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/

There are verified videos of Hamas committing the atrocities of 7 October. I haven't watched these but linked below. From Human Rights Watch.

When I hear people say Hamas haven't released videos of what they did I have trouble finding the rest of what that person says credible. Everyone knows Hamas proudly butchered innocent civilians and filmed themselves doing so. I wonder what kind of echo chamber that person is operating from.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/18/israel/palestine-videos-hamas-led-attacks-verified

What are you talking about? Hamas livestreamed footage of what they were doing on 7 October, including onto the facebook pages of people they were torturing and murdering. They have released footage of the hostages.

Sorry @dairydebris we cross posted. My jaw is on the floor, frankly.

I can well imagine people don't like being seen as "anti Israel."

But that is how it comes across with the multitude of negative posts about "Israel do this... Israel do that". Like the one above saying So basically more lying propaganda from Israel.

Whereas people on the pro Israel side nearly always frame their grievances as against Hamas, not against the people of Palestine.

People like me who would be seen as "pro Israel" on these threads could equally see themselves as pro Palestinian civilians. I believe that Hamas have to be destroyed for their sake too.

If people want to make it clear that their grievances are solely restricted to the Israeli government or the IDF, then make that clearer in your posts.

The could incorporate AI fact checking tools something like say "Ask Grok" which is used on X but it would make threads very cumbersome and have a huge wedge of volumious facts inserted into comments rather than a conversational flow.

Yep. I'm reminded of that Hamas spokesperson on the BBC denying atrocities were commited but allowing some 'personal mistakes' were made.

I do call it out sometimes and get a load of personal attacks in return that luckily MN tends to remove if reported.

You can't stop people making stuff up or exaggerating on a site like this. Even on this thread we have seen it declared that Israel were attacking the activists on the boat, they were kidnapping them, torturing them etc.

Whether it's a deliberate spreading of misinformation or someone just believing something they read or heard and repeating it - who knows?

Posters on here have complained that even the BBC are sharing 'Hamas propaganda' when reporting the news. The term clearly doesn't mean the same thing to all posters.

What on Earth are these people on about ? Hamas live streamed the atrocities. I would lump people denying what happened on 7 Oct in the same catergory as holocaust deniers. Both are rooted in anti semitism

As a matter of interest what do you understand happened on Oct 7?

The real question is: how do we move forward from this? How do we acknowledge the suffering, seek justice, and stop history from repeating itself?

I agree. But I sense that in the middle east, history is still too raw to be made. As ever.

They are.

What are you trying to achieve with this question?

The person perceived the crew to be kidnapped because they were taken in international waters and there is a legitimate legal argument that this is illegal. They considered showing the videos of 7/10 to them torturing them. This may not meet the legal definition of torture exactly but at it’s worst it is inflammatory language. It’s not misinformation . It’s not purposeful saying that something is in a video when it is not.

Prehaps the poster will come clarify for herself. I’m baffled why you would be standing in solidarity with this behaviour .

Thanks for your reply that’s a fair point. I realise now that my original reference to Hamas and Tantura was badly worded. What I really wanted to highlight was the disturbing post-event attitude: the gloating, laughing, and celebrating of atrocities. In Hamas’s case, there’s footage showing fighters boasting after the attacks, which is utterly sickening. With Tantura, I was thinking of later testimonies from Israeli veterans, some of whom spoke years after the 1948 events about massacres they took part in described with chilling, laughing detachment.

I honestly have no stomach to watch these kinds of videos or see the terrible images of children and families suffering that seem to flood social media. When I accidentally come across something, I click away as fast as I can. The reality of war is utterly horrific, and it’s why I believe we should all strive to end these conflicts by any means possible.

The person has already spoken about it.

I disagree that the actions could reasonably be described as attacking/ kidnapping/torturing.

You know, what I think is that in this matter we police far too much how the every day civilian uses language and far far far far too little what the big politicians and armed parts are doing. So the confkict goes on and on. Because it does not happen due to PP using the word torture to describe the psychological effects of the boarding of the ship and prior moments. The horror only happens because of the actions of those who should actually be working really hard to reach a forever peace, those who should have done so long long long time ago. So, maybe, we should focus on criticising those in power, at both sides of the borders. And favoring the voices, on both sides of the border, that are calling for peace.

There is a difference in my mind between people's differing perception like in this case were they kidnapped or were they just illegally taken from international waters and people spreading distressing, graphic sometimes supposedly personal stories of things that just never happened. They aren't in the same league at all.

Someone saying they saw a baby ripped from the womb and beheaded isn't the same as someone saying Greta and Co were kidnapped vs saying they were taken illegally from their boat and held by a foreign government. One thing didn't happen at all(and is really distressing to read), the other thing is a matter of how you perceive the things that did happen.

As I mentioned there is a difference to a terrorist attack and a conflict.

As I mentioned millions died in WW1 and WW2, conflict is brutal. I wouldn't call The Allies terrorists although they killed millions defending themselves. In WW1 an estimated 40 million died and in WW2 an estimated 85 million died. Huge numbers.

Again, there is a difference between terrorist attacks and conflicts.

But in the context of actual kidnap and torture of the hostages, the comparison is inflammatory and obscene.

The flotillistas went into this situation of their own free will, deliberately to provoke and cause mischief, defying explicit warnings and knowing exactly what would happen. They have been treated perfectly well.

The same Grok which said it was sceptical about the number of people killed in the Holocaust? No thanks.

Well exactly- in some ways it might have been better to ignore her and let her deliver the 3 cans of baby milk except it would have created a precedent.

Anyway she’s simply been deported now. Pathetic and disgusting using the term kidnap etc

The firebombing raids over Germany and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan were terror raids, and my dear dad, who fought in WWII and saw the destruction in Germany firsthand, thought so too. He and his comrades came across a tank with dead German soldiers in Northern Italy, and they took a few small "souvenirs" something he regretted for the rest of his life as he saw a victimn of war not an enemy. He had a deep respect for the 'normal' soldiers on the other side. He would certainly have been disgusted by anyone gloating or celebrating the deaths of others. As for the Nazi high command and the evil guards and SS, he was convinced that no fires of hell could have been hot enough for them.He was responsible along with others of rounding up Germans who were forced to watch newsreesls of the concentration camps so they could be shown the utter evil of what they had done.

And a rational person doesnt outsource critical thinking. People should learn to assess evidence themselves.

It's crazy that anyone would dispute what Hamas and others, including some civilians, did on October 7th, since they live filmed, streamed, and shared their joy. It was celebrated in many places around the world. It has been verified.

Some may think they didn't do some acts 'on purpose' or seeing a dead woman with her knickers around her ankles and injuries to her vagina/vulva and say it 'doesn't show evidence of rape' (that weasel bloke) but most people can look at those images and not need to watch the video of the actual rape...

Just as well Hamas, and others, filmed themselves on their spree of terrorism since otherwise it would be completely discounted as lies (although some fo that even with video evidence).

It's crazy!