From Quadrant Online, Volume LIV Number 6, June 2010, by Michael Galak:
... Isn’t it amazing that every friend of Israel knows precisely what Israel has to do in order to make peace with Arabs? Israelis and Arabs don’t but Israel’s friends do. If, perchance, as a result of such a peace, Israel would be no more—that would not matter. The important thing is that the Arabs would be at peace.
So many people believe Israel is the root of all the evil in the world! They believe that Israel’s existence harms Muslims so much that these poor souls cannot sleep at night, cannot eat, cannot breathe, cannot learn how to read and write, cannot work, and cannot let their women use contraceptives. It is the fault of the Israelis that they cannot live in peace with the world or with themselves. As a true peacenik, I think I have discovered the root cause of Arab troubles! Why didn’t I think of it before! A billion and a half Muslims are oppressed by 18 million Jews. That is so obvious!...
...Now we have to ask ourselves—what is the root of the Arab anti-Jewish hatred? Using empathy as my principal tool, I can see clearly that Arabs have every reason to hate us. I think it is totally our Jewish fault ...The Israeli government’s. They are not being nice.
Editor's note: CNN's Gena Somra and Farhad Shadravan traveled to Lithuania with Efraim Zuroff in November 2008, reporting on his journey and producing thevideo in this piece. Below are excerpts only. Press here to go to the full article in CNN.
... [Efraim Zuroff, Israel director of The Simon Wiesenthal Center] ...says ...Lithuania is trying to rewrite Holocaust history. "Nowhere in the world...has a government gone to such lengths to obscure their role in the Holocaust. ... Their mission is to change the history of the Holocaust to make themselves blameless."
Lithuania and the Nazis
Within five months of Nazi Germany's invasion in the summer of 1941, most of Lithuania's 200,000 to 220,000 Jews were dead -- shot and left in massive sand pits and mass graves along with thousands of ethnic Poles, the mentally ill and others. By the end of the war, the percentage of Jews killed in Lithuania -- 90 to 96 percent -- was as high or higher than anywhere else in Europe.
"And the question is, 'Why were the numbers so high?' ...because of the help of the local population -- of the Lithuanians."
A Lithuanian Militia Leads a Group of Jews to their Execution
The pace of the mass murder of Lithuania's Jews -- and the active participation of the local population -- are meticulously recorded in two of the most infamous documents of Holocaust history.
The Jaeger Report, written by Karl Jaeger, the SS commander of a Nazi killing unit that operated around Vilnius, Lithuania, is a matter-of-fact account of those killed each day under his command.
September 1, 1941, a typical entry, lists those killed for the day as: "1,404 Jewish children, 1,763 Jews, 1,812 Jewesses, 109 mentally sick people, one German woman who was married to a Jew, and one Russian woman."
In the report, Jaeger notes the "essential" help of local Lithuanians and says 4,000 Jews were "liquidated by pogroms and executions," exclusively by Lithuanian partisans. The final count of those murdered starting in the summer of 1941 and ending in November of that year is 133,346 -- the vast majority of them Jews.
...The Nazis arrived after a year of occupation by the Soviet Union that was so brutal that many Lithuanians welcomed the Nazis when they arrived in June 1941.
Nazi propaganda painted local Jews as communists in league with the Soviets, stoking existing local anti-Semitism, and prompting the provisional government in Lithuania, and thousands of Lithuanians, to help facilitate the Nazi policy of liquidating the local Jewish population...
..."It will be impossible for Lithuania to come to terms with its history ... until the country's elite admits that the provisional government of Lithuania in 1941 collaborated with the Nazis and acted against Lithuanian citizens. Unfortunately, the provisional government ... is praised up to the skies in Lithuania....It is a disgrace."
For Zuroff, Lithuania missed its best opportunity for catharsis by failing to punish even one of its own citizens for Holocaust crimes.
"The Lithuanians squandered the best chance they had to get that burden of guilt off of them. And now it's going to take them 100 years to get rid of it. The only way they will succeed is through education, documentation, research -- and a lot of pain."
In August, the Wiesenthal Center will release its 2010 Annual Report on the Worldwide Investigation and Prosecution of Nazi War Criminals.
* Soldiers freed after Israel agreed to airlift wounded
* Lebanese account echoes testimony from both sides
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)
The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.
But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.
In World War II, with full international legality, the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded ("quarantined") Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.
Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.
Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.
Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?
But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and active defense.
(1) Forward defense: As a small, densely populated country surrounded by hostile states, Israel had, for its first half-century, adopted forward defense -- fighting wars on enemy territory (such as the Sinai and Golan Heights) rather than its own.
Where possible (Sinai, for example) Israel has traded territory for peace. But where peace offers were refused, Israel retained the territory as a protective buffer zone. Thus Israel retained a small strip of southern Lebanon to protect the villages of northern Israel. And it took many losses in Gaza, rather than expose Israeli border towns to Palestinian terror attacks. It is for the same reason America wages a grinding war in Afghanistan: You fight them there, so you don't have to fight them here.
But under overwhelming outside pressure, Israel gave it up. The Israelis were told the occupations were not just illegal but at the root of the anti-Israel insurgencies -- and therefore withdrawal, by removing the cause, would bring peace.
Land for peace. Remember? Well, during the past decade, Israel gave the land -- evacuating South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did it get? An intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side, multiple kidnappings, cross-border attacks and, from Gaza, years of unrelenting rocket attack.
(2) Active defense: Israel then had to switch to active defense -- military action to disrupt, dismantle and defeat (to borrow President Obama's description of our campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda) the newly armed terrorist mini-states established in southern Lebanon and Gaza after Israel withdrew.
The result? The Lebanon war of 2006 and Gaza operation of 2008-09. They were met with yet another avalanche of opprobrium and calumny by the same international community that had demanded the land-for-peace Israeli withdrawals in the first place. Worse, the U.N. Goldstone report, which essentially criminalized Israel's defensive operation in Gaza while whitewashing the casus belli -- the preceding and unprovoked Hamas rocket war -- effectively de-legitimized any active Israeli defense against its self-declared terror enemies.
