Right, even though this rash action by Israel endangers our relationship with Turkey and potentially our troops in Iraq, we should bend over backwards not to alienate Israel.
The situation is difficult for the United States, which has close relations with both countries and is now in the awkward position of crafting a reaction that avoids alienating either side. Both the United States and Israel use Turkish air space for military exercises. The United States supplies the majority of its Iraq effort from a military base in southern Turkey.
I am tired of our country acting like Israel’s poodle.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, urged the U.N. Security Council in an emergency session Monday to condemn Israel’s raid on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip and to set up a U.N. inquiry to hold accountable those responsible for it.
“Turkey would like to see that the Security Council strongly reacts and adopts a presidential statement strongly condemning this Israeli act of aggression, demanding an urgent inquiry into the incident and calling for the punishment of all responsible authorities,” he said in an address to the 15-nation council. “I call on this council to step up and do what is expected of it.”
Behind closed doors, U.S. diplomats sought to prevent the council from authorizing a U.N. investigation into the Israeli raid, saying Israel should be given a chance to conduct a credible investigation first.
Here’s a NEWSFLASH for our diplomatic corp. There is no such thing as a credible Israeli investigation. That’s because no one believes a thing they say. But, there’s no example in history where someone killed over a dozen civilians in cold blood and then were told to investigate the crime. The word ‘credible’ doesn’t exist in the same universe as that scenario.
And this next bit is a bit like scolding Martin Luther King Jr. for being ineffective.
The Turkish initiative at the United Nations placed the United States in the difficult position of trying to mediate between two important allies. Alejandro Wolff, the United States’ second-highest ranking ambassador to the United Nations, said the United States is still trying to “ascertain the facts” but that it “regrets the tragic loss of life and injuries.” Wolff said the United States expects “a credible and transparent investigation and strongly urges the Israeli government to investigate the incident fully.”
But Wolff also scolded the members of the humanitarian convoy, saying that their unapproved delivery of aid “by sea is neither appropriate nor responsible, and certainly not effective, under the circumstances.” Wolff said that “non-provocative and non-confrontational” procedures exist for delivering assistance to Gazans.
Contrary to Wolff’s position, I hope people start sending a flotilla a day. You know what’s inappropriate and irresponsible? Blowing up civilians to make a political point. Non-violent direct action is the moral alternative to terrorism. And when Israel kills activists in cold blood who haven’t come near their territorial waters? That’s just murder. Not even the Jim Crow governors gave out those kind of orders.
And our government’s response is to scold the people who died?
This whole relationship has become untenable.
Glenn Greenwald just had his say at Salon:Israel attacks aid ship, kills at least 10 civilians
Read here: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/05/31/israel/index.html#postid-updateA6
Highly recommended. Here are the last updates to his article:
A poodle it is.
A poodle it is.
I guess we know how Tony Blair feels. Or at least the British people.
another excuse to bash the President.
These people had no business trying to invade another country when they another option. Oh, we are are good at that.
Besides, I don’t believe for a single minute that this wasn’t gun running.
Then where were the guns, and why didn’t they use them? The ship was in international waters. The attack was therefore an act of war. The flotilla had every legal and moral justification to use the guns they were running, so why didn’t they? The best Israel’s propagandists could come up with were some switchblade knives, metal balls, and metal bats. Is that what you’re calling gun running?
Also, if they were running guns, do you really believe Israel wouldn’t have video of them all over the world by now? There were no guns. There was no justification for the attack. Israel committed an act of war that no decent person can excuse or mitigate.
It was within the 200 mile limit. No act of war by any stretch.
Just incompetence, arrogance, stupid aggression – bibi is a neo-con after all.
The 200 mile limit applies only to economics, not territory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exclusive_economic_zone
Even the mild mannered canadians have seized boats running essentially over the 200 mile zone.
Perhaps the French government can delegate some of the veterans of Operation Rainbow Warrior to elucidate the finer points of law of the sea to both sides.
Do you have a link or reference for that statement.
I personally was involved in an action in International waters off of Canada, though inside a Canadian environmental zone.
