Robert Fisk: For 10 years, we've lied to ourselves to avoid asking the one real question

Saturday, 3 September 2011

  UN Report on Mavi Marmara Massacre - by Stephen Lendman

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos willfully and maliciously interdicted Freedom Flotilla vessels in international waters, bringing humanitarian aid to besieged Gazans. 

In the process, they slaughtered nine Turkish nationals aboard the mother Mavi Marmara ship, wounding dozens more, and arresting everyone on board.

  HR 2829 Targets Palestinian Statehood - by Stephen Lendman

Lawless extremists infest Congress like crabgrass besets lawns. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R. FL) is one of the worst.

She once supported assassinating Fidel Castro, telling the Miami Herald: "If someone were to do it, I wouldn't be crying."

  Israel's Operation Summer Seeds - by Stephen Lendman

Ahead of the General Assembly's likely granting Palestine statehood recognition and full de jure UN membership in September or early October, Israel is preparing its army and arming settlers for disruptive protests.

  Washington Threatens Palestinian Statehood Bid - by Stephen Lendman

Washington wages wars multiple ways, including militarily, financially, and politically by supporting wrong over right each time.

For decades, it subverted peace negotiations and Palestine's bid for statehood. The Obama administration's now doing it again, besides waging multiple wars and undermining freedom wherever it surfaces, abroad and at home.

  Follow-Up Comments on Palestinian Statehood Vote - by Stephen Lendman

A previous article discussed the upcoming September UN General Assembly vote, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/08/general-assembly-palestinian-statehood.html

  General Assembly Palestinian Statehood Vote - by Stephen Lendman

Earlier articles discussed it, accessed through the following links:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/palestinian-statehood-and-other.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/declaring-independent-palestinian-state.html

  Palestinian Right of Self-Defense - by Stephen Lendman

Repeatedly, Israel preemptively bombs, shells, and inflicts other forms of lawless violence on Gazans, bogusly claiming self-defense. 

When they respond, Israel calls it terrorism, claiming justification for greater attacks in "self-defense," what international law prohibits.

  Israeli Persecution of Palestinian Children - by Stephen Lendman

Repeatedly in many ways, the real Israel belies the myth of a free, open, democratic state. In fact, the very notion is ludicrous even to growing numbers of fed up Israelis, voting with their feet and leaving.

As a result, it's no exaggeration calling Israel a failed state, a topic Noam Chomsky addressed in one of his many books.

  New York Times Opposition to Palestinian Self-Determination - by Stephen Lendman

In September, when the General Assembly meets (beginning 9/13), Palestinians will seek de jure UN membership. Unless current policy changes, it will ask for official recognition as an independent sovereign state. Currently, it has Observer State Status only, denying its right to vote.

Israel opposes recognition. So does Obama, both Houses of Congress, and The New York Times.

Being, so to speak, of the “flotilla folk” ourselves, we read with some interest Rothstein and Seid’s idle speculations on who our shipmates might have been, for idle speculations they certainly are, the writers having never contacted any of us. In fact, at least when it comes to the American-flagged boat, The Audacity of Hope, we are not nearly as much of a mystery as one might imagine. Our biographies are all publicly posted at www.ustogaza.org,.

A perusal of our stories would reveal, among other things, that 58 percent of us are women and that our median age is 60.

Similar demographic patterns existed on other boats as well. Many are retired people; most with modest means. We are people willing to spend our savings to fly to Athens and stay there for weeks, doubled or tripled up in hotel rooms, waiting to sail to Gaza.

We are people who felt, who still feel, that we must make the time and find the means because struggling for justice is the moral thing to do. Because we have all come to believe, in the words of Howard Zinn, that “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train” – all notions, one feels, that Rothstein and Seid view with a mixture of scorn and incredulity.

In an interview with Press TV, Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, talks about the dodgy nature of the Israeli regime.

Press TV: Twice this month and, of course, even prior to that in terms of wanting this to be postponed, what do you make of this development, first of all?

McGovern: The delay of the UN report is part and parcel of the US and Israel exerting overweening influence on what happens at the UN.

