Israel Flouts International Law Again and Murders Innocent People.

[jodevizes]

The Israeli armed forces have flouted international law by attacking civilian ships in international waters and killing civillians.
As usual they lied and said they were shot at first. Then they said they were attacked with sticks and knives. Well, pardon my ignorance, but if you are sailing in international waters, if you are attacked, you are justified in defending yourself. If this were off the Somalia coast, they would be called pirates.

They are slowly strangling the Gaza strip by denying it access to building materials so that the people can rebuild their houses and schools.

They are not joining talks to keep the Middle East nuclear free

What a shame George and Tony aren't still in power, they could have found another country to invade.

sorry - the article is a sarcastic one by mark steel that says exactly what you said - absolutely agree with what you say - should have made it clearer.

By the way for anyone in Leeds there is a peaceful protest in support of the flotilla today at 5.30pm outside the art gallery and again tomorrow (sat) at 12pm city square.

Also of course national demonstration in London Downing Street 1.30pm.

oh dear kate, my rant was not directed at you, the article was great, inspired the rant aimed at OTHER posters here, thanks for the link!

you're welcome - I have no idea how anyone can support what Israel did to the activists or how people can support the blockade of Gaza - looking at the Goldstone report there are some dreadful dreadful pictures of the effects of the Israeli cast lead raid on Gaza - vey very upsetting
www.goldstone-report.org/images/stories/pdfs/Photo_Documentation_Against_Israel.pdf

Well Zazi, my common sense tells me not to take a ship to break an Israeli blockade and broadcast the fact I'm going to do it, knowing that the Israelis will object, probably react with force, and thus provoking a response which was to be expected.

From where I'm sitting the great Zionist idea does not blind me, but neither does the Palestinian narrative of themselves as victims. I think both sides are complicit in the problems here. I also think Israel is being used by the Western European nations and the US as a buffer state and a foothold and as a focus for Islamic opprobrium in that area, but then, I'm cynical.

'Or perhaps it's worse than that and it's not possible for you to recognise anyone with an Arabic name or wearing a headscarf as having peaceful intent.' Perhaps the same could be said about your attitude to those who aren't instantly on the side of the activists or the Gazans. I'll ask my Turkish friends if they recognise me in that description when they come to my place for coffee next week though.

The ones that really piss me off are those bloody activists in Burma. They should know not to mess with the Burmese regime, they should know the junta will react with force. The idea the Karen forces haven't shot up kids is nuts, and the Sha. They take kids out as human shields so what option does the Burmese military have but to kill all the kids. Some of my best friend are Burmese.

Oh and Monkeytrousers - you disrespect the historical event of the Holocaust by trying to compare it to this situation. You sound really traumatised and delusional. Very sad you are prepared to manipulate that event - committed by Europeans - to try and win an argument on the internet.

For clarity I don't support a single regime in the region, or anywhere in fact. The Iranian state are thugs and killers, the Israeli state are thugs and killers, the Saudis, the Egyptians, the Jordanians and whoever else you have...so are the US and the UK.

I'm against the ethnic cleansing of Palestine due to Bible wielding fundamentalists like you, against firing rockets into Israeli homes, against Sharia law, against the fascist thugs in Egypt...I have consistency, I don't choose a side because I'm not weak. I don't get brow beaten by politicians and I'm not paranoid about "a new Shoah". Which is a sick justification for anything.

I think this - people like Monkey - is a trouble of our age. Fundamentalist, violent, paranoid, against the Geneva convention, against the principles of law laid down in 1945...it goes all the way around the world. In Europe, Middle East, Asia...after 9-11 all regimes used the event to attack their own populations, either actively or with legislation...China attacked the Turkmen, the UK passed anti-terror laws which can convict political sympathisers, the US tortured, raped and bombed its way around the world, Indonesia and the Philippines went on the rampage in their own country...and loads more...

"When you realise your country is ordained by God there is nothing you can't do," is an interesting quote. Who said it? Osama Bin Laden?

man's inhumanity to man is woven like athread right through history to the present day it is true. It makes for depressing reading at times.

