proves destiny,” he told Swedish public radio last Thursday.
“It is with actions that we prove we are ready to support something we believe is important,” he said.
Swedish-Israeli artist Dror Feiler, the chairman of the Swedish “Jews for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” as well as nine other Swedes, including a member of parliament, were also participating in the flotilla.
It remained unclear whether any of them had been wounded in the attack.
The Netherlands expressed shock over the Israeli army’s deadly raid on aid ships and said it would ask Israel for “clarifications” about the incident which has triggered worldwide condemnation.
“I am going to ask today for clarifications from the Israeli ambassador to The Hague,” said Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen in a statement.
“I am very shocked over the deaths which are deplorable. The Netherlands wants an inquiry to determine exactly how this could have happened,” Verhagen said.
“What happened today, while the Israelis and Palestinians were just starting to relaunch talks, will not bring them closer to peace,” the Dutch minister added. “I hope that it will not lead to another deadlock in the talks.”
Foreign ministry spokesman Bart Rijs said he did not know if any Dutch citizens were on board the ships carrying aid to the besieged Palestinian territory.
UN aid group: Israel deliberately hampering West Bank, Gaza relief efforts
By Chaim Levinson | Haaretz | May 30, 2010
A United Nations humanitarian relief agency is accusing Israel of deliberately disrupting the international community’s aid efforts for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
According to a special report released by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA ), Israel is not permitting construction of buildings for needy Palestinians and is encumbering on the freedom of movement of aid groups and their staffs.
The report, which was issued on Thursday under the headline “Impeding Assistance: Challenges to Meeting the Humanitarian Needs of Palestinians,” said that human rights NGOs last year committed a total of $660 million in aid to the territories.
A large portion of the report is devoted to the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where it claims that UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees, has been unable to build 100 news schools it says are needed to accommodate the fast-growing population.
In May 2009, the UN submitted a request for Israeli approval of a wide-ranging, $80 million plan to provide housing, medical assistance and educational services to Gazans. After nine months of negotiations, the Israeli government permitted a scaled-down version of the original plan, including the construction of 151 residential units in a project in Khan Yunis.
On Friday, a report appeared in the Israel Hayom newspaper which quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as saying: “In Gaza, let them build [homes] with wood. Concrete is used to build bunkers.”
The OCHA report claims Israel is interfering with the movement of local Palestinian aid workers. According to the report, 20 percent of requests for West Bank workers to secure passage to Gaza were rejected, while 46 percent of requests for Gaza-based employees to gain entry into the West Bank were turned down. The OCHA report said Israeli constraints have complicated efforts to train workers in Gaza.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, aid groups have encountered other problems. In 2010, the UN formulated a series of urgent plans aimed at addressing shortages in water, educational services and housing for needy Palestinians living in Area C, the West Bank territories under exclusive Israeli military and civilian administration. According to the report, the international body prepared 15 initiatives that were intended to provide water to 52,000 Palestinians in 17 different locales in Area C, as well as 25 projects for the reconstruction of schools to service 6,000 children. Three months have passed since the UN presented these plans to the Israeli government, which has yet to offer its response.
Another issue cited by OCHA is movement in the West Bank. While the report acknowledged that the lifting of roadblocks and removal of checkpoints have significantly improved NGOs’ ability to work, it stated that difficulties remain. In August 2009, aid agencies were unable to deliver 170 water tankers intended to service 58 families and some 5,000 sheep in the southern Hebron Hills due to mounds of earth that impeded their progress. This forced half the residents of one village to relocate in order to find sources of water, the report stated.
Over 100 Palestinian minors reported abuse in IDF, police custody in 2009
69 minors complained of being beaten, four minors reported being sexually assaulted, and 12 said they were threatened with sexual assault.
By Amira Hass | Haaretz | May 28, 2010
Photo by: Tal Cohen
Most Palestinian children arrested by the Israel Defense Forces and police are intimidated, abused and maltreated in custody, according to the sworn testimonies of minors who were arrested last year. This happens both before and during interrogation, and several minors have been sexually assaulted.
The Palestinian branch of the non-governmental organization Defense for Children International has asked the United Nations to probe complaints of sexual assaults.
The organization has collected 100 detailed depositions from minors aged 12 to 17 who were arrested last year, immediately after their release. Most of the findings were not a surprise to DCI activists, apart from verbal or physical attacks of a sexual nature committed by soldiers.
Sixty-nine minors complained of being beaten by soldiers (slaps, kicks, sometimes blows with a rifle stock or club ). Nearly all – 97 percent, including children aged 12 to 15 – were held for hours with their hands cuffed, and 92 percent were blindfolded for long periods of time. Twenty-six percent said they were forced to remain in painful positions.
