In the current round of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority one of the sticking points will certainly be the Palestinian claim to a Right of Return for Palestinian refugees.
The Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister argued today in the Jerusalem Post that no such Right existed:
The so-called Palestinian ‘right of return’ is legal fiction. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194, the supposed source for this ‘right’ does not mention this term, is not legally binding and, like all other relevant United Nations resolutions uses the intentionally ambiguous term ‘refugees’ with no appellation.
This is also taken up on the Zionism and Israel Information Center website:
Palestinian advocates claim that the refugees of 1948 have a right guaranteed in international law to return to Israel. In fact, there is no such law. The Fourth Geneva Convention, often cited in this context, does not stipulate a right of return for refugees. UN Resolution 194, also cited as the basis for this “right” is a resolution of the UN General Assembly. Such resolutions are not binding in international law. No nation has the obligation to admit enemy belligerents. Moreover, Resolution 194 does not insist on a Right of Return. It says that “refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so.”
The refugees were not Israeli citizens. They did not want Israeli citizenship. Beyond the dry provisions of the law, in this case admission of several million refugees would soon create an Arab majority in Israel. The people who advocate “Right of Return” also favor abolishing the Israeli Law of Return that permits Jews to immigrate to Israel freely. Israel would cease to be the national home of the Jews, and the Jewish people would lose the right to self-determination. Clearly “Right of Return” cannot be implemented in any case if it contradicts a different fundamental right that is anchored in international law.
Here we are already beginning to explore the practical absurdity of any such Right.
As indicated above, allowing ‘refugees’ to return, assuming that were practical or even practicable would effectively destroy the Jewish nature of the State of Israel, and Israel would cease to be a guarantor of the safety of Jews worldwide, which was one of the major factors in its establishment. And I am not referring here to the Holocaust; any student of Jewish history can list a very long litany of Jewish persecution for the last 2000 years, and they could also reference the current growing antisemitism in Europe and around the world. The need for a state of the Jewish people is as urgent now as at any time in history.
But let’s assume there is a Right of Return for Palestinian refugees. Let’s assume that they can now return to the homes or villages across Israel where they or there forefathers once lived 62 years ago.
1. How would any individual Palestinian prove his/her claim to his/her ancestor’s residency in any particlualr home or village?
2. What would happen to the current residents of those properties? They may not all be Jews, of course.
3. We are assuming that the ‘refugees’ want to become Israelis? Why would they? Why would they want to become citizens of a country that their leaders, media and education system has tauHas anyone asked? If not, what is the basis for the Palestinian Authority’s insistence that this is a non-negotiable agenda item?
4. How would Israel accommodate several million new citizens?
5. As Israel has never been compensated for the 900,000 Jewish refugees who were forced out of, or fled, Arab lands after 1948, why should Israel now have to foot the bill for several million people who need homes, schools, hospitals, sanitation, water, food?
5. How can Israel be expected to accept within its borders millions of people with an historic grudge against the state who have demonstrated for several decades that they are willing to shoot, bomb, attack and sabotage Israelis and Israeli infrastructure with the ultimate aim of destroying the very state they are now asking to become citizens of?
Is it not patently obvious that the Palestinian so-called Right of Return is nothing but the expression of an on-going desire to destroy Israel and remove the Zionist entity?
As Danny Ayalon puts it in the article cited above:
Before 1948 there were nearly 900,000 Jews in Arab lands while only a few thousand remain. Where is the international outrage, the conferences, the proclamations for redress and compensation? While the Palestinian refugee issue has become a political weapon to beat Israel, the Arab League has ordered its member states not to provide their Palestinian population with citizenship; Israel absorbed all of its refugees, whether fleeing the Holocaust or persecution and expulsion from Arab lands.
Can Mahmoud Abbas really be a genuine believer in a two-state solution when one of the most cherished and immoveable pillars of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah and the PLO is the Right of Return?
How can a peace settlement be based on the negation and denial of the rights of one side?
A limited return based on humanitarian grounds such as the reunification of families might be a possibility.
Beyond that, the Right is and always has been an instrument of delegitimisation and an excuse for scuppering peace.
I would not be at all surprised if it were again.
Back to Ayalon:
EVEN THOUGH the number of Jewish refugees [from Arab lands] and their assets are larger than that of the Palestinians, the international community only appears to be aware of the latter’s plight.
There are numerous major international organizations devoted to the Palestinian refugees. There is an annual conference held at the United Nations and a refugee agency was created just for the Palestinian refugees. While all the world’s refugees have one agency, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the Palestinians fall under the auspices of another agency, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
UNWRA’s budget for 2010 is almost half of UNHCR’s budget.
Equally impressive is the fact that UNHCR prides itself on having found “durable solutions” for “tens of millions” of refugees since 1951, the year of its establishment. However, UNRWA does not even claim to have found “durable solutions” for anyone.
What is also impressive is the Palestinians’ and their supporters’ success in completely obliterating the story of the fate of Jews from Arab lands whilst perpetuating their own refugees for more than six decades.
What constantly surprises me is why the practical absurdity of the Palestinian Right of Return has rarely, if ever, been examined and no comprehensive survey of Palestinian ‘refugees’ intentions has ever taken place.
Continue reading about The practical absurdity of a Palestinian Right of Return
Earlier this month the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) published a report of their ‘initial’ findings from an ‘Israel Survey’ they carried out this year.
The headline summary of British Jewish attitudes to Israel was ‘Committed, concerned and conciliatory’.
I’d like to explore if the findings really matched the conclusions and also add some comments as to how this reflects my own views and experiences, or not, as the case may be..
Firstly, let’s see what the JPR says about itself:
The Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) is a London-based independent Jewish research institute. It aims to advance the prospects of Jewish communities in Britain and across Europe by conducting research and developing policy in partnership with those best placed to influence Jewish life.
I’m not sure what ‘advance the prospects’ means. I take it to mean that this group, supported by the Pears Foundation, wants to influence the ‘policy’ of those who are influential in Jewish life in Britain. In this context, I take it that they want to assist in helping the development of policy vis-a-vis Israel.
The survey, therefore, is meant to provide communal leaders and organisations with data on their own constituency.
Looking at the Pears Foundation website, it would appear that ‘Committed, concerned and conciliatory’ could be their own mission statement when it comes to Israel.
