{"id":1069,"date":"2010-06-03T15:38:41","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T14:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/?p=1069"},"modified":"2010-06-03T15:40:33","modified_gmt":"2010-06-03T14:40:33","slug":"col-kemp-israel-and-double-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/2010\/06\/03\/col-kemp-israel-and-double-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"Col. Kemp, Israel and double standards"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>
\"Col<\/div>\n

The Jerusalem Post<\/a> reports that Col. (ret) Richard Kemp, who is a former head of UK forces in Afghanistan (and who first came to the notice of the Israeli public when he stood up for Operation Cast Lead at the UN<\/a> in the wake of the Goldstone enquiry), \u00a0is in Israel.<\/p>\n

Kemp has this to say about the world’s reaction to the interception of the terrorist sponsored ‘Freedom Flotilla’:<\/p>\n

“I believe Israel should do it rapidly and comprehensively and should be completely up front if it has made mistakes \u2013 mistakes should be admitted by Israel, but I don\u2019t think it should be subjected to an independent inquiry any more than other Western countries are.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Look at what appears to have been a very serious military error made by the German army in Northern Afghanistan last year when something like 50-150 civilians were killed in an air strike..”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Quite right, and that is just one of many, many incidents in Afghanistan and around the world, far more serious than the flotilla incident, which are completely ignored by the UN.<\/p>\n

While Kemp was critical of Israel\u2019s handling of the flotilla raid, in particular its intelligence-gathering prior to the operation, he said the blame for the death toll lay with the \u201cactivists\u201d who attacked the soldiers.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is clear for any reasonable person to see from the evidence of the videos. All that the supporters of the flotilla can say is that they had a right to defend themselves. Do you remember the last time anyone was killed in a paintball contest? The paintball gun was the Israeli’s primary ‘weapon’ . When the world is bleating about disproportionality of Israel’s \u00a0activities at every possible occasion, is it not disproportionate to prepare a lethal attack with knives and metal clubs and then take pistols and shoot at someone with a paintball gun? That is bloody murder in my book.<\/p>\n

Kemp rightly points out that this raid was bungled. We still do not know why nine people died or whether there deaths were caused by their zealotry to become shahids (martyrs) as is witnessed in this video:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

It could be bravado, of course but other pronouncements and the weapons found on board point to a Gaza or die attitude. When someone is prepared to die in order to kill you what would you do with a pistol in your hand. With hundreds of people on board against a handful of commandos, whatever you think of the legality of their actions, they did not come with deadly intent, unlike their assailants.
\nHere’s some of what was found on the ‘peace convoy’:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

As Kemp says, there must be an investigation, but no-one will accept the conclusions if they absolve the Israeli Navy, of course, only kangaroo-court UN enquiries whose members have decided guilt in advance (Goldstone) are allowed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The Jerusalem Post reports that Col. (ret) Richard Kemp, who is a former head of UK forces in Afghanistan (and who first came to the notice of the Israeli public when he stood up for Operation Cast Lead at the UN in the wake of the Goldstone enquiry), \u00a0is in Israel. Kemp has this to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[223,19],"tags":[228,470,1137,487,4,201,486],"class_list":["post-1069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel-palestine","category-the-delegitimisation-of-israel","tag-double-standards","tag-flotilla","tag-gaza","tag-independent-enquiry","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-richard-kemp","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1069"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1077,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1069\/revisions\/1077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}