Israel attacks Gaza aid fleet

[Funkasy]

I can answer that seriously, if it's a serious question? If not... well, then so's your mum.

 

Yes i am serious, please tell me if its worth dying for a publicity stunt, and if you dont think it was a stunt, is it thn worth dying for some food sent into Gaza ? would you go on board a ship and die for it ? and if your would why arent you ?

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yes i am serious, please tell me if its worth dying for a publicity stunt, and if you dont think it was a stunt, is it thn worth dying for some food sent into Gaza?

 

Are those the only choices, mate? Publicity stunt or sending food.

 

The ships had the full intention of breaking the illegal military blockade that helps to oppress one of the most cramped, highly overpopulated populated areas in the world. They were trying to get badly needed medical supplies into Gaza without having to surrender 80% of it. This is a massive, massive injustice and people care about it. The same as many others care for many other injustices in the world.

 

And yes, for some of those that did it, it was worth dying for. Just as many have died for many causes throughout history. I'm also not sure that alerting more people to such a horrific act, any horrific act, is properly encapsulated by 'publicity stunt'.

 

would you go on board a ship and die for it? and if your would why arent you ?

 

I've been on aid giving trips to the occupied territories before. I would go aboard a ship as part of a flotilla, yes. I don't want to die for it, but then, I'm not oppressed, my family and my people are not being oppressed. If they were, I probably would be willing to die. And you know what, you probably would, too.

 

Let's not forget that none of these people did not know that it would be their last act on earth, some might have wished to be a martyr, some might have wanted to be killed to shed light on injustice. That's their choice, I don't hold the same view. I think you can campaign better when you're alive, but some think it's too late for that.

[Funkasy]

good post.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

''Let's not forget that none of these people did not know that it would be their last act on earth''

 

Should read:

 

''Let's not forget that none of these people knew that it would be their last act on earth''

[Funkasy]

i do still think that those that died or at least most of them asked for it when they attacked with knives and iron bars.

[dennis tooth]

Can't see how they had much choice being mostly executed most of them in the back of the head.

[dennis tooth]

i do still think that those that died or at least most of them asked for it when they DEFENDED with knives and iron bars.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

i do still think that those that died or at least most of them asked for it when they attacked with knives and iron bars.

 

Well, what they didn't ask for was to be shot at from the sky, in International waters. What they didn't ask for is for fully trained IDF commandos to attack their ship in an act of illegal warfare, nor rappel from helicopters and shoot people in the head. The 19 year old didn't ask to be shot 4 times in the head and once in the chest. The 9 that died didn't ask to be shot in the head - albeit in an act of self defence from those in military helicopters - some at from point blank range in what can only be described as an execution. They did not ask for that, Funk.

 

The least I'd fucking do is fight back with whatever I could find on that boat - be it a kitchen knife or a plank of wood. That's not asking to be killed, that's fighting off people trying to shoot your face off.

[Funkasy]

No, only Turkish people were shot, that must be because the other knew better then to attack(defend) them.

[dennis tooth]

Theres many theories why 'only Turkish' or whatever, at the end of the day we may never know because the Isreali government ordered all evidence be destroyed apart from a few clips they wanted to edit and use for propaganda.

Also just to note, there were no knives involved, it was a myth with no evidence for, same as the paintball guns that the IDF were supposedly armed with, the ones that shot real bullets and didn't spill a drop of paint anywhere.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

No, only Turkish people were shot, that must be because the other knew better then to attack(defend) them.

 

''I'm gettin' a little pissed here'' -- Jules Winfield.

 

That's a really daft thing to say, with all due respect and all that. I mean, are you under the illusion that most of the people on board the Turkish vessel were not Turkish? Are you under the illusion that only Turkish people defended themselves? Are you under the illusion that only those defending themselves were shot?

 

I mean, I'm trying to understand your logic on this one. You're going to have to help me out.

[Funkasy]

well you got it all figured out all ready so it dosen't matter what i think or say

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

well you got it all figured out all ready so it dosen't matter what i think or say

 

I'm willing to have my mind changed if you've got facts, or logic, that I've not thought about. That's the reason for a debate, isn't it?

 

I don't understand what your point is here, mate. I just want to know where you're coming from.

[dennis tooth]

Netanyahu: US easily manipulated

The video was shot in 2001, apparently without Netanyahu's knowledge [Channel 10]

 

A recently-revealed tape has shown Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, discussing ways to undermine the Oslo Accords and calling the United States "easy" to manipulate.