For example, one child said he was bound, blindfolded and placed on the floor of a jeep or vehicle on its way to the prison facility. About half the children said the soldiers who arrested them cursed and threatened them before the interrogation, to make them confess the charges. Or the children were urged to confess with false promises of immediate release.
The children were frequently told that the soldier who beat them was also the interrogator to whom they must confess. Most of them said they were held for many hours before receiving anything to drink or eat.
The DCI says the numerous sworn testimonies attest to a fixed, repeated pattern. It says these practices violate international law and the children’s rights.
In addition, causing pain and intimidation to extract a confession from a minor or make him incriminate others is defined as torture.
The relatively surprising findings in the depositions were the complaints of sexual abuse – verbal or physical. Minors usually have difficulty talking about this aspect of their arrest, and the issue came up only during the longer conversations DCI lawyers had with the children.
Four minors reported being sexually assaulted, and 12 said they were threatened with sexual assault. The threat was accompanied by physical violence. Last week, the DCI’s Palestinian branch sent the UN official who monitors torture 14 complaints by Palestinian prisoners aged 13 to 16 of sexual assault during detentions from January 2009 to April 2010.
The depositions sent to the UN report direct attacks, including squeezing boys’ testicles, pushing a blunt object (a club or rifle stock ) between the chair and a child’s buttocks, and repeated threats of “I’ll screw you if you don’t confess you threw stones.”
A 15-year-old arrested in September told the DCI that a soldier slapped him twice, squeezed his testicles and asked if he had thrown stones or a Molotov cocktail. The boy said he hadn’t thrown either, and the soldier shouted at him that he was a liar, beat him all over his body, grabbed his testicles again and squeezed. “I won’t let your balls go until you confess,” he said.
The boy felt such pain that he confessed to throwing stones, he reported.
The DCI recommends that the IDF and police interrogate minors only in the presence of a lawyer of their choice and a relative, and record the interrogation on video. These accepted procedures for interrogating children would reduce the risk of extorted confessions.
Palestinian prisoners, including minors, are allowed to see their lawyers only shortly before trial, sometimes only in the courtroom itself. This prevents them from talking in detail about their treatment in custody. Minors, 60 percent of whom are charged with stone-throwing, may expect a much shorter prison sentence than their detention time until the end of the trial.
Consequently, many minors confess, even when they deny the charges, and their lawyers sign plea deals with the prosecution to shorten their incarceration.
Asked about a failure to complain to the authorities about the sexual assault of minors, DCI legal adviser Khaled Kuzmar said many parents are not prepared to do so. “Very few people have confidence in the system that abuses them,” he said.
Some fear that the system or certain individuals would take revenge on them if they complain, he said.
However, the DCI is considering filing complaints along with Israeli human rights groups, if the parents agree.
The Israeli authorities arrest around 700 Palestinian minors aged 12 to 18 annually. Some 300 Palestinian minors are held in various Israeli prison facilities every month – either before or after they have been tried. Last month, 335 Palestinian minors, 32 of them aged 12 to 15, were imprisoned, mostly on suspicion of throwing stones.
The IDF Spokesman’s Office dismissed “claims of deliberate deviation from procedures for arresting and interrogating minors. Minors’ arrests are carried out in keeping with international law; the arrest of suspects under 16 years old in the West Bank requires a military lawyer’s approval …. Minors are brought before a judge within a relatively short period.”
The spokesman said complaints about violence should be raised during the trial, or in an orderly complaint to the Justice Ministry’s police investigation department or the Military Police.
Military sources told Haaretz that minors’ interrogation sessions are recorded, except for interrogations by the Shin Bet security service, which are exempt by law. As for a lawyer’s presence during a minor’s interrogation, the law does not require that even in Israel proper.
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Villains of Judea
Samuel Zemurray
The ruthless businessman who financed coups in Central America and shaped Israeli statehood
José Niño Unfiltered | May 7, 2026
Leftist commentators consistently push a shallow and economically reductive narrative that frames American foreign policy as the sole domain of greedy White capitalists while choosing to ignore the obvious Jewish power structure directing these events. When the veneer of this supposed corporate imperialism is stripped away, it becomes clear that the United States has often served as a vehicle for the specific goals of organized Jewry. The life of Samuel Zemurray stands as prime evidence of this hidden mechanism.
Few figures in American business history wielded power as ruthlessly or as secretly as Zemurray. Born Schmiel Zmurri on January 18, 1877, to a poor Jewish family in Imperial Russia, this teenage immigrant would rise from peddling rotting bananas off railroad cars in Alabama to become the controlling force behind the United Fruit Company, the most powerful agricultural corporation on earth. Along the way he overthrew governments, bribed presidents, hired mercenaries, and played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in the creation of the State of Israel. … continue
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