However I think the passive resistance put up by the Buddhist people of Burma to the overwhelming military force of China is not really directly comparable to the more violent responses of the Palestinian people to Israel.

At least I have not heard of armed resistance among the Burmese, suicide bombings, hijacks anything like that. If it happens, I have not heard of it. Willing to be corrected here though.

I think the Isreali army on the basis of their experience had some grounds to be suspicious of these ships tbh. I wouldn't personally have expected them to respond a whole lot differently to the way they did.

And I do think peace will come to that region eventually and I do not think that Israel will cease to exist and that this is a given. Hatred has a way of wearing itself out eventually if you don't feed it and then it is possible to start sorting things out.

I just read a book about a man who ended up in a soviet camp for about 15 years and what he lived through was just too indescribably atrociuos for words.

Then I read about women in the soviet army in WW2. More of the same.

Every part of the world has at some time been one heck of a hateful place to live but it ends somewhere.

I don't think anyone really gives peace between the Palestinians and Israelis a chance. I belive they can do. They're not all viciuos or stupid or weird. They're people, mums and dads who would want their kids to grow up safe and have it better than they did and marry nice people and have a bit of joy in their lives. All this nationalism and fighting over land is just

well gah really. Like we really own it any of us.

I like the way Russians say "I have". In fact they cannot say it. They say "something is with me". Like it is with you for a time. I can do away entirely with national boundaries and passports and all the rest of it. What a load of crap it is in the end.

Coolfonz... Just showing full agreement here. It is so beyond belief that some find a way to explain the illegal/immoral boarding and killing.... However, I agree ZZZenAgain about 'I wouldn't personally have expected them to respond a whole lot differently...' Because this is the expectation. We expect Israel to commit illegal abuses with impunity... We also expect that from other countries, although other countries at least try to hide a bit better.

I will not start about the holocaust... MonkeyTrouser. Yes, the holocaust happened. It did. Many other ethnic cleansing/genocides/massive and systematic violations of human rights have happened and still happen. Israel is one of the big abusers of the world at the moment. It never last forever. It does not mean that the next abuser will be better either.

From Haaretz titled Israel's Commando Complex with the tag-line "Recently an intelligence official actually called the absence of Palestinian terror a 'propaganda problem.'" Now I am aware that Haaretz is the left-wing Israeli newspaper, but the article does suggest that it was actually the Israelis who were looking for a fight.

Yup, I know it's Aljezeera but this commentary makes some very good points about Israel's inability to deal with peaceful protest.

Burmese resisting China? Er...you mean Tibet no?

Burmese resisting against their own government, including many armed groups from ethnic enclaves in the country, the Karen the Sha etc, some of whom have themselves committed atrocities...

Passive resistance by the Burmese monks? How successful was that?

There are other examples, Cyprus is a good one. One half of the country was cleansed, large casualties relative to the size of the population (about 4,000 dead out of 650,000 i think), property and land seized by one side, a refusal to recognise international law...

The fact that Turkey was the aggressor state does not give the southern Greek side the right to kill Turkish Cypriot civilians, but the Turkish side must - one day - back down and give some kind of reparations, create some kind of political framework where people of the bit of land in question can live side by side...

But on both sides many of the political class owe their power to the conflict. So of course they want to prolong it, just see the recent elections on the Turkish side which has set the whole process back, but before that see the southern Greek half refusing an accommodation (via referendum) as well...

We saw this in the UK. Where violence goes on because one side - the UK state - wanted victory, not peace.

Sadly however I think the Israeli state does want to expel all Palestianans/non-Jewish-people-who-don't-conform from all land, as you can see actively happening in the west bank. The ultra right run Israel and they see their religious texts as precedent for property ownership...I thnk someone mentioned AD70 on this thread, just pure mania, fundamentalism...

Because in which case we better give most of the UK back to followers of Odin. After all the only ethnic Britons left, live in the north west of Eire...

So Camaleon, had the Israelis allowed the ships to get into their territorial waters and then boarded them, you wouldn't be quite as cross?