 

The video was filmed in 2001, apparently without Netanyahu's knowledge, during a meeting with Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. It aired on Friday night on Israel's Channel 10, and several translations have been posted online.

 

At one point on the tape, Netanyahu threatens a "broad attack" against the Palestinian Authority.

 

"The main thing, first of all, is to hit them. Not just one blow, but blows that are so painful that the price will be too heavy to be borne," Netanyahu said. "A broad attack on the Palestinian Authority."

 

The tape was shot during the early stages of the second intifada, when violence between Israelis and Palestinians was escalating. Netanyahu was speaking with settlers who lost family members to Palestinian attacks.

 

Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister at the time, had recently deployed additional Israeli troops in the West Bank.

 

Undermining the Oslo Accords

 

Netanyahu - who did not hold political office when the recording was made - was dismissive of the United States, calling it easily manipulated.

 

"I know what America is," Netanyahu said. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."

 

Netanyahu also spoke extensively about undermining the Oslo Accords, the agreement signed in 1993 which set a framework for future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

 

The Oslo Accords specified that Israel would be allowed to keep "military zones" in the West Bank in any future agreement with the Palestinian Authority. Netanyahu told the settlers he would use that loophole to retain large portions of Palestinian territory.

 

"I'm going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the '67 borders," he said.

 

"How do we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I'm concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone."

 

In the recording, Netanyahu described Bill Clinton - the former US president who helped to negotiate the accords - as "radically pro-Palestinian".

[Stu Monty]

Massive gaping anus of a man.

 

Benjamin that is, not Toothy.

[dennis tooth]

Israel's boat problem

 

Israel’s siege on Gaza essentially consists of one thing – surrounding the territory and controlling all exit and entry points. Logically, to break the siege you enter or exit the territory against Israel’s will. Exiting without permission is not an option, so on came the boats...

 

In theory it’s a simple, perhaps even genius idea. It started shortly after the siege began – back then Israel sporadically let in small boats carrying aid. Israel let them in because they had more to lose by stopping them than by allowing through a few lefty activists (and the odd politician) carrying a gratuitous amount of aid.

 

But the boats got bigger, and so too did the problem. Israel then decided the ships were a “security risk” and began intercepting them at sea to prevent them docking in Gaza. For many within the Israeli military, the mistake was made years ago when the boats were first allowed in – had they been stopped from the start, perhaps the blockade-busting boat idea would not have taken off and they wouldn’t be in the mess they’re in now.

 

Flotilla intifada

 

What happened onboard the Mavi Marmara on May 31 was nothing short of disastrous for Israel – it’s public image got a battering and its illogical policy of blocking food and supplies to people in Gaza was exposed. What was onboard that ship – wheelchairs and children’s books- revealed just how nonsensical and downright cruel the blockade was. Even Israel’s masters of spin struggled to explain why notepads were a security risk to the state.

 

The Foreign Ministry has been busy doing damage control from the botched flotilla raid. It’s almost there, but it's made very clear to the security establishment another boat blunder will throw away all its efforts. That puts the military in a bit of a predicament, because riding on the tail winds of the Mavi Marmara, is a summer boat (and convoy) intifada.

 

Following the raid on the flotilla, new aid convoys are already in the works. The European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza is organising a "Freedom Flotilla 2", due to set sail for Gaza next month. It’s said to consist of more ships than the first one and as many as 4,000 activists. An aid ship from Lebanon has been much delayed but organisers are still adament to get to Gaza. A Jordanian overland convoy also began its journey to the Strip this week.

 

What a difference a boat makes….

 

But apart from calling attention to the plight of Gazans, and making us all sudden maritime experts able to track down every ship in the Mediterranean with the click of a button – what difference will more ships make? In the weeks that followed the deadly raid on the Mavi Marmara, Israel announced it was “easing” the Gaza siege. What that actually meant was they were increasing the amount of food and supplies being let into the Strip via the land crossings they control and clarifying their policy on what is allowed in.

 

As the situation in Gaza is so desperate, even that was seen as quite an achievement.

 

But it’s worth considering it was a move in the works well before the Mavi Marmara set sail. Many months ago the Egyptians began building an underground wall that will effectively cut off the smuggling tunnels that run between Gaza and Egypt. If that wall was completed before the “ease” it would, quite simply, have starved Gaza. People there rely almost solely on the tunnels not just for food and cigaretters but for fuel, generators and other essentials. Israel was not going to allow 1.7 million people to starve on live TV. In short, something had to give before the wall was completed.

