Israel & Palestina #22 Geen excuses voor Turkije.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 02:42 schreef sp3c het volgende:
mits er iets onfatsoenlijks gevonden word

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Robert Fisk: The truth behind the Israeli propaganda

I have, of course, been outraged at armed men boarding ships in international waters, killing passengers on board who attempt to resist and then forcing their ship to the hijackers' home port. I am, of course, talking about the Somali pirates who are preying on Western ships in the Indian Ocean. How dare those terrorists dare to touch our unarmed vessels on the high seas? And how right we are to have our warships there to prevent such terrorist acts.

But whoops! At least the Israelis have not demanded ransom. They just want to get journalists to win the propaganda war for them. Scarcely had the week begun when Israel's warrior "commandos" stormed a Turkish boat bringing aid to Gaza and shot nine of the passengers dead. Yet by week's end, the protesters had become "armed peace activists", vicious anti-Semites "professing pacifism, seething with hate, pounding away at another human being with a metal pole". I liked the last bit. The fact that the person being beaten was apparently shooting another human being with a rifle didn't quite get into this weird version of reality.

Turkish family protests that their sons wanted to be martyrs – something which most Turkish family members might say if their relatives had been shot by the Israelis – had been transformed into confirmation that they had been jihadis. "On that aid ship," a Sri Lankan texted me this week, "I had my niece, nephew and his wife on board. Unfortunately Ahmed (20-year-old nephew) got shot in the leg and now treated (sic) under military custody. I will keep you posted." He did indeed. Within hours, the press was at his family's home in Australia, demanding to know if Ahmed was a jihadi – or even a potential suicide bomber. Propaganda works, you see. We haven't seen a frame of film from the protesters because the Israelis have stolen the lot. No one has told us – if the Turkish ship was carrying such ruthless men – how their terrible plots to help the "terrorists" of Gaza were not uncovered in the long voyage from Turkey, even when it called at other ports. But Professor Gil Troy of McGill University in Montreal – in the rabid Canadian National Post, of course – was able to spout all that gunk about "armed peace activists" on Thursday.

I wasn't personally at all surprised at the killings on the Turkish ship. In Lebanon, I've seen this indisciplined rabble of an army – as "elite" as the average rabble of Arab armies – shooting at civilians. I saw them watching the Sabra and Shatila massacre of Palestinians on the morning of 18 September (the last day of the slaughter) by their vicious Lebanese militia allies. I was present at the Qana massacre by Israeli gunners in 1996 – "Arabushim" (the equivalent of the abusive term "Ayrab" in English), one of the gunners called the 106 dead civilians, more than half of them children, in the Israeli press. Then the Israeli government of Nobel laureate Shimon Peres said there were terrorists among the dead civilians – totally untrue, but who cares? – and then came the second Qana massacre in 2006 and then the 2008-09 Gaza slaughter of 1,300 Palestinians, most of them children, and then...

Well, then came the Goldstone report, which found that Israeli troops (as well as Hamas) committed war crimes in Gaza, but this was condemned as anti-Semitic – poor old honourable Goldstone, himself a prominent Jewish jurist from South Africa, slandered as "an evil man" by the raving Al Dershowitz of Harvard – and was called "controversial" by the brave Obama administration. "Controversial", by the way, basically means "fuck you".

There's doubts about it, you see. It's dodgy stuff.

But back to our chronology. Then we had the Mossad murder of a Hamas official in Dubai with the Israelis using at least 19 forged passports from Britain and other countries. And the pathetic response of our then foreign secretary, David Miliband? He called it "an incident" – not the murder of the guy in Dubai, mind you, just the forgery of UK passports, a highly "controversial" matter – and then... Well, now we've had the shooting down of nine passengers at sea by more Israeli heroes.

