[Schumer's] talk covered several foreign policy issues, including Iran and Israel/Palestine. When the topic turned to the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla Schumer began by explaining that the “Palestinian people still don’t believe in the Jewish state, in a two-state solution”. But that is not all, he continued: “They don’t believe in the Torah, in David.”
IOA Editor: In a more-or-less decent society, free of racism, where basic concepts of justice form the foundation of thought and public speech of political leaders – none of this could happen without public apologies and resignation. Not so in the US, guardian of the “Free World” and champion of “Democracy.”
At this time it is hard to convince the Jewish public in Israel that what happens at Ben-Gurion International Airport is a systematic injustice, if not worse. The ethnocentric panic undermines the principle of civil equality.
IOA Editor: Racial profiling is a well-established practice in Israel. Its contribution to “national security” is, at best, questionable. What isn’t is its purpose: it is a thoroughly planned and calculated method intended to harass Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, to ‘put them in their proper place.’
The Inter-Parliamentary Union is set to discuss recommendation to strip Balad MK Hanin Zuabi of privileges over Gaza flotilla participation.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, not all former foreign officials living in the United States can claim immunity from prosecution in U.S. Courts. Its decision could have an immediate impact on Israelis.
MK Afu Aghbaria: “In its 62 years of existence, Israel has attacked its neighbors and its Arab citizens nonstop… Israel prevents the passage of medicines and medical supplies to Gaza. As a result of this, 700 Gazans have died at the border crossings. Netanyahu, Barak, Lieberman and Livni should be brought to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”
The dire situation in Gaza cannot be resolved by providing humanitarian aid. The closure imposed on the Gaza Strip is about to enter its fourth year, choking off any real possibility of economic development. Gazans continue to suffer from unemployment, poverty and warfare, while the quality of Gaza’s health care system has reached an all-time low. The whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.
If a people who so recently experienced such unspeakable inhumanities cannot understand the injustice and suffering its territorial ambitions are inflicting, what hope is there for the rest of us?
IOA Editor: While Israel’s morality (inherent, past, other?) is a figment of Siegman’s imagination, this is an important article in that it makes a powerful connection between the Holocaust and Israel’s Occupation and Gaza crimes.
A confidential Israeli source informs (and AP confirms) that the real reason [for Barak’s trip cancellation was that Palestinian activists in France had filed legal complaints against him over his involvement in the flotilla affair. He was afraid he might be arrested.
If a real Commission of Inquiry had been set up (instead of the pathetic excuse for a commission), here are some of the questions it should have addressed.
The very idea that pacifist, feminist, Jewish, and Christian organizations like CODEPINK, Jewish Voice for Peace, and the American Friends Service Committee would ally with a violent, misogynist, Islamic group like Hamas — much less any group that engages in terrorism — should be recognized as absurd on face value. When prominent Democrats — including the head of the House subcommittee on terrorism — imply that leading American and Israeli peace groups are linked to terrorism, it is no longer simply heated rhetoric in defense of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, but a dangerous attack on civil liberties.
In response to a lawsuit by Gisha, an Israeli human rights group, the Israeli government explained the blockade as an exercise of the right of economic warfare.
A recently declassified federal report bolsters a long-simmering Cold War theory that uranium was illegally shipped from an Armstrong County plant in 1965 to Israel to support its nuclear arms efforts… The FBI and CIA blocked efforts to release the GAO report in 1978, the report states. Even today, portions were blacked out for security reasons.
Public prosecutors in Germany are looking into a war crimes complaint filed against Israel by two members of parliament with the far-left Left Party and a human rights activist who were on board the Mavi Marmara when Israeli troops stormed it 11 days ago.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi has appointed Maj-Gen (ret.) Giora Eiland to head “external inquest into deadly raid of Gaza flotilla”. Gen. Eiland is the main author of the Dahiya Doctrine of “disproportionate response”, which calls for “the wholesale destruction of the military, government and civilian infrastructure of the enemy entity”.
Will Palestinian soon pay price for boycott? A new bill submitted by 25 Knesset members Wednesday would see money slated for transfer to the Palestinian Authority used to compensate Israelis hurt by the PA’s settlement boycott… According to the bill, Israeli citizens must not initiate, encourage, or aid a boycott against the State of Israel. Anyone who violates the order will be forced to pay compensation to those undermined by the embargo.
MK Haneen Zoabi (BALAD) faces death threats as the Israeli Knesset House Committee votes to revoke her parliamentary privileges for participating in the Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla and protesting against the blockade.
Like other states, Israel has the right of self-defense. But did Israel have the right to use force in Gaza in the name of self-defense? International law, including the U.N. Charter, is unambiguous: A nation has such a right only if it has exhausted peaceful means. In this case such means were not even tried, although—or perhaps because—there was every reason to suppose that they would succeed. Thus the invasion was sheer criminal aggression, and the same is true of Israel’s resorting to force against the flotilla.
As [Istanbul] hosted the third summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA), it was clear that Israel, at the receiving end of global condemnation for last week’s attack on an aid ship trying to sail to the Gaza Strip, faced further isolation for its “brazen act” that killed nine peace activists.
What serves the goal of separating Gaza from the West Bank better than forgetting the sealed Erez crossing between Gaza and Israel, and focusing on Rafah and cement? Unintentionally, the runners of the maritime and media blockade focused attention on aspects that do not undermine the essence of Israel’s closure of Gaza. And that essence is denying the right and thwarting the will of Gazans to be an active, permanent and natural part of Palestinian society.
IOA Editor: As always, one can count on Amira Hass to place current events in the context of Israel’s 43-year long Occupation, and the Occupier’s long-term interests which drive Israel’s actions. Important as the focus on the Flotilla is, viewing it in the context of the Gaza Siege and Israel’s designs to separate Gaza from Palestine is far more important.
