A video has been racing around the Internet — purportedly showing heavy weapons discovered behind bags of flour on the Mavi Marmara. The find would serve to justify the lethal raid on the flotilla to Gaza and some posters have asked why no uproar? The answer is because the video is a fraud — it shows a boat that was actually searched in 2009.
The video is often accompanied by the same text, which was posted by a commenter on this blog:
This video shows that during the unloading of the Marmara boat in the port of Ashdod, behind the bags of flour were boxes of heavy weapons and ammunition: mortars, artillery shells, bazookas, without counting a trunk where more than one million euros was found intended for Hamas. This video should be widely distributed as evidence of why the IDF Naval commandos were dispatched to intercept the six vessels including the M/S Mavi Marmara. One wonders what is aboard the Irish vessel, the M/S. Rachel Corrie, that Israel will intercept sometime today when it approaches the Naval blockade line off the coast of Gaza. Clearly the Turkish AKP Islamist government is complicit in permitting this military cargo to be loaded on the ‘peaceful’ Free Gaza Flotilla. Please distribute this video widely. If you had any doubt about what was on the flotilla, here is the video. The French explains that the arms on display were hidden behind sacks of grain.
There appears to be a conscious misinformation campaign afoot. The people who originally posted this video obviously knew it was false but wanted to mislead viewers. They succeeded.
Mike,
Best wishes.
Mike S:
Although I do not know you, having read your past posts leads me to believe that you are a righteous man.
Fight the good fight – Peace.
Mike S, words fail me in the face of your extraordinary struggle, I can only second the words of the other posters who have stated my wishes for you far more eloquently than I ever could. As always, you make a good point and your passionate voice has been truly missed. I greatly look forward to your return.
Mike,
Everyday you are not here fighting the good fight, the absence of your wit and wisdom is most sorrily missed. As a fellow deist, I’m not the praying type, but not a day has gone by since you told us of your situation that I haven’t wondered how you were doing and sent all the good energy at my disposal your way. Be well, brother.
Mike S:
We all await your inevitable return with your full force and vigor. Keep up the fight.
“Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
Jill,
Informative link.
May the One who was a source of blessing for the ancestors, bring blessings of healing upon Mike Spindell, a healing of body and a healing of spirit. May those in whose care he is entrusted be gifted with wisdom and skill, and those who surround him be gifted with love and trust, openness and support in his care. And may he be healed along with all those who are in need. Blessed are You, Source of healing.
Which means: Please God, bring healing.
Mike S.,
I wish you the best:El na refa na lah.
Illness precludes me from engaging in this conversation, but I would like its participant to consider the fact that Egypt was also blockading Gaza/Hamas? Now some of you might answer: because the US pressured them to, but that would be a false reading of the geopolitical issues involved and current history. Hamas itself represents a destructive force bent on destroying Israel in toto and so is an unlikely participant in any peace process.
Of course many here might believe in the proto-Palestinian cause for the reason that you sympathize with the cause of people you deem oppressed and while I might disagree in this instance with your take on things, I understand and commend your sensitivity to oppression. Then too, Israel is not helped by the stupidity of Bibi and his claque. Nor does AIPAC intelligently represent them.
Others my believe as Helen Thomas does, that the Jews should return back to Germany and Poland. I find that belief disturbing coming from someone I’ve long respected, especially because she lived through WWII as a young adult. As for bdaman we know by his own statement that the Jews are “Christ Killers,” which I think would sum up his views on all of this.
However, currently bound up in a struggle to save my life I have not been a presence here of late. I admit that for the first time in my life I lead a rather self centered existence and have little time nor energy to engage in political polemics. I miss being here and I miss all of you, despite current or past disagreements. Perhaps if I make it through, a good possibility I’ll be able to return to our verbal combat.
Mike:
As I have expressed directly to you by email, we are all quite worried yet hopeful for your recovery and your return. You remain one of the most influential voices on this blog and I appreciate your keeping us informed on your status. You have a large family here on the blog and we are all pulling for you and your “other” family.
JT
Just Wondering, I have deleted your last comment about Jill. I ask that you refrain from personal attacks on this blog and to abide by our civility rule.
Justify,Justify,Justify!!
Here is a video we are unlikely to see in the US:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/52872
Al jazeera has some good coverage.
Evidently, some footage was hidden by members of the flotilla and this will be coming out soon.
What investigation? Didn’t the peace loving World already condemn Israel?
———-
The EU condemns the use of violence that has produced a high number of victims among the members of the flotilla.”
“The President [of France] expresses his profound emotion in the face of the tragic consequences of the Israeli military operation. . . . He condemns the disproportionate use of force.”
“Spain unequivocally condemns the Israeli attack on the humanitarian flotilla and it does so as a country and as the acting president of the EU Council.”
South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel, Ismail Coovadia, “to show our strongest condemnation of the attack.”
India announced that “there can be no justification for such indiscriminate use of force, which we condemn.”
