Wednesday, June 02, 2010

The Flotilla: how many Australian politicians, journalists and "thinkers" are on the wrong side of this front

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.

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