The report, published by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam), said activists who attacked commandos with clubs and knives were supported by the Turkish government. Malam is privately run but is widely seen as an unofficial branch of Israel’s intelligence community.
IOA Editor: Even if this “probe” were to be taken entirely seriously – it should not, because it was conducted by a shell organization that is a mouthpiece of the Israeli security services – it does not relieve Israel of the responsibility for its Gaza war-crimes, and international law and maritime law violations.
UPDATE: Max Blumenthal’s Nailed Again: IDF Description of Suspicious Photo It Distributed Is Retracted
Israelis are engaged in a Kafkaesque conversation in which the military attack on the civilian ships is characterised as a legitimate “act of self-defence”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it, and the killing of nine aid activists is transformed into an attempted “lynching of our soldiers” by terrorists.
Hanin Zoabi was aboard the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship in the flotilla where all nine activists were killed, and she witnessed some of them bleed to death. When she returned to Israel to speak in the Knesset, she was verbally assaulted by parliament members for her participation in the flotilla.
Although Israel successfully controlled news of its deadly commando raid on the Freedom Flotilla during the first crucial 48 hours of media coverage, emerging evidence from witnesses and survivors is challenging the Israeli government’s version of events.
IOA Editor: First the Flotilla massacre; then the massive propaganda campaign filled with lies, and more lies, and then some more lies; then the attempted explanations, and the retractions; then the racist joking about murder and starvation, followed by more retractions, and now an official Israel government apology. What do you know… Aren’t we all thankful to the Israeli government for clearing it up?
And to think that all of this is supported and financed by hard-earned US tax-dollars and by tax-deductible contributions… under the presidency of a Nobel (Peace!) Laureate who has yet to criticize Israel for carrying out all these actions that his administration, like all previous ones, is so very generously financing. Not a pretty picture, any way you look at it.
On the other hand, kinder and better people decided to vote with their feet this week, to show their disapproval of Israeli actions: the Occupation, the Gaza Siege, the attack of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
They include: Best-selling authors Alice Walker and Iain Banks [and Henning Mankell] who have backed the boycott campaign; three international performance groups that canceled their scheduled Tel Aviv appearances; Dockworker unions in Sweden and South Africa who refused to handle Israeli ships;
a UK union that passed a motion to boycott Israeli companies.
Now, this is Hope, this is Change!
UPDATE: Max Blumenthal’s Nailed Again: IDF Description of Suspicious Photo It Distributed Is Retracted
An example of racist, hateful Israeli propaganda widely distributed after Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
When Netanyahu calls it a flotilla of hate, is he lying? Not only Netanyahu, the ministers, too, in addition to a few people in uniform: the army chief of staff and the commander of the navy. In any well-run country, the head of the navy would have resigned that same night.
This Israeli naval-officers letter is important. As commanding officers of attack boats, they know the laws governing behavior in international waters and realize how grave Israel’s violation of these basic international laws was (Hebrew).
The myth of the brave and utterly infallible Israeli soldier is shattered. Now we can add: they are common thieves. For I was not the only one to be robbed of my money, credit card, clothes, MP3 player, laptop; the same happened to many others on the same ship as me, which was attacked early one morning by masked Israeli soldiers, who were thus in fact nothing other than lying pirates.
[T]he simplest answer to [the] question of what Israel could do to maintain its security in place of a blockade is that it is precisely the blockade that causes the threats to Israeli security. Without the blockade, there would be no obstacle to negotiating a long-term ceasefire, which would mean the end to rocket fire and other threats to Israel’s legitimate security interests.
ALSO : Stephen R. Shalom: Palling Around with Terrorists – Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Hijacking boats in international waters and killing passengers is, of course, a serious crime… For decades, Israel has been hijacking boats in international waters between Cyprus and Lebanon, killing or kidnapping passengers, sometimes bringing them to prisons in Israel including secret prison/torture chambers, sometimes holding them as hostages for many years. Israel assumes that it can carry out such crimes with impunity because the US tolerates them and Europe generally follows the US lead.
IOA Editor: UPDATED to correct an omission from Noam Chomsky’s statement on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
[T]he Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a provocation… in the sense that civil rights protesters in the American south who sat at segregated lunch counters represented a provocation to segregationists, or in the sense that all nonviolent protests against the illegitimate acts of a government are by definition provocations. Under an illegal siege, the delivery of aid to civilians is a prohibited act; the intent of our humanitarian convoy was to violate this unjust prohibition.
IOA Editor: Iara Lee held a press conference at the UN on 10 June 2010, presenting her raw video footage from the Mavi Marmara and answering questions. Her article about the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was published earlier.
UPDATE: UN screening of ‘one-sided’ Gaza flotilla film spurs Israeli complaint
Israeli forces arrested the chairwoman of the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla at Friday’s demonstration in Bil’in, near the West Bank city of Ramallah, supporters said. Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American from Michigan, is a human rights activist who was on board the aid flotilla that came under attack Monday, in a raid that left nine dead.
[T]he blockade has been a colossal moral, political and diplomatic failure. Not only has it wrought a humanitarian catastrophe on Gaza’s 1.5 million people: it has so strengthened Hamas that it alone could claim the high ground in the wake of the flotilla debacle. It was that moral weight that compelled Egypt to open Gaza’s Rafah crossing into the Sinai on 1 June.
Israel’s entrenchment is so deep-seated that it has announced it will certainly not lift the blockade on Gaza. Its blindness means that there is sure to be another round… There is nothing to investigate. This is the situation; everyone knows it. We just have to decide whether to go on like this, or take a deep breath and choose a different path.
Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.
Full video of Daniel Machover from press conference organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Also appearing was Sarah Colborne who was on the ship stormed by Israeli commandos.