(3) Passive defense: Without forward or active defense, Israel is left with but the most passive and benign of all defenses -- a blockade to simply prevent enemy rearmament.[...and a security fence in parts of the West Bank - SL] Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for international de-legitimation. Even the United States is now moving toward having it abolished.
But, if none of these is permissible, what's left?
Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough of the Jewish problem.
What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.
The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.
Pilar Rahola is a Spanish politician, journalist and activist and member of the far left. Her articles are published in Spain and throughout some of the most important newspapers in Latin America. Here she addresses that pro-Palestinian demonstrations:
Some of her articles translated into English:
Why don’t we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona?
Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?
Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?
Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam?
Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan ?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel ?
Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?
Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist?
Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defence of Palestinian terrorism?
And finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet? The two most solid democracies, who have suffered the bloodiest attacks of terrorism, and the left doesn’t care.
And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum I hear the left yelling with fervour: “We want freedom for the people!”
Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom. The resulting consequence of these ideological pathologies is the manipulation of the press.
The international press does major damage when reporting on the question of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. On this topic they don’t inform, they propagandize.
When reporting about Israel, the majority of journalists forget the reporter code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defence becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her.
At the same time, this press never discusses Syrian and Iranian interference in propagating violence against Israel; the indoctrination of children and the corruption of the Palestinians. And when reporting about victims, every Palestinian casualty is reported as tragedy and every Israeli victim is camouflaged, hidden or reported about with disdain.
And let me add on the topic of the Spanish left. Many are the examples that illustrate the anti-Americanism and anti-Israeli sentiments that define the Spanish left. For example, one of the leftist parties in Spain has just expelled one of its members for creating a pro-Israel web site. I quote from the expulsion document: “Our friends are the people of Iran, Libya and Venezuela , oppressed by imperialism, and not a Nazi state like Israel …”
In another example, the socialist mayor of Campozuelos changed Shoah Day, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, with Palestinian Nabka Day, which mourns the establishment of the State of Israel, thus showing contempt for the six million European Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
Or in my native city of Barcelona, the city council decided to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, by having a week of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Thus, they invited Leila Khaled, a noted terrorist from the 70’s and current leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization so described by the European Union, which promotes the use of bombs against Israel .
This politically correct way of thinking has even polluted the speeches of president Zapatero. His foreign policy falls within the lunatic left, and on issues of the Middle East, he is unequivocally pro Arab. I can assure you that in private, Zapatero places on Israel the blame for the conflict in the Middle East, and the policies of foreign minister Moratinos reflect this. The fact that Zapatero chose to wear a kafiah in the midst of the Lebanon conflict is no coincidence; it’s a symbol.
Spain has suffered the worst terrorist attack in Europe and it is in the crosshairs of every Islamic terrorist organization. As I wrote before, they kill us with cell phones hooked to satellites connected to the Middle Ages. An yet the Spanish left is the most anti Israeli in the world.
And then it says it is anti Israeli because of solidarity. This is the madness I want to denounce in this conference.
Conclusion:
I am not Jewish. Ideologically I am left and by profession a journalist. Why am I not anti Israeli like my colleagues? Because as a non-Jew I have the historical responsibility to fight against Jewish hatred and currently against the hatred for their historic homeland, Israel. To fight against anti-Semitism is not the duty of the Jews, it is the duty of the non-Jews.
As a journalist it is my duty to search for the truth beyond prejudice, lies and manipulations. The truth about Israel is not told. As a person from the left who loves progress, I am obligated to defend liberty, culture, civic education for children, coexistence and the laws that the Tablets of the Covenant made into universal principles.
Principles that Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. That is to say, that as a non-Jew, journalist and lefty, I have a triple moral duty with Israel, because if Israel is destroyed, liberty, modernity and culture will be destroyed too.
The struggle of Israel , even if the world doesn’t want to accept it, is the struggle of the world.
From: The Australian June 04, 2010, by Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem:
ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused his nation's critics yesterday of an "international offensive of hypocrisy", making the Jewish state's first major response to worldwide condemnation of its bloody takeover this week of a Turkish vessel said to be on a humanitarian mission to Gaza.
"This wasn't a love boat," Mr Netanyahu said of the Turkish cruise boat boarded by Israeli commandos, resulting in the deaths of nine activists. "This was a hate boat. These people weren't pacifists, they were violent supporters of terror. I ask the international community: what would you have done?"
Mr Netanyahu said the objective of the six-ship convoy that Israel forcibly diverted to its port of Ashdod was not to bring humanitarian assistance to residents of Gaza, but to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The blockade, he said, was necessary to prevent the shipment of massive numbers of rockets and other armaments by Iran to the Hamas regime in Gaza. "Had the maritime siege been broken, hundreds more such flotillas would have arrived," Mr Netanyahu said. "If we don't inspect vessels coming to Gaza, there would be an Iranian port in Gaza."
An Iranian port on the Mediterranean would be a danger not only to Israel but to other countries in the region as well as in Europe, he said.
While Hamas has been able to manufacture its own short-range rockets and smuggle rockets into Gaza through tunnels from Egypt, a single ship could bring in armaments of a totally different magnitude, the Israeli leader said.
A vessel intercepted by the Israeli navy last year in the Mediterranean was found to be carrying 200 tonnes of Iranian armaments bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Preventing rockets from reaching Gaza, with which Israel is in a state of war, was not only the government's obligation to its people but also its right under international law, Mr Netanyahu said.
As for the deaths of nine activists aboard the vessel boarded this week by naval commandos, the Mavi Marmara, Mr Netanyahu expressed regret at the loss of life but said the men attacking the commandos boarding the vessel had staged a deliberate ambush with metal staves and knives and had fired guns with intent to kill, using weapons snatched from fallen commandos...
Four Kassam rockets were launched into Israel Thursday night. The rockets set off warning sirens in Sderot and Ashkelon, and exploded in open areas.