 

Consider too that one of the “gestures” the US was reportedly pressuring Israel to make to entice the Palestinian Authority to indirect peace talks (which the PA eventually agreed to in an apparent U-turn) was an easing of the Gaza siege. I’m not saying the flotilla had no impact on the decision to ease the siege, but it may have been more of a catalyst than an instigator.

 

Ship vs siege: Fair fight?

 

The real success of the flotilla should be seen within a wider context. It has become the beacon of a non-violent form of resisting Israel’s occupation that is making huge strides.

 

The current boycott movement in the West Bank is attracting attention – it’s an embarrassment for Israel casting a shadow over the democratic, moral state it purports to be with many comparing this boycott to the divestment policy against South Africa during apartheid in the 1980s.

 

Events onboard the Marmara ended in bloodshed and violence but the theory behind the flotilla was logical and peaceful. Israel is a highly militarized state. Dealing with violence is what it knows how to do best. An Israeli soldier confronted by a man holding a gun moving towards him knows exactly what to do. But swap that gun for a banner saying ‘Free Gaza’ and the soldier will panic. He was trained for combat not crowd control.

 

And that’s why whether it’s a ship, a boat, a truck or a plane, both the success and the danger of this movement lies in the way it plays so simply to Israel’s weakest point.

[Funkasy]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza's Hamas rulers have banned women from smoking water pipes in cafes, calling it a practice that destroys marriages and sullies the image of the Palestinian people.

 

The ban marks the Islamist militant group's latest effort to impose their harsh Muslim lifestyle in the seaside strip on an often resistant public.

 

While Muslim law does not technically ban women from smoking the traditional tobacco-infused pipes, tradition frowns upon the habit. Hamas frequently mixes its strict interpretation of Islamic law with conservative Gaza tradition, and over the weekend, the two dovetailed to produce the smoking ban.

 

"It is inappropriate for a woman to sit cross-legged and smoke in public. It harms the image of our people," Ihab Ghussein, Hamas interior ministry spokesman, said in a statement released Sunday.

 

"Many women who smoke in public were divorced when their husbands saw them, or found out about them," said Hamas police spokesman, Ayman Batneiji, without substantiating his claim.

 

The ban was handed down by plainclothes security officials who marched through a strip of popular cafes by Gaza's seashore over the weekend, ordering owners not to serve water pipes to female customers.

 

Confused owners initially thought the ban applied to both men and women, killing most of their evening business. The Hamas government swiftly issued a statement reassuring residents the ban only applied to women.

 

Smoking water pipes is a popular habit among both sexes in the impoverished Gaza Strip. Although it is considered culturally inappropriate for women to be seen smoking them in public, some middle-class ladies smoke the pipes openly, often in mixed company. Even more conservative women can be seen taking an occasional puff of their husbands' water pipes.

 

"This is silly," fumed Haya Ahmed, a 29-year-old accountant who said she has smoked water pipes for 10 years. "We are not smoking in the streets but in restaurants where only a few people can enter."

 

She predicted the ban would have the opposite effect of its intention and make water pipes more tempting for rebellious young women. "Everything forbidden becomes desirable. The decision will lead to more smokers," Ahmed said.

 

Many Palestinians see the water pipe as inappropriate for women because of its sexual innuendo, and because it looks crass for ladies to smoke, said Palestinian anthropologist Ali Qleibo.

 

It is not clear how strict Hamas will be in enforcing the ban.

 

Many residents are deeply sensitive to any effort by Hamas to infringe on the few forms of entertainment available to Gaza's 1.5 million people. For three years, they have lived under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade that has penned them into the tiny coastal territory. Many Gazans pile into beach cafes in the evenings to puff on water pipes well into the early hours.

 

A cafe and restaurant union representative in Gaza, Ayman Abu Khair, estimated the ban would cost cafe owners some 10 percent of their income. He said owners were not warned before Hamas police barged into their establishments Friday night issuing the verbal order. Abu Khair said the union hoped to challenge the ruling.

 

The militant group has backed down in the past when it senses resistance to its harsh rules. A ban on men working in female hair salons was never enforced, and a demand that female lawyers cover their hair before they enter courtrooms was quietly rescinded.

