Israel Reportedly Attacks Palestinian Aid Flotilla

[Gita]

Quote

Israel killed more than 9, threw wounded into sea, witnesses say

Planes carrying 520 aid volunteers and nine dead bodies of activists killed by Israeli security forces on Monday returned home on Thursday, with many claiming mistreatment at the hands of Israeli military officers and other officials and additional allegations that not everyone has returned.

Unquote

Continued here.

[holcaul]

The injured were not thrown to the sea, this is total bull! I know that simply because I'm a Critical Care Nurse in an Israeli Hospital, and for the past 3 days I've been treating two injured Turkish "activists" who were shot by our commandos team because they were trying to murder our soldiers, and that I also know for a fact, some of them are hospitalized heavily wounded in hospitals around the country. These Turkish "activists" are members of the IHH fundamentalist terrorist organization. Knowing that, they are receiving the best care. I personally spoke with one of them yesterday. So please, stop saying Israelis and stop generalizing. I hate the decisions of our politicians, in fact I hate our politicians. And when they decided to send in the heavy guns they forgot to ask the people, like they always do.

PS
In a quick conversation I had with one of the Turkish "activists", knowing he is hospitalized in an Israeli hospital he wrote to me (since he's intubated his only way of communication is writing), "I am a Muslim", and I told him, don't worry half of my colleagues are muslim arabs, so he should stop worrying and that I dont have a problem with that.

[Gita]

Don't worry holcaul, on this forum we don't equate people with their governments. I also wouldn't say the activists tried to 'murder' the soldiers - they were trying to defend themselves and knew exactly what was in store for them. Anyone regradless of their nationality would do that. The soldiers should not have been there and it was them who ended up murdering all those people. Welcome to the forum btw.

[holcaul]

Let me clarify something, the ones who were shot were, basically terrorists. I've spoken to guys from the operating room, they told me that when they removed their clothes, there were knives attached to their bodies. You can say, heavily armed. It was a provocation! More like a game of politics!

[Peace of Mind]

It is unwise to bring a knife to a gun fight; every one knows this. This sounds a bit suspect to me. I don’t believe anything that comes out of the mouth of any government official. When I see tanks and fighter planes go against sticks and stones I automatically think there is a whole lot of the story that isn’t coming out. It’s funny (not really), how we always get to hear more of Israel side, so I won’t speculate until everyone has told their side. I have my own reasons not to believe in terrorism. People only fight for injustices and greed….now what side you stand on is totally up to you. No one has to justify anything to me…I’m not the one that’s going to judge nor relinquish the affects of karma.

Peace

[Gita]

Sorry Holcaul, don't buy it!! I wouldn't call knives heavily armed compared to machine guns!! The provocation came from the israel soldiers - they shouldn't have been there. Israel government seem to think they can do whatever they please and slaughter innocent people on a daily basis. If you have joined this forum just to defend your government then you are wasting your breath cos here we do our research and we have a good idea. If you have joined this forum to defend your people then you are still wasting your breath cos we don't tar the people with the same brush as their government. I've posted vids on this thread showing the disgust of some of the Israelian people.

[holcaul]

IDF did not use machine guns in that operation. They were using pistols (Glocks), the guys from the operating room told me that they removed only 9mm bullets, that means that only small firearms were used. The commandos team started firing at the terrorists when they were fired upon not even when they were beaten senseless by sticks and knives, that I heard directly from one of the soldiers that was on the ship on the morning after the attack. Yes the terrorists stole firearms from the crew. It was a pure provocation!!! The problem is that israeli government could choose many more peacefull ways to resolve this. Just to let you know, this attack is openly considered a failure even here in Israel.
You are not listening to what I'm saying. Very well then. Be it your way. I'm leaving this discussion. A little piece of advice, if you want the truth, you should really stop watching television, because what's shown there is nothing more than biased misleading disinformation, when ANY of the sides presented. I'm on the other hand, coming out with solid facts that were not filtered by media.

PS
Remember, this provocation is all part of a much bigger plan of separation.

Peace and Love.... and happy Awakening

[Rocky_Shorz]

thank you for coming forward with first hand info, that was my thought to when I saw the soldiers on the ground was what happened to their weapons...

This was a training exercise to make a tape on how to handle a ship boarding that is already been spread through all the groups...

This boarding method must never be used again, the compromise of allowing the ships to unload in Egypt for the goods to be hauled across into Gaza is the direction to move forward keeping both sides neutral of further conflict.

Hull Charges that will punch holes needs to be how the next attempts are handled so those owning the ships understand they will be sunk on the next try at breaking the blockade.