There were no reports of casualties or damage in the latest attacks from the Strip.
On Tuesday three [terrorists] were killed in an IAF airstrike in northern Gaza after firing two rockets into southern Israel. The rockets caused no injuries...
During a search aboard the maritime vessel Mavi Marmara, IDF forces uncovered a cache of weapons including many knives, slingshots, rocks, smoke bombs, metal rods, improvised sharp metal objects, sticks and clubs, 5KG hammers, firebombs and gas masks in case IDF forces fired riot dispersal means at the activists as they violently attacked the soldiers.
These weapons were used against Israeli Navy personnel as they attempted to board the ship. 7 soldiers were injured during the incident, which included activists taking two pistols from the soldiers and firing at them.
In any future agreement with the Palestinians, Israel has a critical need for defensible borders. This video outlines the threats to Israel from terrorist rockets, ballistic missiles, and conventional ground and air threats from the east.
From National Review Online, June 1, 2010, by Mona Charen:
Don’t members of the press ever resent being so used?
The effort to destroy the Jewish state has many fronts. One front is in Iran, where the maniacal regime that has repeatedly promised to “wipe Israel off the map” marches inexorably toward a nuclear bomb. Another is in Gaza, from which Hamas has lobbed 10,000 missiles into Israeli cities. Yet another front, the most insidious, is comprised of the propaganda arm of the Palestinian movement. And this front thrives for only one reason — the complicity of the world press and the so-called “international community.”
It was the propaganda arm that staged the “Freedom Flotilla.” But there have been many previous productions: The propaganda arm was responsible for the photo-shopped images of damage to Lebanon during the 2006 war, the staged “death” of twelve-year-old Muhammad al-Durrah, the “massacre” at Jenin, and the “war crimes” in Gaza.
In each and every case, the “news” of Israeli atrocities was broadcast far and wide by organizations such as Reuters, AP, CNN, and AFP. The United Nations has offered its imprimatur to every libel. The truth seemed always to have a case of laryngitis.
Today, in the wake of the confrontation between Israeli soldiers and the provocateurs aboard the Gaza flotilla, the remarkably incurious world press is providing exactly the sort of headlines on which the organizers knew they could count. ...Every news outlet I checked docilely described the flotilla as “humanitarian.”
Don’t members of the press ever resent being so used?
Fact: Israel imposed a blockade of Gaza to prevent weapons from reaching the radical Islamic regime there that continues to make war on Israeli civilians. Egypt too has blockaded the strip, hoping to choke off weapons to Hamas, which it views as a threat.
Fact: Humanitarian relief is delivered to Gaza from Israel on a daily basis. During the first three months of this year, 94,500 tons of supplies were transferred to Gaza from Israel, including 48,000 tons of food products; 40,000 tons of wheat; 2,760 tons of rice; 1,987 tons of clothes and footwear; and 553 tons of milk powder and baby food for the strip’s 1.5 million inhabitants. Representatives of international aid groups and the United Nations move freely to and from the Gaza Strip.
Fact: Upon learning of the intentions of the Gaza flotilla, the Israeli government asked the organizers to deliver their humanitarian aid first to an Israeli port where it would be inspected (for weapons) before being forwarded to Gaza. The organizers refused. “There are two possible happy endings,” a Muslim activist on board explained, “either we will reach Gaza or we will achieve martyrdom.”
Fact: The flotilla ignored multiple instructions from Israeli navy ships to change course and follow them to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
Fact: On board one of the ships, according to al-Jazeera, the “humanitarian” Palestinians sang “Khaybar, Khaybar, oh Jews, the army of Muhammad will return” — a reference to the 628 massacre of Jews in Arabia at the hands of Muhammad.
From Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, May 26 2010:
IHH, which plays a central role in organizing the flotilla to the Gaza Strip, is a Turkish humanitarian relief fund with a radical Islamic anti-Western orientation. Besides its legitimate philanthropic activities, it supports radical Islamic networks, including Hamas, and at least in the past, even global jihad elements....
From: The Daily Telegraph June 02, 2010, by Andrew Bolt:
...What a coup for those pledged to destroy that tiny Jewish country. How discredited and defenceless Israel seems. Someone couldn't have scripted this any better.
Well, almost no better, because even the journalists most sympathetic to the activists on the ships intercepted by Israel couldn't help but refer, albeit grudgingly, to a couple of untidy details too obvious to ignore.
ABC host Jon Faine, for instance, described these victims of Zionist aggression as "humanitarian activists with a few knives". Er, with knives? Humanitarians? And a strident report in The Age, Australia's most left-wing daily, conceded that video of the Israeli soldiers being lowered on to the ships from helicopters did shows some of the "hundreds of politicians and protesters" on board had offered "signs of resistance".
Here are some of those "signs of the resistance" that report failed to detail.
You see the Israelis, at first brandishing just paint-ball guns, being grabbed as they landed, dragged to the ground, and beaten brutally with pipes and clubs.
On another clip, apparently shot by protesters, a soldier is stabbed in the back, and then in the front. Another soldier is beaten and thrown over the side.
Photographs show two Israeli soldiers, one of them shot, being carried off with serious wounds. This isn't what you'd normally expect from "peace protesters" or "humanitarian activists", even those armed merely "with a few knives".
These clues suggest the media - and many foolish politicians - have fallen for a brilliant propaganda coup.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also fell for it, saying he was "deeply concerned" and condemning "any use of violence under the sorts of circumstances we have seen".
His Foreign Affairs Minister, Steven Smith, likewise attacked Israel for a "terrible and shocking event" and demanded it hold an inquiry.
Not once did Rudd or Smith suggest an inquiry into who organised this trap in which Israel had fallen - or into those who now stand most to gain.
So who are we talking about? Here's another clue. The Israelis took over an "aid" flotilla trying to pierce the blockade which both Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza, controlled by the Islamist Hamas.
Only on one of six ships did the Israelis meet a resistance that clearly - and fatally - caught them by surprise. This was not on one of the ships manned by Western politicians, aid workers and other useful idiots brought along for camouflage.