Our legal advisors cautioned us not to fish, nor drill for oil (I`m joking on the latter).
I was on a Panamanian registry 2,500 tonner.
It did become an international incident, taken all the way to Maritime Court in the Hague.
For that only reason would I like to see more on this, which is in no way, a challenge to your statement.
200 nautical miles (or mid-line) defines the economic zone, sovereign territory only goes to 12 nautical miles.
Territorial waters:
The best Israel’s propagandists could come up with were some switchblade knives, metal balls, and metal bats. Is that what you’re calling gun running?
Don’t forget the sling-shots!! They were running sling-shots.
Under international law, Gaza is not a part of Israel but a part of the territories administered first by the Palestinian Authority and after an election now by Hamas.
The relief flotillas take special care not to enter Israeli territorial waters proper.
The incident happened in international waters north of where the flotilla would have made a turn toward the waters off Gaza.
Israel is fairly clearly in violation of the Geneva Convention by its actions in this blockade. What Israel is doing is the equivalent of a medieval seige.
ICRC Discussion
I never thought I hear myself say this, because I hate unnuanced bland generalised assertions. There are so many ways in which the Obama administration are a quantum improvement on Bush. But on foreign policy in general, and Israel/Palestine in particular, Obama is proving to be as stupid as Bush.
Increasing world leaders, large and small, are learning than Obama is a paper tiger who makes bullying noises, fine speeches, and then capitulates at the first sign of opposition. It must be the first time in history than the Nobel Peace prize has been awarded to coward who mistakes collaboration with racists, genocidal maniacs, drug lords, fascists and juntas for bipartisan compromise.
Hell, even Bush had more balls – even if he was stupider still.
It is not Obama who is a paper tiger, it’s the United States of America. Our military might has been proven hollow, thanks to George W. Bush.
But the military and the intelligence community are in denial and still partying like its 2003. And no doubt are threatening to Carterize Obama if he tries to get tough with their favorites.
About item 6, why should the US be at a meeting of Latin American and Caribbean countries? The Monroe Doctrine is inoperative because it is unenforceable. And Lula was actually trying to do the world a favor with the deal between Brazil and Iran, to be supervised by NATO ally Turkey. Brazil would then become the guarantor that Iran would not develop nuclear weapons because it would be supplying the uranium. This is actually a regime acceptable to the US in most previous situations.
I agree with your last point, but Obama then ignored the deal and went on to propose tougher sanctions on Iran. My point in including it in the list is that world leaders are learning it is best to ignore Obama if you want to get something done.
USA is not a Latin American country – Obama is highly respected for acting like a team player rather than a bully.
Yes but he’s got a lot of bullies on his team – Karzai, Netanyahu, Roberto Micheletti, Ahmed Wali, not to mention the BP and Goldman Sachs executives who funded a large part of his campaign…
Democracy anyone?
So you’re saying Obama is eroding the age of America as dictator to the world? In that case, go Obama.
You’re right, all of that is pretty stupid (except 6 – see below). But Obama is operating within the confines of the existing political consensus. And he also has domestic policy goals. Taking alternate paths on 1 and 3 would have blown up the Democratic coalition and made even partially realizing his domestic policy goals very unlikely. It would have also made a Republican takeover of both chambers of Congress much more likely. On 4, I’m not sure what the administration could do that wouldn’t have a considerable chance of further harm to the economy. Plus, there are a lot of domestic interests (multinationals, for one) that like the current exchange rate just fine. They make campaign contributions, and lots of them.
I have no idea what Obama thinks about the issues you listed. He may be perfectly happy with the outcomes to-date. But it’s unreasonable to think there aren’t any downsides to making different choices than he has.
On 6, maybe Lulu has been snubbing the US, but I think it’s just fine if other countries get together to talk. The US needs to stop trying to be in the middle of every single international discussion. We can’t afford to be, and we’ve been screwing things up a lot lately anyway.
