The Free Speech Zone - Israel

Israel vs Arabs doing 'it' with Jews

fairleft — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 17:03:47 GMT

I was gonna write a brief 'good news' summer diary today (hey hey, 'California city approves marijuana farming'), but then had to click on Lenin's Tomb and that was out. I didn't know that Israeli law considers it rape if an Arab Israeli man has consensual sex with a Jewish Israeli female (if he does not say that he is Arab). File this under "it's not your grandparents' Israel anymore." Here's lenin's take (links in original):

Racist patriarchy in Israel posted by lenin
This is an example of racist patriarchy. A man, Sabbar Kashur, has been imprisoned for doing nothing more than having consensual sex with a woman, whose name has not been disclosed. Both parties were of age, and no one alleges that the transaction took place without consent. . . . as the woman's testimony in the course of the trial made clear, the only crime that Kashur, now convicted of rape, committed was to have allowed the woman to believe that he was Jewish, when in fact he was an Arab. He did not even actively perpetrate a deceit, merely chatted the woman up and didn't say "by the way, I am an Arab". And that has earned him 18 months in prison, on the basis of a plea bargain. Judge Tzvi Segal explained:
"The court is obliged to protect the public interest from sophisticated, smooth-tongued criminals who can deceive innocent victims at an unbearable price - the sanctity of their bodies and souls."

Are you getting it yet? Sex with an Arab constitutes a violation of the sanctity of body and soul - an "unbearable price". This is not a freakish opinion in Israeli society. For example, half of Israeli Jews believe intermarriage between Arabs and Jews is equivalent to national treason . . . Gangs of men in a Jerusalem neighbourhood roam around, behaving as a de facto vice and virtue squad, to 'protect' young Jewish girls from Arabs. One local authority has set up a squad of counsellors and psychiatrists to 'rescue' Jewish girls who are dating Arabs. . . .

So Kashur is accused of 'impersonating a Jew,' but apparently his real crime was not emphatically saying "Hey, before this goes too far, you do know I'm an Arab, right?!" (emphasis added):

Kashur, married and the father of two small children, has been under house arrest for almost two years since the incident occured.
According to Kashur, he was exiting a grocery store in downtown Jerusalem around midday when a woman in her late 20s began to talk to him. "I would say she set upon me. She was interested in my motorcycle and so we talked. I didn't pretend. I said my name is Dudu because that's how everybody knows me. My wife even calls me that."
Kashur said the verdict is racist.
"For two years I've been under house arrest for nothing," he said. "If I were Jewish they wouldn't have even questioned me. That's not called rape. I didn't rape her in the forest and throw her away naked. She agreed to everything that happened."

Gideon Levy agrees with Kashur:

Gideon Levy, a liberal Israeli commentator, was quoted as saying: "I would like to raise only one question with the judge. What if this guy had been a Jew who pretended to be a Muslim and had sex with a Muslim woman?
"Would he have been convicted of rape? The answer is: of course not."

Or maybe Israeli law now is that it was illegal for Kashur not to accurately mind-read what the young Jewish woman was thinking:

High Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein said a conviction of rape should be imposed any time a "person does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman, and as a result of misrepresentation she has sexual relations with him."
Rubinstein said the question was also whether an ordinary person would expect such a woman to have sex with a man without the false identity he created.

Oh well, it's a deeply illiberal Israel the West must deal with now. Does it remind anyone else of apartheid South Africa?

Can't say 'Israeli apartheid' in Toronto

fairleft — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 23:19:01 GMT

Let them in the parade and let people along the parade route judge for themselves. I've booed and shouted opinions at a few organizations in gay pride parades.
Do we have to act as if everyone with a sign in a gay pride parade has to follow a certain script?
Geena | June 9, 2010 12:29 PM

It's strange that the phrase 'Israeli apartheid' is now banned at a major political event in Toronto. This involves a pro-Palestinian group that has marched in Toronto's gay pride parade for many years, as have groups supporting Israeli government policies. That 'both sides' approach seems so civilized and democratic, but times are a-changing and not for the better.

Pride festival bans 'Israeli apartheid'
Toronto parade marshal resigns in protest
By Carmen Chai
Windsor Star
June 8, 2010
This year's Toronto Gay Pride Parade Grand Marshal has resigned and 23 former Pride Toronto activists announced on Monday they have pulled out of Pride festivities after organizers banned the term "Israeli apartheid" from its 10-day event.
"Pride's recent decision to ban the term 'Israeli apartheid' and thus prohibit the participation of the group Queers Against Israeli Apartheid in Pride celebrations this year is a slap in the face to our history of diverse voices," said Alan Li, a co-founder of Gay Asians Toronto who rejected his appointment as grand marshal.
"Pride's choice to take a pre-emptive step to censor our own communities' voices and concerns in response to political and corporate pressure shows a lack of backbone to stand up for principles of inclusiveness and anti-oppression." . . .

Pride Toronto is a not-for-profit organization that hosts an annual festival held during the first weekend of July in Toronto. With attendance of more than 1.2 million people, it is the third-largest Pride celebration in the world and the largest in North America.

Pride would have lost as much as $600,000 in sponsorship money and city funding" forced the organizers of the march, Pride Toronto, to betray free speech.

Len Rudner, Ontario director for the Canadian Jewish Congress, said characterizing the dispute as matter of free speech versus censorship is inaccurate.
"This is not about free speech, this is about financial accountability," said Mr. Rudner.
"The Pride committee found itself in a situation where it had to consider whether it was placing its funding in jeopardy."

