Gaza flotilla wasn't carrying any humanitarian aid
I'm sure you'll all be shocked - just shocked - to hear that the two ships stopped by Israel for trying to run the legal blockade of Gaza on Friday were not carrying any humanitarian aid. The organizers had claimed that the ships were carrying $30,000 worth of medical aid. Four of the 'activists' are being taken for hearings - the other 23 are being deported.
The government has begun to deport the 'activists.' Unfortunately, the Israeli who was aboard the ships - who should sit in jail for a while - has been released.
An Immigration Authority spokeswoman said two Greek citizens were flown home on Saturday and two journalists, one American and one Spanish, were to board flights on Sunday.
One Israeli citizen was released, as was an Egyptian woman who had crossed back to Egypt overnight, the spokeswoman said. Twenty one other activists were being held in custody in Israel and were awaiting deportation.
Let's go to the videotape.
These 'activists' are just trying to break the blockade so that weapons can be sent to Hamas by sea. They have no interest in delivering any kind of humanitarian aid. And Gaza doesn't need any. But the world hates Jews and because of that they believe whatever garbage spews out of these leftists' mouths. 'Poor Gaza' my ___.
A short while ago, initial contact was made between the Israel Navy and the vessels Tahrir and Saorise which are sailing towards the Gaza Strip. The purpose of this attempt is to create a provocation against the State of Israel, to break the maritime security blockade on Gaza, and to undermine Israel’s security.
The activists on board refused to heed the navy's call and refused to act in accordance with the instructions they were given. The flotilla is now heading toward the area under closure, the navy said.
Earlier on Friday activists tweeted they are "still heading for Gaza with the Saoirse" and that there had been no sign of the IDF yet.
"We are delighted to hear Palestinians in fishing boats are getting ready to welcome us," they said, adding that they are 70 miles [113 kilometers] from the shores of Gaza.
...
According to flotilla organizers, Israel Navy ships are about 11 kilometers from their yachts, Israel Radio reported. The organizers instructed the activists to not resist IDF forces should they be stopped.
An IDF spokesperson said on Friday the "Israel Navy is prepared to stop vessels attempting to break the maritime security blockade on Gaza."
According to Army Radio, the IDF prepared itself on Friday morning for the arrival of the Gaza-bound flotilla carrying about thirty pro-Palestinian activists.
The United States warned on Thursday that the new effort by pro-Palestinian activists to send the flotilla to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip was dangerous and urged US citizens not to take part.
...
[State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland] said the United States had sought clarification on news reports that Turkish warships might be accompanying the flotilla and were told "quite emphatically" by Turkey that this was not the case.
"We've been clear to them that we think that would be an extremely bad idea and they've now reassured us that that is not what they are doing in this case," she said.
Nuland repeated US warnings about earlier flotilla plans, saying that US citizens who take part in efforts to deliver material support or other resources to Hamas could face civil and criminal penalties. Hamas has been officially designated as by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.
I will try to follow this until the Sabbath starts.
UPDATE 3:25 PM
A few moments ago, Israel's Navy was given orders to board the boats after all efforts to contact them failed.
UPDATE 3:48 PM
Here's an IDF video of Israel's Navy making contact with the Tahrir, one of the two ships trying to reach Gaza.
Israel's Navy is monitoring the two-boat flotilla that left Turkey earlier today, and for those wondering whether the Turkish navy is following, the answer for now is apparently no. The Turks may not have even known where they were going.
The activists told Turkish authorities that they are sailing towards the Greek island of Rhodes.
"We don't believe they are seeking violence. But the IDF is ready. The Navy is following developments. We won't allow them to enter," the source said. "We're not aware of any IHH presence," he added, referring to the radical Turkish group that arranged the 2010 flotilla to Gaza, which ended in deadly clash between activists and navy commandos.
The vessels will be allowed to dock in Ashdod, the source added.
Israel's naval closure is a fully legal measure to prevent the smuggling of arms to terror organizations in Gaza, and has been endorsed by the UN Palmer report, the official said.