You sure have that right on the money. O-bought-ma is actually worse, because he can speak, and try to cover his barenaked ass!!!! I totally loath him. Hillary would have been the same as O-bought-ma. HEY!!!! folks wake the hell up!!!!, 2000 was a coup de etate by corporations and the strangle grip they have on congresscritters is permanent. I left before the boooohie horror, thank GOD!!!!!!
“And our government’s response is to scold the people who died?”
Hate to say I told ya so…….
Shit.
Wolff is lying. If such procedures existed, there would be no need for these flotillas.
.
Wolff’s color is even more yellow …
Remarks by Ambassador Alejandro Wolff
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."The point is that according to the UN and human rights orgs, Israel only allows about a quarter of what is needed to sustain a population of 1.5 million into Gaza. The tonnage sounds impressive but it is insufficient.
The biggest line of bullshit we have heard from Israel during this confrontation is that there is no humanitarian crisis.
http://www.alternet.org/story/147052/3_facts_you_need_to_know_about_the_israeli_attack_on_peace_acti
vists_on_the_gaza_flotilla/
it is really a remarkably dishonest claim, even for a diplomat.
You’re right, a dirty lie — told by the US merchants of international truth (think of Powell’s ‘vile’). The US is so completely in your face at the UN and when it comes to Israel. Come to think of it, Israel is too.
Remember how we declared war on France after they blew up a Greenpeace boat?
remember how we declared war on Japan after they rammed and sank an unarmed Sea Shepherds boat and then arrested the Captain?
does not include attacking people with sticks and throwing people down a story or two. The Israeli video is remarkable for what it tells about the protesters.
But all this is pointless anyways – we are going to see the US military put the political squeeze on Israel because Turkey is, at this point, a more valuable client.
The only question is how long it will take Bibi and his coalition of psychotics to lose power.
Everyone is entitled to self defense using proportionate means. The people on that ship were under violent attack.
Perhaps, but what they were doing was not non-violence.
In fact, it’s so stupid that I’d be prepared to believe those were Israelis who landed first. But at this point, I have no willingness to credit anyone involved with smarts or decency.
I will say that the whole scene looks staged, the reported injuries of soldiers are not congruent with the violence shown, and the probability of the Bibi government attempting something like that is high- just the kind of cretinous stage show they would do.
OTOH, I’m not too confident about the flotilla either.
Why are the people on the ships under any obligation to adopt nonviolence? It would have played better for PR had they been filmed offering passive resistance (though the IDF would have made these claims of violence regardless), but these ships were illegally attacked and boarded in international waters. The activists had every legal right to defend themselves with everything up to and including deadly force. The fact that they had only improvised weapons available to respond with underscores the absurdity of many of Israel’s claims.
They are not under any obligation at all, but if they use violence, they are not non-violent. You can’t be a non-violent protester and also be using proportionate violence at the same time.
Precisely. Ghandi (who had the chutzpah to advise Jews in Nazi Germany to – non violently, one assumes – commit mass suicide) notwithstanding, a commitment to non-violent action does not require one to adhere to non-violence when attacked with deadly force.
Non-violence seems to me to imply not being violent. Certainly Indian anti-british protesters and SNCC and SCLC protesters met with quite brutal violence.
It’s perfectly reasonable to argue that non-violence is not a good tactic, but non-violence is not consistent with violence. Pretty straightforward and I can’t imagine why you’d want to maintain otherwise.
A commitment to non-violent direct action is not does not require one to lie down and die when attacked with deadly force. Everyone has a legal and moral right to defend himself, violently if necessary, if threatened or attacked. The use of violence for direct self defense in a life-threatening situation is not necessarily inconsistent with a commitment to non-violent civil disobedience.
Being non-violent until the other side becomes violent may be reasonable, but it is not the practice of non-violence.
And certainly if those videos are real, they show a very liberal interpretation of self-defense.
Maybe not so much.
I was also fascinated to read on their blog that they were grateful for support from the great humanitarian Mahathir Mohammed. Accusations of homosexuality against the Zionist Entity are sure to follow.
Where does it say “we agree not to defend our lives when confronted with deadly violence”?
Maybe “at all times” is more complex than I imagined.
