BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Roberto
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 04:53 PM

robomatic, I'd like to underline this sentence in T. L. Friedman's article: "I adore the Israelis and Palestinians, but God save me from some of their European and American friends".

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 05:09 PM

And yet, more than 100 Palestinians are killed for every Israeli killed, Ed. If we can do business with a genocidal terrorist state like Israel, then we can also do business with Hamas.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:09 PM

Roberto, Israeli 'historians' have re-written history: "All of the Europeans and Americans who profess the Jewish religion have roots in the Palestinian region."

Perhaps it is time for natives of UK to throw out those Normans and others who have no right to be there.
And time for North American indigenous peoples to don warpaint again.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Lox
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:22 PM

John,

"If the REALLY want to change things, let them stand in front of the tanks and guns, not take a sea cruise that they know will end in a free flight home!"

1. 9 people died on the Mavi Marmara, so to describe them as taking a sea cruise with a guaranteed safe flight home is ignorant crap.

2. The flotilla and the IDF action against it has brought more publicity to the region than thousands of dead palestinians have managed to.

In fact, the more palestinians who die, the more the west becomes numb to it.

3. The ship "Rachel Corrie" is named after a young american girl who stood in front of a bulldozer, only for the driver to deliberately drive over her.

Guess how much international impact this had?

None.

So to recap, The flotilla is proving to be the most effewctive protest yet, and 2, your cmments about Bandwagons are ignorant crap.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:31 PM

The Israelis are in their ancestral homeland therefore it's as if the Indians were able to reclaim their lands and yet had to deal with them pesky European squatters. The squatters found some guy in a university who reckoned that yes, the Indians after hundreds of years of displacement and resettlement had done some race-mixing therefore they were no longer Indians how dare they yet the Indians knew all along who they were and where they belonged and acted accordingly.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Sorcha
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:36 PM

Don't forget that the Palestinians are ALSO in THEIR ancetral homeland.

And SOME Indians have managed to regain control of 'homelands'. Us pesky Europeans be damned. I wish they could get MORE back!

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:37 PM

Yes, that's a very good point, Lox.

If the REALLY want to change things, let them stand in front of the tanks and guns

They are already standing in front of the tanks and guns and getting killed and maimed by the Israeli military in disturbingly high numbers. Lox mentioned Rachel Corrie. She is only the most well known of the human rights workers who have been deliberately killed or maimed by the Israeli military. There are many others. You really need to crawl out of that hole in which you appear to be hiding, John, and take a look around at what is really happening.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:38 PM

Suit yourself, robomatic. Write your own history of the world if you want to. But pull up a chair and get yourself some popcorn. You're going to need it.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:40 PM

"More than 100 Palestinians are killed for every Israeli killed"

What was the ratio for the UN Alies Kuwait-Iraq, or and UA-Iraq conflict?

CarolC
Will you tell a family that the loss of their loved one was not as significant, because it was on a lower ratio-kill scale.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:59 PM

James Henry Dominic Miller (18 December 1968 - 2 May 2003)

was a Welsh cameraman, producer, and director, and recipient of numerous awards, including five Emmy Awards.
He often worked with Saira Shah with whom he founded and operated an independent production company called Frostbite Productions in 2001. He was killed by a single shot fired by a soldier from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on 2 May 2003 while filming a documentary in Rafah. The soldier who shot him was identified in the press as Captain Hib al-Heib.

The Israeli Military Police investigation into Miller's death closed on 9 March 2005 with an announcement that the soldier suspected of firing the shot would not be indicted as they could not establish that his shot was responsible, though he would be disciplined for violating the rules of engagement and for changing his account of the incident.
On 6 April 2006, the inquest jury at St Pancras Coroner's Court in London returned a verdict of unlawful killing, finding that Miller had been "murdered."