  Israeli Home Demolition Terrorism - by Stephen Lendman

Co-founded (with Meir Marglit) and directed by Jeff Halper, the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions (ICAHD) "is a non-violent, direct-action organization established in 1998 to resist Israeli demolition of Palestinian houses in the Occupied Territories."

Open "The Slow Boat to Gaza"

Life and Death on the Mavi Marmera

Canadian aid worker Kevin Neish was one of 581 passengers on the Mavi Marmara, the lead vessel of the Gaza freedom flotilla that was attacked in international waters on May 31, 2010, while on a mission of mercy to deliver aid to residents of Gaza. Israeli commandos boarded the ship, killed nine of its passengers, arrested the others and confiscated their cameras and film-making equipment. Neish, however, hid the memory card from his camera and smuggled it to safety. In this special photo report, ColdType publishes many of the pictures for the first time, along with Neish’s story of how he managed to get the photographs away from his interrogators

Click here or on image above to download low resolution pdf

Click here to download high resolution pdf

  UN Commission Flotilla Massacre Report - by Stephen Lendman

Despite irrefutable evidence, including the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) concluding last September that Israel committed serious "violations of international law, including international humanitarian law" by massacring nine Gaza Flotilla activists, injuring dozens more, in international waters, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appeased Israel by appointing his own commission.

  Denying Palestinian Children Education - by Stephen Lendman

In July 2011, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) issued a new report titled, "Education Denied: Israel's Systematic Violation of Palestinian Children's Right to Education," even though it's a fundamental human right.

  Israeli/Washington Peace Process Rejectionism - by Stephen Lendman

Pretending to restart Israeli/Palestinian peace talks, Quartet representatives met in Washington on July 11. Attending were Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and former UK Prime Minister/reinvented war criminal/current Middle East envoy Tony Blair.

  Israel Terrorizing Palestinians Lawlessly - by Stephen Lendman

Palestinians bear witness daily to Israeli state terror. Complicit Western and regional nations, in fact, condone it through silence or failure to condemn what never is tolerable and must end. 

For nearly a week, Israeli aircraft struck Gaza preemptively. As a result, fear of a new war grows.

 Dignité is outside Port Said, Egypt
 
 According to a satellite-report from Ship to Gaza Sweden's spokesman Dror Feiler the French boat Dignité / Karama is northwest of Port Said, about 20 sea miles from land. The waters are full of drilling platforms for gas. The boat is currently headed to southeast. The idea is that within a few hours go to a point just outside Egyptian territorial waters, between Port Said and El Arish, where the night will be awaited. During the next day they will put full speed towards Gaza.
 
 The ten passengers on board see themselves as representatives of the Freedom Flotilla, whose other vessels due to different manipulations - bureaucraticle obstacles, sabotage, sudden government ban, withdrawal options - forced to remain in the Greek ports.
 

By Ann Wright

Yea, Greek activists visited the Audacity of Hope yesterday and today.  Several returned from Crete with the Greek-Swedish boat Julianno and didn't even go home, but came to see how we were faring.

Other activists who didn't realize we were still on the boat (or even where the boat was), facebooked into the early morning hours about how they could support us.

I admit I overestimated the strength of Greece’s democracy. Or let me put it this way: I didn’t see how thin the varnish of what we call Israeli democracy really is.

By Henning Mankell, Haaretz

I will try to summarize this year's Gaza flotilla. Everyone knows that the goal this time was to return with more unarmed ships and a more representative selection of people and organizations. Last but not least, we would return with more MPs. We succeeded in organizing this.

The French boat "Dignité/Karama" (Dignity) left the Greek island Kastellorizo around 8:30PM local time on Saturday July 16, 2011, heading south. The ten passengers onboard view themselves as representatives of the whole Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human. The rest of the Flotilla's ships have been detained in different Greek ports, through bureaucratic obstruction, sabotage, sudden restrictions and withdrawals of flags.

The Dignité, sailing under a French flag, left Corsica on June 25th, and has, over the past weeks, been in Greek waters. It has now left- so far without being followed by the Greek coast guard or Navy.