“The Argentine Government expressed on Monday its condemnation of Israel’s naval attack to an humanitarian six-ship flotilla.”
The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “Brazil strongly condemns the Israeli attack, because there was no justification.”
Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini: “I deplore in the strongest terms the killing of civilians. This is certainly a grave act.”
The News, the leading Pakistani English daily: “This monstrous outrage has caught the world’s attention and once again put the spotlight on the activities of a state that has been a law unto itself for most of its life.”
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu: “We were shocked by the Israeli attack which led to severe casualties and condemn it.”
———
How can Israel be in the right, ever?! Impossible!
Maybe if Gazans produced anything other than suicide bombers and rocket barrages, they would not depend on that humanitarian aid? Neah, of course the blame cannot lie with them and Hamas who declared war on Israel.
mespo727272, from the same article cited:
“The BBC has reported UN agencies as saying that insufficient aid is reaching Gaza, possibly less than one quarter of daily needs. This raises serious questions about the underlying legality of the blockade.
The relevant rules of armed conflict prohibit intentionally starving the civilian population and require that humanitarian supplies essential to survival must be allowed to pass, albeit subject to certain controls by the blockading power.
To maintain a population at a level just above the bare minimum needed for survival might arguably be within the strictest letter of the law, but could never seriously be thought consistent with its spirit.
Calls for the immediate cessation of the blockade may well have a good case in law as well as in humanitarian policy.”
And a differing view of the validity of the blockade being little if anything more than collective punishment:
http://gisha.org/UserFiles/File/publications/GazaClosureDefinedEng.pdf
“Gaza Closure Defined: Collective Punishment
Position Paper on the International Law Definition of Israeli Restrictions
on Movement in and out of the Gaza Strip
December 2008”
How long after one determines that an opposer will or can not change their actions or mindset does one make them suffer before it becomes punishment for punishments sake?
johneboy:
“The Law Of the Sea is very clear on the rules of international waters, and the legal status of a ship in said waters. Water borne vessel, much like an embassy, is considered an extension of the country which it is flagged under. In the case of the flotilla, when the Israeli military decided to board the ships in international waters they, in effect, invaded the territory of a sovereign nation which is an act of war – whether the vessels attacked were of a military nature or not is immaterial.”
****************
Of course, this is not the law. The law with respect to blockades during time of belligerency does permit stopping vessels in international waters if the demonstrated intent is to run the blockade. The correct inquiry is the threshold one: whether the Israeli blockade is legal in the first place, which I believe it to be. The law in this area is neatly summarized in the link I cited in a prior post. Here it is again from Professor Guilfoyle.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article7142055.ece
I have no idea where you get the “extension of country” status argument. Any vessel may be stopped in international waters, regardless of flag, if suspected of piracy or slave trading or other international offense. (Try that argument with a guard at an embassy). It may also be stopped with permission of its flag state as Professor Guilfoyle states.
@James M.:
Of course it’s not an act of piracy, as the military action was at the behest of a government; like I said, that was a best case scenario. The Law Of the Sea is very clear on the rules of international waters, and the legal status of a ship in said waters. Water borne vessel, much like an embassy, is considered an extension of the country which it is flagged under. In the case of the flotilla, when the Israeli military decided to board the ships in international waters they, in effect, invaded the territory of a sovereign nation which is an act of war – whether the vessels attacked were of a military nature or not is immaterial.
If the ships were boarded in Israeli waters, the entire complexion of the debate would, naturally, be different; while I don’t support the blockade of Gaza, what Israel does in its own territorial waters is entirely up to them. But the indisputable fact that these ships were attacked far from Israel’s maritime jurisdiction makes this an act of aggression (war, if you will) against the countries who held flag on these vessels.
And I personally have no problem with the US having a cozy diplomatic relationship with any country, but I do not think that said relationship should be used as a tool to protect and coddle a country who’s actions of late make them out to be more like the so called ‘rogue states’ which the TV news tells us we are ‘supposed’ to be afraid of. Take the headline of your choice – the Goldstone report, sending three nuclear subs off of the coast of another country, the flotilla attack, unwillingness to cooperate with the IAEA – and plug in the word Iran (or North Korea, or Pakistan, or Syria, or Libya) in place of Israel. Do you think our government’s reaction would be different to the stance they are taking currently?
FFN,
I like to think we wouldn’t t go to war that lightly. There’s a major difference between targeting Americans because they are Americans (i.e. striking at America through its citizens), and having American activists caught up in a group targeted because of their activism (what happened here).
James M,
One of the vessels was US-flagged http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid#Ships_in_flotilla
And Israel has attacked US warships in the past, namely the USS Liberty.
Israel killed one US citizen (dual citizen with Turkey) in the flotilla raid.
Israel has injured a number of US citizen protesters recently (Emily Henochowicz, Tristan Anderson).
If anyone else (say, Iran?) was doing this to American citizens, the bombs would already be falling.