The owners of the ships will not risk multi-million dollar vessels...

[Eric J (Viking)]

I think we need to look at the bigger picture here...

Why did the Israelis steal land from the Palestinians all those years ago?...Why are US supporting the Israelis to the tune of billions each year?.. Why have the Israelis put a blockade on Palestine with all sorts of supplies denied to them? Why have they suppresed the Palestinians to the extent that desperation borders on suicide?...Why? Why? Why? the military might of the Israelis should be ashamed of themselves for war crimes against humanity...They are the wrong doers in this situation...Hey how would we all act if we were living the life of a Palestinian??

The Palestinians will have there day!! their time is coming...

viking

[Rocky_Shorz]

well it isn't a matter of them having their day, they need to get off the Iran agenda and just recognize Israel's right to exist in peace.

According to a Palestinian friend of mine, the fastest way for Israel to stop the bombings would be to invest in mental hospitals. He says most of the bombers and those launching the attacks are completely nuts. The Saudi's have had great success in de-radicalization centers training towards a moderate Islam instead of the extremist agendas of the Iranians.

I think it would be a much better use for the billions we are handing to Israel instead of advanced weaponry...

Drop books, not bombs...

[Eric J (Viking)]

Posted by Rocky_Shorz (here)
well it isn't a matter of them having their day, they need to get off the Iran agenda and just recognize Israel's right to exist in peace.

According to a Palestinian friend of mine, the fastest way for Israel to stop the bombings would be to invest in mental hospitals. He says most of the bombers and those launching the attacks are completely nuts. The Saudi's have had great success in de-radicalization centers training towards a moderate Islam instead of the extremist agendas of the Iranians.

I think it would be a much better use for the billions we are handing to Israel instead of advanced weaponry...

Drop books, not bombs...

Books are Ok Rocky....

As long as they are not used as a propaganda tool!!! Truth!!

viking

[greybeard]

I think that the big picture is that ordinary Palestinians and ordinary Israelis could get on fine together after all they are of the same family originally.
Peace is not in the interest of those that control the media so everything is done to inflame the situation by biased reporting.
We are, everyone is brainwashed by the media. The news is the biggest tool of the enemy of peace.
Thats not to say it didn't happen but it might be that the Israelis fell into a very successful propaganda event in which innocent people were sacrificed to keep the war going.
Taking it to root cause, Who exactly benefits from keeping all wars going and promoting fear and unrest?
Boy are they good at it.
I take the side of peace and harmony.
Take the media version of anything with a pinch of salt its not neutral in anything.
Chris

[Rocky_Shorz]

right now as an American you could travel to Jerusalem in complete safety, Muslims, Christians and Jews living side by side in peace...

yes there is anger on both sides but most of it is at government levels not the people who sit side by side each other in restaurants or their office going through their daily lives working to keep a roof over their family with food in the fridge.

Most of the radicals went to Gaza, which left the rest of them in peace.

Abbas has been traveling to Gaza trying to work on reconciliation with Hamas to bring them together.

Think of it this way, what if the Mexicans decided to take back California? What would America do if they rolled Ballistic missiles to the border that could wipe out San Diego and LA and suicide bombers started strapping bombs to themselves and running inside of restaurants and blowing themselves up for the cause? The fences are already going up separating the countries, the borders are closed to anyone not having permission to cross.

it has only been 160 years, the battle over Israel has gone on for thousands of years...

The Mexican War between the United States and Mexico began with a Mexican attack on American troops along the southern border of Texas on Apr. 25, 1846. Fighting ended when U.S. Gen. Winfield Scott occupied Mexico City on Sept. 14, 1847; a few months later a peace treaty was signed (Feb. 2, 1848) at Guadalupe Hidalgo. In addition to recognizing the U.S. annexation of Texas defeated Mexico ceded California and , New Mexico (including all the present-day states of the Southwest) to the United States.

BACKGROUND

As with all major events, historical interpretations concerning the causes of the Mexican War vary. Simply stated, a dictatorial Centralist government in Mexico began the war because of the U.S. annexation (1845) of Texas, which Mexico continued to claim despite the establishment of the independent republic of Texas 10 years before. Some historians have argued, however, that the United States provoked the war by annexing Texas and, more deliberately, by stationing an army at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Another, related, interpretation maintains that the administration of U.S. President James K. Polk forced Mexico to war in order to seize California and the Southwest. A minority believes the war arose simply out of Mexico's failure to pay claims for losses sustained by U.S. citizens during the Mexican War of Independence.

History Link

[Gita]

Quote

Time To Tell The Truth About Israel ... Without Fear Of The Mind Police

The Thought Censors don't like it? Tough

By David Icke
January 10th 2009

Hello all ...