Yeah, you are right. They ought to be willing to resist the normal impulses to defend their own lives and persons, and just lie right on down and die when threatened.
No you are right, “non-violence” means “violence” and “at all times” means “unless we are attacked, something that is an absolute certainty”. How could I have been so confused?
Come on, don’t resort to putting words into my mouth.
And stop pretending the activists knew being attacked with deadly violence was “an absolute certainty” when the contrary is the case. This is hardly the first relief flotilla the Free Gaza movement has taken to Gaza, it is around the fifth or sixth. It is also not the first time they have been boarded, or that the activists have been arrested. This time was different, though. This time the Israelis decided to use violent, and deadly force. Under the circumstances I don’t blame anyone for defending themselves in whatever way they felt they had to.
Is it so hard to imagination a situation where a few soldiers used excessive force – perhaps out of fear – some activists over-reacted and then the soldiers over-reacted again? We can all have a commitment to non-violence, but if someone attacks my friend or daughter do wait and stand in line?
A situation was created which was almost bond to get out of hand. That is why we have international law and Laws of the Sea to prevent such thisngs getting out of hand in the first place.
If you break the law you have to take the consequences, even if the operation did not come off quite as you hoped or planned…
I’d like to believe that, but I just don’t. Israel’s army has done too many things like this to prevent me from believing it was just an overreaction spurred by another.
One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers, who is an Israeli, put it quite succinctly, imo:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/05/badass-israel.html
Not sure how your comment relates to what I have been saying, but sure, I can imagine that situation, though I doubt very seriously it happened in this case. For one thing, it is highly unlikely that fear was a factor in this case. By now there is a history going back several years and five or six such relief flotillas, and they know by now that the people on board the ships are unarmed and will not greet them with violence. The Israelis know that the ships, cargo, and passengers also have to pass very strict inspections before they are allowed to leave the port of departure to ensure that there are no firearms or explosives on board. So, what are they afraid of? Boxes of macaroni? Antibiotics? Insulin? Bandages? Cement?
For another thing, Israelis have a well-documented history of charging in with deadly force, killing a few people, and then claiming they were defending themselves when they killed the little old gramma, the old man in the wheel chair, and the five year old kid, so their self-defense story lost its credibility a very long time ago.
In any case, even in the unlikely event your scenario were accurate in this case, I stand by my position that if one finds oneself confronted with deadly force, one is entitled to defend oneself even in the context of a non-violent direct action.
“And stop pretending the activists knew being attacked with deadly violence was “an absolute certainty” when the contrary is the case.”
You have a much more positive view of the Netanyahu government than I do. To me, there was zero chance that they would let the chance to commit a crime like this pass them by.
I say there is quite a difference between being a pacifist (ie Joan Baez), or being non-violent. (me)
I`m just a non-violent DFH, but if you break into my house in the dark of night, I switch to self preservation mode, which may include the use of deadly violence.
The ships in this flotilla presented no threat to Israel.
The people on board these ships came from many different countries, & were on a humanitarian mission, coming to the aid of people desperate for food, medical care, water filtration systems, etc.
They needed this aid because of land, sea & air blockades set up to keep them in misery, by the country that attacked the flotilla.
It`s the recycling of a circle.
There is no defense for these murderous acts, on the NON-VIOLENT people on board.
Just so regarding non-violence. I am certainly an advocate and practitioner of non-violence in every area of my life, but to protect myself, another human being, my dog, my cat, my horse, my pet hamster, or my property, you bet I would use violence if I needed to and had the means at hand, and I do not believe that would in any way betray my commitment to conduct my life in a non-violent manner.
Hurria,
First, despite the situation, I hope you are well.
I believe you know that your statement mirrors mine exactly, except for the fact I don`t have a hamster, & this:
” I do not believe that would in any way betray my commitment to conduct my life in a non-violent manner.”
Well you explained that part better than I did.