As usual, the language of politically correct censorship was employed by the oppressors (p.c. arguments answered well by the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (pdf) (in short, it's a parade, not a work environment)):

PT issued a statement on its website, saying the decision to ban the term "Israeli Apartheid" was not taken lightly.
"The board of Pride Toronto listened to members of our community," it said. "What we heard overwhelmingly was that the use of the words 'Israeli Apartheid' made participants feel unsafe."
Tim McCaskell, a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA), spoke to Xtra after PT's release.
"If people feel unsafe, I would suggest that they are being manipulated," he said. "If the word is 'uncomfortable,' well, Pride makes a lot of people uncomfortable."

Oh, and yeah, Israel's rule in the occupied territory fully qualifies as apartheid. As the folks who know say:

'This is like apartheid': ANC veterans visit West Bank
By Donald Macintyre in Hebron
Friday, 11 July 2008
Veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle said last night that the restrictions endured by Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied territories was in some respects worse than that imposed on the black majority under white rule in South Africa.
Members of a 23-strong human-rights team of prominent South Africans cited the impact of the Israeli military's separation barrier, checkpoints, the permit system for Palestinian travel, and the extent to which Palestinians are barred from using roads in the West Bank.
After a five-day visit to Israel and the Occupied Territories, some delegates expressed shock and dismay at conditions in the Israeli-controlled heart of Hebron. Uniquely among West Bank cities, 800 settlers now live there and segregation has seen the closure of nearly 3,000 Palestinian businesses and housing units. Palestinian cars (and in some sections pedestrians) are prohibited from using the once busy streets.
"Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here," said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge of the West Bank. "There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it's impossible."
Mrs Madlala-Routledge, a former deputy health minister in President Thabo Mbeki's government, added: "While I want to be careful not to characterise everything that I see here as apartheid, I just do find comparisons in a number of places. I also find differences."
Comparisons with apartheid have long been anathema to majority Israeli opinion, though they have been somewhat less taboo since the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, last year warned that without an early two-state agreement Israel could face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights.
Fatima Hassan, a leading South African human rights lawyer, said: "The issue of separate roads, [different registration] of cars driven by different nationalities, the indignity of producing a permit any time a soldier asks for it, and of waiting in long queues in the boiling sun at checkpoints just to enter your own city, I think is worse than what we experienced during apartheid." She was speaking after the tour, which included a visit to the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem and a meeting with Israel's Chief Justice, Dorit Beinisch.
One prominent member of the delegation, who declined to be named, said South Africa had been "much poorer" both during and after apartheid than the Palestinian territories. But he added: "The daily indignity to which the Palestinian population is subjected far outstrips the apartheid regime. And the effectiveness with which the bureaucracy implements the repressive measures far exceed that of the apartheid regime."

Whether Israel within its pre-1967 borders is an apartheid state, I'd say not, but this website disagrees with me:

ISRAELI APARTHEID LAWS

Barney Frank: Israel is Mandela, Gaza is apartheid South Africa

fairleft — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 06:53:51 GMT

U.S. Senator Barney Frank equates Israel's brutal embargo against the Gaza Strip with the 1980s U.S. sanctions against the South Africa apartheid regime. Can a member of Congress get any more down on his hands and knees toward a foreign power, one that seems to have just engaged in murder and piracy on the high seas, and this from a supposed liberal beacon in the U.S. Senate?

Barney Frank Compares Israel's Gaza Blockade to Sanctions Against Apartheid
By Nathan Guttman
Published June 04, 2010
Israel's blockade against Gaza is comparable to the sanctions levied by the U.S. Congress against the apartheid regime of South Africa in 1986, Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank told the Forward in an interview June 3.
Rebuffing critics who decry the effects of the Israeli blockade on the health and welfare of Gaza's Palestinian residents, Frank said, "I remember that argument being used against our tough sanctions against the South African regime during apartheid. People said, 'You're hurting the South African black people,' and Ronald Reagan vetoed the bill and we overrode his veto.
"A few years later," Frank recalled, proudly, "I listened to Nelson Mandela in the Capitol thank us for helping maintain the sanctions because they were so effective." . . .

And now Frank listens to Benjamin Netanyahu deny medicine and infant formula to the Gaza Strip and he hears Nelson Mandela in that? Here's more obsequiosity from the leading 'progressive' in the U.S. Senate:

In his interview with the Forward, Frank also sought to clarify remarks the Boston Herald attributed to him in a June 2 article. The article stated that the congressman "had harsh words yesterday for the Israeli navy," but a transcript of the interview that Frank provided offered no evidence of such remarks. . . .
"I never said anything critical of the Israeli navy," Frank stressed in his interview with the Forward and in a statement he issued. The liberal lawmaker, who chairs the prestigious House Financial Services Committee, went to great lengths to emphasize he had not a critical word to say about Israel's conduct in the flotilla incident.

Though no sane person knows exactly what went on on the boat -- but you can get an inkling from Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range -- Frank is absolutely sure who is really responsible for all the deaths, and he's sure it wasn't the military guys blasting away with their assault weapons. And, oh, by the way, why do we need an independent, international investigation of the killings, Israel is the best in the world at investigating itself!

Frank said also that after learning the details of the flotilla event, it "became clear to me that the people killed weren't innocent bystanders." The responsibility, he added, rests on the shoulders of the organizers whose actions led to the use of force. . . .
Despite calls to launch an international investigation into Israel's actions, Frank said he believed that Israel could investigate itself without fear of prejudice. "The Israeli government, Israeli courts, have the best record I know of a country's judiciary showing independence."