I was about to ask about the Burma thing too... But I am more and more convinced that a nasty 'collateral damage' of this whole conflict is the lack of focus on the rights of Israeli citizens, the lack of access to information, real enjoyment of all the dimensions of freedom of expression, association, freedom of movement, equality and others. We are all so focused on the rights of the peoples they have been abusing for so long that impunity of the government also works vis-a-vis its own citizens.

Scaryteacher, I would be equally 'cross'. However, there is a difference. Then the boat would be effectively within their territory and they would have the right of inspection, detention in case of a suspicion of crime committed in its territory, etc. It is like those CIA agents detaining suspects of terrorism in Italy and other countries to board them in a plane. The detentions may still be illegal but still much less irregular if performed in US territory.

And the actions of the army in the Israeli territory coould be easily subject to control by the Israeli courts. I have actually wondered why they did this in international waters. Perhaps it was just a blunt stupid act of prepotence ignoring every rule of International Law. Perhaps they are avoiding the jurisdiction of their own courts. Because the courts of Israel have been quite good sometimes and they may not like it. I do not have enough information though so this is only speculative.

If you've got a spare 45 mins this is an extremely interesting "documentary made by the BBC in 1973 about the story of the ship, the Exodus.

It was the ship full of Jewish refugees - many of them survivors of the Holocaust - that tried to break the British blockade of Palestine in 1947. The participants from both sides appear and describe in detail how British soldiers boarded the ship 21 miles off the coast of Palestine killing 3 of the refugees and wounding others."

I just think the whole situation is somewhat ironic and desperately sad.

The thing is also, those who are talking about the Holocaust and using it as justification for Israelis and Zionists doing whatever they feel is necessary . Can you really not see how ironically flawed that argument is?

many posters here are having ago at Monkeytrousers for her views but don't seem to realise that they are coming over just the same way, showing their hatred for Israel and their complete support for the Palestinians. Both sides are victims in this, unfortunately the Palestinians have suffered much more than Israel. I want to see the Palestinians recieve the aid and help they need, it is horrible what they are suffering. I'd like to see them kick out Hamas gain control of their land and build their nation in peace and would be happy for the world to give them all the help they needed.

I also want to see the Israelis being able to live without threat of suicide bombs and the 30,000 rockets fired at their territories and the fear that all their neighbours want to wipe them off the face of the earth. They would love to not have to send their 18yr old sons and daughters into the army to deal with these situations. Given the past history with these neighbours, it is not an irrational fear. The right has not always been in power and many Israelis would love to live in peace - they have sat down and tried to come to terms in the past.

As for these peace activists, I don't really care as they knew what they were doing and only one ship came to harm. Some reports from Turkey say their families have claimed that some were on a martyrdom mission - well maybe they got what they were looking for and this is why this one ship ended as it did.

Scanty... there are contradictions there... you want Palestinians to get the aid but believe that those trying to provide it should know they are in a suicidal mission...

Nobody here has justified in any shape or form the killing of Israeli civilians. However, it seems that many consider normal that 9 person were killed in that boat, beyond the consideration of the whole illegality of boarding it in the first place. Can you imagine someone saying that any settler in the disputed territories should just shut up if they get bombs from Palestinians because they know what they are up to?

Not sure if this Robert Fisk article has been linked yet?

what coolfonz said. all of it.

there are some scarey views being expressed on this thread...has mn got mossad infiltrators?

right thinking israelis are totally condemning this massive own goal (another one), how is anyone on here justifying it in any way?

it's all very depressing.

incidentally coolfonz, you don't support any regime...not costa rica (although apparently that's all going tits up now too....)?

'right thinking israelis are totally condemning this massive own goal (another one), how is anyone on here justifying it in any way?' That'll be the ones that happen to have your point of view then to make them 'right thinking?

Someone's got to be right. No?

Actually very true Chuck

Apparently there is supposed to be a German Jewish Flotilla on there way to attempt to break the blockade. I think this is one that is going to run and run!

I'm just waiting for the Iranian flotilla, then watch the fireworks.