The Pears Foundation also supports the New Israel Fund which has been the subject of much controversy recently. The NIF was accused by NGO monitor (which is an Israeli NGO itself), of being anti-Zionist. There were other accusations of supporting Palestinian-Arab groups which deny Israel’s legitimacy. This year, Im Tirtzu which is a Zionist student organisation, accused the NIF of collaboration with the UN’s Goldstone report on Operation Cast Lead and providing it with the ammunition with which to attack Israel. It was all a bit messy.
This is the provenance of this report. I would point out that Pears and NIF are both heavily involved in the advancing the welfare and economic status of Israeli Arabs. This is a laudable and commendable mission but it is fraught with the dangers of Israeli and Palestinian political entanglement. It is probably unavoidable that the objects of charitable causes in Israel can be, in turn, targetted by Palestinian and, indeed, Israeli political groups whose agenda is not charitable but to attack or even delegitimise the state.
Given this provenance we must tread carefully and see whether there is any political interpretation of the data. After all, the expressed aim of JPR is to develop policy, and policy is the offspring of politics.
First point is that the pdf document is annoyingly a 2-column format which makes it very difficult to read in a browser.
Are the data truly representative of the Jewish community? As the report authors say in the Introduction:
Short of an official census which all members of a population are required to complete, no sample survey can provide a perfect representation of the target population. That is particularly the case when sampling the Jewish community, because members of the population cannot be identified by a list, or accessed by any form of random process. Further, in a survey such as this, which was carried out on-line, and where respondents are self-selected, there is additional potential for bias in the data.
There were 4,081 responses. There is no way of telling that all these respondents were actually Jewish or even British. 4,000 represents something like 1.5% of Britain’s Jewish population, but a significantly higher proportion of its adult population, perhaps 4-5% or 1 in 20/25. This is a remarkable sample. If you were to have an online survey directed at the UK population, the same percentage would return 3-400,000 responses from the adult population, if my maths are correct.
Yet it remains the fact that respondents, including myself are a) Internet savvy, b) are aware of the survey and c) want to respond.
It would be a fair assumption that those responding want to express their views and those who don’t are uncommitted or have no strong desire to contribute to the data and the story they tell.
The Executive Summary is broken down into a number of headings.
Deep ties and strong commitments
This is borne out by the data. An overwhelming majority believe that Israel is central to their identity, is their ancestral homeland, believe themselves to be Zionists and believe they have a ‘responsibility to support Israel’ and that Jews are ‘responsible for ensuring the survival of Israel’.
So, British Jews still overwhelmingly cleave to a Jewish identity anchored in the soil of Israel. This also confirms Jews affinity with other Jews (as we say every New Month, chaverim kol Yisra’el – all the people of Israel are one brotherhood) and adds up to a national identification as a Jewish People.
Dovish stance on key policy issues
The data clearly show that British Jews are in favour of a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and do not wish to see any further expansion of settlements.
The next statistic, however, is worrying: 52% believe that Israel should negotiate with Hamas. Only 39% do not.
This is worrying because it means that 52% of correspondents actually believe that Hamas would ever negotiate with Israel. Hamas have repeatedly rejected any such negotiations. Israel will not talk to them until they forswear their genocidal policy against Jews and Israel. Clearly the Jewish public in Britain are not informed about the nature of Hamas. I’m sure there ‘vote’ is for the best intentions, but there is a clear lack of understanding of the nature of Hamas and perhaps some confusion.
Clear support on security issues but with some reservations
This section dealt with Israel’s control of the West Bank (Judea/Samaria), the Security Barrier, the Gaza War and Iran. Again, the respondents generally appear to adhere to a progressive Zionist view of Israel’s ‘occupation’ of the West Bank. They feel it is a necessary evil whilst there is a threat but are prepared to cede land for peace. Only 48% of professed Zionists saw Israel as an occupying power.
The definition of Israel’s position on the West Bank is a complex historical issue. If Israel is occupying the West Bank, which country is being occupied? Palestine has never existed even though the West Bank is land earmarked as a future separate state in the 2-state solution. The land is termed ‘disputed’ by those who don’t like ‘occupied’, but the religious Right see it simply as Israeli/Jewish land by right. But it matters little; the main thrust of the response is that British Jews are willing to cede most of this land for peace and to create a viable Palestinian state.
Most (72%) supported Cast Lead , the Gaza War in 2008-9 (even though, as mentioned above, 52% want to negotiate with Hamas. Again, negotiate what? The destruction of Israel?) and the same number also support the Security Barrier as vital.
The response on Iran as representing a threat to Israel gained a massive 87% agreement. Jews have learned by bitter experience that anyone who calls for the destruction of Jews should be taken seriously.
Some mixed feelings about the state of Israeli society
The main concerns were corruption in Israeli political life, the influence of Orthodox Judaism (the Haredim) and a lesser concern, but still a majority, about discrimination against minorities in both the Jewish and non-Jewish community. This too shows a what could be termed a somewhat left-leaning view of Israel and is completely commensurate with British Jews growing up in and identifying with the values of British society and desiring those same values are observed in Israel.
Corruption in the UK parliament with the expenses scandal may affect their views on accusations of corruption against former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. But more likely is a desire to avoid the embarrassment of Jewish leaders facing criminal charges.
Concern for minorities is also a natural and commendable expression of British mainstream multi-culturalism but also, and perhaps even more so in this context, an expression of Jewish moral values and a belief that Israel, though a state of the Jewish people, can accommodate non-Jews and a varied ethnic mix in a cohesive society. Jewish charities have historically concentrated their efforts on Jews in Israel. As Israel has become more affluent this is shifting slightly toward assisting with integration of non-European ethnicities and improving the lot of Arabs. The data reflect these concerns.
20% of correspondents do not believe democracy is ‘alive and well in Israel’. I would hazard a guess that these 20% are either hard Left or concerned with corruption, the vagaries of the Israeli voting and multi-party system and the situation in the ‘territories’. Maybe democracy is alive but has a bit of a temperature would be more apt. But at least it is a democracy.
Some divergence of opinion on the will for peace
Confusion on who wants peace. Only 59% thought Israel was less responsible for the failure of the peace process and only 47% believed the Palestinians want peace. As we cannot know what Palestinians really want we can only go by their actions. 60 years of rejectionism and the failure of Fatah/PLO/PA to accept a Jewish state should have convinced more people that Israel has always been willing to make sacrifices for peace and the Palestinians offer rockets and intifadas in return.