The vessels are expected to approach the Israeli-Gazan area on Thursday night or Friday morning, but could hit rough seas, according to weather predictions.
Activists said that the boats were carrying "symbolic cargo," consisting of $30,000 in medicines as well as activists "committed to nonviolent defense of the flotilla and Palestinian human rights."
Flotilla heading for Gaza today consists of Irish boat MV Saoirse and Canadian vessel 'Tahrir'. 15 people on Irish boat, 12 on Canadian
The source of that tweet is Mary Fitzgerald, a foreign correspondent for the Irish Times, who says that this has all been confirmed to her by the organizers.
She also notes that the Irish boat Saoirse is the same boat that flotilla organizers allege was sabotaged in a Turkish port in June.
They hope to be in Gaza by Friday. Should be a fun week. Heh.
UPDATE 6:37 PM
The full story is here. You will note the one thing it does not mention when discussing the Palmer Commission report, namely the fact that the Commission found that Israel's blockade is completely legal.
Turkish authorities deny Israel damaged Iriish flotilla entry
Turkish authorities in the port of Göcek are denying a claim that Israelis sabotaged the Irish boat MV Saoirse (Freedom0, which was scheduled to participate in the flotilla of fools. According to the Turks, the boat was damaged before it ever entered Turkish waters.
According to initial findings of the inspection, the breakdown of the ship might not be a result of sabotage, a Turkish diplomat told the Hürriyet Daily News on Friday.
Turkish authorities investigated allegations that the Irish-owned ship, the MV “Saoirse” (Freedom), which was planning to participate in Freedom Flotilla 2, was sabotaged in Turkish territorial waters by Israel. The accusations are the second since boats started arriving in the eastern Mediterranean ahead of the flotilla’s planned voyage.
Organizers for the Saoirse said the engine of the Irish vessel was damaged in such a way that the ship would have sunk in the middle of the ocean and that the ship was docked in Turkey’s territorial waters when the tampering occurred.
“Israel is the only party likely to have carried out this reckless action, and it is important that the Irish government and the executive in Northern Ireland insist that those who ordered this act of international terrorism be brought to justice. This was carried out in a Turkish town and shows no respect for Turkish sovereignty and international law,” Dr. Fintan Lane, national coordinator for the Irish Ship to Gaza, which owns the vessel, said in a written statement Thursday.
He said one of the most shocking aspects was “the delayed nature of the sabotage.”
“It wasn’t designed to stop the ship from leaving its berth. Instead, it was intended to cause fatal damage to the ship while she was at sea. This could have resulted in the deaths of several of those on board. This was a potentially murderous act,” he said.
Last week, the propeller of the Greek-Swedish ship Juliano was found broken and Gaza flotilla organizers also said they believed it was deliberate sabotage by Israel.
Israel Radio is reporting that they're down to nine ships and they played a recording of Adam Shapiro begging journalists to stay.
The Greek government is not allowing the ships in its ports to leave.
Many of the 'activists' have flights home on Tuesday, and if the ships don't leave by then, the entire flotilla of fools may be canceled.
The Irish 'ship' (looks more like a yacht - yes, that's it) MV Saoirse has dropped out of the Gaza flotilla of fools after the 'ship' was allegedly 'sabotaged' near a Turkish port.
Speaking last night from the Turkish port of Göcek, Fintan Lane, the national co-ordinator of Irish Ship to Gaza organisation, said that the ship would not be able to sail as it had been “dangerously sabotaged”, according to the organising campaign.
He said that the damage to the ship was discovered on Monday night when the captain noticed that there was something wrong. Divers found that a piece was missing from one of the propeller shafts.
“This was the type of sabotage that endangered human life,” Mr Lane said last night. “They put divers under the boat who cut a piece out of the propeller shaft. That means that the damage would have happened gradually and what would have happened eventually is that the propeller would have come up through the bottom of the boat, caused a flood in the engine room and would have caused the boat to sink.”