After meetings with the Miller family, the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, sent a formal request to his Israeli counterpart in June 2007 for prosecution proceedings to be enacted within six weeks against the soldier responsible for firing the shot

Miller's sister, Anne Waddington, was interviewed by the BBC on the morning of 7 August 2007, the day the six-week deadline was due to expire. She said, "Unfortunately, we have had four and a half extremely painful years of experiencing the Israeli tactics, and they are the masters of delay - they have always played for time, and they have always failed to deliver." She added, "The Israelis put out a lot of false and misleading statements immediately after my brother was murdered, and they did try to suggest he was killed by a Palestinian in the back and as a result of crossfire, but they put out many, many lies and false stories, which of course have been shown not only on the APTN video footage of the actual murder, but also through eyewitness testimony and the additional evidence which was very, very clear at the time." Asked whether she used the word "murder" very deliberately, she replied, "Yes I do, and of course the jury in the inquest last year found, very unusually, that it wasn't just unlawful killing, it was actually murder



Thomas "Tom" Hurndall (27 November 1981 – 13 January 2004)

was a British photography student, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories. On 11 April 2003, he was shot in the head in the Gaza Strip by an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) sniper, Taysir Hayb. Hurndall was left in a coma and died nine months later.

The IDF initially refused more than a routine internal inquiry, which concluded that Hurndall was shot accidentally in the crossfire, and suggested that his group's members were essentially functioning as human shields.[citation needed] However, witnesses at the demonstration in the Palestinian town of Rafah said he had been hit by a rifle bullet while trying to shield the children rather than having been merely hit in the crossfire, and Hurndall's parents demanded an investigation

Idier Wahid Taysir Hayb (or al-Heib), whose sister Amira al Hayb is the first female Bedouin soldier in the IDF, claimed, he had shot at a man in military fatigues although photographic evidence clearly showed Hurndall was wearing a bright orange jacket denoting he was a foreigner. Hayb was an award-winning marksman and his rifle had a telescopic sight. He claimed to have aimed four inches from Hurndall's head, "but he moved". Hayb said a policy of shooting at unarmed civilians existed at the time

Tom Hurndall's family and their legal team were denied access to the military police report which led to the trial. After an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court, the state prosecution offered access to the report to the legal team, but not the Hurndall family, in early August. According to a spokesman for the Tom Hurndall Foundation, this will allow them to decide whether Hayb could be indicted for the more serious charge of murder, and to find out if responsibility for Hurndall's death lies higher up the chain of command
Tom's mother Jocelyn Hurndall wrote a commentary in The Guardian on 10 January 2004, in which she stated:
It seems that life is cheap in the occupied territories. Different value attached to life depends on whether the victim happens to be Israeli, international or Palestinian


Brian Avery (born 1979)

is a former American volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), who was shot in the face and seriously disfigured on April 5, 2003 while working for the ISM in the West Bank town of Jenin.

According to the Jerusalem Post (9/20/07; 11/19/08), Brian and his associates were "wearing red reflector vests with the word "doctor" in English and Arabic." Avery was hit in the face, his cheek was torn and his eye socket and jaw bones were smashed. The army refused to order a formal investigation of the incident, since that their probe found that no soldiers on patrol in the area that night reported such an incident as it
was described by the four witnesses
Avery appeared before the Israeli Supreme Court on February 28, 2005 to request a criminal investigation into his shooting. He accused Israeli troops of shooting him without provocation. The court responded by ordering the military to reopen Avery's case. Avery's attorney, Michael Sfard, said that the ruling "shows the military that even internal inquiries should be managed professionally and with care to get testimony from all sides, not just from military
In November 2008, Avery accepted a settlement for NIS 600,000 (USD $150,000) from the state of Israel in exchange for dropping the lawsuit. According to Shlomo Lecker, his Israeli lawyer, "The sum does not reflect the injuries Avery suffered... On the other hand, it's one of the very few times the state has awarded damages to anyone hurt by the IDF during the Second Intifada." Lecker said that Avery was willing to settle because of the need to defray some of the costs of the reconstructive operations he must still undergo, in addition to skepticism that the 15-month-long investigation would ever reach a satisfactory conclusion

There was a very moving interview with Tom Hurndall's parents on UK radio earlier today

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 06:59 PM

"...its call for the destruction of a Member State of the United Nations is in contravention to Article 2 (4) of the 1945 UN Charter."

Big deal. Scottish independence or Irish reunification would mean the "destruction" of the Member State of the United Nations known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 07:09 PM

"More than 100 Palestinians are killed for every Israeli killed"

What was the ratio for the UN Alies Kuwait-Iraq, or and UA-Iraq conflict?


The ratio for the UN allies was atrocious, and I make it a point to protest the war crimes of the governments involved in those acts of aggression quite often.


CarolC
Will you tell a family that the loss of their loved one was not as significant, because it was on a lower ratio-kill scale.

