Posted on June 10 2010 by Cecilie Surasky under Gaza , IDF.
The Israeli government, with the aid of its many proxies- especially in the Jewish institutional world, is working overtime after the Mavi Mavera massacre to paint the Gaza flotilla participants as terrorists.
Apparently–jamming satellite communications, absconding with tens of thousands of dollars of equipment, confiscating every photo and video they could find, and releasing pathetically doctored “evidence” (thank you Ali Abunimah and Max Blumenthal and others) is not enough. Now groups are working to keep flotilla human rights activists out of the country.
Here’s the stunning petition the NY Jewish Community Relations Council has put together to keep activists out. Mondoweiss has audio of retired US Colonel Ann Wright, who was just in NYC, speaking about what happened. She must be the person they’re trying to keep out of the country. Good luck with that. So much for America-first.

Abraham Greenhouse, Nora Barrows-Friedman
EI, June 15, 2010
“The systematic attempt and very deliberate first priority for the Israeli soldiers as they came on the ships was to shut down the story, to confiscate all cameras, to shut down satellites, to smash the CCTV cameras that were on the Mavi Marmara, to make sure that nothing was going out. They were hellbent on controlling the story,” commented Australian journalist Paul McGeough, one of the hundreds of activists and reporters who witnessed the deadly morning attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May (“Framing the Narrative: Israeli Commandos Seize Videotape and Equipment from Journalists After Deadly Raid,” Democracy Now, 9 June 2010). McGeough was one of at least 60 journalists aboard the flotilla who were detained and their footage confiscated.
Within hours of the Gaza-bound aid flotilla being intercepted and besieged in international waters by Israeli commandos, who killed at least nine — some at point-blank range — aboard the Mavi Marmara, news of the bloody attack had spread across the globe. Rage, condemnation and calls for an international investigation followed.
Meanwhile, Israel’s campaign to spin the attack, distort the facts and quell an outraged public was already in full swing. Concurrently, activists and skeptical journalists began deconstructing the official story and assembling evidence to uncover the truth behind the violent deaths of activists on a humanitarian mission to the besieged Gaza Strip.
…a report in Haaretz that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had told U.S. President Barack Obama during his recent visit to Washington that he opposed the lifting of the naval blockade because such a move would bolster Hamas, the rival of Abbas’ Fatah party.
However, Abbas’ spokesman issued a denial on Sunday in response to the morning’s report, explaining to the Palestinain Wafa news agency that the Palestinian president had told Obama that the lifting of the blockade on Gaza was like the peace process in the sense that “the president [Abbas] has raised the demand to lift the blockade in all his meetings with world leaders.”
“The world should take advantage of the events of the Gaza flotilla to push Israel to lift the blockade and end the suffering of Gaza’s inhabitants,” The spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudaina, added.
Meanwhile Sunday, Middle East envoy Tony Blair said he hoped to see movement in the next few days on easing the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.
full article here
AND ONE HOUR RAW FOOTAGE

By Khalid Amayreh • Jun 10th, 2010 at 10:51
WRITTEN BY KHALID AMAYREH IN OCCUPIED PALESTINE
Just as Israel’s barbarianism was being exposed to hundreds of millions of viewers around the world, following the criminal state’s bloody raid on the Gaza Freedom flotilla on 31 May, Abdul Rahman al Rashed was barking from London, blaming Hamas for the persistence of the Israeli or more correctly Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the coastal territory.
This is the same Abdul Rahman al Rashed that only a few years ago claimed that while all Muslims were not terrorists, it was clear that all terrorists were Muslim.
Thus, in just one sound-bite he exonerated the world’s premier terrorists from any wrong doing, effectively granting a certificate of innocence to murderous Ashkenazi vandals who stole Palestine from its rightful owners and also to Nazi-like America which had just occupied and destroyed two sovereign Muslim nations based on lies and baseless allegations.
Abdul Rahman al Rashed is literally translated into “the Servant of the Compassionate (Allah), the rightly-guided.” However, a more fitting name for this intellectual midget should connote or denote the fact that he is a willing slave for Zionist propaganda and decadent Arab tyrannies.
In his tedious, monotonous writings, this pseudo-intellectual has repeatedly demonstrated a shocking propensity to side with and support everything and anything Zionist or American against everything and anything Islamic or Palestinian or Arab or even human.
His unscrupulous espousal and advocacy of Zionist narratives are beyond disgraceful. He should be called Abdul al Shaytan, rather than Abdul Rahman, and al Dhal instead of al Rashed.
This intellectual midget, who is given ample tribune to spread his manifestly stupid but thoroughly poisoned vagaries, has claimed, among other things, that Iran stood behind the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
Well, if Iran is in the business of trying to lift the Judeo Nazi siege imposed on 1.700,000 Palestinians languishing for the fourth successive year under one of history’s most draconian sieges, then we should salute the Iranian regime in the most cordial manner.