So yet again the people of the virtual-concentration camp, known officially as 'Gaza', are being bombarded from the sky and from the ground by the bully-boys of Tel Aviv.
State-of-the art Israeli jets and tanks, paid for by the United States, strike civilian targets in this tragic, poverty-stricken wasteland which acts as a holding camp for the human beings the Israeli government would rather be dead.

The world watches as a nation of people, the Palestinians, is systematically crushed and destroyed by the tyrants who call the shots in Israel on behalf of that country's real power structure - the House of Rothschild.

And, taxpayers of America (and elsewhere), you are paying for this calculated slaughter.

American aid to Israel accounts for something like a third of all US overseas aid when Israel is home to just .001 per cent of the global population and has one of the highest incomes per head in the world. This is without all the 'private' donations from US corporations and individuals which are tax-deductible even when given to the Israeli military, unlike any other foreign power.

According to 2007 figures, the United States government gave more than $6.8 million to wealthy Israel every day while to the desperate and devastated Palestinians of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank they gave just $300,000.

US military 'aid' to Israel increased by more than a quarter to an average $3 billion a year in 2007 - a figure guaranteed for ten years. This and other support makes Israel the biggest recipient of United States foreign military funding since the Second World War.

The United States is also Israel's biggest supplier of fighter planes, weapons and other military technology. As a result, Israel has the world's largest F-16 fleet outside the US Air Force. In their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt write:

'Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars.

Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America's entire foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.'
Why do they do this? Because the House of Rothschild controls Israel and the House of Rothschild controls the political system of the United States. The network that links the two is called 'Zionism', a Rothschild creation - just like Israel itself.

The might of this Zionist cabal spanning Israel, the United States, Europe and beyond is yet again, like the playground bully that it is, attacking the little kid in the callipers - the people of Gaza.
At the time of writing the death toll is more than 800 Palestinian men, women and children with thousands injured, many disabled for life. They are bombing the unarmed innocent knowing there will be no credible response - the way all bullies operate. Oh, brave men of Israel; oh how Yahweh would be so proud:

'When the LORD your God hands these nations over to you and you conquer them, you must completely destroy them. Make no treaties with them and show them no mercy.'
Deuteronomy 7:1-4

What we are seeing in Gaza, and have seen so many times, both there and in the Lebanon, is merciless Old Testament slaughter: cold, calculated, heartless slaughter.

'So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin".'

Judges 21:10-24
'Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all - old and young, girls and women and little children. But do not touch anyone with the mark. Begin your task right here at the Temple".'

Ezekiel 9:5-7
'So they began by killing the seventy leaders. "Defile the Temple!" the LORD commanded. "Fill its courtyards with the bodies of those you kill! Go!" So they went throughout the city and did as they were told.'

Ezekiel 9:5-7
The parallels are endless between the bloodthirsty 'God' of the Old Testament and the actions of the heartless, soulless, Artificial Intelligence that controls Israel, most notably the biological robots of the House of Rothschild who thus have no soul, no empathy, no more mercy for the consequences of their actions than a desktop computer.

Imagine if Iran or anyone else outside Israel and the United States (both Rothschild assets) was doing what the Israeli military is doing in Gaza. There would be global condemnation, not least from Israel and the United States, resolutions passed in the UN Security Council fiercely attacking the country involved and talk of the need for sanctions or military intervention to 'save the innocent'.
But when Israel does it we have vacuous calls for a truce, an end to the violence while 'understanding Israel's position', and, in terms of soon-to-be President 'Change' Obama, silence. It's all a fraction of what others would face because Israel is a wholly-owned asset of the Rothschilds and so is not subject to the same rules as anyone else. As former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, said:
'Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.'

And Prime Minister Golda Meir betrayed the same Zionist arrogance:

'This country exists as the fulfilment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.'

Ah, it's all in the Old Testament? Gotcha, right, well do as you like then.

The 'Jewish homeland' was from the start a Rothschild fiefdom orchestrated through the global secret society network of interbreeding families known as the Illuminati.

During the Israeli military attacks on the Lebanon in 2006, the Israeli writer, Barry Chamish, told of a meeting with Evelyn Rothschild's grandson, who abandoned the family to be a Mormon (so actually he didn't, even if he thought he did).

Chamish said he learned that just seven families were enjoying the 'fruits of the war' with the Lebanon. The grandson had said of the Rothschilds: 'They created Israel as their personal toy. It makes them richer and gives them more control. It's not going to be destroyed.'