What a one-party state the U.S. is on this and everything else military or economic. It should be a crime, especially for real progressives or real leftists, to pretend that isn't the case.

And in case you think Frank is unusually subservient toward Israel, you'd be wrong. (Unusually craven, yes, but that's more a matter of style.) Like the Forward says below, it's wall-to-wall 'Israel can do no wrong' in the U.S. Congress:

One of the few voices in Congress calling for a change in United States policy is Minnesota Democrat Keith Ellison. . . .
In a statement he issued following the flotilla incident, Ellison urged President Obama and the international community to lead an effort to end the blockade. "This event is the result of the ongoing, counterproductive blockade on Gaza," he said. "The blockade punishes ordinary citizens, and strengthens Hamas's control over commerce."
But Ellison's is a lone voice on this issue. Statements by Democratic and Republican lawmakers, who heard the news from Gaza during their Memorial Day recess, showed almost wall-to-wall support for the Israeli position and urged the continuation of the blockade.
"The naval blockade and the closure of access points into Israel from Gaza are entirely justified, legal and necessary to preserve Israeli lives and to minimize the smuggling of more and more powerful arms into Gaza to be used against Israeli civilians," said New York Democrat Gary Ackerman, who chairs the House subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.

What to do about this one-party state?

Finally, by the way, in case you think Frank redeems himself as a leftie as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, read Ralph Nader:

The banks did not want a consumer right of action against companies violating standards for their mortgages, credit and debit cards, or payday and installment loans. Barney said sure!
The banks want a weak oversight panel consisting of their toady regulators, who failed repeatedly and miserably in the past decade to stave off the collapse of Wall Street and its economically lethal consequences for workers and consumers. Barney said sure!
The banks want their buddies in Congress to drop the standard of reasonableness by which the new consumer protection agency can go after wildly gouging fees and deceptive practices, such as the check overdraft racket that rakes in $40 billion for the banks. Barney said, sure, sure!

Okay, that was from back in late 2009, but do we think anything has really changed since then? He's owned by those who give him money, as are nearly all of 'our' representatives.

Israeli Arab flotilla hero: kill her or revoke her citizenship?

fairleft — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:14:46 GMT

Haneen Zuabi (right), who represents the Arab nationalist party Balad in the Israeli Knesset, is heckled by Anastassia Michaeli, of the ultra-nationalistic Yisrael Beteinu party (centre). Photograph: David Vaaknin/AP

Read the details in the Guardian of Israel parliament member Haneen Zuabi's experience aboard the ship attacked by Israel for why she seems very much to be a hero. But the issue for me is, how far right is normal political life now in Israel? What has become of an Israel where "the ultra-nationalistic Yisraeli Beteinu party" can be part of the government and represents near-majority (majority?) political sentiment toward Arabs? ("There've been no public-opinion polls yet, but clearly many Israelis support a hard-line approach to Gaza and the Palestinian situation in general; experts note the population has grown increasingly conservative since the second Palestinian intifada, or "uprising," in 2000, exacerbated by hard-line new arrivals to Israel from Russia and elsewhere.") And then there's the ultra-orthodox religious party Shas, which provides Israel its Interior Minister. He's seriously seeking to revoke Zuabi's citizenship! (Emphasis added):

Gaza flotilla activist faces death threats
Haneen Zuabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, has been sworn at by parliamentary colleagues and received death threats since disembarking on Monday
Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem guardian.co.uk
Thursday 3 June 2010 17.21 BST
While other activists from the Gaza aid flotilla have returned home, one is left facing death threats and abuse in Israel. Haneen Zuabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset who was aboard the Mavi Marmara, is now under armed protection after nearly 500 people signed up to a Facebook page calling for her execution.
During a heated parliamentary session yesterday Zuabi was sworn at and then shoved out of the chamber amid shouts of "Go to Gaza, traitor".
The 41-year-old member of the Arab nationalist party Balad has also received death threats by phone and mail. "I am not scared," she said, speaking from her home town of Nazareth in northern Israel. "This is inherent here, it is not something that started yesterday. It is just harder and harsher now."

And then there's Israel's loony Interior Minister. Note the fantastical perspective (but I guess it is majority opinion (?) in Israel) on what was plainly a deadly attack by armed Israeli soldiers on unarmed civilians on a boat in international waters:

Interior Minister seeks to revoke Israeli Arab MK's citizenship
Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi took part in Gaza aid flotilla, in what Eli Yishai calls a 'premeditated act of treason' under protection of parliamentary immunity.
By Barak Ravid
Published 22:04 03.06.10
Latest update 22:04 03.06.10
Interior Minister Eli Yishai petitioned Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein to help him revoke the Israeli citizenship of Israeli Arab MK Hanin Zuabi, who took part in efforts to break Israel's blockade of Gaza on a flotilla of aid ships earlier this week. . . .
"In recent days," Yishai wrote to Weinstein on Thursday, "Israel's citizens have witnessed how an Israeli member of parliament, Hanin Zuabi, headed a group of terrorists who aimed to hurt Israel Defense Forces soldiers, under the protection of her parliamentary immunity." . . .
"MK Zuabi used her immunity as a cloak to protect her from the law, although she was undoubtedly aware of the activists' preparations for the attack against IDF troops," Yishai wrote. "This is a premeditated act of treason, and there is documented proof of this."