This question says a lot about you. Because you are defending the actions of the government that is killing the largest number of people. So let me ask you... does the deaths of the many thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israel have so little significance that you can't even acknowledge them?

Think about it for a minute. You appear to be totally unconcerned with the many thousands Palestinians who have been killed, and you want us only to think about much smaller number of Israelis who have been killed.

What I am saying is that it is an enormous double standard to say that we can't recognize Hamas because they have killed some Israelis, while we are not only recognizing the Israeli government, but we (me and my fellow US taxpayers) are paying the government of Israel enormous amounts of money every year and also giving them our diplomatic assistance.

If you think this state of affairs is acceptable, it can only be because you do not see Palestinians as human beings.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 08:02 PM

Sorru, CarolC your attempts at turning a defense into an offense, makes no sense at all:)

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Ed T
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 08:07 PM

Can one actually have it both ways, by citing the UN and its directives when it suites a cause, and ignore it, when it does't.
Is this an example of logic one should pay much heed to?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 08:09 PM

Nice try, Ed. But it is you who were trying to turn a defense into an offense when you asked me that question in the first place.

But I take your lack of a real answer to be an answer in the affirmative. You do not see Palestinians as human beings.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 11:31 PM

Invitation to join the next aid convoy!


Galloway announces new land and sea convoys to break the siege of Gaza

Speaking at a demonstration in London on 5th June which organisers estimated to be more than 20,000 strong, George Galloway announced new land and sea convoys to break the siege of Gaza.

"After extensive discussion in Istanbul," said Galloway, "I can announce that a land convoy will leave Britain shortly after the end of Ramadan in September this year and travel through Europe, down through Turkey and Syria into Jordan. We will ask the Egyptian government then to ensure passage from the port of Aqaba to Rafah and into Gaza.

"At exactly the same time a flotilla of boats will be leaving to tour the countries of the Mediterranean before heading for Gaza.

"These combined sea and land convoys will be co-coordinated by Viva Palestina with other organisations in Britain and with our friends throughout the Middle East and in Turkey.


VIVA PALESTINA!

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 11:43 PM

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/06/israel-youtube-gaza-flotilla

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:18 AM

http://www.opednews.com/articles/US-Media-Hide-Evidence-Di-by-Dave-Lindorff-100606-487.html

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:21 AM

Oops. I didn't mean to post that twice. I meant to put this one in that last post. More on the Jewish flotilla...

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899915,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 02:05 AM

Autopsies reveal aid activists shot from behind

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:34 AM

"If the REALLY want to change things, let them stand in front of the tanks and guns, not take a sea cruise that they know will end in a free flight home! "
"Come out into the open where we can kill you easier" - great idea John.
These were unarmed volunteers delivering relief supplies; the Israelis were a highly trained crack force belonging to an army that has more than proved its vicious readiness in killing unarmed opposition (including women and children btw).
These are the weapons found to have been used on the Mavi Mamara (according to the Sunday Times).
Those found on board ship: stun grenade, catapult, metal bar, knife, broken bottle.
Those in posession of the pirates: paintball gun, tazer gun, Uzi sub-machine gun, Glock handgun.
The "stroll down 5th Avenue" on board the Rachel Corrie was described thus:

"'THEY WERE LIKE HYENAS'
A FULL moon hung over the Mediterranean but somehow the Israeli Zodiac boats eluded its beams. "We couldn't see them until they were up close to us, They were like hyenas circling the boat," said Fintan Lane, a historian and author from Cork who was previously jailed in connection with anti-war protests at Shannon airport.
Lane was one of five Irish citizens on board Challenger One, an American boat, including crew members Shane Dillon from Dublin and Fiachra Ó Luain, a Donegal-based candidate in last year's European elections.
At first, Challenger One tried to outrun the Israeli boats but when the captain suspected they were about to be rammed he slowed the engines. Almost immediately, a stun grenade exploded on board. A second one landed beside Lane.
For a while, the activists impeded the boarding commandos by throwing furniture in front of them but they were soon overwhelmed. "This was a violent attack," Lane said. "They assaulted one of our lookouts. There was a Belgian girl who took a plastic bullet or some sort of missile in the face. She was bleeding from the nose. They wrestled a Palestinian woman with an Israeli passport to the ground. They got stuck into her, I could hear her screaming. : They took one girl to the front and hooded her."
The commandos confiscated phones, cameras and recording equipment. While Kate Geraghty, an Irish journalist, managed to conceal her footage of the raid, Ó Luain, who had been at the bow filming the events on the nearby Mavi Marmara, had his camera seized.
At Ashdod port.the activists linked arms and refused to disembark, saying they did not want to visit Israel. Lane was forcibly transferred on to the quayside where he was informed he would be charged with entering Israel illegally and that the penalty was deportation.
One by one, the other boats arrived ashore. Two Irish citizens of Libyan origin who live in Dublin, Al Mahdi Alharati and Isam Ben Ali, had been on the Greek-owned Sfendoni. "You have arrived in Israel," Ben Ali was informed. "There is no Israel," he replied. "There is Palestine." He told a press conference in Dublin on Friday that he was denied his regular medicine. Ben Ali signed a deportation order because he feared being singled out by the Israelis in jail. Alharati, who says he has diabetes and a heart condition, collapsed at Ben Gurion Airport and was sent to Turkey where he was admitted to intensive care.
Ó Luain insisted he wished to contest his deportation order in Israel's courts, and claimed he was assaulted by "between 15 and 20" uniformed minders. One allegedly threatened to kill him.
There are five Irish people on board the Rachel Corrie. They include Matread Maguire, a Nobel peace laureate from Belfast, Denis Halliday, an assistant secretary general at the United Nations, and Derek Graham, an electrician from Ballina. Graham and Maguire were arrested in the Mediterranean and jailed in Israel in July last year when they attempted to break the Gaza blockade on board the Spirit of Humanity."

Ed T
You fail to state your opinion on the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine, so we can presume that you are in favour of it but lack the courage to say so openly - puts your position in context perfectly - thank you.
You also fail to give us any examples of anti-Semitism on this thread so we can also assume that you made it up and your accusation can be seen as a rather pathetic attempt to smear.

Can I unreservedly recommend as an overview of the Palestine conflict the prizewinning film documentary 'Occupation 101' - inspiring and at the same time harrowing. Available on DVD - all proceeds going to the attemps to deliver relief to Gaza.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:54 AM

And yet, more than 100 Palestinians are killed for every Israeli killed, Ed. If we can do business with a genocidal terrorist state like Israel, then we can also do business with Hamas.

How many Iraquis for each US soldier Carol?

The people on the boat who were unfortunately killed, chose to attack the Israeli forces, which none of the 'passengers' on other boats did. It would appear that they were more anti Israeli than pro Palestinian!

I sympathise with the desire to end this blockade, but as I said, it's not possible until both sides give a bit.
I don't live in a hole, but I am practical and pragmatic, I see things as they are, and not as I would like them to be.
So many idealists and romantics close their eyes to reality.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 04:25 AM

These pictures were in a Turkish paper and show injured Israeli soldiers on the ship.
They must have chosen not to shoot to defend themselves.
http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx?cid=36575&p=2&rid=2

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Lox
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 04:53 AM

Where have you guys been?

If you took the time to read the thread, you would have seen that the following has already been answered.


1. "How many Iraquis for each US soldier Carol?"

From: CarolC - PM
Date: 06 Jun 10 - 07:09 PM

The ratio for the UN allies was atrocious, and I make it a point to protest the war crimes of the governments involved in those acts of aggression quite often.

2. "The people on the boat who were unfortunately killed, chose to attack the Israeli forces,"

This is BS. The IDF attacked the ship. The people on board defended themselves.

To say anything else is to be deceitful to oneself and to others.

3. Keith, if you look back through the thread you will find the rest of the photos from that particular set which show the same soldier (singular) being treated by doctors on the ship after having been brought to them down that staircase.

He Abseiled onto the ship, backed up by a hail of bullets which came before he did so, and when he landed he was beaten down and had his gun taken off him.

Then, instead of being killed, he was taken to a safe cabin where his wounds were tended to.

If any 'mob' had wanted to kill him, it would have happened then.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 05:44 AM

They must have chosen not to shoot to defend themselves.

How on earth can you assume that? Just because you are shooting people does not make you invulnerabale. There was fightionm when the Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, and people tried to defend themsleves agaisnt teh attack. The bottom line is, nine people were killed on one side, and no one was killed ontehkther side.