Neocons Fume Over US Boat to Gaza

Editor Note (Consortiumnews): At the behest of Tel Aviv and Washington, Greek authorities stopped a small flotilla from sailing to Gaza in a challenge to Israel’s four-year blockade of the narrow strip of land and its 1.6 million people. Now, apologists for Israel’s right-wing Likud government are heaping scorn on the passengers, as Ray McGovern notes.

By Ray McGovern

July 16, 2011

My co-passengers and I of the U.S. Boat to Gaza have now gone from “High-Seas Hippies,” according to the right-wing Washington Times, to participants in a flotilla full of “fools, knaves, hypocrites, bigots, and supporters of terrorism,” says Alan Dershowitz in his usual measured prose.

The following letter was delivered to the Greek Government on July 12, 2011 making it clear that the people of Gaza seek freedom and respect for their human rights, including their right to lead a dignified life, not charity. Seemingly deaf to their call, yesterday a spokesman for the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Delavekouras, repeated the Greek Government's "generous offer" to deliver limited humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza - instead of helping them gain the freedom that is rightfully theirs.

By Ann Wright

American Hunger Strikers at US Embassy in Athens, Greece, Met with Detention

Late in the day on July 3, 7 Americans began a peaceful, non-violent hunger strike across the street from the US Embassy in Athens, Greece to protest the July 2 arrest and imprisonment of Captain John Klusmire, the captain of the US Boat to Gaza, the Audacity of Hope for his challenge to the Greek government’s capitulation to Israeli demands that boats of the Gaza flotilla in Greece not be allowed to sail to Gaza.

Captain John was put in a police lockup without food, water and a bed on the first day/night and subsequently was transferred to two other police jails in the four days he was held. He was not visited by US Embassy consular officials for four days until the morning of his hearing on July 5.

The hunger strikers were also protesting the imprisonment of the boat itself at a US Embassy/Greek Coast Guard base in the port city of Keritsini.

By Felice Gelman

Each time you call, they provide a little electricity to The Audacity of Hope. Then it is cut off. Our calls are effective and, if we can keep them up, can free the boat to go to another, civilian marina where it will be safer.

Please keep calling and forward this email. All the facts are below in a letter sent to the harbourmaster by Ann Wright.

You can call and email:

The Greek Embassy and Consulates and the U.S. State Department today! Tell them to free our ship from the military dock! Hillary Clinton will be visiting Greece later this week. One word to her Greek counterparts and our boat would be free.
Greek Embassy: 202-939-1300
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: 202-647-5291
Greek Desk, US State Dept: 202-647-6760
US Embassy in Athens: 011-30-210-721-2951
US Consular Services: Kim Richter 202-647-8308 -- write or text

Sample Phone Script

By John Grant

What did it matter where you lay once you were dead? ... You just slept the big sleep, not caring about the nastiness of how you died or where you fell. Me, I was part of the nastiness now.

--Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep

Lately, I find myself reading “noir” crime fiction and thinking about the genre as a way to explain the world. It may have something to do with the fact I’m an American critical of my government and losing hope that positive change is even possible. As hope evaporates, there seems less and less space between political reality and the criminal underworld. Or maybe it's the obverse of a militarist obsession with Tom Clancy and War On Terror thrillers.

The adherents of wealth, power and violence seem so entrenched and in control that those without power become doomed to ineffectual marginalization and, if they poke their heads up too far, in danger of having their intentions and actions criminalized.

Freedom Flotilla II: Final Thoughts - by Stephen Lendman

Palestinian analyst/advocate/author and former journalist Nadia Hijab is right, saying "(i)t was never about aid."

In her article titled, "Freedom Flotilla II: No to a Kinder, Gentler Siege," she said like earlier and new initiatives to come, it's "a political act" against Israel's illegal occupation/Gaza blockade - forced isolation, in fact, since 1988 "permit system" terrorism was instituted.

In 1991, closures began, "institutionalized" in 1993, then a 1994 electronic wall, and continued repression by lawless incursions, air attacks, home demolitions, targeted assassinations, mass arrests, daily intimidation, Cast Lead, and virtually anything Israel can dream up to collectively punish 1.6 million people, guilty of being Arabs, not Jews.