The Rothschilds funded the early European settlers in Israel, manipulated events in Germany that led to the horrific treatment of Jewish people and others, and then used that as the excuse to reach their long-term goal - a Rothschild-Illuminati stronghold in Palestine using the Jewish population as fodder to be used and abused as necessary.

They called their plan 'Zionism'. This term is often used as a synonym for Jewish people when it is actually a political movement devised and promoted through the House of Rothschild and opposed by many Jews.

The Israeli bully-boys spend most of their time condemning the terrorism of others and yet their very State was created through terrorism of the most grotesque kind via groups like Irgun, Haganah and the Stern Gang, which bombed and terrorised Israel into being and from which came the Israel Defence Forces, the IDF, which is bombing Gaza today.

Among the leading lights in these and other terrorist groups were Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ariel Sharon, butchers who became Israeli Prime Ministers and had the nerve to condemn Arab terrorism. And to this day the butchery goes on with the goal of destroying the Palestinian people.

After the Rothschild-controlled Zionist terrorists had bombed the State of Israel into existence in 1948, an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were made refugees and fled what had been their own country. Their descendents are said to number some four million.

And the world simply looked on - just as it does to this day - because Israel is a law unto itself and so terms like justice, fairness, decency and mercy do not apply.



Palestinian families fleeing the newly-imposed Israel after their country was occupied by Zionist terrorism in 1948.

The idea was always to destroy the Palestinian people step-by-step long before Israel was even created. The Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the Rothschild-controlled British government supported the establishment of a 'Jewish' homeland in Palestine, said that 'nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine'.

But the Rothschild sidekick Chaim Weizmann would later say: 'With regard to the Arab question - the British told us that there are several hundred thousand Negroes there but this is a matter of no consequence'. Nor have they been ever since and the goal of destroying them is closer today than ever before.

The first Prime Minister of Israel, yet another terrorist called David Ben-Gurion, made no secret of this fact within his inner circle. Former Israel Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said in an uncensored version of his memoirs, published in the New York Times on 23 October 23rd, 1979:

'We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question - What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said "Drive them out!"'
The current bombing campaign against the Gaza Palestinians is just the latest step to that end. They have forced Palestinians into a Gaza Strip that is little more than a massive concentration camp in which they control all that goes in and out, people or supplies of food, medicines and other essentials.

When the Israelis close the border posts, that's it, the Palestinians are trapped and at the mercy of the soulless and heartless that control the Tel Aviv government and military under Rothschild direction.
One writer recently described conditions in Gaza:

' ... Israel nails shut the coffin that is Gaza under a siege that has lasted nearly three years, steadily intensifying so that malnutrition rates rival those of sub-Saharan Africa, sewage runs raw in the streets and pollutes the ocean, homes are still being bulldozed to super-add collective punishment upon collective punishment; men, women and children are still being sniped at and killed; children are deafened by continuing sonic booms, the vast majority of them suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome, and many of that majority have no ambition other than becoming "martyrs" ...'
And it's a whole lot worse now.

How can anyone inflict such a lack of mercy on an entire people? The question can only be answered when we understand that Zionist extremists really do believe they are God's Chosen People and that therefore the Palestinians are little more than cattle.

The Israel Prime Minister and terrorist, Menachem Begin, described the Palestinians in a speech to the Israeli parliament as 'beasts walking on two legs'. Another Prime Minister and terrorist, Yitzhak Shamir, told Jewish settlers in 1988 that the Palestinians 'would be crushed like grasshoppers ... heads smashed against the boulders and walls.'

Prime Minister and terrorist, Ariel Sharon, then Israeli Foreign Minister, confirmed in 1998 what the plan really was for the Palestinians:

'It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialisation, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.'

The plan is to kill or drive out the Palestinian people using poverty, hunger and war and so allow the Zionists to expand into 'Greater Israel'. That plan is now well advanced.

In early 2008, the United Nations' leading humanitarian affairs official said he was 'shocked' by the 'grim and miserable' conditions in Gaza. Undersecretary General John Holmes blamed this on Israel closing the border crossings and so limiting the supply of food and other materials - just as they are doing today.

He said: 'All this makes for a grim human and humanitarian situation here in Gaza, which means that people are not able to live with the basic dignity to which they are entitled'.
But they are just 'beasts walking on two legs', right?

Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the occupied territories, has also condemned Israel for its actions in Gaza. He is Jewish and therefore much more dangerous to the Israel government because he can't be dismissed as the old favourite 'anti-Semitic'. Or maybe he is a 'self-hater', the tag given by these sick people to those Jews who speak out against Israel.