The Israeli PR exercise has repeatedly said that the only violence that took place was on the Mavi Marmara. That is a lie, as witnesses have testified - the difference is, on the other ships the only violence came from the Istraeli attackers.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 06:26 AM

Unless they replaced his balaclava as they caringly dragged him down the stairs on his back, there are at least two soldiers.
If they were being cared for by their captors, they would be the first such lucky Israeli soldiers in the long history of this conflict.
Usually they are murdered. Their corpses may be kept for exchange value.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: CarolC
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 07:16 AM

Lox said it well. Read the thread guys. Don't just jump in here asking questions and making assertions without having read the thread.

John, I don't know what you would expect to prove with your question about US forces and Iraqi deaths. It seems to me you are making a lot of assumptions about my position on the Iraq war. Which, if you had ever bothered to read anything I've ever posted on that conflict, you would already know where I stand.

Keith - read the thread. You are 100 percent ignorant of all of the facts of the situation, which have already been posted.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 07:47 AM

Well, I have read the thread fairly assiduously, and I still have not managed to spot the video evidence that purports to back up this assertion, that the defenders were being shot before the commandos came down the rope, as described by Lox, CarolC etc.
"He Abseiled onto the ship, backed up by a hail of bullets which came before he did so"

I appreciate a lot of people would love this to be true, but I can't myself find anything to suggest that is what actually happened. It may have done, it may not. But where is this evidence?

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: bubblyrat
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 07:51 AM

So.....let me get this straight,then ;
         Israel occupies Gaza. Israel builds settlements in Gaza,and encourages its citizens to move there and build communities. The rest of the world doesn't approve of this,and tells Israel so ,in no uncertain terms. So Israel forces (yes, FORCES) its own people out of their own homes and communities in Gaza, and hands the whole caboodle back to the Palestinians,on the understanding, of course,that the Palestinians don't abuse this arrangement by using it as a platform from which to bombard Israel with rockets helpfully supplied by numerous neighbouring ,extemely hostile,Arab , Muslim countries. Yes ??
    So ....the Palestinians swiftly renege on this agreement,and immediately commence a protracted and sustained bombardment of the nice,helpful,trusting Israelis. The rest of the world looks on, says "Tut Tut !", and,as usual, does fuck all. With me so far ?? Then another hostile country,whose population aren't even Arabs,declares its intention to build nuclear weapons and wipe the said Israel off the face of the Earth !! Faced ,for whatever reason,with mounting hostility and even international opprobrium, the Israelis,thoroughly pissed off with the endless flow of weapons and munitions to their enemies, via a labyrinth of tunnels between Egypt & Palestine,and by sea under cover of "Humanitarian Aid" convoys,decide to get tough, as it is obvious to them that,as usual,the rest of the world is going to do fuck all (again). So,after a confused,badly planned and probably too hastily executed anti-blockade-running military escapade,a number of "Activists", having publicly declared their wish to become "Martyrs" before even leaving port,are killed,bringing even more hand-wringing international opprobrium !
And that constitutes an "Atrocity", does it ??
         I thought that The Holocaust was an "atrocity", but I am afraid I cannot see any justification for using that word to describe the recent debacle (for such it was) off Israel / Gaza.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 08:49 AM

"The people on the boat who were unfortunately killed, chose to attack the Israeli forces,"
There is no evidence to substantiate this claim, nor will there be as Israel (once again) has refused an independent enquiry into the incident and has said that they will hold an internal one - and find themselves 'not guilty' no doubt, as they have in the past!!!
However, there is evidence that four of the dead were killed by a single bullet to the back of the head, suggesting they were executed.
We will probably never know, so leaving the field open to your making unsubstantiated claims such as this one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:01 AM

Jim Carroll says
"four of the dead were killed by a single bullet to the back of the head, suggesting they were executed".
Well, it might well suggest that, were it to be true. But I suspect, Jim, that you read the autopsy accounts as I did. Actually, only two out of the nine are reported to have been killed by a single bullet. One in the forehead(Cegdet Kiliclar), one in the front of the neck(Cengiz Songur). This was a shocking incident, there is no need to "improve" the evidence. Those who got a bullet in the back also got shot in the front, suggesting people spinning round when shot, possibly. Anyway, certainly no bullet in the back of the head execution type shooting. Unless, perhaps, you have heard some evidence about this? IN which case, let's hear it. I, by the way, am quoting the Guardian, quoting the autopsy reporty published by the Turkish authoprities. You tell us where you got your execution/back of the head stuff from.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Mr Happy
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 09:31 AM