Apparently this view is not at all universal in the Jewish community and I suspect the reason is an exasperation with the Netanyahu government and the antics of Lieberman.
Israel is prominent in the daily lives of Jews in Britain
This was really interesting.76% believe Israel is relevant to their lives but most of these do not feel a conflict of interest with loyalty to Britain. This is wholly commensurate with a population that has roots over 4 or more generations in Britain and still feels gratitude to Britain for absorbing their grandparents and great grandparents fleeing from Russisan pogroms over 100 years ago. I know I do. This loyalty is even reflected in the prayer for the Royal Family recited in synagogues every shabbat.
About a quarter feel uncomfortable living here because of events in Israel. This is mainly due I would suspect, to anti-Israel demonstrations and the rise in anti-Semitic incidents every time Israel is pilloried in the press for defending itself. For me this is not a permanent state of being. But I felt considerable wariness walking to synagogue during Cast lead and after the Mavi Marmara incident with a vague feeling that I was a potential target for the rage of some sections of British society who make no distinction between Jews and Israelis.
This feeling was an almost atavistic sense of impending pogrom and even guilt, even though I supported Israel’s actions, I was the perennial Jew, the outsider, the enemy within braced for the abuse of a passing motorist or a missile lobbed from across the road. These fears were not realised, but the feeling they could have been was fuelled by anti-Israel sentiment in the news and media. And or me, anti-Israel always means anti-Jew on the streets of Britain.
The survey showed why I have these feelings:
• Almost a quarter (23%) of the sample had witnessed some form of antisemitic incident in the previous year. Of these, over half (56%) believe that the incident was ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ related to the abuser/assailant’s views on Israel.
• More than one in ten respondents (11%) said they had been subjected to a verbal antisemitic insult or attack in the 12 months leading up to the survey. Over half of the victims (56%) believe that the incident was ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ related to the abuser/assailant’s views on Israel.
Division of opinion on the right to speak out
Again,a surprise for me. Only 35% said Jews should always feel free to criticise Israel in the British media. As many as 25% said this was never justified.
Although I can sympathise with a reluctance to criticise when there are more than enough non-Jews around who are more than willing to do so, I think it is false loyalty not to speak up when you feel Israel is wrong. The problem is, as I’ve said before, that when so much of the so-called debate is so shrill and vicious, it is not easy to add your reasonable voice to a cacophony of vituperative polemic which is neither reasoned or reasonable.
However, just because the general debate is malign should not deter a Jew or a supporter of Israel from expressing reservations or criticism. The attempts to demonise Israel cannot be used as an excuse for moral cowardice if you feel Israel is wrong.
The survey came up with another , for me, unfortunate statistic: 45% do not believe Jews in Britain have a right to criticise Israel because we don’t live there. This is crazy. I don’t live in Iran but I have a right, in this country at least, to criticise it. Jews have a long history of not wishing to ‘rock the boat’, to put up the shutters and retreat behind a communal defensive wall where any criticism of Israel is disloyal. This is an absurdity in the 21st century.
If Israeli democracy cannot take external criticism or if Jews feel pangs of disloyalty as critical diaspora Jews then the relationship between the diaspora and Israel will lose an important linkage. However, this line of thought can lead to J-Street whose ‘pro-Israel’ criticism hides a more pernicious agenda which is decidedly anti-Zionist. Nevertheless, we live in free societies and the antidote to anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiments, from Jews or anyone else, is confidence to express support and valid criticism and to confront invalid criticism or views inimical to the best interests of Israel.
Religiosity and educational attainment
The final summary section simply states that the more religious, the more hawkish, the better educated, the more dovish. What about well educated ‘frummers’?
Education may lead to dovishness because it exposes the individual to views not encountered within closed communities and, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali has explained in her latest book :
The European Enlightenment of the eighteenth century gave birth to schools and universities run on the principles of critical thinking…
(Nomad, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, pp xviii and xix, published by Simon and Shuster, 2010)
The critical thinkers are more likely to reject religious certainty for nuanced rationalism and so be able to see both sides of an argument. This leads to greater toleration of opposing views and the willingness to find compromises.
In Summary
The survey is fascinating but, unless you are a BBC reporter, there are no real surprises.
Jews generally support Israel, and sometimes uncritically.
Jews care about Palestinians but only if Israeli security can be assured.
British Jews support democracy, compassion and moral behaviour, but they also believe that, in face of existential threats, Israel has a right to defend itself robustly.
British Jews want peace and reconciliation, a plural democratic Israel respecting all faiths and ethnicities.
British Jews’ bond with Israel is strong and affectionate as is their loyalty to Britain.
Hence, ‘Committed, concerned and conciliatory’ appears to be a correct conclusion.
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I’d like to bring your attention to an article recently published by Denis MacEoin on his blog entitled ‘Lies, lies, and lies about lies.
As Denis MacEoin is not a Jew and as he is a lecturer in Islamic studies and editor of the Middle East Quarterly and as he has written and studied and, indeed, earned a PhD on Islamic and Middle East subjects, I think that the neutral observer should give considerable respect to his views on a related subject: anti-Semitism.
In his article MacEoin does not mince his words:
I’m going to start this by talking about anti-Semitism. You’re probably all aware that anti-Israel activists, when told they are anti-Semites, hotly deny the charge, saying they are just opposed to Israel and its policies. I don’t believe them, any of them.
Strong stuff. Even though the staunchest Zionist is prepared to give the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to the ‘A’ word, to those who criticise Israel or the policies of its government, anti-Israel ‘activism’ is MacEoin’s subtle point here.
MacEoin continues by describing how, after the Holocaust, anti-Semitism became unfashionable and how, initially, the Left was pro-Jewish and pro-Israeli.
Then it all changed. Why? His theory is that the Left requires a a cause, someone to ‘pity’ as he defines it. As the Jews in the shape of Israel were no longer ‘pitiable’. Suddenly some atavistic European Jew-hatred rematerialised in anti-Israel or anti-Zionist polemic. MacEoin seems to say that there is a psychological aberration in the thinking of these Europeans which makes them dislike strong, even arrogant, unrepentant, assertive Jews/Israelis.