It broke out instead on the Mavi Marmara, a ship supplied by a Turkish "humanitarian relief fund" known as IHH. IHH may boast about its good works, but intelligence agencies warn that it is in fact tied to Islamist terrorists.
In 2001, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the prominent French counter-terrorism magistrate, testified in the trial of the "Millennium bomber" that IHH had played "an important role" in the plot to blow up Los Angeles airport. He said the charity was "a type of cover-up" to infiltrate mujahidin into combat, get forged documents and smuggle weapons.
In 2006, the Danish Institute for International Studies reported that Turkish security forces had raided the IHH's Istanbul bureau and found firearms, explosives and bomb-making instructions. The Turkish investigators concluded this "charity" was sending jihadists to Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan.
IHH is a supporter of Hamas, listed in many countries as a terrorist group. This time it planned something more effective than an explosion. It decided to destroy Israel's moral standing among its more fickle friends.
Its Mavi Marmara would now head a flotilla to break through the Israeli blockade of Gaza - or, rather, to provoke Israel into stopping it by force. IHH head Bulent Yildirim gloated that this would be seen as "a declaration of war" against all the countries which supplied the flotilla's passengers, which is why so many foreigners, and particularly sympathetic journalists such as the Sydney Morning Herald's Paul McGeough, were on board, having been recruited from Australia, Britain, the US and many other countries that IHH and its allies hoped could be turned into enemies of Israel.
It was obvious Israel would act. It had to. To relax the blockade once would be to open a corridor to yet more ships, giving Gaza another conduit for the smuggling of jihadists and militarily useful supplies.
Oh, and ignore soothing claims now that Hamas, which runs Gaza, should actually be negotiated with, rather than blockaded. Hamas fires rockets at Israel and has a charter which calls for the destruction of Israel, declaring "there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad."
Indeed, jihad was also the spirit on the Mavi Marmara as it sailed for Gaza.
Those on board refused offers by Israel that they dock at an Israeli port so their aid could be checked and forwarded to Gaza. They rejected warnings to turn back. They prepared instead for confrontation. Arab television showed a woman exulting: "We await one of two good things - to achieve martyrdom or reach the shore of Gaza." She said: "These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them."
They got just what they wanted, then, as did Hamas and its chief backer, Iran. Iran, needing a distraction from its nuclear program, pumped out instant YouTube footage of this Israeli "atrocity".
Meanwhile Hamas spokesman Samil Abu Zuhri called for a global "intifada": "We call on all Arabs and Muslims to rise up in front of Zionist embassies across the world."
And in capital cities around Australia we yesterday saw the new front open as angry demonstrators took the streets. So what, you may scoff. A few of the usual hotheads. But see this time how many of our politicians, journalists and "thinkers" are on the wrong side of this front. See how willingly they've surrendered to a clever Islamist plot more effective than any Bali bomb.
From The San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994:
...Neutral merchant vessels
67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:
(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;
(b) engage in belligerent acts on behalf of the enemy;
(c) act as auxiliaries to the enemy s armed forces;
(d) are incorporated into or assist the enemy s intelligence system;
(e) sail under convoy of enemy warships or military aircraft; or
(f) otherwise make an effective contribution to the enemy s military action, e.g., by carrying military materials, and it is not feasible for the attacking forces to first place passengers and crew in a place of safety. Unless circumstances do not permit, they are to be given a warning, so that they can re-route, off-load, or take other precautions.
...Blockade
...98. Merchant vessels believed on reasonable grounds to be breaching a blockade may be captured. Merchant vessels which, after prior warning, clearly resist capture may be attacked....
From PMW, 1 June 2010, by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik:
The following are the words of Dr. Abd Al-Fatah Shayyeq Naaman, lecturer in Shari'ah law at a university in Yemen, now visiting Gaza: "The [Gaza] flotilla commander said yesterday: 'We will not allow the Zionists to get near us and we will use resistance against them.' How will they wage resistance? They will resist with their fingernails. They are people who seek Martyrdom for Allah, as much as they want to reach Gaza, but the first [Martyrdom] is more desirable."
[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), May 30, 2010]
From The Times (UK), June 1, 2010, by James Hider, Ashdod:
Before the [Hate] Flotilla steamed out of Cyprus laden with thousands of tons of aid for the blockaded Gaza Strip, some of the passengers on a Turkish-flagged cruise ship spoke to news crews filming their departure.
“We are now waiting for one of two good things — either to reach Gaza or achieve martyrdom,” said one woman in a headscarf. After a night of bloodshed on the high seas on Monday, at least nine of her fellow passengers, most of them believed to be Turks, had achieved the latter.
...Israel had denounced the Gaza flotilla as a publicity stunt to “humiliate” the Jewish state by publicly breaching its three-year siege of the Gaza Strip, where the Islamist movement Hamas holds sway. Determined to halt the six ships full of international activists ...three Israeli missile boats slipped out of the northern port of Haifa at about 9pm to intercept the fleet in international waters.
...Over a loudspeaker, an Israeli naval officer warned the ships in English that they were in breach of the Israeli blockade of Gaza — deemed a “hostile entity” by the Knesset following the Hamas takeover. He ordered them to surrender their aid to the Israeli Navy, which would take it to the port of Ashdod and transfer it on lorries across the Israeli-controlled crossing with Gaza.
...At about 4am, Israeli Navy Seals from the elite Flotilla 13 unit were sent in three helicopters and in Zodiac assault craft to board the vessels. They had trained hard for the mission, but were expecting minor resistance. The plan was to land on the top deck of the Turkish ferry, rush the bridge and take control.
The Gaza fleet’s co-ordinators had said their colleagues on the five other ships had been schooled in non-violent resistance ...However, some of the hundreds of passengers on the Mavi Marmara had other ideas. As the Israeli Navy Seals rappelled, one by one, on to the upper deck of the ship, it was no longer clear exactly who was ambushing whom.