Falk's punishment for daring to criticise the Promised Land as a UN official was to be held for 20 hours and then denied entry to the country and so he is prevented from doing his job of reporting on conditions for the Palestinian people during the current air and ground attacks.

His entry was denied in mid-December - perfect timing not to be there for the latest bombing that they knew was coming. Click here for an interview with Richard Falk ...

The Bush administration for the last eight years has been dominated by the Neo-conservative, or 'Neocon', network which is, itself, dominated by US/Israeli duel citizens and/or Zionists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Pearle, Dov Zackheim, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Elliot Abrams, Douglas Feith, John Bolton, Robert B Zoellick, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and others. The neo-con godfather is the late Leo Strauss, a German-born Jewish 'philosopher', who believed that people must be governed by a 'pious elite'.

But surely those days of Zionist dominance are over because 'Mr. Change' is coming to 'power' now. Er, if only. Barack Obama has packed his 'new' administration with Zionists like Rahm Emanuel, his White House Chief of Staff.

Emanuel's father, Benjamin, is a Zionist extremist who was a member of the Irgun terrorist group in Palestine that I mentioned earlier and we can clearly expect the Obama administration to be balanced and fair on its Israel/Palestinian policy. No wonder Obama has kept quiet on the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

The Obama government is going to be slavishly pro-Israel because he needed the sanction of the truly massive Zionist lobby in the United States to secure the presidency. His vice-president, Joe Biden, is a long-time bag-carrier for Israel. He said on Israeli television: 'I am a Zionist - you don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist'. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is another Israel puppetess who pledged to 'obliterate' Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on God's chosen country.

Would she say she would obliterate Israel if it launched a nuclear attack on Iran? No way.

The Palestinians have never had a chance because the table is weighted, the game is rigged and it always has been. At the time of the First World War, the Rothschild-controlled British government told the Palestine Arabs that if they fought the Ottoman Turks and forced them to leave Palestine and other lands they would be rewarded with an independent Palestine.

The Palestinian Arabs agreed and with support from the British through Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence - 'Lawrence of Arabia' - the Ottoman Empire was defeated. But their reward was not independence. It was first rule by a British 'Mandate' and then occupation by Zionist Israel.

The Arabs were lied to, as Lawrence later admitted, and they have been lied to ever since. All these 'road maps' and 'peace processes' are always designed to lead nowhere. They are just holding positions to maintain the status quo until the Palestinians are basically no more.



The Israelis always say they are killing people in 'retaliation' for attacks by the Palestinian group, Hamas, which officially controls the Gaza 'authority', although control is hardly the word with Israel deciding what and who goes in and out.

Hamas operatives are firing seriously low-tech rockets that have so far killed four people. Terrible, yes, and it should not be happening. I have no brief for Hamas, which is another tyranny in its own way, but ask yourself this: What would you do if you were faced with the situation the Palestinians are in after sixty years of oppression and persecution while the world does nothing?

If you remove the injustice, you remove the motivation for a violent response to that injustice. Put people in a position where they either accept their pathetic plight or open fire and some are bound to choose the latter.

But instead of tackling the root cause, injustice, Israel responds with a state-of-the-art bombardment that kills more than 800 and injures thousands in a few days, at least 90% of which are men, women and children who have nothing whatsoever to do with the rocket attacks. In 2007, 25 Palestinians were killed for every Israeli. That's more than just 'protecting yourself'.

Unquote

Continued here.

[Rocky_Shorz]

At The Arab Summit: President Abbas Slays the Dragon
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hani-a..._b_527725.html
Hani Almadhoun - DC-based Gaza native and Non-Profit worker
April 6, 2010 07:08 PM

During the latest Arab Summit held in Libya to discuss Netanyahu's assault on everything Palestinian in the holy city of Jerusalem, a rare and honest discussion broke out among the Arab leaders. Dubbed as the "Jerusalem" summit, many Arab dignitaries including leaders, kings, and presidents attended to show solidarity with the city and its Palestinian residents. It was very hard to hold this summit together due to differences in opinions and personal animosities some leaders have against each other, but this Arab Summit passed with little drama. The Arab Summit was held on March 27th and 28th. Arab citizens had very low expectations, as nothing the aging leaders decide has any weight. The accounts of what took place during the summit's closed session involved a provocative exchange between the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Libyan leader Moamer Kaddafi and the Amir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah as the Arab leaders discussed their "choices"