After all, taking part in alleviating the hardship and suffering facing helpless people being starved and tormented by the Nazis of our time, namely Israel, is the ultimate expression of humanness, gallantry, and self-abnegation, whereas cowering in the face of Israel and its guardian-ally, the United States, by letting the people of Gaza starve and die quietly, is the ultimate expression of cowardice, treachery and contemptibility.
Indeed, as the quality of metals is often tested by fire, so is the quality of men tested by their stands and attitudes toward the enduring scandal of the enduring Gaza nightmare as well as the overall Palestinian cause.
Al Rashed says he was absolutely sure that Israel viewed the “extremists in the region as her allies” because “both want to thwart Obama’s peace scheme.”
Well, what peace scheme is this ignorant man talking about? Indeed, if Obama can’t bring himself to denounce the maritime massacre of Mavi Marmara, who in his or her right mind would count on him and his administration to force Israel to give up the spoils of the 1967-war and enable the orphan-like Palestinian Authority (PA) to have a truly viable and territorially contiguous state with Jerusalem as its capital?
Besides, if Hamas and Hezbullah, who are defending the dignity of the umma, are not at the forefront of the resistance against Israel, who is then? The filthy-rich oil mega-thieves who squander the wealth of Muslims to satisfy their bestial desires and morbid fantasies? Or the mindless idiots who are building the world’s tallest skyscrapers when they can’t even manufacture their own underwear?
In the last verse of Surat Muhammed, the Almighty warns these misguided people: “If you go astray, God will substitute in your stead another people; then they would not be like you!”
This flamboyant ignoramus gives the impression that America’s failure or inability to pressure Israel to walk in the path of peace is attributed to Arab extremism, not Zio-Nazism.
So, what ideas does this idiot possess in order to nudge Israel to be forthcoming and come to terms with Obama’s peace scheme?
Does he suggest allowing Jews to return to al Madina al Munawarra, for example? Or perhaps he might be thinking that Arab states should start teaching Shulhan Aruch and Chesronot Shas to Arab kids starting with grade-1 in order to impress Israel and organizations like AIPAC?
Al-Rashed may be tempted to view himself as an Arab intellectual. However, he and his like-minded “intellectuals” are nothing more than cheap mercenaries serving Zionist propaganda against Islam, Arabs and the noble Palestinian cause.
This is amply evident from the fact that he and his fellow traitors are heavily quoted by the Zionist hasbara machine including the Israeli foreign ministry sites.
I am really reluctant to spend time exposing this scoundrel. During the genocidal Israeli onslaught against the Gaza Strip, he stood decidedly against Hamas as if Hamas, not Israel, were raining White Phosphorus on the children and women of Gaza. And now, he is blaming the democratically-elected movement for the persistence of the blockade of Gaza. Perhaps I shouldn’t be alluding to democracy, after all he comes from a land that doesn’t know how to spell the word “democracy” and is now trying to blindly imitate the west’s promiscuous ways in order to gain a certificate of good conduct from the sages of Zionism in North America.
Well, doesn’t this confused pseudo-intellectual realize that Israel has been occupying and tormenting Gaza for decades. Indeed, Israel had more than 20 years during which Hamas didn’t exist. However, instead of making peace and giving up the spoils of aggression, Israel was busy stealing Arab land, destroying Arab homes and building Jewish settlements.
Yasser Arafat gave the Israelis everything they asked for, in the hope that they would relent and come to terms with Palestinian rights and dignity. He even went as far as tormenting and torturing his own people in order to obtain a certificate of good conduct from Isaac Rabin, the pseudo-peace dove who had ordered his troops to break the bones of Palestinian children. And what was the result of all this blindness of the mind? They killed him in his own headquarters in Ramallah.
And now the Commander of the Faithful in Ramallah, Abu Mazen, al-Rashed’s apparent darling, is even outmatching Arafat by indulging in all these stupid sycophantic theatrics that only serve to further degrade and dishonor the Palestinian people, while emboldening the Zio-Nazi leadership in Tel Aviv including the wild Jewish animals, known as the settlers in the West Bank.
The London-based quisling journalist is strikingly naïve. He is audacious enough to think that all the suffering in Gaza would come to an abrupt end if only Hamas and other Palestinian factions ignored the fate of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners and freedom fighters languishing in Zionist concentration camps by unconditionally releasing an Israeli prisoner of war and succumbing to “Chosen People” or “Master Race.”
Well, does this misguided man think that Shalit’s life is more important than the lives of thousands of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli dungeons? Is al Rashed a follower of Rambam or a flower of Muhammed?
Had he possessed a modicum of rectitude, he would have called for all prisoners, Israelis and Palestinians alike to be released. But the cheapness of character he seems to possess precludes any balanced approach on his parrt to this issue, which makes him an obedient mouthpiece at the Zionists’ beck and call.
In Surat Aaliimara, hypocrites are exposed for their treachery and moral duplicity as in the following verse (119)
“If good befalls you, it grieves them; but if some misfortune overtakes you, they rejoice at it. But if you are constant and do right, not the least harm will their cunning do to you; for Allah Compasseth round about all that they do.”