For some reason, a lot of people don’t like this. But they still don’t like to be called anti-Semites, because anti-Semitism is a form of racism, and they aren’t racists. They think they aren’t racists because anti-racism is the keystone of modern right-on politics. But they are racists, so they have a problem. They have a lot of circles to square, and to do that they have employed a range of lies that cast a spell on the media and most of the general public. It goes something like this. The Jews are no longer suffering, but someone must be suffering in order to deserve our pity, and the obvious candidates for victimhood are the Palestinians, because those nice Arabs I met at our conference tell me they are. This must mean that the Jews are… A hard think here, I suppose, then the obvious answer. The Jews, sorry, the Israelis are Nazis. Not ‘like the Nazis’. They are Nazis.
In other words, so aghast are these people at their own racism and historical guilt that they have to cleanse their Socialist souls by imprinting their own self-hate on the objects of this guilt. The only way they can justify this strange irrational hatred is by moral inversion and by transferring the historical crimes against Jews to crimes against Palestinians by Jews.
if there’s to be some sort of equivalence, there has to be a Holocaust. What? you say. What? But it’s obvious, they reply. There has been a Holocaust of the Palestinians. If this makes you feel nauseated, I don’t blame you. You ask, when, how many, where? They sneer and talk about Jenin (51 dead) and say it’s worse than gas chambers. And to make this worse, a lot of them deny the real Holocaust, aided and abetted by a UN member state, Iran.
So Israel is always referred to in terms of the darkest possible aspects of human behaviour: Holocaust, massacre, apartheid, racism, Nazism.
They hate Israel with a viciousness that can only originate in dark psychological problems with Jews. I don’t know why that is, and I don’t know how to solve it, but it’s the most dangerous single thing in the world today. I mean it.
MacEoin does not really explore why so many on the Left are so enamoured with people and regimes that should be inimical to their core beliefs. Why does George Galloway, for example, so love Hamas which represses women, kills gays and indoctrinates young minds to hate and martyrdom? Why did he appear to idolise Saddam who gassed his own people amongst his many other crimes. Why does Chavez love Ahmadinejad. Why does the IRA feel fellowship with Hamas and Hizbullah?
MacEoin has the answer – anti-Semitism. But that is almost too simple. The Leftists see a successful, highly technological, democratic, free society in Israel, yet a society that is basically capitalist and supported by the great bogeyman of the Left – the United States. Is it, perhaps, envy. Envy that their politics does not work, that they have based their political life on a system that does not produce wealth, freedom, humanity. And to make things worse, it’s those damned Jews who are showing them the error of their thinking.
But let me add a rider, as I always do. Israel is not perfect. There are many things to criticise about Israel as there are in other western democracies. Israel’s perceived injustices in the West Bank, its wars in Lebanon and Gaza can all be subjected to scrutiny and criticism.
But the debate, when it comes to Israel, whether from the Left or from Muslims and Islamists is always so hysterical, so hate-ridden, so genocidal, so shrill, so irrational and so vile that it does not leave any room for valid criticism. No other country in the world is treated in the press or at the UN like Israel. And if you think that is because Israel is the nastiest country in the world, then go there and take a look. Go to the West Bank. Go to Gaza. Then go to Sudan and Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran; go to Tibet and North Korea. Then tell me Israel deserves this level of vilification and demonisation.
You may then come to the conclusion that, essentially, MacEoin is right.
With people like Denis MacEoin around there is still hope, at least, that hordes of irrational Jew-haters and enemies of civilisation can yet be defeated.
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The Jerusalem Post had a story yesterday about how a Palestinian village is being surrounded by Israel’s West Bank security wall which is squeezing the village towards an almost certain death.
Surely this is wrong.
The barrier threatens to outright smother Walajeh: The community of about 2,000 on the southwest edge of Jerusalem is to be completely encircled by a fence cutting it off from most of its open land, according to a Defense Ministry map.
…
the loop runs tightly around Walajeh’s builtup area, penning it within less than a square mile and isolating it from almost all its farmlands. Of 36 Palestinian villages that are or will be caught in the seam zone, none are as closely encircled as Walajeh, said Ray Dolphin, a UN barrier expert in Jerusalem.
Sadly, the security barrier is necessary to protect Israelis, but surely more can be done for the Palestinians affected by it.
Ahmed Barghouti, 63, who lives close to the fence’s path, says he lost 88 olive trees last month and now fears for a nearby family burial plot. The village’s lawyer, Ghiath Nasser, says he won a temporary order to stop work on that section until the High Court of Justice decides what should be done with the graves of Barghouti’s parents and grandmother.
The house of a neighbor, Omar Hajajla, lies just outside Walajeh’s barrier loop.
Hajajla said Israeli officials last week informed him his home would be surrounded by its own electric fence.
“This is like putting my entire family in jail,” the father of three young boys said. “My children need to cross four gates to go school. We don’t know how it will work out, but I’m sure it will be hell for my entire family.”
Some will argue that if the Palestinians had chosen peace the barrier and the many issues emanating from its construction would have been unnecessary.
It’s stories such as this which undermine Israel’s international standing and fuel the ‘apartheid’ slur and provide oxygen to those who want to destroy chances of peace.
These are difficult issues, and although I understand the reasons for the barrier, the emiseration of the lives of these particular villagers is not something Israel or its suppporters, myself included, can be proud of.
Maybe someone could enlighten me and persuade me that this is necessary and there is no alternative.
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Two old friends met up in Caracas this week: Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela and President Assad of Syria.
The two of them enjoyed some light-hearted chummy banter as Chavez described the United States and Israel as enemies of his country
“the Yankee empire, the genocidal state of Israel”
“Someday the genocidal state of Israel will be put in its place, in the proper place and hopefully a real democratic state will be born,”
Does he mean a democratic state from ‘the river to the sea’ replacing Israel and consisting of a Hamas/Palestinian Authority Islamist government where Jews and women cannot vote and gays will be hanged?
Is it that kind of democracy he is speaking about?
Or is it the democracy in a state like Assad’s Syria where Assad is President for life and no opposition is allowed?
Neither a Palestinian state replacing Israel or Syria would even approach Venezuela’s democracy. Unless Chavez has plans to become a South American Mugabe and roll back democracy.
Assad even ‘jokingly’ suggested that Syria and Venezuela could form an ‘axis of evil’.
Ho, ho, my sides are splitting. At least Assad displays a little more self-knowledge than Chavez.