Kaddafi started by advising the fellow Arab leaders to denounce the failed peace process and return to armed struggle, but only in Palestine. Syria's delegation jumped on the resistance wagon and declared its support to the Libyan proposal, announcing that they have always been supporters of armed struggle and made no apologies about their support for Palestinian armed factions. The Libyan leader then suggested that the Arabs should also support Syria in liberating the Golan Heights, also under Israeli military occupation. Amir Sabah of Kuwait interjected and asked those two leaders to be "wiser." The Amir argued that such a proposal would be the ultimate gift for the Israeli Benjamin Netanyahu, who is struggling to improve his tainted image. Resorting to armed struggle would give Netanyahu ammunition to re-proclaim to the world "Arabs only understand violence." The Amir went one step further and reminded the attending dignitaries that the US is making an effort to pressure Israel. In other words, the Libyan proposal would make it harder for the Americans to pressure Netanyahu to freeze his land-grab policies. The Amir urged his fellow leaders to donate to the $500 million Palestine fund to alleviate their suffering.

President Abbas did not fall into the trap of standing against legitimate resistance. Abbas did not want to be defending an unpopular Israeli government who has no interest in peace. When he took the podium he made his case in a few points:

1. There is popular Palestinian resistance in many cities throughout the West Bank. The popular resistance in those areas, such as Hebron and Bil'in, are peaceful on the part of the Palestinians and enjoy tremendous international support.

2. Hamas, the militant group in Gaza that enjoys support from the Syrian government, has stated through Mahmoud Zahar, a prominent Hamas leader, that launching indiscriminate rockets on Israel is "unpatriotic", and undermines national interest. President Abbas showed that armed struggle during the second intifada has brought more damage on Gaza than it can handle. "We will not allow for Gaza to get destroyed once more by another Israeli military offensive."

3. If the Arab leaders chose armed struggle, then that's fine as long as all Arabs join in and not just commission the people of Palestine with armed struggle. It was reported that Abbas said "I will not fight the Israelis with the Palestinian citizens alone," "if armed struggle is the mutual choice, we the Palestinians will be in the front line, but alone we should have to be not be."

4. Abbas made it clear that the current Israeli government under Prime Minister Netanyahu is not interested in peace. Abbas stressed that any future peace agreement with the Israelis that does not guarantee the Palestinian capital in Jerusalem is worthless.

Toward the end of the meetings, the exchanges got heated. Refusing to be upstaged by President Abbas, the Libyan leader said that war with Israel will complicate things for the Arab regimes -- if not end their regimes. Kaddafi maintained, however, that the Palestinians are in a different position. Kaddafi further argued that the Libyans and the Algerians lost many of their youth in the struggle against colonialism without the help of other Arabs. President Abbas was reported to say, why don't we also issue a statement calling on the Syrian army to liberate the Golan Heights? The suggestion received a warm welcome from Kaddafi, but sources confirm that President Assad "got the message" and declared that peace, not war, is his strategy.

Ultimately, the Libyan leader agreed with President Abbas' vision for peaceful resolution. President Abbas, who was snubbed by Kaddafi on a State visit to Libya a few weeks prior to the Summit, chose to go to the Lion's den and make his case to leaders who disagree with his vision. One thing remains clear: if Abbas and his team of technocrats fail, the consequence of their failure is grave, and that's a conclusion even his hardest-hitting critics agree with. Rejecting a proxy war on behalf of the other Arab regimes was a good move for President Abbas, who knows violence will only beget more violence and everybody loses.

so a month Later, Hamas tried to pull them back towards conflict by breaking the blockade and provoking an attack by Israel that would be seen around the world...

[Gita]

There always has to be one Rock and no suprise it's you again! You can't expect people to stand back and do nothing after decades of torment. I wonder how you would behave if it was you and yours? What's your game here now? I’ve noticed with you that you find little snippets of info and then post them with the intention of getting everything out of context. It’s always good to see the bigger picture and find the truth in that. If you feel that you need to support innocent people being murdered then that’s your ‘karma’. Don’t expect decent folk to join in with you. Palestinians are being tormented as we ‘speak’ and you feel the need to justify it. Knock yourself out – suppose someone’s got to.

[Eric J (Viking)]

Perspective...

Israel’s Deadly Assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Murder on the High Seas
Tue, 06/01/2010 - 11:32 — Anonymous


Like the cop who batters someone senseless at a demonstration and then accuses the victim of “banging his head against my baton,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused the victims of Israel’s brutal military assault on a peace convoy to Gaza of attacking Israeli soldiers. An Israeli deputy ambassador to the UN went further, saying, “What kind of peace activists use knives, clubs and other weapons to attack soldiers who board a ship in accordance with international law?''

Let’s straighten this out. The question to be asked is: what kind of country
sends heavily armed troops to assault a boat filled with unarmed, peaceful civilians, and slaughters nine or more of them as if they were enemy troops in a war zone?