The amazing thing in all this is that so many Western journalists – and I'm including the BBC's pusillanimous coverage of the Gaza aid ships – are writing like Israeli journalists, while many Israeli journalists are writing about the killings with the courage that Western journalists should demonstrate. And about the Israeli army itself. Take Amos Harel's devastating report in Haaretz which analyses the make-up of the Israeli army's officer corps. In the past, many of them came from the leftist kibbutzim tradition, from greater Tel Aviv or from the coastal plain of Sharon. In 1990, only 2 per cent of army cadets were religious Orthodox Jews. Today the figure is 30 per cent. Six of the seven lieutenant-colonels in the Golani Brigade are religious. More than 50 per cent of local commanders are "national" religious in some infantry brigades.

There's nothing wrong with being religious. But – although Harel does not make this point quite so strongly – many of the Orthodox are supporters of the colonisation of the West Bank and thus oppose a Palestinian state.

And the Orthodox colonists are the Israelis who most hate the Palestinians, who want to erase the chances of a Palestinian state as surely as some Hamas officials would like to erase Israel. Ironically, it was senior officers of the "old" Israeli army who first encouraged the "terrorist" Hamas to build mosques in Gaza – as a counterbalance to the "terrorist" Yasser Arafat up in Beirut – and I was a witness to one of their meetings. But it will stay the same old story before the world wakes up. "I have never known an army as democratic as Israel's," the hapless French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy said a few hours before the slaughter.

Yes, the Israeli army is second to none, elite, humanitarian, heroic. Just don't tell the Somali pirates.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 02:46 schreef BasOne het volgende:

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Ik weet het dus niet zeker maar ik dacht dat de douane altijd een voer/vaartuig ter inspectie in beslag kan nemen.
Maar pin me daar dus niet op vast.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 09:30 schreef mm1985 het volgende:
Kijken we naar het conflict over de onderzeeer van Zuid Korea en andere conflicten duurt het dagen of weken tot maanden tot er een uitspraak is. Heb dus vaak ook sterk het idee dat zodra het Israel betreft ze maar meteen het afkeuren.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 09:57 schreef Monidique het volgende:

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Interessante visie, nu terug naar de werkelijkheid: jaren- en jaren- en jarenlang wordt er al in de Veiligheidsraad gesproken over Noord-Korea. De Veiligheidsraad heeft sancties opgelegd! Noord-Korea wordt geboycot en gezien als een pariastaat. Israël daarentegen krijgt geen sancties opgelegd, en krijgt altijd een free pass van de Verenigde Staten, die de bezetting en agressie subsidiëren met militaire hulp. Israël houdt zich niet aan VN-uitspraken en de Veiligheidsraad doet er niets mee. Maar die alternatieve werkelijkheid waarin Israël het arme slachtoffertje is van de grote boze wereld is ook aandoenlijk, ja.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 09:58 schreef mm1985 het volgende:

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mijn punt was dat er geoordeelt werd zonder kennis van feiten. Niemand had die videos nog gezien.

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alle betrokken partijen de territoriale integriteit, politieke onafhankelijkheid en de soevereiniteit van elke staat in de regio respecteren.

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Hamas rockets a war crime: Human Rights Watch

Rocket attacks carried out against Israel by the Hamas rulers of Gaza and other Palestinian militants amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said in a report published on Thursday.

"Hamas forces violated the laws of war both by firing rockets deliberately and indiscriminately at Israeli cities and by launching them from populated areas and endangering Gazan civilians," HRW programme director Iain Levine said.

"Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians are unlawful and unjustifiable and amount to war crimes," he said.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 11:20 schreef BasOne het volgende:

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Het was ook simpel om er gelijk over te oordelen, het was vrijwel gelijk bekend dat het in internationale wateren is gebeurt.
En de VN is het er vrij unaniem over eens dat Israël niets te zoeken had in internationale wateren.
Dat de resolutie niet is aangenomen is denk ik meer omdat er ook in stond dat de blokkade opgeheven moest worden.
En daar wouden er een paar niet aan.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 11:44 schreef mm1985 het volgende:

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dat snap ik wel maar waarom 3 meetings houden als ze ook paar dagen kunnen wachten en er dan een oordeel over kunnen vellen?