..........& at last 'Gorgeous 'George Galloway lends himself to the fray!

http://www.vivapalestina.org/home.htm

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 10:36 AM

The images I posted a link to were new images, published just yesterday.
They were taken by the protestors and published in Turkey.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 11:21 AM

Greg,
Reports from Turkey state categorically that four appear to have been executed in the manner I described - according to The Irish Times (fairly reliable IMO).
If it was a straightforward fight, why should the Israelis refuse an open, neutral enquiry?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 11:29 AM

Let's see the quote from the Irish Times then.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: greg stephens
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 11:33 AM

Right, Jim, I have just located the Irish Times acount of this, June 5. As I thought, it contains no reference whatever to anybody being shot in the back of the head by a single bullet. You claim this happend to four of the victims. I suggest you made this up yourself. If not, show us your source.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Emma B
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 11:58 AM

"The new information about the manner and intensity of the killings undermines Israel's insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in self defence and in response to attacks by the activists."

Guardian article last Friday

"Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.

Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine."

The Times pointed out that the first commandoes to land had indeed been disarmed by the passengers

"A wounded Turkish passenger, Muhyittin Yildirim, said: "Some Israeli soldiers were rendered ineffective.
Our friends got their weapons.
If they had a bad intention, they would have used the weapons against the soldiers but they threw them to the sea."

- In fact no Israel soldier had bullet wounds.

From CNN

"Five of the men died with bullet wounds to the head, said Dr. Haluk Ince, the director of Istanbul's Medical Examination Institute, said Friday
In one case, Ince said, a gunshot victim had been shot at at extremely close range.
"From the analysis of the bullet distance on one of the bodies," Dr. Ince said, "the gun was fired between 2 and 14 centimeters' distance from the victim's head."


The United States-based progressive/liberal news site OpEdNews comments that CNN nevertheless omitted "the all-important fact that most of the victims were shot from behind was left out.
ABC had the same information on Thursday, again without mentioning the shots from behind.
In its article on Friday, the NY Times had yet to even name Dogan, the American victim, much less mention the bullets that hit him or how he was shot.
As of Sunday, the Times had still not reported the nature of the deadly shots fired."

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:00 PM

Not sure why you keep talking about the pre-67 boders- the Arab nations have NEVER agreed to them.

Still waiting on your answers to my post of

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: beardedbruce - PM
Date: 01 Jun 10 - 01:45 PM


I think we should also compare how the Israelis treat the occupied territories with how the Arabs treated them from 1948 to 1967.

And what ever happened to those non-Moslim communities on the West bak? I know that many families near where I grew up cam from the Christian town of Ramallah, and were driven out by the Moslims after the 1948 war. THOSE families had been there for hundreds of years, as had the Jewish communities in the Arab nations that were driven out.





Lets just give each person who was driven out a billion dollars- to be split amoung descendents in the cases where the original person has died:

Lets see- 640,000 Palestinain Arabs
          820,000 Arab Jews

that means that the Palestinian Moslims owe $180,000,000,000,000.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:02 PM

"An unnamed Israeli commando, who purportedly led the raid on the Mavi Marmara, today told Israeli news website Ynet News that he shot at a protester who approached him with a knife. 'I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs,' he said. 'I cocked my weapon when I saw that one was coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me from all directions and threw me down to the deck below …

'We knew they were peace activists. Though they wanted to break the Gaza blockade, we thought we'd encounter passive resistance, perhaps verbal resistance – we didn't expect this. Everyone wanted to kill us. We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything we could to prevent unnecessary injury.'"

{I read several accounts of the autopsy reports and no person died of a single bullet to the back, or back of the head, execution style, as some claim. At least one person had a rear-entry wound, but had four more front-entry ones.}

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: number 6
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:19 PM

Turkey ... now there is a country thae exhibits high standards on human rights.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: pdq
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 12:48 PM

Yep, them Turks is just a bunch of peace-loving sweethearts...

"History of the modern Turkish Republic is a history of repression of the Kurds. While it has allowed a degree of tolerance and democracy within Turkey for Turkish population it has shown an absolute intolerance towards the Kurdish question. Identifying oneself as a Kurd is still a crime in Turkey. If one says he/she is Kurdish it is implied that they say there are other ethnic groups in Turkey, it is implied that they want to separate from Turkey. They automatically become members of the PKK and so become 'terrorists'.