It is undisputed that the boarded ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara, and five smaller vessels, were in international waters. According to witness reports, including those of respected mainstream journalists who were on board, naval commandos, acting on the highest authority from the Israeli government, but behaving more like Somali pirates, boarded the Turkish ship with guns blazing, and continued to fire even as the activists on board had raised a white flag. The boarding, according to Marjorie Cohn, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, and other legal authorities, was illegal under international maritime law, and in any event, given the fact that the ships were civilian, and the passengers non-military, even had they been in Israeli waters, could have been negotiated peacefully, had Israel wanted to do this.

There was no urgency. The Israeli Navy had the power to prevent the ships from landing without firing a shot. It admits it had nets that could have halted five of the vessels, and it has larger naval vessels that could have halted the Mavi Marmara, either by forcibly towing it, or by physically blocking its way.

NPR, in a particularly repulsive report on the bloody assault which killed 9 people and wounded many more, referred to it as a “bungled raid.” The New York Times, on Tuesday, in a news article, reported as fact, with no attribution, that “the operation seems to have gone badly wrong.” But this was no “bungled” action, or action that had “gone badly wrong. “ The Israeli attack, and the deadly methods it employed, were both clearly deliberate, and had to have been intended to send a message to those who would assist the imprisoned population of Gaza, who for four years and through an Israeli invasion of that territory almost a year and a half ago, has been kept on a starvation diet by an illegal Israeli blockade.

Israel clearly wanted a violent confrontation, as it didn’t need to initiate one to stop the ships from delivering their cargo. The Israeli claim that the violence was justified because some on the boarded ship offered resistance to the IDF attackers, using metal pipes, is absurd. Israel has been fighting an unfair, uneven battle of tanks and Uzis against stone-throwing Palestinians for so long that it apparently no longer even recognizes that the rest of the world sees it for the homicidal bully that it is. Israeli special forces clearly have the training to disarm untrained attackers wielding pipes or even knives (my own 16-year-old, 130 lb., 5’7” son, with his karate training, could handle that).

And let's be honest here. Israel is trying to have it both ways, and the two official explanations are mutually exclusive: On the one hand the government claims that the commandos were armed only with "paint-guns" and were "caught by surprise" by the boat's "violent" passengers, but on the other hand, it also says it was convinced that the flotilla was organized by what it calls a "terrorist organization" with "links to Hamas and Hezzbollah." If the latter is true, there's no way the commandos were allowed to board the ship without assault weapons and other heavy arms. If Israel actually knew the flotilla had no "terrorist" connection, then a violent, armed assault and the use of lethal force was unnecessary.

The reality is that we are dealing with a pariah state, no better at this point in its respect for international law and basic human rights (where non-Israelis are concerned), than North Korea. And maybe worse. At least the North Koreans fired their weapon at a South Korean military vessel. The Israeli Defense Force attacked a vessel filled with civilian peace activists, including elderly Holocaust survivors and young children.

While the captured peace activists were held incommunicado in Israel on a military base that is closed to reporters, Israel gushed propaganda like a wild BP oil well, trying to make the case that the boats were carrying contraband (ball bearings and sling-shots in one account). Such ludicrous assertions, ultimately disproven, hardly justify Israeli actions in the assault. Moreover, the speed with which such alleged contraband was “found” on a ship carrying thousands of tons of relief supplies, suggests either disinformation, or that something was planted, either by the IDF boarding party, or by Mossad agents before the ships had even set sail.

This Israeli raid confirms the total bankruptcy of Israel’s position in the world. By killing Turkish nationals and by violating the rights of a Turkish vessel, Israel has permanently poisoned its relations with the only real ally it has had in the Muslim world--a country that only recently actually allowed Israel to use its airspace to attack a suspected nuclear reactor site in Syria. It has also done enormous damage to relations with the US, where public support for Israeli policy towards the Palestinians was already tanking, following the brutal invasion of Gaza last year.

American political leaders are still scurrying around trying to avoid alienating the powerful pro-Israeli lobby in the US, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). President Obama, the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, when confronted with the assault, could only work himself up to the point of expressing “deep regret” at the loss of life, and calling for in investigation (by Israel!) into “all the facts and circumstances” of the incident. Such limp and even-handed comments are unacceptable, and are becoming increasingly out of touch with public sentiment. Even given the shamelessly pro-Israeli slant to most US media coverage of this and other Israeli actions, many Americans, including many American Jews, are finding it harder and harder to support Israeli policy.

