On the night of Sunday, May 30, showing a terrifying disregard for human life, Israeli naval forces surrounded and boarded ships sailing to bring humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. On the largest ship, the Mavi Marmara, Israeli commandos opened fire on civilian passengers, killing at least 9 passengers and wounding dozens more. Others are still missing. The final death toll is yet to be determined. Cultures of Resistance director Iara Lee was aboard the besieged ship and has since returned home safely.
Despite the Israeli government’s thorough efforts to confiscate all footage taken during the attack, Iara Lee was able to retain some of her recordings. Above is 15 minutes of footage from the moments leading up to and during the Israeli commandos’ assault on the Mavi Marmara.
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@zorkor (#24),
Since we know you are a member of Hamas and you bring up stone throwing and I am no dhimmi. Stones also are a lethal weapon, note the Iranians still use stoning as a form of the death penalty.
Further, let’s take a look at Hamas’ charter and wonder why the Israelis have a dim view of peace while Hamas is in charge:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
“The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. ”
“There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Muslim).
They sure had lots of video cameras. Are slingshots standard issues on humanitarian ships?
Why were they all wearing life vests? Is the water that choppy, or just being cautious?
And why hasn’t Hamas accepted this aid they were carrying?
#36 MikeN said, “And why hasn’t Hamas accepted this aid they were carrying?”
Aid was junk: http://israelnationalnews.com/News/news.aspx/137816
Since when is shooting people an acceptable response to getting hit with metal pipes?
BJ–your link didn’t work for me. Found it here, hope it works. Nice website there.
http://israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137997
#38–jc==you are kidding right? Not a good one though. Just too stupid.
#38 jccalhoun said, “Since when is shooting people an acceptable response to getting hit with metal pipes?”
Here, do an experiment. Find a cop and hit* him repeatedly with a metal pipe. Do this in the presence of another cop. Let us know if you get shot or not.
*is not advocating violence against police officers, but is just illustrating how absurd jccalhoun’s statement is with an absurd suggestion of my own.
#39 bobbo, “your link didn’t work for me.” Apparently it doesn’t like direct links. Google for that URL and you can find the story.
Benjamin said,
Here, do an experiment. Find a cop and hit* him repeatedly with a metal pipe. Do this in the presence of another cop. Let us know if you get shot or not.
You would be much more likely to get hit with a stungun or restrained.
The Israeli military could have dealt the with situation much more non-lethally. This isn’t like randomly attacking a cop. The military knew the ships were coming. The military were the ones who decided when and how they would board the ships. They could have used riot shields, rubber bullets, and other techniques used by police to deal with riots in order to take control of the ship.
I’m not getting into the politics of the situation because it seems to cloud the issue of how the military dealt with the situation. They had the opportunity to set the terms of the engagement and they chose to use deadly force when other alternatives existed.
# 43 jccalhoun said, on June 11th, 2010 at 7:34 am
“You would be much more likely to get hit with a stungun or restrained.”
Yeah right. The situation was closer to police SWAT teams serving search warrants. Resist one of those guys with a pipe and see how it goes for you.
Benjamin said,
Yeah right. The situation was closer to police SWAT teams serving search warrants. Resist one of those guys with a pipe and see how it goes for you.
You are right. it was like a SWAT team but the difference is that SWAT teams go in and use techniques such as those I mentioned. I’m just saying that shooting people should have been the last resort and from the evidence shown so far it doesn’t seem like all the alternatives were tried before the trigger was pulled.
How many swat teams use paint ball guns as their main weapon?
#45 jccalhoun said, “I’m just saying that shooting people should have been the last resort and from the evidence shown so far it doesn’t seem like all the alternatives were tried before the trigger was pulled.”
Would all the alternatives they had available have been in time to save the guys being beaten with pipes? Remember the Israelis first tried paintball guns, then stun grenades before resorting to guns.
Very interesting that the guy on the stairs said the wounded being carried down the stairs were soldiers.
This is very simple. You can send in goods if you are willing to be checked for weapons.
The terrorist organizations couldn’t break the blockade by force so they went to plan B.
If you don’t want to be checked you create an incident and some of your guys get injured/killed and the lack wits all line up and say let the ships through without checking for weapons! Then the Jews are back to dodging missiles and bombing the strip at which point the lack wits all scream oh how awful you are killing civilians!
If these people had wanted peace and prosperity they could have had that 30 years or more ago. What they want is revenge and to kill all the Jews in Israel. They are willing to accept civilian deaths to obtain that end.
My response is if they are willing to die and to sacrifice their standard of living and the lives of their women and children and the civilians support this as part of their war with Israel then leave them alone!
Nothing is going to make the lack wits happy until the Hamas/Hasbullah win and the Jews in Israel all get killed at which point they will say oh how awful. How could that happen? We didn’t see that coming.
Which is why I call them lack wits.
We _can’t_ fix the problem so we should shut up and mind our own business.