He said the attack was “unnerving” for the crew, classifying it as a “violent attack” on the lives of those aboard. He said pictures detailing the damage to the ship would be published by the campaign today during a press conference in Dublin.
Mr Lane said that, due to the extent of the damage, the MV Saoirse would not be in a position to sail, adding that just six of the 20-plus crew who had been due to set sail would be able to take part in the flotilla by joining an Italian-based vessel today.
Navy officially ordered to stop the flotilla of fools
Israel's cabinet has officially approved the Navy's plan to stop the flotilla of fools, and the Navy has officially been ordered to implement it by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
During the meeting, cabinet ministers voted in favor of a Navy plan to prevent the upcoming flotilla from arriving in Gaza and giving the IDF authority to prevent the ships' arrival by any means necessary while trying to avoid casualties.
The ministers agreed that flotilla participants will be allowed unload their cargo in the Egyptian port of El-Arish and at the Ashdod Port, from where they will be transferred on land to Gaza after being checked, according to Israel Radio.
However, ships that will try to continue on to Gaza will be checked, and their participants will be arrested.
Earlier Monday, Israel and Egypt agreed to the arrangement whereby ships taking part in the flotilla could unload cargo at El-Arish.
Maybe we can trade the 'peace activists' for Gilad Shalit.
Writing in the Irish Independent, Ruth Dudley Edwards has got the flotilla of fools exactly right.
Let us be clear. Whether they know it or not, that gaggle of posturing, ignorant Irish clowns who are setting sail towards Gaza on the MV Saoirse are driven by anti-Semitism. Otherwise they would be protesting against -- for instance -- the Islamist killings and bombings that are forcing tens of thousands of Christians to flee the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, the ill-treatment of servants and women in Saudi Arabia, the hanging of gays from cranes in Iran, the massacres of protesters in Libya and Syria, the torture of Irish-trained doctors in Bahrain for tending to injured demonstrators and the vicious anti-Jewish propaganda that teaches Arab children to hate.
The explanation given by Jim Roche of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign -- a spokesman for the Irish contingent -- is that "the people of Gaza are being slowly starved and are being completely deprived of their human rights to live in dignity".
For a start, the people of Gaza are not starving.
They have shopping malls and markets full of food and thousands of trucks regularly deliver food, medicine and buildings supplies. They have a longer lifespan than the Turks. But if Jim is set on providing aid, why not, as the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, suggested, send goods to Gaza through the legitimate crossings: the Israeli port of Ashdod or the Egyptian port of El Arish. Although consignments are checked for weapons, Jim wouldn't be providing weapons, so there wouldn't be a problem.
Jim would no doubt say that the flotilla will draw attention to human rights issues in Gaza, by which he means the misery produced by the Israeli blockade and Israeli military incursions. The trouble with that argument, Jim, is that Israel got out of Gaza years ago and would have been happy to leave it alone had Islamists not bombarded it with thousands of rockets. I'd like Jim to have a think about the human rights abuses perpetrated on the people of Gaza by Hamas, the misogynistic, militaristic bigots who rule their lives and who drove their political opponents out by a campaign of murder and intimidation.
But Jim won't know much about that, for Hamas has a short way with critics and reporters, as have the rulers of all of Israel's nasty neighbours. Israel is surrounded by people who want it exterminated, but precisely because it is an open democracy that allows freedom of speech and intellectual argument, the sins of Israel are blazoned to the world while those of its enemies are hidden underground in the prisons and the killing grounds.
Bizarrely, because it is efficient and prosperous, this tiny country is depicted as being Goliath, while the enormous swathe of ill-governed failing enemy states are seen as David. But Jews are natural scapegoats because they're so bloody smart, hard-working and successful.
Read the whole thing. Somehow I had missed the story about the book that she discusses at the end.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
I'm sure you'll all be shocked - just shocked - to hear that the two ships stopped by Israel for trying to run the legal blockade of Gaza on Friday were not carrying any humanitarian aid. The organizers had claimed that the ships were carrying $30,000 worth of medical aid. Four of the 'activists' are being taken for hearings - the other 23 are being deported.