The Christian Science Monitor reports (emphasis added) further on Zoabi:

Zoabi was released from police custody Tuesday because of her parliamentary immunity, and today addressed Israeli parliament in a fiery speech challenging Israel's narrative that clashes were started by club-wielding activists.
"Israel spoke of a provocation, but there was no provocation," she told the Knesset. "Why does the government of Israel oppose an investigation? Are you sure of the Israeli story?"
Her address to the Israeli Knesset was repeatedly interrupted by Jewish lawmakers calling her a traitor and shouting, "Go to Gaza, traitor!"
In a televised address Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Israel's critics of "hypocrisy."
But Zoab has not tempered her rhetoric. During a press conference Tuesday, according to Ynet news, she said: "It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future."

More on Avigdor Lieberman and his party, Yisrael Beitinu at Wikipedia. Here are some recent lowlights (emphasis added):

Lieberman's party proposes ban on Arab Nakba
Nakba, or catastrophe, is day of mourning over displacement of 700,000 Arabs in 1948 war that led to Israel's creation.By Reuters
Published 16:46 14.05.09
Latest update 03:34 15.05.09
Avigdor Lieberman's party wants to ban Israeli Arabs from marking the anniversary of what they term "the Catastrophe" or Nakba, when in 1948 some 700,000 Arabs lost their homes in the war that led to the establishment of the state of Israel.
The ultranationalist Yisrael Beitenu party said it would propose legislation next week for a ban on the practice and a jail term of up to three years for violators. . . .

Threat of the 'thought police' alarms Israel's Arab minority
Freedom to oppose Israel's right to exist among acts that right-wing politicians are attempting to outlaw
By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Saturday, 30 May 2009
Israeli Arab leaders have called an emergency meeting today to discuss their growing alarm over a series of "racist and fascist" bills being promoted by right-wing members of the country's parliament. One of the bills has already brought fierce accusations from two prominent Jewish Knesset members that its backers are trying to create a "thought police" and "punish people for talking".
. . . the Committee is also protesting at another bill, which was given its first reading in the Knesset this week, that would make it a crime to negate Israel's right to exist as a "Jewish and democratic state".
It was during a heated debate on that bill last Wednesday that Haim Oron, leader of the left-wing Meretz party, declared: "Have you lost all faith in Israel as a Jewish and democratic state? This crazy government, what on earth are you doing? A thought police? Have you all lost it?" And Roni Bar-On, who was the centrist Kadima finance minister in the last government, asked the promoters: "You want to punish people for talking? Soon, will you want to punish for thoughts?"
A third bill which is expected to come before the ministerial legislative committee tomorrow would enforce a "loyalty oath" on those seeking Israeli citizenship. The idea of the oath was a centrepiece of the election campaign waged by Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the hardline Yisrael Beiteinu party who is now foreign minister.

Human Rights Watch against _real_ ship attack inquiry?

fairleft — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:08:45 GMT

Does Human Rights Watch take orders directly from the U.S. Department of State, or is it that the two bodies' shared excess of empathy for Israel makes them just seem to be in lock step? Specifically, why does HRW not call for an independent international investigation of Israeli piracy in international waters and its massacre of civilians on the Mavi Marmara? Why call for Israel to investigate itself when they know an Israeli investigation will be bullshit? HRW admits the last in the final sentence blockquoted below:

Israel: Full, Impartial Investigation of Flotilla Killings Essential
May 31, 2010
Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director.
(New York) - Israel should promptly conduct a credible and impartial investigation into the deaths of at least 10 activists after Israeli security forces boarded ships that were part of an "aid flotilla" to Gaza, Human Rights Watch said today. . . .
"A prompt, credible, and impartial investigation is absolutely essential to determine whether the lethal force used by Israeli commandos was necessary to protect lives and whether it could have been avoided," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "Given Israel's poor track record of investigating unlawful killings by its armed forces, the international community should closely monitor any inquiry to ensure it meets basic international standards and that any wrongdoers are brought to justice."

And yet HRW doesn't ask for an independent international investigation, exactly in line with the U.S. government's position:

Israel should lead investigation into attack on Gaza flotilla, says US
Turkey's demands for international inquiry blocked at meeting of United Nations security council
Chris McGreal in Washington guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 June 2010 19.16 BST
The United States has blocked demands at the UN security council for an international inquiry into Israel's assault on the Turkish ship carrying aid to Gaza that left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead.
A compromise statement instead calls for an impartial investigation which Washington indicated could be carried out by Israel.
Turkey pressed for the security council to launch an investigation similar to Richard Goldstone's inquiry into last year's fighting in Gaza which prompted protests from Israel when it concluded that Israel and Hamas were probably guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. . . .
But in hours of diplomatic wrangling, the US blocked the move and instead forced a statement that called for "a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards". The US representative at the security council discussions, Alejandro Wolff, indicated that Washington would be satisfied with Israel investigating itself when he called for it to undertake a credible investigation.
The Israeli government is certain to launch its own inquiry in part as a response to domestic criticism that its forces were ill-prepared for the resistance they met on the ship. But any self-inquiry is likely to be met with the same scepticism beyond Israel's borders that met its investigations into last year's Gaza war and its 2006 invasion of Lebanon which criticised aspects of the handling of the operations but did not challenge the underlying claim that they were essential for Israel's security. . . .

