mblumenthal — 6 juin 2010 — 6.1.10 Thousands of Israelis rally in Tel Aviv in support of the IDF raid against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla that left nine passengers dead. The rally was organized through Israeli Facebook forums. In addition to supporting the IDF commando unit that attacked the Mavi Marmara ship, demonstrators expressed anger at Turkey and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who they accused of supporting terrorism.
Free Gaza Movement –
In the dark, early hours of May 31, Israel launched a commando and navy attack on 6 unarmed civilian ships carrying humanitarian aid in the international waters of the Mediterranean sea, opening fire before they landed. These highly trained, professional soldiers killed and wounded tens of civilians, many of whom were on the Mavi Marmara, a boat owned by the Turkish charity, IHH (The Foundation for Human Rights & Freedoms & Humanitarian Relief).
We in the Free Gaza Movement would like to offer our deepest sympathy to the people of Turkey and particularly to the 9 families who have lost loved ones. 28 children have lost their fathers due to the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted Yalcin Buyuk, the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, as saying that the nine victims were shot a total of 30 times. Based on preliminary autopsy reports, two men were shot four times each and five others were shot either in the back of the head or in the back. Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old activist, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. Nineteen-year-old Furkan Dogan, a US citizen of Turkish descent, was shot five times from less than 45cm away, in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two IHH aid workers, Cevdet Kiliclar and Necdet Yildrim, were amongst the victims.
We in Free Gaza are proud and honored to work and be associated with the IHH and its honorable track record of humanitarian missions worldwide. As a human rights organization, it is hard for us to comprehend this kind of violence, especially when used against civilians embarked upon a humanitarian mission, such as that of the highly respected IHH. Furthermore it is appalling that the inflammatory remarks of Netanyahu, referring to them as “a ship of hate organised by violent Turkish terror extremists” should subsequently be repeated or even referred to by the media as anything but a pathetically transparent attempt to justify the inadmissable.
The facts are simple: The blockade of the port of Gaza is illegal, as deemed by international law and the UN. This point cannot be argued with, the siege must end, the rights and dignity of the Palestinians in Gaza must be honoured, the port must be opened. Alongside of our partners in the Freedom Flotilla, we demand that Israel returns our boats including the Spirit of Humanity, detained by Israel since early 2009. The Free Gaza Movement and our international parteners intend to launch another flotilla at the first available opportunity. After that there will be yet another… and another… until this diabolical blockade collapses and steps towards peace are finally taken.
Yesterday another boat was announced by the ”Jüdische Stimme”. Along with her partners, the EJJP and JJP (UK), they are sending a boat and call to world leaders to help Israel find her way back to reason, a sense of humanity and a life without fear. ”Jewish Voices” expects the political leaders of Israel and the world to guarantee safe passage for their small vessel to Gaza, thus helping to form a bridge towards peace.
The FGM and our partners would like to acknowledge and thank the many governments in particular that of Ireland and Turkey, for their support for our mission. However most importantly of all, we would like to thank the ‘ordinary’ people from everywhere who contributed to the cargo and raised their voices together to spread the message worldwide: This siege of the Gaza strip and the imprisonment of its people must end.
Ali Abunimah
* Ali Abunimah
Captured, disarmed hijackers did not face “lynching” as Israel claimed
The website of Turkish newspaper Hürriyet published a gallery of photos showing Israeli soldiers captured after their attack on the Mavi Marmara in international waters in the early hours of 31 May.
The predictable response of the Israeli army, as quoted in Haaretz, was that the “published pictures serve as clear and unequivocal proof of Israel’s repeated arguments that aboard [the Mavi Marmara] were mercenaries who intended to kill Israeli soldiers.” Israeli spokespersons and media in recent days have also claimed the soldiers faced “lynching,” a provocative term which originated to describe the deliberate mob murders of African Americans by white supremacists in the United States.
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91177info — 6 juin 2010 — After seeing passengers shot at close range they tried to grab the weapons to stop the killing. Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe was later beaten by the Israelis.