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 11:34 schreef Mylene het volgende:
Niet alleen Israël houdt zich aan VN resolutie's, ook de andere partijen.
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bron

Zolang er raketten worden afgeschoten. Het collectief straffen van de Israëlisch bevolking zijn die in strijd met de VN resolutie's waarin bovenstaande keer op keer wordt herroepen. Het zijn oorlogsmisdaden en zijn in strijd met het internationale recht.
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bron

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 11:55 schreef BasOne het volgende:

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Maar dit soort dingen worden vaak als excuus gebruikt, Hunnie doen het ook......

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 11:59 schreef Mylene het volgende:

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Ik bedoel maar, je kan VN resolutie's niet eenzijdig aanhalen dat enkel Israël zich moet terugtrekken. Hetzelfde bedoel jij met het betreden van het schip in internationale wateren en het recht. De VN resolutie's zijn duidelijk. Iemand als van Agt haalt ook enkel maar eenzijdig resolutie 242 aan. Zo werkt het niet.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 11:59 schreef Mylene het volgende:

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Ik bedoel maar, je kan VN resolutie's niet eenzijdig aanhalen dat enkel Israël zich moet terugtrekken. Hetzelfde bedoel jij met het betreden van het schip in internationale wateren en het recht. De VN resolutie's zijn duidelijk. Iemand als van Agt haalt ook enkel maar eenzijdig resolutie 242 aan. Zo werkt het niet.

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Mr Elshayyal, a reporter for the Arab channel al-Jazeera, was standing to one side of the ship and had a view of the front and back of the vessel when the fighting started. By his account, soldiers fired down on the protesters from the helicopters before an Israeli soldier had even set foot on the ship. A man next to him was shot through the top of his head, dying instantly.

"What I saw were shots being fired from the helicopter above and moments later from below – from the ships," Mr Elshayyal said. "As far as I am concerned, it's a lie to say they only started shooting on deck."

At least two other eyewitnesses saw soldiers firing from above the ships before they landed on the Marmara's deck. It is possible that this is what prompted the fierce resistance to the soldiers when they dropped down. Several passengers recount how organisers urged their peers to stop hitting the soldiers, aware of how it would harm their claim to be peaceful protesters.

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Below, the protesters rummaged through captured soldiers' belongings and claimed to unearth a document that they allege is a list of people Israel intended to assassinate. The booklet, written in Hebrew and in English, contained some photographs of passengers on the Marmara, including the leader of IHH, the Turkish charity that provided two of the ships, an 88-year-old priest and Ra'ad Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mr Elshayyal said.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:44 schreef Optimistic1 het volgende:

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Er is een probleem en dat is dat Israel Palestijnse gebieden bezet. Dat probleem kan opgelost worden als Israel zich terugtrekt en erkent een Palestijnse staat. Het probleem is niet ontstaan door Hamas of PLO maar door Israel. Het is geen wonder dat mensen Israel een bezetter noemen en dat redelijke mensen begrijpen en steunen het recht van Palestijnen (dus ook Hamas) op het bevrijden/verdedigen van zichzelf en hun land.

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De Veiligheidsraad stelt dat oorlog geen oplossing is en dat het nodig is om te werken aan een langdurige vrede.

Hij vraagt daarom dat:

* Israël zich terugtrekt uit gebieden die het bezet sinds de Zesdaagse Oorlog;
* alle betrokken partijen de territoriale integriteit, politieke onafhankelijkheid en de soevereiniteit van elke staat in de regio respecteren.