“They beat us with metal sticks and knives,” said one of the Israeli commandos, who hit the deck only to find a mob of furious demonstrators, rather than political protesters, armed with iron bars, baseball bats, knives, petrol bombs and stun grenades. An Israeli military night-vision video released after the chaotic storming showed the first soldier being overwhelmed as he landed, then pitched on to a lower deck by the crowd.
Still the Israeli soldiers kept coming, in a single vertical line, to be set upon. Video footage from the activists showed stunned soldiers being pummelled, one of them reeling for cover from the blows in a hatchway.
Meanwhile, other commandos were trying to scale the ship’s sides, but were having their hands beaten by activists determined to repel the boarders. According to the army, it was a “lynching,” with the passengers trying to break the soldiers’ arms and legs and beating them about the head.
Overwhelmed, some of the elite forces started losing their sidearms to the crowd. Others had their helmets and body armour pulled off them as they were hurled from deck to deck. Some of the Israeli soldiers had to dive into the sea to save themselves.
“They jumped me, hit me with clubs and bottles and stole my rifle,” one commando said. “I pulled out my pistol and had no choice but to shoot.”
An Israeli journalist on the missile boats said that the soldiers had been carrying anti-riot paintball guns to disperse the crowd, as well as pistols. These appeared to have little effect and the order was eventually given to resort to live rounds.
“There was live fire at some point against us,” a commando said. That was when the gunfire erupted at terrifyingly close quarters. When it was over, two hours into the operation, at least nine passengers were dead, dozens more were wounded and Israel stood in the glare of international condemnation as rioters tried to storm its consulate in Istanbul and its ambassadors across Europe were summoned to explain themselves.
Israel said that seven of its soldiers had been wounded, two of them seriously, in the pre-dawn mêlée. Critics said that they had used the wrong forces, pitching crack commandos who are used to storming weapons-smuggling ships into what was, essentially, a sea-borne riot.
Accused by European leaders of using disproportionate force — a charge reminiscent of the Gaza conflict and the subsequent UN inquiry — Israel rushed to defend its actions, saying that IHH, the Turkish Islamic charity that chartered the ferry, had links to Hamas and even al-Qaeda.
“There was extreme violence from the moment that our forces reached the ship. It was premeditated and included weapons, iron bars, knives and at a certain stage firearms, perhaps in some cases weapons that were snatched from soldiers,” said Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, the Israeli Chief of Staff. But there was no explanation for the intelligence failure that led him to send his men armed primarily with paintball guns to face such a belligerent mob.
Last night the subdued flotilla was being towed into the sealed-off port of Ashdod, to await processing by the police. Those who agreed to deportation were to be escorted to the borders, while those who did not – including the Challenger 1’s two British passengers – were being taken to jail.
In hospital beds across Israel, wounded passengers spent the night under heavy guard by military police officers, still far from Gaza.
...Yet again, Israel is maligned and castigated as an aggressor, for defending itself against morally impaired enablers of terrorism. This is not about the border of Gaza. This is about the ability of Islamist supporters and their media enablers to garner sympathy for their unashamed and unconcealed objective to eliminate the Jewish state.
... Those lives would not have been lost had the instructions of the Israeli border control been respected and upheld. Do not blame Israel for responding to a vile threat of its territory, and an unjustified publicity stunt that is directed towards the existential security of its people.
Before you defend these low life protestors, consider that they were yelling anti-Semitic slogans. Before you scream civilians and children, ask just what civilians and children are doing being thrust into a stage managed provocation.
The recent incident on MV Mavi Marmara is reminiscent of a similar attempt by supporters of the Tamil LTTE in May 2009 [to get "humanitarian aid" to a terrorist group] in Sri Lankan waters. A pro-LTTE organisation chartered a merchant vessel MV Captain Ali to make a daring attempt to land material and supplies directly to areas held by the LTTE prior to the final battle.
The ship was detained by the Sri Lanka Navy and turned back because it did not have the proper documentation. As a compromise the ship unloaded the cargo in India and was sent across to Sri Lanka by the Indian Red Cross.
A key factor in the Sri Lankan situation was that MV Captain Ali did not have the proper paperwork relating to the ETA details. Any ship leaving a port must indicate the destination under international maritime regulations. A ship cannot leave a port with an undisclosed destination.
In the case of the international flotilla bound to Gaza, the biggest breach of international law took place in Turkish Cyprus when the flotilla was permitted to leave without a designated destination port. The fact that Turkish Cyprus is permitted to exist as an unrecognised defacto state is one of the key problems in this case. They are not guided by international obligations and provide sanctuary and opportunity for illegal transport activity.
From an Op-ed, June 1, 2010, by Ely Karmon, Senior Research Scholar, International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) and The Institute for Policy and Strategy (IPS) at The Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzlyia, Israel:
There are four strategic aspects involved in the botched attempt to break the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip and the tragic Israeli seaborne attack against the international flotilla on the night of May 31.
Hamas is interested to have free access to the Gaza harbor because it needs to provide the Palestinian population the necessary economic benefits it promised when it took control of the Strip in June 2007 by a bloody military coup. It also needs construction materials for rebuilding the houses and infrastructure destroyed during the Israeli Cast Lead operation triggered by the Hamas rocket attacks against Israel.
But above all Hamas wants to arm itself with long range missiles and other heavy weapons in order to be able to attack again Israel, on the example of Hezbollah.
Since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, not only Hezbollah has not been disarmed, as requested by the 1701 Security Council resolution, but it has rearmed itself with more than 40,000 missiles and rockets which cover all of Israel and practically kidnapped the Lebanese government and imposed on it, with Syrian, Iranian and Qatari support, the so called "Resistance" (Mukawma) strategy against Israel.
Not the UNIFIL forces in Southern Lebanon, nor the German Navy or EUROMARFOR - a force made up of ships from Portugal, Spain, Italy and France – did carry out their UN task of preventing the smuggling of illegal armament shipments to Hezbollah, as long as the Syrian border was uncontrolled and Iran and Syria were decided to support the Islamist organization.