And it is not just the 'not serious' Israeli attitude toward really investigating possible law of war violations committed during the Gaza invasion. Robert Fisk notes three additional incidences of Israeli international outlawery just since January, toward all of which the Israeli attitude is 'screw you, we'll do whatever we want':

*Goldstone report, November 2009
Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 with the declared aim of halting rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the three-week conflict along with 13 Israelis. The South African jurist Richard Goldstone's report into the conflict found both Israel and the Hamas movement that controls the Strip guilty of war crimes, but focused more on Israel. Israel refused to co-operate with Goldstone and described his report as distorted and biased.
* The al-Mabhouh assassination, January-May 2010
Britain and Australia expelled Israeli diplomats after concluding that Israel had forged British and Australian passports used by assassins to kill a Hamas commander in Dubai. Israel has neither confirmed or denied a role in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his hotel room in January. Britain said such misuse of British passports was "intolerable". Australia said it was not the behaviour of "a nation with whom we have had such a close, friendly and supportive relationship".
*Settlements row, March 2010
Israel announces plans, during visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden, to build 1,600 homes for Jews in an area of the West Bank annexed by Israel. The announcement triggers unusually harsh criticism from the United States. Washington said it damaged its efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the project was an insult. Netanyahu said he was blindsided by planning bureaucrats and apologised to Biden. Today's meeting with Barack Obama at the White House, called off by Mr Netanyahu so he could return home to deal with the flotilla crisis, was supposed to be another part of the fence-mending between the two allies.
*Nuclear secrecy, May 2010
Israel, widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, has faced renewed calls to sign a global treaty barring the spread of atomic weapons. Signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) last week called for a conference in 2012 to discuss banning weapons of mass destruction throughout the Middle East. The declaration was adopted by all 189 parties to the NPT, including the US. It urged Israel to sign the NPT and put its nuclear facilities under UN safeguards.

More on the peace ship massacre:

Israelis opened fire before boarding Gaza flotilla, say released activists
First eyewitness accounts of raid contradict version put out by Israeli officials
Dorian Jones in Istanbul and Helena Smith guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 1 June 2010 14.12 BST
. . . Arriving at Istanbul's Ataturk airport with her one-year-old baby, Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin said Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara, which was the scene of the worst clashes and all the fatalities. Israeli officials have said that the use of armed force began when its boarding party was attacked.
"It was extremely bad and very tough clashes took place. The Mavi Marmara is filled with blood," said Cetin, whose husband is the Mavi Marmara's chief engineer.
She told reporters that she and her child hid in the bathroom of their cabin during the confrontation. "The operation started immediately with firing. First it was warning shots, but when the Mavi Marmara wouldn't stop these warnings turned into an attack," she said.
"There were sound and smoke bombs and later they used gas bombs. Following the bombings they started to come on board from helicopters." . . .

"It was like war. They had guns, Taser weapons, some type of teargas and other weaponry, compared to two-and-a-half wooden sticks we had between us. To talk of self-defence is ridiculous." -- Annette Groth, party of The Left (Die Linke) German MP, who was aboard the Mavi Marmara.

More on Israel's 'screw you' just don't get it attitude about what it's done:

'Next time we'll use more force'
By YAAKOV KATZ, AP AND JPOST.COM STAFF
06/01/2010 13:41
Israel will use more aggressive force in the future to prevent ships from breaking the sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, a top Navy commander told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. . . .

Hair-curling demo in support of flotilla raid outside Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv
by Philip Weiss on June 1, 2010
Wow. What has Israel become? . . .
[Check out the video]

(Citizens of Indonesia, Lebanon, and Qatar are 'nationals of enemy states'?)

Red Cross visits wounded nationals of enemy states
By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
06/01/2010 19:06
Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross for Israel and Gaza went on Tuesday to hospitals where foreign civilians from countries without diplomatic relations with Israel who were injured in the Marmara ship conflict are being treated. . . .
The Jerusalem Post learned from hospital sources that those visited include people from Lebanon, Indonesia and Qatar.

If you're in New York:

RALLY AGAINST THE ISRAELI ATTACKS ON THE GAZA FLOTILLA- PART 2!
Date: Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Time: 5:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Israeli Consulate
Street: 42nd street & 2nd Ave
City/Town: Manhattan, NY

What Israel did to Miss USA's hometown

fairleft — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:03:47 GMT

Desert of trapped corpses testifies to Israel's failure
Robert Fisk
Tuesday, 15 August 2006
They made a desert and called it peace. Srifa - or what was once the village of Srifa - is a place of pancaked homes, blasted walls, rubble, starving cats and trapped corpses. . . .

New Miss USA Rima Fakih moved to the U.S. when she was 6 or 7 from the village of Srifa, in southern Lebanon. Media guyland wants 'her controversy' to be some sexy photos (see P.S.) but in fact there's only one scandal connected to the new Miss USA: what Israel did to her hometown.

Srifa was a bustling hillside village. Then yesterday the Israeli jets came
Clancy Chassay outside Srifa
The Guardian
Thursday 20 July 2006

. . .

And remember the Lebanon war and its 1,300 dead was not merely Israel's war crime, assisted by the Hezbollah, but also George Bush's and Tony Blair's. Robert Fisk wrote back then:

How many of these dead would have survived if George Bush and Tony Blair had demanded an immediate ceasefire weeks ago will never be known. But many would have had the chance of life had Western governments not regarded this dirty war as an "opportunity" to create a "new" Middle East by humbling Iran and Syria.