I don`t know if you go to this linked place, but first, the list of cargo items on the flotilla ships is extensive & really incredibly mundane, though amazing in it`s scope, & secondly some of the outlandish comments I`ve seen there.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/31/871801/-About-That-Gaza-Blockade…-[Updated]
Yes, I do know my statement mirrors yours, and I confess I do not have a hamster either. I just added that for effect.
I am not a regular reader of Daily Kos, but I will check out the cargo list – thanks.
Hurria,
“I confess I do not have a hamster either. I just added that for effect.”
You made me burst out laughing, especially since I wondered about your menagerie, when first stated.
That’s not what “non-violence” means. Non-violence and “I’ll hit back” are very different concepts. You can consider your idea to be “non-violence” and you can consider 2+2=5, but that doesn’t make it so.
No, I am sorry, you are wrong. Non-violence most certainly does not mean lying down and allowing oneself to be killed.
If we accept the videos from the IDF as genuine, then people on the ship pounded IDF soldiers on the ground with sticks and tossed them over the side of the boat. If you want to call that non-violence, go ahead, but you discredit yourself.
The argument you make was precisely the argument that e.g. the Black Panthers and Malcolm X made against the non-violent campaigns of MLK and the SNCC- where people did, with great bravery, keep to non-violence against life-threatening violence. But, in those days, the general acceptance of marketing language repurposing of word meaning was not so advanced, and so the critics called what they proposed “self-defense” instead of calling it “non-violence”.
Are you intentionally misrepresenting what I have said? I have never called pounding people with sticks non-violence, and you know it. What I have said is that a commitment to non-violence does not require one to commit suicide by eschewing self-defense, even when one needs to use violence to prevent oneself or others from being killed or harmed.
And no, I most definitely am NOT using the argument of the Black Panthers or Malcolm X. If memory serves, they never claimed to be engaged in non-violent struggle. I am saying that no one is obligated to commit suicide by refusing to defend himself in a life-and-limb-threatening situation, and engaging in proportionate self-defense against a clear and imminent threat does not negate one’s commitment to non-violent resistance.
Now, if you want to argue that drawing the line at suicide in the interest of a commitment to non-violent resistance means that one is not really using non-violence, then present that argument instead of using the dishonest, and rather desperate tactic of putting words into people’s mouths, and distorting what they have said.
Well what are you saying then? We’re arguing on the assumption that the IDF video is not faked: it shows clearly pounding people with sticks.
I think I have repeated myself enough times by now that my point should be very clear. Engaging in non-violent direct action does not require anyone to commit suicide by eschewing self defense, even when self defense necessitates violence. If that is not clear enough, I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.
a) that’s your definition of non-violence, not the standard definition. Define vanilla as chocolate, while you are at it.
b) even by your definition, apparently, the flotilla doesn’t count as non-violent because they actually did pound soldiers with sticks. I say apparently because you keep floating away from the case at hand.
a) You insist upon conflating non-violence with pacifism or passivity. They are not the same thing. The latter two require one to absolutely refrain from violence even in self defense, the former does not. What part of that is so difficult to process? You are requiring that people be willing to commit suicide in order to be considered non-violent. I am not, nor do most reasonable people I know. Most reasonable people seem to be able to understand that self defense sometimes necessitates violence, and as long as it is proportional and ends when the threat ends it is acceptable (there is a very clear passage in the Qur’an about that which talks about self defense and proportionality, and says clearly that as soon as your attacker puts his weapon down, you are required to put yours down as well).
b) I am floating away from nothing. I am speaking in general terms because I do not know the specific context in which the “pounding” occurred, nor do you. I am not going to speculate one way or the other. It is not impossible that the “pounding” took place after one or more of the activists had already been shot, and they were acting to prevent further killing. It is also possible that there was an imminent threat of harm. If they took action to prevent themselves and their fellows from being killed or wounded that does not negate the non-violent nature of their mission. They were and are not required to commit suicide by passively allowing the Israeli commandos to harm or kill them or their companions. If there was no clear threat from the soldiers, then they were not acting in self defense, and we have a different situation. Again, I am not going to waste time speculating at this point, therefore I was speaking in general and not of this specific case.