But this is so typical of the Far Left shmoozing the authoritarian/Islamist Right, as long as it’s an anti-Israel, anti-USA authoritarian Right.
Chavez believes that Syria and the Palestinians could create a state that is more democratic than Israel. Delusion, thy name is (Far left) Socialism.
Chavez calls Israel genocidal whilst proposing its destruction. Remember Chavez’s other chum, Ahmadinejad?
Let’s all blow a very long vuvuzela at Venezuela!
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A new Facebook page has been created called The IDF – Not Only Shooting.
Its aim is to show that there are aspects to the IDF that you may not know about.
It’s mainly in Hebrew but the photos speak for themselves.
As the majority of Israelis will serve in the Israeli armed forces, it’s hardly surprising that its members represent a vast range of people, beliefs, attitudes and cultures.
The IDF’s recent humanitarian project in Haiti after the earthquake shows the resources and also the ethos of the IDF.
But the Palestinians have a different view it seems. Palestinian Media Watch reports on the demonisation of soldiers – and Jews. In a Palestinian Authority TV program for children whose fathers have been imprisoned by Israel, there is the following exchange:
PA TV host Manal Seif interviews the young sister of prisoner Qussai Husam Radwan, who was sentenced to 13 months in prison:Host: “Do they bother you, the Israeli army, the soldiers there [when visiting at the prison]?”
Girl: “Yes.”
Host: “They’re wild animals, right? Aren’t they wild animals?”[PA TV (Fatah), June 21, 2010]
PA TV host Manal Seif interviews the four-year old son of prisoner Shadi Shbeita, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison:Host: “Ibrahim, you know – you’re cute and sweet. You have a nice shirt and nice pants. You’re cool. Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy? Daddy Shadi – where is he? Where is Daddy Shadi?”
Boy: “In prison.”
Host: “Who put him in prison? Who is it that put him in prison?”
Boy: “The Jews.”
Host: “The Jews are our enemies, right?”
[Boy nods in agreement.]
As the reporter points out, it is ‘the Jews’ who are the enemies, not ‘Israelis’ not even Jewish soldiers, but ‘Jews’.
This Facebook group shows the IDF in a different light.
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Hat tip to oyvagoy.com for this story.
The Palestinian media in the West Bank is constantly feeding its citizens with inctitement, lies and libel against Israel.
We hear stories about how people die at checkpoints as they are held up waiting to go to hospital in Israel, full of devil Israelis waiting to suck their blood.
So this story comes as a refreshing change:
On Thursday, June 3, 2010, 15 year old Muhammed Kalalwe was working in his family’s fields. They live in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, …. The boy noticed a deadly viper snake and tried killing it with a rock, but the dangerous creature struck out and bit his right palm. Screams and panic ensued and within minutes, the boy’s father, Hafed, grabbed his stricken son and rushed him to the Jenin Hospital. They were ill-prepared to treat the boy, had no anti-serum and decided to send him by ambulance to the Emek Medical Center in Afula. Hafed later related that he was genuinely afraid to be taken to Emek because he was sure that they would be ignored and not even spoken to. His son’s palm and arm were critically swollen and the pain was unbearable.
The humanitarian reality of Emek shocked both the father and son as they were immediately greeted in Arabic, rushed into the ER where Emek’s multi-ethnic staff administered life-saving anti-serum and brought the boy back from the brink of death. Muhammed lay for the next two days in the pediatric intensive care unit and is now resting comfortably in Emek’s pediatric surgical department from where he will be released in the next couple of days.
I asked the father how he felt now about Emek Hospital and the Israelis he has come into contact with. Staring me straight in the eyes he said, “Our people do not know the truth about you and our medicine has a long way to go. My son and I are not the same as we were before this happened and I will share this with my family and friends. May Allah bless all of you.” As he spoke, he gesticulated determinedly in a classic Middle Eastern style and when we shook hands as I wished them both well, the grip was firm and real. I have shaken many such hands and gazed into many Palestinian eyes that had seen here a reality that they never expected to see.
While walking back to my office, I passed one of my best friends – the Head of our Emergency Services, Dr. Azziz Daroushe who is a Muslim from the nearby Israeli village of Iksal. I asked him what he thought about this latest case where we were able to save another life from Jenin. With a twinkle in his eye and a knowing grin he answered, “It’s a good thing there are snakes.” (my emphasis)
If only the Palestinian leadership would genuinely seek peace, what a huge difference Israel’s medical and technological know-how could make to the lives of everyone in the region.
The wikipedia article about Afula has this to say:
Due to Afula’s proximity to the West Bank, it became a target of Arab terrorism in Second Intifada. On 6 April 1994, a car bombing carried out by Hamas in the center of Afula killed five people. Afula also was the target of a suicide attack on a bus on 5 May 2002, in which one person died several people were injured at Afula’s central bus station. On 19 May 2003, the city’s Amakim Mall was bombed, killing three and wounding 70. This attack was carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Fatah movement’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
On 17 July 2006, Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets at Afula, one of the southernmost rocket attacks on Israel from Lebanon. Six people were treated for shock as a result of the bombing. On 28 July, a rocket landed causing a fire. The Katyusha carried 100 kilograms of explosives.
No wonder Hafed was worried.
And if you think this is unique, well it’s not even the first time Ha’Emek saved a child from Jenin from a snake bite.
Please read about the work Ha’EMek does with its staff of Jews and Arabs http://www.clalit.org.il/haemek/Content/Content.asp?CID=73&u=202
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What’s happening in Spain? Two politicians, Pilar Rahola and former Prime Minister José María Aznar, have now made statements strongly supporting Israel. Maybe after the Madrid bombings they realise that Israel’s existential struggle, with all its flaws, is fundamentally just.
Pilar Rahola should not be supporting Israel. She is a far left politician; a position that normally defaults to vilification of Israel and unquestioning support of the Palestinians.
For Pilar Rahola the struggle of Israel is the struggle of the world. She has not made just one fine statement, but two, in support of Israel. Her website also highlights the middle east and anti-Semitism.
Tablet Magazine reports a translation of a conference speech against that conference’s anti-Israel stance. She points out the singling out of Israel when obnoxious regimes appear to get a free pass:
Why don’t we see demonstrations against Islamic dictatorships in London, Paris, Barcelona?
Or demonstrations against the Burmese dictatorship?