The Guardian article whose headline I provided above begins as follows:

Srifa was a bustling hillside village. Then yesterday the Israeli jets came
Aliyah, 30, lay on a life support machine in the Jabal Amal hospital in a coma. She was one of a handful of survivors who made it out of Srifa, a village in south-east Lebanon. The man treating her put her chances of survival at less than 20%. "She has severe injuries and has lost a lot of blood," he said.
Fatima Ali Ashma was more fortunate, but not much more. She lay on a hospital bed struggling to breathe.
The force of the blast which overturned the mini van she was fleeing in crushed her chest, damaging her lungs. She sustained severe injuries to her neck and arm.
Speaking slowly and with difficulty, she described what had happened to her. "In the morning we woke up to find that 10 people in the village had been killed. The authorities told us that if we could leave we should get out. So we got in the car and left. As we were leaving, they bombed the road in front of us." There were 10 people in the van with Fatima: all were wounded. "No ambulance could get through. Everyone who could has left Srifa, but the dead bodies are still in the houses."
The attack destroyed 15 houses, killed at least 17, and wounded at least 30. It happened on a day in which 63 people were killed in the bloodiest day of the Middle East conflict so far.
Srifa sits on a hillside overlooking a coastal plain that leads down to a sandy bay which ends with the white cliffs of Naqora and the border with Israel. It was a local beauty spot, where tourists came to see turtles lay their eggs. But it is also in the Hizbullah heartland from which rockets been fired into Israel.

Jonathan Erasmus reported August 20, 2006 (emphasis added):

Hans Musswessels, Operations Director of the German aid agency Humedica, said that the returning residents were in immediate need of his organization's help. "They have no food, no water, no shelter and no medical aid."
"In terms of the damage caused by the Israeli bombs, this is most probably the worst hit town in Lebanon."
A funeral precession compromised of local soldiers, men, women and children passed through what remains of the town, mostly silent but for the cries of the mothers who have lost there husbands and sons here.
With the bombing over for the time being, Lebanon now faces perhaps the largest humanitarian crisis in its history and the people in Srifa appear to be suffering the worst.

August 2, 2006
"The Ones Who Are Buried Alive Are Usually Safe From the Dogs"
The Total Destruction of Srifa: Mangled Bodies in the Wake of Israeli Bombs and Missiles
By Lara Marlowe
Srifa, Lebanon.
It was an unseemly end for 80- year-old Manaheel Jabr, flung over a bloodstained walll, grey hair falling around her shrunken black face, a collapsed ceiling pinning her down at the waist.
"It's the grandmother," one of the onlookers gasped when the civil defense bulldozer finally pierced a hole in the rubble of what was until two weeks ago a three-storey house.
Mrs Jabr's corpse presented a terrible dilemma to the Lebanese Red Cross yesterday. Should they cut her in two, put the pieces in a body bag and take her to the hospital morgue, or leave her behind, in the hope that more powerful equipment could lift the concrete slab from her back and would reach her before the dogs did?
It was late afternoon and the 48-hour "pause" in aerial bombardment promised by Israel was drawing to a close. The Red Cross's plan to retrieve 89 bodies across the war zone was about to end in failure. The Israelis, with whom the Lebanese Red Cross communicates via the International Red Cross, granted safe passage to only two of the six villages that the rescue workers wanted to visit yesterday, Srifa and Bint Jbail. And the convoy bound for Bint Jbail had to turn around because of bombing.
That left only Srifa, the site of the most dramatic devastation I have seen in this war. The entire Hay el-Birki neighbourhood - 18 buildings by some accounts - was flattened at 2 am on July 19. "The F-16s [ fighter bombers] came from the west, the Apaches [ attack helicopters from the east," said a local Hizbullah official who identified himself as Abu Hadi.
It seemed amazing that bombs and missiles could chop buildings into so many million of grey concrete pieces, a bed of rubble many meters deep, with only the occasional slipper or coffee pot to remind one that human beings lived here.
The field of ruins stretched to the horizon, reminding me of images of second World War bombings. . . .

P.S. - As for the sexy photos 'controversy' (and just to show you a sexy photo of Fakih), the incredibly hypocritical Miss USA Pageant itself put out this publicity shot of Fakih (along with 50 similarly sexed up photos of the other contestants) just prior to its contest:

Singling Out Israel in Berkeley: 5 Reasons

fairleft — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 21:57:49 GMT

This Wednesday, UC Berkeley's Student Senate will vote to override its President's veto of a measure that calls for the University of California "to divest from companies that profit from and enable Israel's occupation of Palestinian land, Israel's illegal settlements, Israel's illegal wall, and Israel's demolition of Palestinian homes." In a statement defending the veto, senate President Will Smelko -- who had been inundated by e-mails opposing the meaure -- cited the divisiveness of the proposal and that it would be unfair to single out Israel for divestment (J Street cites the 'singling out' argument too, in its opposition to the measure). Further reporting and background on the measure can be found here.

Yaman Salahi*** wrote ably that Singling out Israel is the right thing to do, but I don't think he voices all of the arguments as to why in particular a single-minded activist focus on BDSing institutions connected to the illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territories is a great strategy and the right thing to do.

So, given that Israel is just one among many nations grossly violating the human rights of people under its control, why is it smart for activists to concentrate some of their activism on making Israel - rather than, for example, Iran, Sudan, Sri Lanka, or North Korea - stop its unjust, inhumane policies towards occupied Palestine? . . .
1. Chances for Success. Relative to those other places, focusing on Israel's injustice toward the Palestinians in the illegally occupied Palestinian Territories is where activist efforts will likely be most successful. Naomi Klein writes, "Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS [Boycott, Divest & Sanction] strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work."