Hij stelt dat het noodzakelijk is dat:

* de vrijheid van scheepvaart in de internationale wateren gegarandeerd blijft;
* een regeling getroffen moet worden voor het vluchtelingenprobleem;
* er gedemilitariseerde zones komen om de territoriale integriteit en politieke onafhankelijkheid van elke staat te garanderen.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:52 schreef Optimistic1 het volgende:
Nog meer getuigen hebben iets te vermelden:
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bron: http://www.independent.co(...)stroyed-1992517.html

Blijkbaar, was de reactie van de passagiers op de soldaten die op het dak kwamen logisch te verklaren. Er werd geschoten vanuit helikopter en dat is al een aanleiding voor een provocatie en zeflverdediging.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:52 schreef Optimistic1 het volgende:
Nog meer getuigen hebben iets te vermelden:
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bron: http://www.independent.co(...)stroyed-1992517.html

Blijkbaar, was de reactie van de passagiers op de soldaten die op het dak kwamen logisch te verklaren. Er werd geschoten vanuit helikopter en dat is al een aanleiding voor een provocatie en zeflverdediging.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:52 schreef Optimistic1 het volgende:
Nog meer getuigen hebben iets te vermelden:
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bron: http://www.independent.co(...)stroyed-1992517.html

Blijkbaar, was de reactie van de passagiers op de soldaten die op het dak kwamen logisch te verklaren. Er werd geschoten vanuit helikopter en dat is al een aanleiding voor een provocatie en zeflverdediging.

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Israeli marines were held during ship raid-witness
Thu Jun 3, 2010 12:10pm EDT

* Soldiers freed after Israel agreed to airlift wounded

* Lebanese account echoes testimony from both sides


By Yara Bayoumy

BEIRUT, June 3 (Reuters) - Activists on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship seized four Israeli marines before other commandos stormed aboard using live ammunition, a Lebanese cameraman said in an account on Thursday that echoed elements of Israeli testimony.

There were sharp differences in the versions of Monday's events at sea on the cruise liner Mavi Marmara. Witnesses freed after three days incommunicado in Israel accused troops of war crimes; Israel held to its line that they fired in self-defence.

But the account from Andre Abu Khalil, a cameraman for Al Jazeera TV, echoed other testimony, from both sides, that after an initial landing by a small group of commandos armed with anti-riot weapons was overpowered by activists wielding sticks, a second wave of marines stormed in, killing those in their way.

Israeli troops insist they killed 9 men only after being fired on by two activists who seized pistols from marines; many of those aboard the ship say they saw no activists shooting.

Abu Khalil told Reuters by telephone from the southern Lebanese village of Marjayoun: "There were four Israeli soldiers brought to the lowest deck. They had fracture wounds."

The soldiers were apparently captured during attempts to descend to the ship from helicopters, Abu Khalil heard from activists who had been on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara.

On Monday, an Israeli commando said he was struck with metal bars on the ship, while others in the boarding party were held down and stripped of their helmets and equipment.


HUMAN SHIELD

Abu Khalil went on: "Twenty Turkish men formed a human shield to prevent the Israeli soldiers from scaling the ship. They had slingshots, water pipes and sticks."

"They were banging the pipes on the side of the ship to warn the Israelis not to get closer."

The standoff lasted about 10 minutes until the Israelis opened fire, he said: "One man got a direct hit to the head and another one was shot in the neck."

Abu Khalil said he saw some 40 wounded people, some with bullet wounds to the legs, apparently to disable them. Others had wounds to the eye, stomach and chest.

One activist used a loudhailer to tell the Israelis the four captive soldiers were well and would be released if they provided medical help for the wounded.

With an Israeli Arab lawmaker acting as mediator, the Israelis agreed to the request and the wounded were brought to the top deck where they were airlifted off the ship.

Abu Khalil said: "I'm happy and angry at the same time ... The most we had was a kitchen knife and sling shots." (Additional reporting by Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem)

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:45 schreef kahaarin het volgende:

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Dat klopt, er zijn een heleboel voors en tegens die imo alleen maar aantonen dat het fundamenteel fout zit in dat gebied. Over en weer worden verdragen/regels en bestanden geschonden. Je kunt niet met een paar regels in de hand de situatie beoordelen en proberen op te lossen. Of je het nu eens bent met een partij in dit conflict of niet, er zal op de 1 of andere manier een oplossing moeten komen waar iedereen het mee eens is/mee kan leven.