Israel cannot permit itself to have a Hezbollah like entity in its southern border, 60 km. from its heavily populated central region.
The Israeli Navy and Army have succeeded to stop the attempt to give Hamas free hand to arm itself to the teeth.
The international organizers of the humanitarian aid flotilla are a hodgepodge of pro-Palestinian human rights groups of different political colors, naïve intellectuals and some anti-Zionist Israelis and Jews, which for years are struggling on all fronts to delegitimize Israel.
But the real force behind this operation were several Hamas front organizations and especially the Turkish IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi, IHH - Humanitarian Relief Fund), a radical Islamic organization close to the Muslim Brotherhood. IHH supports Hamas materially and its strategy of armed struggle and has been outlawed by Israel in 2008.
From their point of view, the results of the flotilla operation were a huge media and political success, in spite or better said because of the "martyrdom" of their militants killed when trying to stop with cold weapons the Israeli commandos.
The Islamic Movement in Israel, with his own radical representatives in the flotilla, headed by Sheikh Raed Salah, makes a political breakthrough on the international arena. The false informations diffused about Raed Salah's serious injury or even death triggered violent manifestations of Arab Israeli citizens and the movement will try to capitalize on this event.
This is actually a faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, exactly like Hamas; the Islamic Movement was in great part responsible for the breaking up of the Second Intifada in October 2000 with the false informations it disseminated about the "imminent" destruction of the al-Aqsa mosque by the Jews. Although only some of its militants have been involved in terrorist activities in the past, one must remember that the Hamas was also a "pacific" movement from 1967 to 1987, during which period it prepared its religious, social and military infrastructure for the armed struggle during the first intifada.
Turkey, the AK (Justice and Development) Party and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan are the new important players in this drama.
In its second term in power the AKP, the Islamist self-styled "conservative," party, has retreated significantly from its "moderate image and democratic ideals," has turned into an increasingly semi-authoritarian force and has accelerated its internal anti-secularism agenda on all fronts.
One of the signs of this Islamization process has been the manifest anti-Israeli policy of the Erdogan government. It began with an official visit of the Hamas leadership in Turkey in February 2006, continued with Erdogan's unashamed attack on Israel's President Shimon Peres at the 2009 Davos Conference, the downgrading of the military cooperation between the two allied countries and a continuous diplomatic crisis.
The AKP and its leaders feel very close to the Hamas, a brotherly Muslim Brotherhood movement, at the expense of the Palestinian Authority. In January 2010, under strong Turkish diplomatic pressure, Egypt permitted pro-Palestinian activists, mainly Turks, to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border with a humanitarian aid convoy led by British parliamentarian George Galloway. The long stand-off culminated in clashes at the border, the death of an Egyptian soldier and the expulsion from Egypt of most of the activists.
In spite of Israel's attempts through diplomatic channels to convince the Turkish government to transport the present humanitarian aid convoy to Gaza through the Israeli border, the Turkish leaders preferred to support the provocative aid flotilla.
It seems the Turkish government was interested to achieve at all costs the end of the Gaza blockade and Hamas' international isolation in its bid for the leadership in the Palestinian issue, growing influence in the Arab world and strategic rapprochement with Syria and Iran.
The Palestinian issue is also an important card on the Turkish internal arena, a rallying populist flag for the Islamist masses, on the background of a continuing economic recession and serious progress in the public opinion of the secularist Republican People's Party (CHP), according to recent polls.
The cynical use by Erdogan and AKP of the Palestinian issue stands in contrast with the Turkish policy on the Kurdish problem. Erdogan failed to achieve any agreement with the PKK and its leader Abdullah Ocalan, who abandoned efforts to seek dialogue with Turkey. On May 20, Turkish warplanes bombed dozens of Kurdish rebel targets in their enclave in Northern Iraq and on May 31 the PKK retaliated with a rocket attack against a naval base in İskenderun which left seven soldiers dead.
The AKP's government concern with the "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza is difficult to understand when Erdogan claims that “A Muslim can never commit genocide” and at the same time is hosting and defending Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who faces worldwide condemnation for the genocide taking place in Darfur.
By the way, what was the reaction of the Turkish government to the attacks on May 28 on two Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, Pakistan, where at least 93 worshippers were killed in cold blood and more than a hundred wounded?
Never mind, no Muslim country protested the massacre and no country dared ask a Security Council urgent meeting.
However, it can be evaluated that the Turkish government will decide to expel the Israeli ambassador in Ankara and downgrade the diplomatic relations or even cut them off.
Transcript
LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev joins us now from Jerusalem.
Mr Regev, thank you for your time.
MARK REGEV, ISRAELI GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN: My pleasure.
LEIGH SALES: Who initiated the gunfire?
MARK REGEV: It's very clear it came unfortunately from the activists inside the boats. Our sailors who went into the operation there were given specific instructions. This is a police operation, they were told. They were told that their objective is to tow these boats into our Port of Ashdod so the cargo could be checked. They were told "minimum amount of force to be used, maximum amount of restraint", and the violence was initiated by the people on the boats who attacked our soldiers with knives, with iron bars and of course with live fire as well.
LEIGH SALES: Mr Regev, I'm sorry, my earpiece dropped out in that so I couldn't hear what you said, so forgive me if the questions that I ask now go over some of the ground that you have just covered. What evidence is there that Israeli soldiers were fired upon? Do your boats bear bullet holes, does your equipment, do your soldiers, have bullet wounds?
MARK REGEV: We've obviously - we've got a whole series of injured soldiers. We're releasing video, have released and will continue to release as the boats come in. We'll be making evidence public. But I think everyone who was watching what we were doing prior saw that we made every effort possible to avoid confrontation, to avoid violence. First off we said that we're very happy to unload any humanitarian cargo for the Gaza Strip in the civilian Port of Ashdod and we'd push it through the crossings into Gaza.