You are talking bollox, Mr Regev
By Stuart Littlewood
9 June 2010
Stuart Littlewood deconstructs the Israeli propaganda that has been flooding the airwaves following Israel’s murder of humanitarian activists aboard the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla, most notably from the orifice of the Israeli prime minister’s spokesman, Australian-born Mark Regev, and debunks the propaganda manual used by Israeli officials and stooges to hoodwink Westerners.
What were Israel’s excuses for hijacking the Free Gaza ships in international waters and imprisoning their passengers after gunning down nine of them and wounding several more?
* There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and
* Israel already allows sufficient humanitarian aid into Gaza so the flotilla was “an armada of hate and violence”, said Israel’s deputy foreign minister.
The IDF admitted today in a press release that it doctored audio footage from its exchanges with the Gaza flotilla in order to paint the flotilla passengers as anti-Semites. I am beginning to wonder if the Israeli military hired James O’Keefe to handle its press shop.
This is the IDF’s “clarification:”
Yesterday evening on 4 June 2010, the IDF released an audio recording of a radio transmission between the Israeli Navy vessel and the Flotilla ships wherein unidentified flotilla passengers tell the Israeli Navy vessel to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” and “we’re helping Arabs go against the US, don’t forget 9/11.” There have been questions regarding the authenticity of the recording as well as its attribution to a communication with the Mavi Marmara.
So to clarify: the audio was edited down to cut out periods of silence over the radio as well as incomprehensible comments so as to make it easier for people to listen to the exchange. We have now uploaded the entire segment of 5 minutes and 58 seconds in which the exchange took place and the comments were made.
This transmission had originally cited the Mavi Marmara ship as being the source of these remarks, however, due to an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the “Freedom Flotilla” responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified. During radio transmissions between Israeli Navy and the ships of the “Free Gaza” Flotilla on 31 May 2010, the Israeli Navy ship attempts to make contact with the ‘Defne Y’ on channel 1-6. Other ships from the flotilla respond on the channel, without identifying themselves. At some point during the radio exchange the Israeli Navy is told by one of the ships to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” (2:05) and “don’t forget 9-11? (5:42).
It’s nice that the IDF has “clarified” its doctoring of footage. But the new clip it has released that supposedly shows “the entire segment…in which the exchange took place and the comments were made” is highly suspect as well. Why? Because it contains an exchange with Huwaida Arraf that Arraf claims took place on an entirely different attempt to break the siege — Arraf has led previous aid boats to Gaza that were intercepted and hijacked by the IDF. Arraf told Ma’an News:
“I was by the radio the whole time there was any communication. Mine was the only boat in which I answered and not the captain and they all answered in a very professional manner.” Arraf told Ma’an that while she might have spoken of having permission from the Gaza Port Authority on a previous attempt to break the blockade, she is certain that she did not say it on Monday morning. ”When they radioed us, we were still 100 miles away,” she explained.
Mya Guarnieri of Ma’an goes into more detail about the suspicious nature of the new clip the IDF has released, demonstrating how absurd their latest attempt to save face is. The lesson of the debacle is that nothing the IDF says can be trusted by anyone. Not ever. (Of course, that should apply to any nation’s military, and not just “the most moral army in the world”).
Hours after the IDF’s admission, major news outlets which reported on the doctored audio clip as though it was a shocking revelation and not a scandalous forgery have still not corrected themselves. The most blatant stenographer of IDF propaganda is the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler. Here is what Kessler reported after being participating a briefing session with an IDF flack:
Israeli forces spent four hours trying to persuade the 300-foot-long Turkish ship to shift course away from Gaza, senior Israeli officials said in a briefing Friday for a small group of reporters.
The activists responded repeatedly with shouts — “Go back to Auschwitz!” — and kept the ship at its maximum speed of 10 knots.
Besides the fact that Kessler reported on the “Go back to Auschwitz” claim without investigating it, he claimed that the passengers “repeatedly” shouted the slur. But even the IDF did not claim that anyone “repeatedly” shouted anything; the “Auschwitz” statement is heard in the doctored audio clip only once.
Kessler’s report was so slanted in favor of the Israeli military he was compelled to include this as his opening line: “This is the Israeli version of the deadly raid on an aid ship bound for Gaza.” But Kessler also cited the opinions of “Turkish officials,” and worded his article as though it were an authoritative report on what really happened on board the Mavi Marmara.
Finally, Kessler reports the IDF’s discredited claim that numerous Mavi Marmara passengers were terrorist “mercenaries:”
The activists also had substantial funds, perhaps 1 million euros. Many of the activists who battled the soldiers were each carrying 10,000 euros, which officials speculated meant that they were mercenaries who had been paid to fight.
Right. The IDF had retracted its claim about terrorist mercenaries on board the Mavi Marmara a full day before Kessler filed. Kessler and the Washington Post have let the Israeli military play them for fools. They should issue corrections immediately.
If the Post does not correct, readers should let WaPo Ombudsman Andrew Alexander know that his paper’s coverage of the flotilla massacre remains riddled with major factual errors. Alexander can be reached at ombudsman@washpost.com or 202-334-7582 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 202-334-7582 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
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