Nu wel als kanttekening, er zijn groepen mensen die het nooit ergens mee eens zullen zijn zonder dat zij compleet gelijk krijgen. (Ik denk aan Hamas, hun terreurdaden en visie (bv heel Israel in zee duwen.) en aan de fundamentalistische joden die land pikken en alle Palestijnen of dood of compleet uit Jeruzalem wilen hebben.)

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Does a peace in stages means the ultimate obliteration of the Jewish people?

We do not have any feelings of animosity toward Jews. We do not wish to throw them into the sea. All we seek is to be given our land back, not to harm anybody.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:45 schreef kahaarin het volgende:

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Dat klopt, er zijn een heleboel voors en tegens die imo alleen maar aantonen dat het fundamenteel fout zit in dat gebied. Over en weer worden verdragen/regels en bestanden geschonden. Je kunt niet met een paar regels in de hand de situatie beoordelen en proberen op te lossen. Of je het nu eens bent met een partij in dit conflict of niet, er zal op de 1 of andere manier een oplossing moeten komen waar iedereen het mee eens is/mee kan leven.

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Op zondag 6 juni 2010 12:55 schreef Mylene het volgende:

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Een getuigenverklaring van een Libanese cameraman die voor Al Jazeera werkt. Geeft weer een ander licht.
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bron

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First they [the Israelis] tried to come by helicopter and tried to come down on the main deck. But the Turkish people were gathering on the rooftop and they managed to grab three of the soldiers, which led to a second helicopter to come and start shooting live bullets on the people.

People [on board] did not have any guns. All what they had were some wooden sticks which is normal.

I was on the Mavi Marmara [the lead ship of the flotilla].

I wasn't on the rooftop deck. I was on the first deck floor where the Israelis tried to climb by the ropes on the deck.

There were 20 Turkish resistance guys throwing tomatoes, anything that they managed to throw, on the Israelis.

Then one of these Turkish guys got a bullet just in the head. When the Turkish people saw that, they pulled him inside when the Israelis started firing on the deck.

[After the Israelis took over the ship] they kept us tied up, hands behind the back, for nine hours until we reached the Ashdod port and from there they took us for individual interrogation and then shipped us all to Be'er Sheva jail.

The organisers [of the flotilla] swapped the four Israelis kidnapped, or caught, by the people on the ship, and because they were beaten up, because it's kind of resistance from our side, we swapped the Israeli soldiers to [get] to treat our injured.

IDF - Navy Warns Flotilla (31 May 2010)

Mavi Marmara to Israeli Navy: "We're Helping Arabs Go Against the US, Don't Forget 9/11 Guys"

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IDF clarifies: 'Go back to Auschwitz' recording edited, but authentic
According to IDF clarification, it is not clear who is speaking on recording that was originally publicized as recording of Mavi Marmara passengers.

The Israel Defense Force Spokesperson's Unit released a clarification on Saturday regarding an audio recording on which passengers of a Gaza aid flotilla ship can be heard telling IDF soldiers to "Go back to Auschwitz" and that they are "helping Arabs go against the U.S., don't forget 9/11."

Questions have arisen regarding the authenticity of the recording, which was released by the IDF on Friday after clashes aboard the flotilla's largest ship, the Mavi Marmara, left 9 Turkish activists dead and dozens hurt last Monday.

In its clarification, the IDF explained that the audio recording was edited to reduce long periods of silence and to eliminate incomprehensible comments. The IDF further clarified that though the recording was originally attributed to passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara, due to "an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the Freedom Flotilla responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified."

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit further announced that they have posted the full unedited 5 minute and 58 second recording online.

The release of the audio recording was another step taken by the IDF to solidify the claim that the passengers of the Mavi Marmara were determined to attack the soldiers who boarded the deck, and that the soldiers were acting in self defense.

According to early findings of a navy investigation, during Israel's takeover of the Turkish ship some passengers tried to take captive three navy commandos, who had lost consciousness as a result of the activists' blows.

After dozens of other commandos began searching the Mavi Marmara, the three soldiers regained consciousness and managed to join their comrades.