2. 'The West' Is Already Handling Sudan, Iran & North Korea. Assuming those four other nations are a fair representation of where activists should be spreading their efforts, instead of concentrating them on Israel (not that there is any proof that Israel/Palestine activists - or defenders of Israeli policies for that matter - are singularly focusing their activism on Israel/Palestine), the U.S. government is already ably carrying the ball on the Sudan, North Korea and Iran injustice fronts. In fact, today President Obama convenes a conference whose purpose is to focus world efforts, including stiff boycotts and sanctions, on pressuring North Korea and Iran to go non-nuclear. (The UC Berkeley Student Senate, by the way, has in its history passed divestment bills on Darfur, Sudan, and against apartheid South Africa.)

3. Injustice in the Palestinian Occupied Territories is Unambiguous. Sri Lanka (and an array of similar places of seeming injustice) is a different matter, its injustices largely ignored by the U.S. and 'the West'. So, why are U.S. progressives and others much more active trying to right wrongs done to Palestinians rather than the wrongs done to the Tamils of Sri Lanka? Well, the obvious answer is that most of us know a lot more about the Israel/Palestine issue, and perhaps we are wrong but the Palestinian Territories injustice (occupation and colonization in direct violation of UN resolutions) in 'I/P land' seems unambiguous, while (perhaps because we are not knowledgeable enough) the injustice in Sri Lanka (and similar 'ignored' settings) is not nearly as clear.

4. Concentrate Activism Where Success is Most Likely. I hope it's not repetitive to talk about 'bang for buck' theory, which means that it's smart for activists to concentrate their efforts where they are likely to have the most success. That's how human rights activists best leverage their activism. Justice for Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, for a variety of reasons, has a much greater chance for success than does justice for Sri Lanka's Tamils. Not to diminish the efforts of the millions of individuals in the Tamil diaspora, but for whatever reason their cause is little known among most Americans and others in the West. Secondly, as I have mentioned, the clarity of the injustice against the Palestinians, an occupation and Israeli colonization specifically illegal under international law, makes it easier to persuade uncommitted individuals to be sympathetic to and supportive of the Palestinian cause. Thirdly, there already is a 'Boycott, Divest, and Sanction' movement that is having rapidly escalating success.

5. Concentrate Activism Where Success is Most Important. Finally, activists should focus their efforts on Palestine/Israel because correcting injustice there has much greater realpolitik significance than does correcting injustice in more localized conflicts (such as injustice in Sri Lanka). Israel's policies toward Occupied Palestine is perhaps the most important stumbling block to long-term peace between 'the West' and the people of the Middle East, if not between the entire Muslim and Western worlds.

The ASUC meeting is scheduled to take place Wednesday, April 14, at 7 p.m, in the senate chambers, 400 Eshelman Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Senate President Smelko's e-mail address is president@asuc.org. The names and e-mail addresses of the Senate members are here.

***I particularly like these sentences from Salahi's opinion piece:

Those who believe that confronting Israel is unfair are themselves relying on an unacceptable double standard, "singling out" Israel, so to speak, as the one country expressly permitted to wantonly attack and persecute its minority citizens and subjects while the rest of the world passively watches. However, there can be only one universal standard of human rights. Privileging one state or actor over all others to remove it from accountability creates double standards that undermine the integrity of social justice activism all over the world.

Israelis Continue Ethnic Cleansing, Destroy "Hundreds" of Arab Olive Trees

tokin woody — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:46:44 GMT

The vandals were Jewish "settlers," protesting Israeli officials closing a settler shanty. Riding horses, wielding torches, and hurling stones (and resembling nothing so much as the Janjuwid of Darfur), the Jews raided Arab villages, and torched upwards of nearly 1500 olive trees belonging to Arabs in the vicinity of illegal settlements. I heard the news of it on Democracy Now.

Settlers are the thin edge of the wedge of Israeli ethnic cleansing tactics in Palestine:

Israeli settlers burn olive groves in 'price tag' retaliation attack
Israeli settlers on horseback set fire to fields of olive trees and stoned Palestinian cars in the West Bank yesterday, apparently in response to the Israeli army's removal of an illegal outpost in the area.
At least 1,500 Palestinian-owned trees were destroyed and two Palestinians were injured in the attack, near the city of Nablus, by about 30 settlers, security officials said. Farmers fought fires late into the afternoon, as fears grew that the flames would spread across the dry summer fields.
It was the most recent example of the "price tag" policy, in which settlers seek revenge by attacking Palestinians for every outpost that is demolished. "The goal is to create a price for each evacuation, causing Israeli authorities to think twice about carrying them out," the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said.
A settler activist, Itamar Ben-Gvir, put it more directly: "We will not be suckers for the Israeli Government. We will not sit idly by and allow them to remove our homes," he said.