“You insist upon conflating non-violence with pacifism or passivity. They are not the same thing. The latter two require one to absolutely refrain from violence even in self defense, the former does not.”
Sorry, but the term has been in wide use for a long time and you don’t get to make up a new definition. What you are conflating is “peaceable” with “non-violent direct action”. One can be peaceable and defend oneself with violence (and, of course, everyone always believes they are defending themselves against aggression ). The principle of non-violent direct action described by Gandhi and MLK and SNCC involves specifically NOT defending oneself against violent attack. And, if you look at the photographic record of Selma, you can see people being savagely beaten, attacked with dogs, firehoses, truncheons – and in Mississippi, non-violent direct action practitioners were shot. I can understand not wanting to make such a practice, but I cannot accept people claiming to be in that tradition who are non-violent unless they feel threatened. People who beat up soldiers can claim to be peaceable until provoked if the facts bear them out, but they cannot claim to be practicing non-violent direct action. Such a claim would be fraudulent.
And non-violent direct action is neither pacifism nor passivity. Non-violent direction action is a specific tactic. See, for example http://www.ibiblio.org/sncc/nonviolence.html
I am not making up a new definition, you are trying to define the term too narrowly by insisting that it be used in a strictly Ghandian (or Quaker) sense. Although it has come to be widely understood that way it actually covers a broader spectrum than that.
Non-violent direct action is defined as direct action that does not involve violent tactics, not direct action whose participants will never ever use violence even to protect their lives if faced with deadly force. Non-violent action need not be suicidal to qualify, no matter how many times you try to insist that it is.
I might be wrong, but to the best of my knowledge the Free Gaza movement has never claimed to follow Ghandian (or Quaker) principles of strict non-violence under all circumstances, although I know some members who personally do endeavor to do so. To the best of my knowledge the Free Gaza movement is committed to bringing about political change by the use of non-violent tactics, but does not require its members and participants to commit suicide in the face of deadly violence (as Ghandi urged the Jews to do in Nazi Germany).
And finally, none of us knows what we will do when faced with a direct, real, and imminent threat of harm or death. We might be utterly committed to the strict non-violent principles of Ghandi, or the Quaker religion, but to not fight back in self defense requires a denial of the most primal impulse of all, the survival impulse, which is present in all animals, including humans, and is almost impossible to consciously control.
PS Photos of people being brutally beaten and attacked with dogs and fire hoses, or people being shot in Mississippi does not prove that none of them would have used violence in self defense if they could have (kind of difficult to defend oneself against a fire hose, or against someone shooting from a distance), or that none of them did in fact used violence ever. In fact, I’m willing to bet that many of them would have if they had been able to, and that some of them, given the opportunity, did. That does not negate the fact that their tactics and their intentions were non-violent.
Let’s say just for the sake of argument that the activists really did swing bats or metal bars or whatever at their attackers. So what? They were being attacked with deadly voilence. They were entitled to defend themselves, and to use whatever force was necessary to do so. Nothing requires people who are under attack to sit quietly and allow themselves to be harmed.
Absolutely nothing. In fact, to me, if they managed to shoot down helicopters, they’d have been well within their rights.
But that’s not non-violence and this essay argues:
” Non-violent direct action is the moral alternative to terrorism.”
Violence is not non-violence. Pretty simple.
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2010/5/31/6548/89878/1125#c1125
The more Israeli government videos I see, the more I doubt their authenticity.
If standing in a doorway with your back to an unsecured room is Israeli commando practice, the IDF has a lot bigger problems than I imagined.
Non-violent direct action does not mean eschewing self-defense in the case of deadly violence against, it means choosing civil disobedience over violent resistance. And by the way, the Palestinians have a very long history of non-violent civil disobedience going back to the 1930’s. The First Intifada, for example, consisted mainly of non-violent civil disobedience, despite propaganda to the contrary.
Unfortunately, as Arundati Roy points out, this approach requires an audience to be effective, and Israel has managed to make sure that Palestinian non-violent resistance has had almost no audience.