On Memorial Day my wife and I had dinner at the home of a some close friends who are Jewish. Three other Jewish couples were also present, two of whom, frequent visitors to Israel, mentioned that they were planning a trip to the country this summer. During the whole evening, there was no mention at all of the Israeli raid. It was as if we were all at the zoo looking at the tiger exhibit, and everyone was talking about rabbits. The other three couples who were guests, none of whom were familiar to me, my politics, or even the fact that I am not Jewish, said nothing. Our friends said nothing. And I clearly knew that if I said anything at all, all hell would break out. Clearly though, all the Jewish Americans present realized that the attack would be an explosive issue even amongst themselves, about which there would be irreconcilable differences of opinion.

It needs to be mentioned that those helicopters that lowered the Israeli commandos onto the ship were American-built. Most of Israel’s formidable military is either made in USA or paid for by the USA. Indeed as attorney Cohn notes, Israel is the largest recipient of US military aid since WWII. If public support in the US for Israel continues to erode, pressures to end that kind of military support will mount. Already, many in the senior ranks of the US military are criticizing America’s unquestioning backing of Israeli military and foreign policy, saying that it is leading to the needless deaths of American soldiers. Americans, even many Jewish Americans, are becoming increasingly critical of the Jewish state.

The irredentist, apartheid religious state of Israel is heading down a dead-end road

http://regator.com/p/242606739/israe...edom_flotilla/

viking

[Rocky_Shorz]

well you both have valid points, why don't we all fall into the manipulation of TPTB and demand WW III starts right now

Why don't we provoke Iran into launching an attack on Israel that will kill 500,000 Palestinians...

Palestine was the spoils of War taken from the Ottoman empire

Fighting between the Arab and Jewish communities of Palestine began in November 1947, immediately after the UN decision to create a Jewish state. The Arab States declared they would greet any attempt to form a Jewish state with war.[46] Dr Izzat Tannous, the Palestinian Arab representative to the UN declared that

We are now at war, a war in which no quarter will be asked and none will be given. It will be a battle of life and death and woe to the vanquished.[47]

Fighting spread as the British gradually withdrew. The Arab League could not invade until the British completed their withdrawal, and planned an invasion for the day after. In this phase, before the British departure, the struggle was a civil war. Arab forces consisted of village militias buttressed by the Arab Liberation Army, a force composed largely of Arab volunteers from across the Middle-East but which included European mercenaries including British deserters, German Nazis[48] and veterans of the (Bosnian Moslem) Croatian Waffen SS (whose commander had been the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem). The Jews had their militias (including many World War II veterans) and a several thousand strong professional force called the Palmach.

Initially the Arabs had the advantage as the British maintained an embargo on Palestine's seas preventing the Jews from importing arms or manpower while Arab states could supply local Arabs who also occupied more strategic areas. The Jews, however, had a slight manpower advantage over the local Arabs among males in the twenty to forty-four age group,[49] were better organized and believed themselves to be fighting for their lives. Jewish taxes had funded both the British army in Palestine and British support for the Arab population so the Jewish economy benefited from the British departure while the Arab economy collapsed as the war expanded. The Jews had an elected government (the Va'ad Leumi) already in place with an independent taxation system.

In the early stages 100,000 Palestinian Arabs, mainly the upper classes and the better off fled to neighbouring states.[50] Before May 1948, 150,000 more fled or were evicted during fighting as the Jews slowly overpowered the Arab forces. Jewish preparation for the Arab invasion led to the eviction of hostile Arab communities who controlled access routes. In Haifa the Arab Higher Committee (who were based in Syria) refused to allow a negotiated cease fire with the Jews or allow the Arab population to remain under Jewish control thus contributing to the departure of the city's Arab population.[51] There was particularly heavy fighting on the road to Jerusalem, whose 100,000 strong Jewish community was cut off from the rest of the country, and this led the Jews to destroy most of the Arab villages along the narrow route they eventually established between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

The terms of engagement was declared by a Palestinian Arab...

" We are now at war, a war in which no quarter will be asked and none will be given. It will be a battle of life and death and woe to the vanquished"

but as long as Hamas is stating the moment they are released from their prison they will start another war, Israel has the right to keep them captive to protect their country.

There is nothing fair about war, but all Hammas has to do is say "Ya Ammu" "Uncle" and agree to end the war and live with Isreal in peace, it will be over...

[Rocky_Shorz]

History of Israel

[Gita]

It seems logic has completely escaped you Rock. Stop talking from your ego and lets stick to facts and intentions here - unless you want to make this all about you and not the millions whose generations have been suffering and still are. You want to support the zionist then fly your flag and carry on with countless murders. Like I said before, knock yourself out - as hard as you want.