 

But Hamas has successfully banned women from riding motorbikes, arguing it was culturally inappropriate. It also instructed teachers to pressure teenage girls to cover up in long, loose robes and headscarves. Last year the group cracked down on Gaza's tiny number of moonshiners and banned foreigners from bringing alcohol into the blockaded territory.

 

For Ahmed, the ban has been a damper. "I smoked (in public) with my family around," she said. "Now, I will smoke at home."

 

Hamas bans women from smoking water pipes in cafes - Yahoo! News

 

p.s maybe this should be moved to another thread, but this has been the most active recently

[dennis tooth]

Israeli right embracing one-state?

 

There has been a strong revival in recent years of support among Palestinians for a one-state solution guaranteeing equal rights to Palestinians and Israeli Jews throughout historic Palestine.

 

One might expect that any support for a single state among Israeli Jews would come from the far left, and in fact this is where the most prominent Israeli Jewish champions of the idea are found, although in small numbers.

 

Recently, proposals to grant Israeli citizenship to Palestinians in the West Bank, including the right to vote for the knesset, have emerged from a surprising direction: Right-wing stalwarts such as knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin, and former defence minister Moshe Arens, both from the Likud party of Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.

 

Even more surprisingly, the idea has been pushed by prominent activists among Israel's West Bank settler movement, who were the subject of a must-read profile by Noam Sheizaf in Haaretz.

 

Unlikely advocates

IN depth

 

More from this author:

Is Gilad Shalit a prisoner of war?

The day the world became Gaza

'Israel resembles a failed state'

Inside Story: An unsettled dispute

Inside Story: Hope for Middle East peace?

Inside Story: The battle for Jerusalem

 

Their visions still fall far short of what any Palestinian advocate of a single state would consider to be just: The Israeli proposals insist on maintaining the state's character - at least symbolically - as a "Jewish state," exclude the Gaza Strip, and do not address the rights of Palestinian refugees.

 

And, settlers on land often violently expropriated from Palestinians would hardly seem like obvious advocates for Palestinian human and political rights.

 

Although the details vary, and in some cases are anathema to Palestinians, what is more revealing is that this debate is occurring openly and in the least likely circles.

 

The Likudnik and settler advocates of a one-state solution with citizenship for Palestinians realise that Israel has lost the argument that Jewish sovereignty can be maintained forever at any price. A status quo where millions of Palestinians live without rights, subject to control by escalating Israeli violence is untenable even for them.

 

At the same time repartition of historic Palestine - what they call Eretz Yisrael - into two states is unacceptable, and has proven unattainable - not least because of the settler movement itself.

 

Some on the Israeli right now recognise what Israeli geographer Meron Benvenisti has said for years: Historic Palestine is already a "de facto binational state," unpartionable except at a cost neither Israelis nor Palestinians are willing to pay.

 

'Horse and rider'

The Israeli rights' vision of a one-state solution falls far short of Palestinian aspirations [EPA]

 

The relationship between Palestinians and Israelis is not that of equals however, but that "between horse and rider" as one settler vividly put it in Haaretz.

 

From the settlers' perspective, repartition would mean an uprooting of at least tens of thousands of the 500,000 settlers now in the West Bank, and it would not even solve the national question.

 

Would the settlers remaining behind in the West Bank (the vast majority under all current two-state proposals) be under Palestinian sovereignty or would Israel continue to exercise control over a network of settlements criss-crossing the putative Palestinian state?

 

How could a truly independent Palestinian state exist under such circumstances?

 

The graver danger is that the West Bank would turn into a dozen Gaza Strips with large Israeli civilian populations wedged between miserable, overcrowded walled Palestinian ghettos.

 

The patchwork Palestinian state would be free only to administer its own poverty, visited by regular bouts of bloodshed.

 

Even a full Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank - something that is not remotely on the peace process agenda - would leave Israel with 1.5 million Palestinian citizens inside its borders. This population already faces escalating discrimination, incitement and loyalty tests.

 

In an angry, ultra-nationalist Israel shrunken by the upheaval of abandoning West Bank settlements, these non-Jewish citizens could suffer much worse, including outright ethnic cleansing.

 

With no progress toward a two-state solution despite decades of efforts, the only Zionist alternative on offer has been outright expulsion of the Palestinians - a programme long-championed by Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beitenu party, which has seen its support increase steadily.