In June 2008, several Kurdish child singers were facing prison for singing Kurdish anthem at a function in the United States. Three of them aged 15 to 17 were tried in an adult court in Diyarbekir. They faced up to five years in jail if they were convicted.

Since the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic millions of Kurds have been deported or forced to migrate to Turkish towns and cities or Western Europe, tens of thousands have been killed, similar numbers have been arrested, imprisoned, tortured. Thousands of Kurdish villages have been destroyed. The Kurds have gone through cultural genocide in the hope of getting assimilated. Yet, the Kurdish problem in Turkey is bigger than ever."

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Roberto
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 01:13 PM

After so many contributions, I think it would be fare to change the title of the thread into something non so one-sided. Something like "Gaza flotilla", or something like that...

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Stringsinger
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 02:01 PM

Israel suffers from antiquated thinking which informs their paranoia. First, they are concerned about what "gentiles" think. Second, the don't give a damn what "gentiles" think.
It's an unresolved conflict.

Israel is turning into a theocracy (if they aren't already).

The solution is clear. A Zionist State might be compared to a Christian State. In the long run, unsustainable. However, power sharing between Israeli citizens both Jewish and Arab (Palestinian) is the only workable answer. There is no reason for Israeli Jews to give up their religion while sharing political power with Israeli Palestinians.

Extremist Jewish, Muslim and Christian groups that attempt to force their religion on a political level are the problem.

This is why the Separation of Church and State is the best model.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: number 6
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:05 PM

absolutely terrible.

.

.

goodbye Helen.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Lox
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:28 PM

"The images I posted a link to were new images, published just yesterday."

Yes, however I saw them before you did and also saw the rest of the same photo set in which the same soldiers, after having been removed from the affray then had their wounds treated.

Carol has posted these same photos already in this thread.

If you ask her nicely she may redirect you to the source wher these photos can be viewed.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:30 PM

"I suggest you made this up yourself"
The artical appeared as a comment column in the Irish Times around last Wednesday - I may well have misread it but I certainly didn't make it up - I've never seen the point of reducing arguments to that level; and certainly not quoting your source when doing so.
If I am mistaken I apologise unreservedly.
My point on the Israelis refusing to be part of an independant investigation into this or any other incident they have been involved in - if they have nothing to hide, why not?
"Yep, them Turks is just a bunch of peace-loving sweethearts..."
I am quite aware of the Turkish human rights record; I reckon you couldn't squeeze a credit card between their and that of the Israeli's - a matching pair, I'd say. I am also aware that up to now they have been one of Israel's few supporters, and anything they say has to be viewed in that light. I can't recall Turkey coming out in suport of humanitarian aid lately.
"Gaza flotilla"
Or "Israili piracy" maybe
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Lox
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:43 PM

The flotilla was made up of many more nationalities than just turks.

Though of course it is highly reasonable to say that if the turks have a bad human rights record then its fine for the IDF to murder people.

As for the evidence of the IDF firing first, go back and watch the videos and read the posts again.

Testimony from the ships company says that they were subject to covering fire before the troops landed.

This is corroborated by the live news reports in which the anchors are reporting injured passengers, while at the same time speculating that troops may be about to be deployed from the visible helicopters above.

Troops are then seem abseiling down and the anchor confirms that they have started to board.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:48 PM

"Isn't it awful what happened to Helen Thomas?"

I don't know this lady? But I did quickly do a YouTube search for the comment she made.. Yes, it was a strongly phrased opinion, but what I found most telling was the amount of YouTube versions which misquoted her as saying simply:
"The Jews should go back to Germany"
rather than what she actually said which was:
"Israel [should] get out of Palestine".

In response to a further question about where "they" (interesting that the interviewer shifted so immediately and seamlessly in his questioning from (the state of) "Israel" to "they" (ie: Jewish people) - this echoes some of the points raised here regarding the common conflation of all Jewish *people* with the *state* of Israel and vice versa) should leave Palestine for and return to, she replied "Poland and Germany and America and everywhere else" [that they had relocated to Palestine from]. A controversial opinion yes, but not simply a brute "The Jews should go back to Germany", as it has been characterised.

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:51 PM

So when the Klan says that Blacks should go back to Africa, you'll not complain???

Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Jun 10 - 03:54 PM

And of course you agree that all those Mexicans should be packed up and sent South.