Why aren’t there demonstrations against the enslavement of millions of women who live without any legal protection?
Why aren’t there demonstrations against the use of children as human bombs where there is conflict with Islam?
Why has there been no leadership in support of the victims of Islamic dictatorship in Sudan?
Why is there never any outrage against the acts of terrorism committed against Israel?
Why is there no outcry by the European left against Islamic fanaticism?
Why don’t they defend Israel’s right to exist?
Why confuse support of the Palestinian cause with the defense of Palestinian terrorism?
The last point is of special note. The current Israeli maritime blockade is seen as a punishment of Gazans rather than as a defence against Hamas. The occupation of the West Bank justifies past terrorism and Palestinian incitement is ignored or given lip service.
And finally, the million dollar question: Why is the left in Europe and around the world obsessed with the two most solid democracies, the United States and Israel, and not with the worst dictatorships on the planet?
To this question she has a subtle and compelling answer in another speech ‘Jews with Six Arms’ delivered at the Combating anti-Semitism conference in Spain:
The moral defeat of the left. For decades, the left raised the flag of freedom, wherever there was injustice. It was the depository of the utopic hopes of society. It was the great builder of future. Despite the murderous evil of Stalinism’s sinking the utopias, the left has preserved intact its aura of struggle, and still pretends to point out the good and the evil in the world. Even those who would never vote for leftist options, grant great prestige to leftist intellectuals, and allow them to be the ones who monopolize the concept of solidarity. As they have always done. Thus, those who struggled against Pinochet were freedom-fighters, but Castro’s victims, are expelled from the heroes’ paradise, and converted into undercover fascists.
This historic treason to freedom, is reproduced nowadays, with mathematical precision. For example, the leaders of Hezbollah are considered resistance heroes, while pacifists like Noa, the singer, are insulted in the streets of Barcelona. Today too, as yesterday, that left is hawking totalitarian ideologies, falls in love with dictators and, in its offensive against Israel, ignores the destruction of fundamental rights. It hates rabbis, but falls in love with imams; shouts against the Tsahal, but applauds Hamas’ terrorists; weeps for the Palestinian victims, but scorns the Jewish victims, and when it is touched by Palestinian children, it does it only if it can blame the Israelis. It will never denounce the culture of hatred, or its preparation for murder.
So the far left has lost the international argument. It needs to find a cause to rally round, to find a victim and demonise the ‘oppressor’. And when that ‘oppressor’ is a successful, capitalist, free society then the far left is offended and threatened. When their demon state produces world class science and research they have to boycott it. When that society is open and democratic they only point to its failures and its occupation whilst ignoring the root cause of that occupation, namely Palestinian and Arab rejectionism.
This is no better demonstrated by the concept of ‘freedom’:
And then, to the concept of freedom. In every pro Palestinian European forum I hear the left yelling with fervor: “We want freedom for the people!”
Not true. They are never concerned with freedom for the people of Syria or Yemen or Iran or Sudan, or other such nations. And they are never preoccupied when Hammas destroys freedom for the Palestinians. They are only concerned with using the concept of Palestinian freedom as a weapon against Israeli freedom.
The demonisation is linguistic as well as conceptual:
When reporting about Israel the majority of journalists forget the reporter’s code of ethics. And so, any Israeli act of self-defense becomes a massacre, and any confrontation, genocide. So many stupid things have been written about Israel, that there aren’t any accusations left to level against her.
Almost a definition of demonisation.
And lurking beneath this hatred and obsessive demonisation is the old European hatred:
Just as it is impossible to completely explain the historical evil of antisemitism, it is also not possible to totally explain the present-day imbecility of anti-Israelism. Both drink from the fountain of intolerance and lie. If, also, we accept that anti-Israelism is the new form of antisemitism, we conclude that contingencies may have changed, but the deepest myths, both of the Medieval Christian antisemitism and of the modern political antisemitism, are still intact. Those myths are part of the chronicle of Israel. For example, the Medieval Jew who killed Christian children to drink their blood, connects directly with the Israeli Jew who kills Palestinian children to steal their land. Always they are innocent children and dark Jews. Similarly, the Jewish bankers who wanted to dominate the world through the European banks, according to the myth of the Protocols, connect directly with the idea that the Wall Street Jews want to dominate the World through the White House. Control of the Press, control of Finances, the Universal Conspiracy, all that which created the historical hatred against the Jews, is found today in hatred of the Israelis. In the subconscious, then, beats the western antisemite DNA…
And this finds a perfect resonance with Islamic Jew-hatred.
I urge you to read her speeches in full. She is certainly a voice in the darkness and a true latterday Pasionaria.
She is not alone. In the Times this week former Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, wrote ‘If Israel goes down, we all go down’.
In this article Aznar puts the case for Israel and succinctly states the truth about Israel now lost in worldwide hysteria and malignity:
In our dealings with Israel, we must blow away the red mists of anger that too often cloud our judgment. A reasonable and balanced approach should encapsulate the following realities: first, the state of Israel was created by a decision of the UN. Its legitimacy, therefore, should not be in question. Israel is a nation with deeply rooted democratic institutions. It is a dynamic and open society that has repeatedly excelled in culture, science and technology.
Second, owing to its roots, history, and values, Israel is a fully fledged Western nation. Indeed, it is a normal Western nation, but one confronted by abnormal circumstances.
Uniquely in the West, it is the only democracy whose very existence has been questioned since its inception. In the first instance, it was attacked by its neighbours using the conventional weapons of war. Then it faced terrorism culminating in wave after wave of suicide attacks. Now, at the behest of radical Islamists and their sympathisers, it faces a campaign of delegitimisation through international law and diplomacy.
He then explains how the Israel/Palestine issue is not just a border dispute or a legal nicety:
The real threats to regional stability, however, are to be found in the rise of a radical Islamism which sees Israel’s destruction as the fulfilment of its religious destiny and, simultaneously in the case of Iran, as an expression of its ambitions for regional hegemony. Both phenomena are threats that affect not only Israel, but also the wider West and the world at large.
… Some even act and talk as if a new understanding with the Muslim world could be achieved if only we were prepared to sacrifice the Jewish state on the altar. This would be folly.