 

Israel is at the point where it has to look in the mirror and even some cold, hard Likudniks like Arens apparently do not like what they see. Yisrael Beitenu's platform is "nonsensical," Arens told Haaretz and simply not "doable".

 

If Israel feels it is a pariah now, what would happen after another mass expulsion of Palestinians?

 

Lessons from South Africa

 

Given these realities, "The worst solution ... is apparently the right one: a binational state, full annexation, full citizenship" in the words of settler activist and former Netanyahu aide Uri Elitzur.

 

This awakening can be likened to what happened among South African whites in the 1980s. By that time it had become clear that the white minority government's effort to "solve" the problem of black disenfranchisement by creating nominally independent homelands - bantustans - had failed.

 

Pressure was mounting from internal resistance and the international campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions. By the mid-1980s, whites overwhelmingly understood that the apartheid status quo was untenable and they began to consider "reform" proposals that fell very far short of the African National Congress' demands for a universal franchise - one-person, one-vote in a non-racial South Africa.

 

The reforms began with the 1984 introduction of a tricameral parliament with separate chambers for whites, coloureds and Indians (none for blacks), with whites retaining overall control.

 

Until almost the end of the apartheid system, polls showed the vast majority of whites rejected a universal franchise, but were prepared to concede some form of power-sharing with the black majority as long as whites retained a veto over key decisions.

 

The important point, as I have argued previously,is that one could not predict the final outcome of the negotiations that eventually brought about a fully democratic South Africa in 1994, based on what the white public and elites said they were prepared to accept.

 

Once Israeli Jews concede that Palestinians must have equal rights, they will not be able to unilaterally impose any system that maintains undue privilege.

 

A joint state should accommodate Israeli Jews' legitimate collective interests, but it would have to do so equally for everyone else.

 

Moral currency devalued

This shift in position may see the Israeli right and left face off in unexpected ways [EPA]

 

The very appearance of the right-wing one-state solution suggests Israel is feeling the pressure and experiencing a relative loss of power. If its proponents thought Israel could "win" in the long-term there would be no need to find ways to accommodate Palestinian rights.

 

But Israeli Jews see their moral currency and legitimacy drastically devalued worldwide, while demographically Palestinians are on the verge of becoming a majority once again in historic Palestine.

 

Of course Israeli Jews still retain an enormous power advantage over Palestinians which, while eroding, is likely to last for some time.

 

Israel's main advantage is a near monopoly on the means of violence, guaranteed by the US.

 

But legitimacy and stability cannot be gained by reliance on brute force - this is the lesson that is starting to sink in among some Israelis as the country is increasingly isolated after its attacks on Gaza and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

 

Legitimacy can only come from a just and equitable political settlement.

 

Perhaps the right-wing proponents of a single state recognise that the best time to negotiate a transition which provides safeguards for Israeli Jews' legitimate collective interests is while they are still relatively strong.

 

Transforming relationships

 

That proposals for a single state are coming from the Israeli right should not be so surprising in light of experiences in comparable situations.

 

In South Africa, it was not the traditional white liberal critics of apartheid who oversaw the system's dismantling, but the National Party which had built apartheid in the first place. In Northern Ireland, it was not "moderate" unionists and nationalists like David Trimble and John Hume who finally made power-sharing under the 1998 Belfast Agreement function, but the long-time rejectionists of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party, and the nationalist Sinn Fein, whose leaders had close ties the IRA.

 

The experiences in South Africa and Northern Ireland show that transforming the relationship between settler and native, master and slave, or "horse and rider," to one between equal citizens is a very difficult, uncertain and lengthy process.

 

There are many setbacks and detours along the way and success is not guaranteed. It requires much more than a new constitution; economic redistribution, restitution and restorative justice are essential and meet significant resistance.

 

But such a transformation is not, as many of the critics of a one-state solution in Palestine/Israel insist, "impossible." Indeed, hope now resides in the space between what is "very difficult" and what is considered "impossible".

 

The proposals from the Israeli right-wing, however inadequate and indeed offensive they seem in many respects, add a little bit to that hope. They suggest that even those whom Palestinians understandably consider their most implacable foes can stare into the abyss and decide there has to be a radically different way forward.

 

We should watch how this debate develops and engage and encourage it carefully. In the end it is not what the solution is called that matters, but whether it fulfills the fundamental and inalienable rights of all Palestinians.

[Joe Le Taxi]