Freedom Flotilla

[Badh]

Thought this might be worth its own thread. The freedom flotilla The Madleen was getting close to Gaza but seems to have made a diversion, as it was the closest boat to answer a distress call. They seem to also have four Sudanese asylum seekers on board who were trying to escape the Libyan coast patrol.

The UK and France are asking Israel for its safe passage.

The tracker is here but is in and out of action.
https://freedomflotilla.org/ffc-tracker/

More details here, although the latest detour is not covered in the article.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-navy-gears-up-to-block-high-profile-protest-ship-headed-for-gaza/amp/

That would probably trigger them to do a march across Gaza though to get the publicity they crave.

I have nothing but admiration for their courage and humanity. We need more people like Greta and the rest of the crew in this world. They are the kind of role models our young people need, my 16 year old ds is avidly watching and supporting their progress, as are all his friends.

Let the haters sneer, what are they actually doing to help the Palestinians who are suffering a genocide and ethnic cleansing in plain sight?

Absolutely agree @MissyB1 .

Sadly I suspect you are right.

Some are able to see that they aren't actually doing anything of any use, rather than gushing over their lack of help whilst gaining likes. Practical assistance might be more useful eg donations to charities that support Palestinian people. Logical brain looks at things that actually help the people that need it rather than themselves.

There are thousands of trucks of aid to Palestinian charities at the border.
Israel won't let it in.
This is the point the flotilla is making they are trying to bypass the IDF who are starving the people.
Logical brain indeed.

Whatever the nuances of their youthful passion - they are to be applauded - Israel will not be able to lethally attack the boat though they will have considered it. Owen Jones has just won an Amnesty International award and on his acceptance he made a blistering speech whilst Israel seems to have perverse pleasure in creating a real life version of the Hunger Games on a broken people to see who eats and lives and who starves and dies.

Real life headline.

Owen Jones? The guy who questioned whether women were raped on 7/10 because they might have their pants removed for ....reasons.

What do you mean by this re Owen Jones and the rape comment? Please clarify? Thanks.

I remember this guy as the one who questioned if women had been raped at the kibbutz and Nova festival. He didn't believe the evidence. There are a number of rape apologists or excusers out there, but rape is not resistance

Questioning Israeli, and other nationalities, victims of rape, at the festival or kibbutz on oct 7th which appears perfectly acceptable to some, then goes on to win an award.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/11/29/we-mustnt-let-the-left-erase-the-truth-of-7-october/

Owen Jones

"Yes, Hamas did wicked things, he says, but where’s the evidence for the really wicked things it is said to have done? The beheaded babies. Raped women. Children killed ‘intentionally’. There’s no ‘conclusive evidence’ for that, he says. I am trying my best to understand the mind that can see images of the corpses of Jewish children and wonder, ‘But were they killed intentionally?’. But I cannot. It is beyond my moral bandwidth to understand this."

Yes, Owen Jones did express skepticism about whether sexual assaults, specifically rape, could be confirmed from the October 7th footage. During his YouTube reaction to an IDF‑released video for journalists, he noted that a burned woman he saw had no underwear, but pointed out that alone wasn't “conclusive evidence” of rape ([twitter.com][1]).

To clarify:

* He wasn't denying the possibility of rape on October 7th.
Instead, he was emphasising that the video itself didn't provide definitive proof, and he cautioned against making assumptions based solely on limited footage .
His main argument was about the limitations of the specific video evidence, not dismissing broader testimony or reports.

So the claim that he dismissed rape allegations outright is misleading. A more accurate summary would be: he said the footage he had seen did not conclusively show rape, not that he believed it didn’t happen at all.

[1]: twitter.com/Claire_V0ltaire/status/1733141968618762735?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Claire on X: "Owen Jones said rapes were not proven in the IDF ..."

https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1841332/owen-jones-sparks-outrage-horrific-claims

The Express is hardly a good source for anything.

Owen Jones is not a rape apologist in the sense of defending or justifying rape.

What he has done is express strong scepticism that certain footage shows rape, which many found insensitive or dismissive—leading to the label of "rape apologist" being applied by critics, though arguably unfairly.

Bottom line: he questioned the evidentiary value of the video, not the reality of rape claims—it’s legitimate critique of media evidence, but the public response saw it as minimising atrocities.

That’s his follow up Tweet

https://x.com/owenjonesjourno/status/1731711905025118229?s=46

I

Repeating the beheaded babies story at this point means you're either ignoring the facts or intentionally pushing falsehoods.

While the October 7 attacks resulted in horrific civilian and child casualties, the specific stories of beheaded babies are false, based on later corrections from those who initially spread them, and consistent findings by fact-checkers and investigations. The atrocity disinformation surrounding this claim has no factual basis.

apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-sexual-violence-zaka-ca7905bf9520b1e646f86d72cdf03244

I am trying my best to understand the mind that can see images of the corpses of Jewish children and wonder, ‘But were they killed intentionally?’. But I cannot. It is beyond my moral bandwidth to understand this."

The irony. I am also trying my best to understand how anyone can see the dead bodies of any child and definitively say they weren’t killed intentionally so it was “worth it”

Another journalist who watched the Hamas Go Pro footage didn't have the same take as Owen Jones after seeing the footage recorded by Hamas and others that took part. He interviewed people about Jones 'take' on what he saw.

He wondered if Jones actually wanted to 'see the rapes' to actually believe it. Just seeing women afterwards or bodies with knickers down around ankles or bleeding from vaginas didn't count as proof of rape. Apparently you have to actually see it happening. Not just the result of rape and murder.

Another guest gives his take on why Jones view.

"Moataz criticises Owen Jones’ video in which he said he had not seen evidence of rape in the Israeli compilation of Hamas’ footage of its atrocities carried out on innocent civilians on 7th October, giving context from his own upbringing as a an Egyptian Muslim.

Mohammad Darawshe is an Israeli politician who has spent his career working for coexistence. His cousin, Awad Darawshe was killed by Hamas terrorists on 7th October as he worked in the Nova Festival trying to treat the injured. He had assumed that as an Arab the Palestinian terrorists would spare his life as he heroically tended to those in need."

Can we find anyone who has criticised the Israeli administration who hasn’t been smeared with mud and anti semitism? Even Macron has been told he is “standing with terrorists”
It’s beyond ridiculous at this stage.

So I think that the flotilla is likely to be intercepted by Israel by tomorrow morning.

Just wow!

"Instead, he was emphasising that the video itself didn't provide definitive proof, and he cautioned against making assumptions based solely on limited footage ."

Re read that statement. Well in a UK Court of law thankfully a woman doesn't have to have video evidence for rape, it would hardly ever be proven, so let's not make assumptions that because she says she is raped, her injuries 'suggest ' she might have been, etc let's not jump to any conclusions here. Only a worm suggests what he suggested and hence his measly tweets trying to explain away what normal people found abhorrent in his words. He had just watch depraved acts on go pro by Hamas and the guy couldn't wait to wriggle around and look for possibility that it might not be what it looked like. Vile. Sick. Disgusting.

Could the Owen Jones conversation be taken to a different thread please? I’m not sure it has anything to do with the Freedom Flotilla?

standing 👏👏👏👏👏👏👏
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