He mourns the decline of the West’s moral backbone which it exchanges for fashionable platitudes:
The West is going through a period of confusion over the shape of the world’s future. To a great extent, this confusion is caused by a kind of masochistic self-doubt over our own identity; by the rule of political correctness; by a multiculturalism that forces us to our knees before others; and by a secularism which, irony of ironies, blinds us even when we are confronted by jihadis promoting the most fanatical incarnation of their faith. To abandon Israel to its fate, at this moment of all moments, would merely serve to illustrate how far we have sunk and how inexorable our decline now appears.
He then sets about describing his fight back against this attack on western values and democratic integrity by announcing a new Friends of Israel initiative. I urge all of you who love freedom and righteousness to sign up. This is not about giving Israel carte blanche. Criticising Israel and its policies is everyone’s right. Willing her destruction, demonising its people and Jews generally is not acceptable. Recognising its achievements and working for a peaceful resolution of the conflict to benefit everyone in the region and making the world a safer place should be our goal. Making Israel the fount from which all evil flows can only be called one thing and we all know what that thing is.
Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is upturned and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Whether we like it or not, our fate is inextricably intertwined.
VIva Rahola y viva Aznar.
BBC news report June 15th 2020
From our reporter at the Parliamentary Select Committee:
“Are you now or have you ever been a member of a Zionist organisation? Name names or be blacklisted”, demanded Chief Prosecutor Galloway at the recent Zionist sedition hearings.
A succession of prominent Jewish MPs, businessmen and women, rabbis, scientists and journalists were put under the spotlight by Sir George Galloway and his committee of Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Baroness Tonge.
Several broke under the unremitting pressure and admitted buying trees for the Jewish National Fund. A sense of outrage permeated the room. Lord Sugar, accused of brain-washing young business hopefuls to spout Zionist propaganda, told the committee in no uncertain terms what he thought of them. His whereabouts are now unknown.
Meanwhile, coalition deputy Prime Minister, Salma Yaqoob, was explaining that there was no room in Britain for any Jewish refugees fleeing from West Hamastan. “We will turn back the boats. These people originally came from Poland and Germany, it’s their problem”, she opined.
Addressing the UN General Assembly, Greater Hamastan President, Khaled Mashaal, said that recent reports of pogroms in Al Quds and Greater Jaffa had been misreported. “Only 5 Zionist aggressors had been hacked to death in self-defence during the Gaza ghetto uprising”, he said, “where did you get 100,000 from? – this is a Zionist lie.”
President Palin said she had no idea where Hamastan was.
Orla Guerin and Jeremy Bowen reporting from Al Quds said that the remaining Jews were being well treated. Visiting a refugee camp near Hebron he reported, “The Hamastan government showed us the wonderful facilities being provided for the Zionist refugees. Enquiring about the strange acrid smell and some newly built chimneys he was told these were bakeries that Jews liked to work in to make matzo.
However, the Hamas government was unable to provide a certain ingredient for their Passover unleavened bread: “They’ll just have to do without the blood of our children”, said a Hamastan camp supervisor.
Barbara Plett gave a tearful account of the inauguration of the Hamastan parliament. “I never thought I’d see this day,” she said crying into her hanky.”
Exiled Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas is reported to be in hiding somewhere in Alaska.
“We have no idea who this guy is”, said President Palin, “but jeez, even an Arab deserves a break.”
The Hamastan contingent, on leaving the UN, made its way to the newly opened Ground Zero mosque for evening prayers. Crowds of delirious New Yorkers lined the street with Hamastan flags.
One lone Zionist from the Israel Liberation Front was beaten to a pulp as he tried to wave the banned Zionist Entity flag.
At the opening of the Obama Presidential Library, former US President Barack Obama, commenting on the situation in the Middle East, said “I see this as a vindication of my policies, peace has come to Palestine after more than 70 years of conflict”.
When a reporter asked him, “What about the Jewish genocide?”, he answered, “Please excuse me, I have to show Secretary General Ahmadinejad a first edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which he has expressed an interest in.”
The two disappeared arm-in-arm into the new building.
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To anyone that has half an unbiased brain to think and at least one unclouded eye to see, the evidence supporting Israel’s account is mounting.
Sadly, there is now a long history of Israel’s many accounts of its actions not being accepted.
The unrelenting propaganda as well as Israel’s often lamentable ability to make its case or explain its actions mean that Israel has to change. The government must find a different way to defend Israel and one that shows up its enemies to be what they are. Israel must engage with those who claim to be its friend and let them put there actions where their mouth is.
But first, even before any investigation, internal or otherwise, is cobbled together to appease world opinion, this is my version of what happened garnered from a growing body of evidence:
Whether you like it or not and whether you think it legal or not, Israel has imposed a maritime blockade on the Gaza Strip. The single most important reason for the maritime blockade is fear of arms smuggling from Iran. Israel has repeatedly said that it will not allow Iran to have a port a few tens of kilometres from Tel Aviv. This article about the Francop shows you the size and extent of such arms smuggling. This would be considered an act of war by many countries. Note that the ship was flying the Antiguan flag. This is not an isolated case. Iran supplies Hamas through Somalia and Egypt and Hizbollah, a Hamas clone, in Lebanon via Syria.
The Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish-based IHH (both ostensibly and evidentially aid organisations) organised a flotilla, loaded it with aid and set out with the expressed intention of ‘breaking the blockade’. The delivery of aid was secondary and here’s why:
There is an impression given that Gazans are starving, but they are not. The UN claims that only between one quarter and one fifth of goods previously entering before the blockade gets through Israel’s and Egypt’s border checkpoints.
It should be noted that Egypt also imposed a ‘blockade’ and has built a 30ft deep steel barrier across its border with Gaza.
Whilst there is no doubt that Gazan’s are suffering economically, it is in the interests of Israel’s enemies to use overblown and inflammatory claims. Sometimes, the truth does get out. May I refer you to this article in the Daily Telegraph: Dispatch: Just how hungry is Gaza?
“There is no starvation in Gaza,” said Khalil Hamada, a senior official at Hamas’s ministry of justice. “No-one has died of hunger.
But it is, however, true that there is hardship. This cannot and should not be denied. What is often lacking is context and moderate language. The moral issues at stake here, and your view of them, depend on your particular bias or understanding of the conflict. You may simply hate Israel and be prepared to do anything to destroy it or to blacken its name internationally. You may support Israel and be blinkered to, or underplay, Palestinian suffering.