If they didn't want to deal with us they could have done the same through the Egyptians who made a similar proposal to do it through the Egyptian Port of El-Arish. Unfortunately, they weren't really interested in delivering aid, they were interested in a confrontation, interested in, I s'pose, headlines for their cause. But they weren't - they did everything possible, unfortunately, to initiate violence here, which we had to respond to.
LEIGH SALES: You say that you'll be making the evidence public as the boats come in. Can you tell me what that evidence is?
MARK REGEV: Weapons, the injuries of our own soldiers, video footage. We actually embedded journalists with our troops and I'm sure they'll be reporting on what they saw. It's clear - Israel had no interest in violence, Israel had no interest in escalation. We wanted a police operation. We just wanted to tow these boats into our port in Ashdod.
LEIGH SALES: The Jerusalem Post reported earlier that live fire from the flotilla came from a weapon that those on board the boat took from one of the Israeli soldiers. Can you confirm if that's the case?
MARK REGEV: Yes, I can. I can confirm that was the case, where weapons were taken forcibly from our servicemen and used against them. Our servicemen were under instructions, once again - limited amount of force, limited amount of pressure whatsoever. They were supposed to act like police officers in an operation, and unfortunately the extremists on the boat I think exploited that situation and put some of our servicemen in very grave danger.
LEIGH SALES: But did those on the boats have their own weapons or did they only have access to weapons after the Israeli soldiers boarded?
MARK REGEV: That is being thoroughly investigated as we speak. It's not clear at this stage. What is clear is that they opened fire on our sailors.
LEIGH SALES: Was the force used by the Israeli soldiers in proportion to the threat that was encountered?
MARK REGEV: Once again, I think the viewers in Australia must understand: why do we have this naval blockade in the first place? And the reason is clear. You have countries like Iran, countries like Syria, organisations like Hezbollah that are trying to pump into Gaza advanced missiles, advanced rockets. And as you know, in Israel we've been on the receiving end of those rockets; they've come down on our civilians.
Just last year some 1,000 rockets were fired on Israeli civilians, and so that's the reason that a naval blockade is there and in place, and we have to have that blockade to protect our people. Why were the people on these boats so stuck that they refused to allow their cargo to go through a civilian port and to be examined? I just don't understand.
LEIGH SALES: That doesn't answer my question about whether in this specific case the force that was used in this incident was proportional to the threat.
MARK REGEV: Well, we'll obviously, and like every armed service in the democratic world, we will investigate thoroughly exactly what happened. It appears that unfortunately our team that went on the boats was attacked, they faced a very real and present danger by, once again, knives, iron bars and weapons themselves that were used against our sailors and as a result we had to respond. It was not our desire. The violence was not on our initiative.
LEIGH SALES: Is it not possible that Israel could have prevented this flotilla from entering its waters without boarding the boats?
MARK REGEV: Well, obviously we'll have to look into that possibility, but I don't think so. And you'll recall your own reporter - not your reporter; one of the activists on the boat said: "What was Israel using?" He said stun grenades and tear gas, and that was our goal to use non-violent means in order to do a police operation. Unfortunately, we were met with much, much more severe violence from the activists on the boat.
LEIGH SALES: Does Israel agree that this incident occurred in international waters?
MARK REGEV: Do you know, according to international law that question is irrelevant, because if you know your international humanitarian law, the San Remo memorandum states, specifically 67A, that if you have a boat that is charging a blockaded area you are allowed to intercept even prior to it reaching the blockaded area if you've warned them in advance, and that we did a number of times and they had a stated goal which they openly expressed, of breaking the blockade. That blockade is in place to protect our people.
LEIGH SALES: So Israel believes that it has fully complied with international law in this circumstance?
MARK REGEV: 100 per cent correct. If you look at international law, if someone is breaking your blockade, intends to do so, has been warned, you are allowed to intercept, and that's exactly what we were doing.
LEIGH SALES: Would the Israeli government be prepared to cooperate with an independent inquiry to piece together what happened here?
MARK REGEV: I don't know. I know the following, is that our own investigations are terribly independent. We've had investigations, our - the army has its own independent framework of military justice, and of course any investigations that are done by the military are open to independent judicial review by the courts. We really do have in place in Israel a system of checks and balances to make sure that investigations are both professional and independent.
LEIGH SALES: The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to meet with US president Barack Obama this week for talks on the Middle East peace process. What impact do you imagine this incident is going to have on those talks?
MARK REGEV: Hard to know at this stage. He's today meeting in Canada, tomorrow with prime minister Harper there and tomorrow due to move onto Washington for his meeting with president Obama. Obviously there are much larger issues on the table, whether it's the Iranian nuclear threat or trying to get the Middle East peace process back on track. It's clear however to all those people who want to move the peace process forward that Hamas is one of the major opponents of any progress in the peace process.
Hamas says no to peace, they say no to reconciliation. They support terrorism, they support violence. They're trying to overthrow the legitimate Palestinian government and they keep the people of Gaza under a brutal regime where they crack down on all independent political activity. They've locked up political opponents, they've closed all independent newspapers, they've even closed internet cafes.
You know, if you're a person living in Gaza under the Hamas regime and you're a Christian, or you're a gay, or you're a woman who wants to dress in a modern way, you will face immediately violent retribution from this regime. And I think a lot of those people who think that these activists are somehow human rights activists, well nothing could be further from the truth.
In the past when they've entered the Gaza Strip, the first thing they've done is gone and had their photographs taken with the Hamas leadership and received awards, medals from the Hamas leadership. These people are apologists for a brutal authoritarian regime.
LEIGH SALES: Mark Regev, thank you very much and I do apologise for our technical difficulties.
Israel is facing a storm of international criticism after a deadly raid on a fleet of ships carrying aid to the Gaza strip. Israeli foreign affairs spokesman Yigal Palmor speaks with Kerry O’Brien live from Jerusalem.
Transcript
KERRY O'BRIEN, PRESENTER: Israel is facing a storm of international criticism after a deadly raid on a fleet of ships carrying aid to the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli Army says more than 10 people were killed after its commandoes were attacked with axes and knives and after they were fired on when they boarded the vessels. A Turkish charity says the death toll is at least 15.