Palestinians in Nablus said the attackers came from the nearby area of Yitzhar, considered to be one of the most hardline of Israel's West Bank settlements.
Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, has pledged to dismantle some of Israel's illegal outposts as a goodwill gesture - but settler leaders have sworn to rebuild two for every one that is taken down.
The settlements, built on land earmarked for a future Palestinian state, have emerged as a key sticking point in efforts between Israel and the international community to forge a peace deal. While the US and Britain have pushed Israel to agree to a complete settlement freeze and the dismantling of dozens of outposts, the Jewish state has sought a compromise that would mean only a partial freeze, and the completion of 2,500 homes already in the late stages of construction.
The US envoy George Mitchell will visit the area this week but his impending arrival has sparked a row over how much Mr Netanyahu will be willing to concede.
"We cannot accept the fact that Jews wouldn't be entitled to live and buy anywhere in Jerusalem," said Mr Netanyahu, in response to a request by Washington that he stop a planned settler housing project at the Shepherd's Hotel in east Jerusalem.
He called Israel's sovereignty over the entire city "indisputable". Israelis and Palestinians view Jerusalem as their capital and east Jerusalem holds several sites holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims.
The case of the Shepherd's Hotel, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of the city, has been seen as a typical example of Jewish expansion in a predominantly Arab neighbourhood. The American millionaire Irving Moskowitz, who purchased the building in 1985, plans to demolish it and build apartments in its place. The hotel sits amid several diplomatic missions, including the British consulate.
The US and Britain have asked Israel to stop the building project but aides close to Mr Netanyahu said the issue was not up for discussion.

For every settler the IDF disturbs, there will surely be a dozen Arab victims of Jewish/settler violence.

The whole world seems to ignore the fact that Israel has territorial ambitions. "Real-politik" declares that Israel cannot tolerate an antagonistic, independent state within its borders. Ethnic cleansing is a practical, albeit probably criminal, and certainly immoral, way to assure that doesn't happen.

It needs to be repeated: This is NOT a practice unique to Israelis/Jews in Palestine. The Serbs, and the Croats, both perfected this technique in recent memory.

The previous report was published by "TheTimesOnline." Upon searching the string "Israeli settlers burn olive trees," I found not one single, solitary SCUM outlet reporting the story. Are you surprised?

Cynthia McKinney Abducted By Israeli Thugs

blues — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:11:29 GMT

Israel Commits Act Of Piracy, Attacking Free Gaza Boat and Abducting 21 Human Rights Workers
It has been reported that Israel, in what I think can accurately be described as an act of piracy, has, 23 miles off the coast of Gaza, attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, and abducted it's 21 human rights workers from 11 countries. Those kidnapped include Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who, passengers and crew, are being forcibly dragged toward Israel.
"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. "President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that's exactly what we tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey."
"The aid we were carrying is a symbol of hope for the people of Gaza, hope that the sea route would open for them, and they would be able to transport their own materials to begin to reconstruct the schools, hospitals and thousands of homes destroyed during the onslaught of "Cast Lead". Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone" said fellow passenger Mairead Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.
Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated that: "No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children's toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters."

US remains silent over McKinney arrest by Israel
Nearly a day after the detention of former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney by Israeli forces, Washington has yet to make a reaction.
Israeli Navy detained former US congresswoman and Nobel Prize laureate Cynthia McKinney and twenty other human rights activists on board a relief boat outside Israel's territorial waters on Tuesday as they were heading to Gaza on a humanitarian mission.
Tel Aviv claims the boat was trying to break Israel's two-year siege on Gaza.
Ms McKinney -- the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States-- has accused Tel Aviv of violating the international law by seizing an aid vessel in international waters.

California, Jets, Cars, Former Ruling Families Crash News
100% of California's Congressional delegation voted to give $3 billion to Israel last week. The money was handed over to the Real Rulers in a private ceremony in a small chamber off to one side. The Power Behind the Throne happily pocketed the check and demanded that Congress support ethnic cleansing. The delegation handing over this loot nodded and agreed: eliminating the natives is a good thing.
So here we are: our biggest state is going under. Other states are soon to follow. I wonder if the American people who will be waving flags this weekend will wake up and demand that our tax debts we are selling to the Chinese, at least be kept here, in the US, doing stuff inside the US, not going overseas! By the way, the Taliban kidnapped one of our soldiers. The US has stopped the anti-poppy program. The entire war is an entire mess. And hideously expensive.

Do you get the picture? Maybe you could personally use some of that $THREE BILLION???

Nah. Well let it go... You can afford it.

Poll shows most Israelis would feel just fine with Iran going nuclear.

Archangel M — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:52:54 GMT

According to Reuters, via Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

Only one in five Israeli Jews believes a nuclear-armed Iran would try to destroy Israel and most see life continuing as normal should the Islamic Republic get the bomb, an opinion poll published on Sunday found.
The survey, commissioned by a Tel Aviv University think-tank, appeared to challenge the argument of successive Israeli governments that Iran must be denied the means to make atomic weapons lest it threaten Israel's existence.
Asked how a nuclear-armed Iran would affect their lives, 80 percent of respondents said they expected no change. Eleven percent said they would consider emigrating and 9 percent said they would consider relocating inside Israel.
Twenty-one percent of Israelis believe Iran "would attack Israel with nuclear weapons with the objective of destroying it," the Institute for National Security Studies, which commissioned the poll, said in a statement.

We all know which percentage of those polled controls the Israeli military and government: the twenty-one percent, every last one of them lying, Nazi maniacs. As is widely known but admitted by relatively few, Iran is NOT developing nuclear weapons. All sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and a good portion of the rest of the industrialized world have concluded based on the available intelligence that Iran gave up whatever nuclear ambitions it had in 2003 and is focusing on civilian energy production in its nuclear research - in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So even in conducting its poll, Haaretz seems to have joined the litany of media publications lying about Iran's nuclear intentions and capabilities. Nevertheless, in conducting its poll Haaretz reveals another truth: most Israelis don't give a flying fuck about Iran having nuclear technology.

Nazis alive and well and living in Israel

Archangel M — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:45:46 GMT