Given the difficulties of the Gazan people, aid organisations which support Palestinians and Gazans in particular, and reject Israel’s security concerns, have sought to make political capital by attempting to run the blockade with the express intention of breaking it. At the same time they load up their ships with aid, including food and building materials. Their mission, they believe, is a moral one and they are motivated by their sense of outrage to pursue their goal.
Such activists have a right to protest. They can even try to break the blockade, but they know they will not be allowed to do so. They know, however, that this will be a propaganda victory. They know that the aid will still get through.
But their main motivation, as expressed many times in the recent Freedom Flotilla disaster is to break the blockade. One pebble cannot break a wall but eventually you will chip away enough to get through. It must also be said that these same people would never attempt to run a blockade by Iran or North Korea because they know they would be risking their lives. They know, if they are honest with themselves, that Israel may use force, but it will not be lethal. So why did it become lethal?
It is now becoming clear that at some point the flotilla was infiltrated by activists with links to terror and who had planned confrontation with Israeli forces. They brought on a board an assortment of knives, clubs and slingshots. They may have brought firearms, although there is no conclusive evidence. They were filmed by reporters on the boat chanting there intention to kill the Jews. They gave interviews stating it was Gaza or martyrdom. They did not care that they were about to risk the lives of hundreds of people including women and children (why would you bring children!)
Israel spent 6 hours trying to negotiate that the ships divert to Ashdod for inspection. The flotilla leaders refused. 6 hours! If they had real murderous intent they would have just sunk the ships.
Israeli commandos, include females, successfully boarded 5 of the 6 flotilla boats without encountering any resistance. There may have been some rough handling, but no-one on either side was injured. When Israel commandeered the 7th, delayed boat, the Rachel Corrie, yesterday, there was no resistance and no-one was injured.
But when the Mavi Marmara, the large lead ship, was boarded something went wrong.
Israel botched the Mavi Marmara assault. They used the wrong kind of troops and the wrong tactics. However, it is also clear, if you open your eyes even to what may be unpalatable to your viewpoint, the commandos came on board with a paintball gun and a Glock pistol. As each commando landed on the top deck wielding their paintball gun they were assaulted extremely violently with metal bars and knives. The ‘activists’ even had stun grenades, apparently.
The activists took two pistols from the Israelis and shot them. One was hit in the stomach. Another soldier was thrown over a guard rail and suffered serious head injuries. Three soldiers were taken hostage and moved below decks.
As his comrades lay on the deck injured, an Israeli Staff Sergeant dragged them to the side, stood in front of them to protect them, and took out his semi-automatic pistol. Given the Turkish autopsy evidence, 9 ‘activists’ were then shot and killed by 30 bullets suffering shots to the legs, lower body and lethal shots to the head, including the back and side of the head. Several others were injured.
Those looking for atrocity stories and who don’t understand how lethal force is applied will see this as disproportionate. Just think. You are that Israeli. You have seen your comrades beaten unconscious and shot. There is a mob advancing on you with clubs and knives and maybe guns. Your life is in danger. You try to disable your assailant by shooting him in the leg, it’s dark and you are on a heaving ship. Some leg shots may hit the lower abdomen. He keeps coming. He is about to stab you or shoot you or beat you. You are in fear of your life. You have asked for and been given permission to use your firearm. Your training tells you you have to shoot twice in the head. You keep doing this until they stop coming. You have been joined by a comrade who is doing the same thing. 9 men are dead and your assailants stop coming at you. At last there are enough of you to take charge of the boat.
They have their victory. Israel has committed another ‘atrocity’. The IHH infiltrators, with links to terrorism have won. They have provoked the tiger. Now the lies and distortions that an all too willing world wants to hear can begin.
Claims that the Israelis opened the firing from deck or even from the helicopters do not make sense. Why fire live rounds them come down a rope with a pop-gun? If the activists were unarmed surely live rounds would have cowered them? Maybe they fired stun grenades or even tear gas, who knows. We do not even know where the dead fell and whether all casualties were on deck.
The non-Turkish flotilla leaders have not acknowledged this infiltration. They either refuse to accept the evidence either because there is some form of cognitive dissonance going on, or they are deliberately ignoring it because it doesn’t play to their political preconceptions. They have already demonised Israel and nothing Israel does in national self-defence or individual self-defence will make them tell it otherwise.
Israel must recognise that it has lost the battle for world opinion long ago. A combination of its poorly thought out strategies and its opponents successful manipulation of public opinion has turned the only redoubt of democracy in the Middle East to a pariah state with a lower standing than genocidal Iran. Israel was once surrounded by neighbouring enemies who wanted to destroy it. Now most of the world is either its enemy or wants it to give in to those who would destroy it.
Israel must now stop trying to fight battles as if it were still the 1970′s. In this century of mass communication and instant sound bites, so-called human rights and NGO’s, Israel has to be more humble and a lot cleverer; it has to be less defensive diplomatically and fight back not with weapons but with diplomacy and legal instruments. It must make the same use of international courts and UN bodies as its enemies. It has to show the world more forcefully what it is up against.
What Israel must not do is lift the maritime blockade. It should get together with its ‘friends’ and the UN and ask a simple question: how do we stop Iran arming our enemy and rebuilding its capability whilst, at the same time enabling Gazans to rebuild their broken homes and lives? How will you help us? How long will Gilad Shalit rot in some hole in Gaza (if that’s where he still is?) What pressure will the UN bring on Hamas to allow the Red Cross or the Red Crescent visit him? Where are the pro-Israel NGO’s fighting to tell Israel’s story?
Israel has to agree to some form of international enquiry not because it should but because it is diplomatically the right thing to do. This should be the start of a new strategy for Israel and its fight back in the propaganda war that could destroy it. If it stops acting as the victor and starts acting a bit more like the victim the tide could turn.
Here are links to material which support the article above.
Jerusalem Post 06/06/2010 Mercenaries aboard Gaza ship
Jerusalem Post 06/06/2010 At least 5 Mavi Marmura passengers have terror links
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs 06/06/2010 Hamas refuses to allow flotilla aid into Gaza Strip
San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994
For some videos see my post http://www.raymondcook.net/blog/index.php/2010/06/03/col-kemp-israel-and-double-standards/
All news and videos about the flotilla see http://www.jta.org/bigstory
Continue reading about Flotilla: what we know and Israel’s choices
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