A US war veteran said yesterday he confronted Israeli commandos when they raided a Gaza-bound aid ship which he had boarded as a peace activist, Anatolia news agency reported.
Kenneth Nichols O’Keefe, his face bruised and still stained with blood, flew to Istanbul from Tel Aviv, on his way to Ireland, the report said.
“We overpowered three Israeli commandos. They looked at us… They thought we would kill them, but we let them go,” O’Keefe said, adding he took the weapon of one of the soldiers and emptied it, according to Anatolia.
The ex-marine said he saw five people being killed on board the Mavi Marmara.
Thankyou to cdr23d1-
http://www.youtube.com/user/cdr23d1
dimanche 6 juin 2010, par Davidi
15 thousands of communist and peace activists marched in Tel Aviv yesterday evening (Saturday, June 5) to mark 43 years of Palestinian and Arab territories occupation while taking the opportunity to slam recent IDF murder raids on Gaza-bound ships.
Dozens of fascist counter-protesters periodically attempted to disrupt the demonstration, and at one point a smoke grenade was hurled at the protestors outside the Tel Aviv Museum in face of the Defense Ministry. No injuries were reported in the incident. Later, right-wing protesters tried to attack veteran peace activist Uri Avneri, snatching signs he was carrying.
The demonstration, which was held under the slogan “The government is drowning us all,” was originally planned by the Communist Party of Israel (CPI) and Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) solely to protest the occupation, but following last Monday’s Israeli deadly raid on a Turkish vessel trying to run the Gaza blockade, the rally also addressed the criminal government’s policies in regard to the Gaza Strip and the military operation that left nine foreigners dead.
“The government is drowning us all” read a large sign in the rally. Dov Khenin, a legislator for Hadash and leading communist militant, charged that “Barak has refused to move on the path of peace and leads [us to] a dangerous deterioration. The same people who sent the soldiers to take over the flotilla in the middle of the night are liable to send Israel to a new and terrible war”. Hadash chairman Mohamed Barakeh declared, “We will not let the crazy right wing push aside the left and the Arab sector into political isolation.”
A spokesman for the organizers of the rally told journalists it “was an even bigger success than he expected” and that he believes the past week’s events had led to an increase in the number of participants. That it showed that “people are opposed to this government that is driving us toward international isolation and a new war.”
The communist and pacifist protestors, who were walking from Rabin Square to the Tel Aviv Museum, were holding up signs reading “The government is sinking all of us – we must aspire for peace”. Other marchers held up signs reading “Israel, Palestine, two states for two people”. The rally has been organized by a communist and peace coalition that includes Hadash, CPI and Meretz parties, the Young Communist Guard (Banki-Shabiba), Peace Now, Gush Shalom, Yesh Gvul, Physicians for Human Rights, and other organizations. The march was being lead by CPI chairman Muhammad Nafah, Knesset Members Muhammad Barakeh, Dov Khenin, Afo Agbarie and Hanna Sweid (from Hadash) and Knesset Members Haim Oron and Nitzan Horowitz (from Meretz).
source
rageunderground — 1 juin 2010 — A day after a botched Israeli raid to stop the Gaza “Freedom Flotilla” from carrying some 700 activists and 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the besieged territory, details remain scant about the operation, in which at least nine activists were killed.
Several ships were towed into the port around noon on Monday. The largest passenger ship, the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara arrived about 6:45 p.m. Monday as the sun was setting on a day that saw at least nine of the approximately 600 activists on board killed in a skirmish with Israeli commandos.
Israel has also barred journalists from accessing the Ashdod port to which the ships, and their passengers, were towed — and even the wounded were being treated at hospitals under heavy military guard.
Apache helicopter gunships buzzed noisily over the otherwise sleepy Israeli seaport of Ashdod, where dozens of local activists and foreign journalists had descended on the waterfront in anticipation of the seized fleet’s arrival.