The ships were carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian supplies to Gaza as well as peace activists, challenging Israel's naval blockade which has been in force since 2007.
Israel is claiming it has the backing of international law, but that claim will be hotly disputed.
Joining me now from Jerusalem is Israeli Foreign Affairs spokesman Yigal Palmor.
Yigal Palmor, before we get to Israel's justification of this apparent slaughter, can you update on casualties, on what is happening with the survivors, including nationals, we're told, from 33 countries, and when will you allow independent media to hear the other side of this incident?
YIGAL PALMOR, ISRAELI FOREIGN AFFAIRS SPOKESMAN: I'll begin with the end. The independent media can hear the other side any time, any time they wish. We impose no restrictions. Anyone can report anything they want from anywhere in Israel and there were reports from the boats to certain international TV channels which showed live the boarding of the boats by the Israeli soldiers and how they were attacked by some of the militants. Now, what we know about the casualties at this moment is this: there are eight Israeli soldiers injured and more than 10 dead among the militants. I don't have a definitive number to give you at this point, but more than 10; and then, a few dozen injured. We don't have a definitive number there as well. All the injured and all the casualties were transported immediately by helicopter to hospitals in Israel. All the other foreign nationals, as soon as they reach the port of Ashdod, will be sent back home to their countries of origin, unless they choose to appeal to a local court and they decide to claim that they have a right to stay in Israel, in which case the law says that they can appeal with a lawyer of their choice, but meanwhile they will have to stay in detention. If they choose not to appeal, they will be sent to the airport and put on a plane back home as soon as possible.
KERRY O'BRIEN: Are you prepared to concede that totally innocent people from various countries whose only crime may have been that they wanted to protest against this blockade, or, in the case of some journalists, including two Australian journalists, simply wanted to cover the story, may have been killed or wounded. I'm not suggesting the Australian journalist was killed. But that innocent people may have been killed or wounded unless you consider everyone who climbed on one of these boats is in some way guilty in Israel's eyes?
YIGAL PALMOR: No, of course not, of course not. But anyone who has attacked with a knife or hatchet or a gun an armed soldiers is, of course, fair game. What can I tell you? If you are under attack, then yes, you are fair game, and unfortunately, these people who have chosen to attack the soldiers when there was no need for it, when there were other options to end all this pacifically, these people bear the responsibility for what has happened. They were warned time and again before they sailed to sea and while they were at sea that they would not be permitted to break into Gaza by force. They were offered other options even while they were at sea. They chose confrontation, this is what they were seeking, and they attacked armed soldiers who were boarding the ship with instructions not to use violence. So obviously they provoked a shootout, and unfortunately - and this is something we deeply regret - there are casualties now.
KERRY O'BRIEN: All of your language suggests that Israel was totally the innocent party on this, was not in any way the aggressor. You use terms like, "The people on these boats were going to break into Gaza." These were ships, we're told, loaded with supplies, with aid, with building supplies for Gaza which is depleted in all kinds of ways. How were they going to break in, these peace activists or the people wanting to unload these supplies?
YIGAL PALMOR: Let's make something very clear. You're talking about peace activists, but the major organiser of this sail of this armada, so to speak, is a well-known Turkish Islamic group, the IHH, which has been implicated in terrorist operations already in the '90s and then at the beginning of this decade and they have been in very, very close ties with Hamas, with controlling Gaza, funding them, sending them other types of assistance. Now, one violent Islamist group says they want to send regularly ships in assistance to another which controls with violence and illegally a territory, and you think that this should be go on as if nothing - as if that was business as usual? I don't think so. The IHH is a very dangerous Islamist group. I don't think their intentions were true or innocent. Unfortunately, they embarked with them some people who believed otherwise and people whom the Soviets would have been called "useful idiots". But the main organisers here were the IHH and no-one should make any mistake about the real aim of this group.
KERRY O'BRIEN: I'm not sure that the highly experienced Middle East correspondent from the Sydney Morning Herald Paul McGeough could be described as a "useful idiot". I can't speak for the others, ...
YIGAL PALMOR: I'm referring to the journalists. I'm referring to the activists.
KERRY O'BRIEN: ... but I imagine that amongst - I imagine amongst the hundreds there would have been many that weren't useful idiots. But there's been an avalanche of international protest at Israel's action. There's - this one from the French Foreign Minister sums it up. He said, "Nothing can justify the use of such violence, which we condemn. We do not understand the human toll of such an operation against a humanitarian initiative that has been known for several days." Now presumably the French Foreign Minister is not naive in these matters, so there is an enormous cavalcade of international outrage expressed at Israel's actions. Once again, you find yourself condemned by - including people, some of whom you would count as your friends.
YIGAL PALMOR: Yes, that is a fact, that is a fact and it's very easy to condemn based on what you see on TV. But when rioters are coming your way and they are determined to break everything, to spread, to wreak havoc everywhere, what do you do? Do you let them do that or you send riot police? Now riot police don't look good on TV and they will always be condemned, right? They never look good on TV. But you have to stop the rioters, and these people ...
KERRY O'BRIEN: Well particularly if you have a death toll of 15 or more.
YIGAL PALMOR: Absolutely, absolutely, I agree, but there was no other choice. These people said they were carrying humanitarian aid. Why were they not co-ordinating this with the UN or with the Palestinian Government? They refused to co-ordinate this with anyone who was relevant. Not Israel, granted, not Egypt, not the UN, not the Palestinian Government. Was this really about humanitarian aid? Well, the head of the IHH said just before the sail went - was set off that the real purpose was not the humanitarian aid but to break the blockade, so to seek confrontation. So this is not about humanitarian aid. This was about a confrontation between an Islamist armed group in assistance of another group.
KERRY O'BRIEN: There is of course the whole other question about whether you really do have international law at your disposal, but that's a debate we're going to have to hear over the days to come. We're out of time now. Thankyou very much for joining us, Yigal Palmor. Thankyou.
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