The Israeli government has been very effective at destroying any non-violent opposition within the Palestinian community and then whining about the violence of their opponents in the Palestinian community.
Actually, they have never destroyed non-violent opposition, as demonstrated by the regular use of non-violence that continues to this day, but they certainly have done everything they could to squash it while keeping it out of the public eye as much as possible. I think in many ways they see non-violent resistance as a greater threat than terrorism. Certainly it is a greater threat to their goals, should it ever get the audience it needs to be effective.
And speaking of Israel’s attempts to squash Palestinian non-violence, here is the latest one, the Tent of Nations on Daoud Nassar’s family land outside Bethlehem, and it does not even involve resistance, just plain old non-violence (of course, the Israelis also want the land).
Tent of Nations scary motto:
I mentioned elsewhere on this thread about the young woman, an artist from NY, who lost her eye to a gas canister fired at her face. The few, horrifying photos indicate she was standing peaceably with a flag in her hand. The incident happened at Qalandia.
From what I’ve read about the use of these canisters, their purpose is intimidation of peaceful protesters.
The tactic of nonviolence depends on the shame of the oppressor. Nonviolence did not work in the US Civil Rights movement until the US could be shamed with its own toleration of racism, a charge it had rightly used in propaganda against Nazi Germany. Robert Kennedy had some degree of understanding shame as did LBJ. The current leadership from Congress up to the President does not. And the Likud government has been shameless for 35 years. And the Israeli occupying settlers? They murdered their own prime minister rather than have peace.
The flotilla made the claim of being peaceful, which it was. They were nonviolent up to the point at which armed commandos were coming down a rope from a helicopter and invading the boat in international waters. That still did not justify the IDF using live fire and killing 10-20 people. (It’s interesting that we have no exact number nor a list of names.)
Have others read the diary on dKos about the young woman demonstrator at Qalandiya, a West Bank checkpoint, who was hit in the eye with a gas canister and will lose her eye as a result? Photos of her in the comments are gruesome.
Yes, And when I first saw the picture of the wounded young lady, with a Palestinian woman over her, with arms outstretched, I saw the iconic Kent State photo instantly.
Truly horrific.
If you don`t know, The young lady was an artist from New York.
She is in the hospital where they are having to remove her left eye.
Yes, it does. I lived in northern Ohio at the time of Kent State, and that photo is burned into my brain.
In the Middle East, the terms of peace at the end of both WW’s were guaranteed to keep ethnic, tribal, religious and national enmities an open and running sore way out into the future.
PS I like your signature line. My sentiments exactly.
If it comes down to Israel or the Turks, the Turks are in NATO and Israel isn’t. Turks all the way.
Joshua Landis:
Lots more:
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=6613
“Obama will try to distance the US from Israel in due course.“
I, for one, will not hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
I’m very glad you are covering this, Booman.
It seems quite a few so-called liberal blogs chose to ignore this heinous crime….
Unbelievable, that.
Conditioned ??
Or, perhaps, more accurately – pre-conditioned ??
I’m watching Rick Sanchez on CNN. He’s talking about the situation in the eastern Med where the Israelis boarded a Turkish flag vessel and nine people died. Rick interviews the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. And Rick goes on with other guests/interviewees for over a half hour.
And all I hear is that the Israelis had to defend themselves. That’s why they opened fire killing 9 and wounding 30.
Defend themselves? I say again, Defend themselves? The Israelis were the aggressors. They are no better than the pirates off the coast of Somalia. They broke the law by boarding a ship in international waters. They were no where near the state of Israel.
But the American public has become so conditioned to believing what we do is Right and what Israel does is Right that no one questions the boarding of a vessel legally operating in international waters as being Wrong.
Posted here: http://libertystreet.wordpress.com/2010/05/31/conditioned/
This might have been posted here before, but I’ve lost track of what’s been posted where.
In raw video, reporters claim Israelis fired on activists before boarding ship
If that’s correct, the videos supposedly showing IDF soldiers sliding down ropes into a crowd, while not wearing gas masks, are even more peculiar.
Why would you fire tear gas and then send unprotected soldiers into it?