“We are trying to express our solidarity with the activists and with the people of Gaza by maintaining a presence at the port,” said Inna Michaeli, one of about 100 left-wing Israeli activists and coordinator with the Coalition of Women for Peace, on Monday. “But we are being stopped by the police and by the army. They have turned our country into a military zone.”
At the port there were hundreds of Israeli’s in support of the IDF, as this footage shows.
June 4th 2010
Dear Editor
The murder of humanitarian aid workers aboard the Mavi Marmara in international waters is the latest tragic example of Israel’s relentless attacks on human rights. But while violently preventing the free passage of medical, building and school supplies to Gaza, Israel continues to pride itself as a highly cultured, highly educated state. In solidarity with Palestinian civil society and its call for a Boycott Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, we the undersigned therefore appeal to British writers and scholars to boycott all literary, cultural and academic visits to Israel that are sponsored by the Israeli government, including those organised by Israeli cultural foundations and universities. (This boycott does not include courageous independent Israeli organisations who openly oppose the occupation.) We also ask that writers, poets and British funding bodies actively support Palestinian literary events, such as the Palestinian Literary Festival and the Palestinian Writing Workshop.
Materially and ideologically, state-sponsored Israeli academic and cultural events both prop up and mask the on-going brutal occupation of Palestine. Israeli universities are key players in the creation and dissemination of government policy, and while some Israeli cultural foundations may promote ‘dialogue’ between the two peoples, there can be no true dialogue when one party is a military superpower and the other a nation of second-class citizens, refugees and virtual prisoners. Appearing as an international guest at all such Israeli cultural and academic events helps to divert attention from, and normalize, Israeli war crimes in Gaza; the annexation of East Jerusalem; and the on-going illegal settlement of the West Bank. Such appearances will also help to normalise Israel’s recent abhorrent military actions at sea.
More information on the cultural and academic boycott of Israel may be found at http://www.pacbi.org and http://www.bricup.org.uk. But in brief, we the undersigned do not wish to lend our presence or approval to cultural or academic events underwritten by the State of Israel, nor do we wish to help sustain the deliberately fostered illusion of moral and military parity between the two actors in this conflict. Rather as Britons and British residents, we believe that we have a historical and moral obligation to support the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people in their struggle for long-denied peace, justice and self-determination.
Yours truly,
BWISP (British Writers In Support of Palestine)
bwisp.info@googlemail.com
Rowyda Amin (poet)
Prof Mona Baker (scholar)
John Berger (novelist, art critic, essayist, poet, Booker Prize winner)
Marilyn Booth (scholar)
Kevin Cadwallender (poet)
Jenny Diski (novelist, essayist, travel writer)
Alison Fell (novelist, poet)
Naomi Foyle (poet, editor, scholar and BWISP co-ordinator)
Prof Patrick Ffrench (scholar, writer)
Prof Ian Gregson (poet, literary critic)
Rumy Hasan (scholar)
Aamer Hussein (writer)
Judith Kazantzis (poet and BWISP co-ordinator)
Mimi Khalvati (poet)
Wendy Klein (poet)
Stephen Knight (poet and critic)
Diane Langford (novelist)
Catherine Lupton (writer)
Lauro Martines (writer, socio-political and historical scholar)
Alan Morrison (poet and editor)
Dr Dalia Mostafa (scholar)
Ali Nasralla (scholar)
Sybil Oldfield (academic, scholar, feminist historian/biographer)
Julia O’Faolain (novelist)
Jeremy Page (poet, editor, critic)
Thomas Pakenham (historian)
Dr Ian Patterson (poet and scholar)
Prof Jonathan Rosenhead (scholar)
Dr Duncan Salkeld (literary scholar)
John Siddique (poet and writer)
Mark Slater (scholar, critic and writer)
Dr Derek Summerfield (writer, scholar)
David Swann (poet and writer)
Kate Webb (writer, critic)
Irving Weinman (novelist and BWISP co-ordinator)
Eliza Wyatt (playwright)
Evie Wyld (novelist)
Robin Yassin-Kassab (novelist)
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