Got the left and right mad at me. Nice. Fundamentalists everywhere.
Benjamin and bobbo, I’m not keeping score, but historically the Palestinians have had the shit kicked out of them. Get over it. Current Israeli policy look like more of the same which is eroding support for the state of Israel worldwide.
As for this stopping arms smuggling into the West Bank and Gaza. Yea right. It just means the dumb smugglers aren’t getting their stuff in.
Israel depends on the west for it’s survival. Right now it’s rapidly losing political support which means that it’s jeopardizing the future for short term gains. This blockade is not a winning strategy.
#51 qb said, “This blockade is not a winning strategy.”
What is your winning strategy? Letting the missiles get through to the Palestinians so they can lob them at Israeli cities and homes. How did that go last time? Not so good for the Palestinians.
# 15 Jim.
Nope, the mods are just having the balls to disagree with the Israeli government. But then again, that’s the definition of anti-semitism in the U.S.A.
#30 LDA
From what I read and saw the grenade thrown came with the passangers of the ship. At the first stage the Israelis boarded any of the ships they didn’t use any sort of grenades or weapons since they assumed they will only have to counter passive peaceful resistance, as was the case with the first ships boarded. No force was used and no one got injured on all the other ships that were boarded before the marmara.
Benajamin, basically Israel is pushing away any hope of support in the region. Egypt and Turkey are now alienated and Syria is stupidly getting out of control and moving even closer to Iran.
Are the missiles and bombings heinous? Oh yeah. But the reality is that no one outside Israel with the exception of 1/4 – 1/3 of the US really gives a damn. That’s a bitter pill to swallow.
Israel is going to have to be the adult here. Hezbollah and Hamas won’t change but western support for them is slowly growing under the current policies. This is going to be tough but Israel is going to have to be much, much, much better than it’s enemies and regain allies in the region and new ones in Asia/Europe. It would take years and, yes, it would be incredibly painful at times.
The mideast will be Israel/US against everyone else in 5-10 years on it’s current trajectory and that isn’t sustainable.
qb–so what would you DO. No one criticizing their actions has made even a single suggestion except for Helen Thomas.
“World opinion is slowly declining for Israel.” /// I “feel” that is true but I have to wonder. The main support for Israel is the USA. USA no longer uses Israel as a proxy against the USSR in Egypt. Yes, times change, but when to keep your so called friends you have to allow rocket attacks of your civilian centers, what kind of friends do you really have?
I also assume in real politik that Israel is now or will be our proxy against Iran. That Middle East “special relationship” may be unbreakable until we get off oil?
Self-confessed troll!
Let him make good on his threat.
#55 qb said, “Israel is going to have to be the adult here. Hezbollah and Hamas won’t change but western support for them is slowly growing under the current policies. This is going to be tough but Israel is going to have to be much, much, much better than it’s enemies and regain allies in the region and new ones in Asia/Europe. It would take years and, yes, it would be incredibly painful at times.”
So your position is that Israel should stand by while missiles are being lobbed against their civilian population centers?
Yeah right. You are advocating pacifism to the point of suicide. You think an Israeli prime minister would be able to stay in power if he just stood by while his people were being killed by missiles? He would quickly be replaced by someone who took action.
Why even have a government then if it is not going to protect the freedoms of its citizens? On the last thread, I gave the purpose of government.
“The purpose of government is too preserve the freedoms of its citizens against foreign aggression and to preserve the freedoms of its citizens against each other. The rule of law takes care of the later, but a strong defense is needed for the former. Every government in the world does this.
The Israelis have a right to defend themselves. The right of self defense is absolute as long as there is an enemy trying to kill them.”
I stand by that position. Any other position is unsustainable.
The Israelis and Palestinians need to work this thing out among themselves. The US has no business getting involved or funding this altercation via foreign aid of one sort or another. And personally, I don’t want my money stolen from me by the government and sent overseas to aid either side.
No more US Tax Dollars to Israel.. I suggest a boycott if it wasn’t illegal.
#60 KMFIX said, “No more US Tax Dollars to Israel.. I suggest a boycott if it wasn’t illegal.”
#60 Tell you what: they can take your share of the Israeli foreign aid out of my taxes. You can pay for my share of the programs I don’t like from my taxes. It doesn’t change a damn thing, but we will both feel better.
Benjamin, when does the blockade stop? If ever? What is the exit strategy and criteria? There is none and it will become another permanent fixture.
No one said they should not defend themselves but a long term blockade and their go-it-alone approach (except for US money and arms) is cleaning out all their allies in the middle east and elsewhere. For example, Turkey was the first middle eastern country to recognize Israel as a state. Turkey along with others have been key in moderating Syria and the Palestinians. Now Turkey is looking at getting their navy involved.
Israel needs help to get out of this mess. They need to reach out to other countries besides the US rather than push them away. They need a long term plan rather than just choking off the Palestinians.
The reality is that this could get very ugly and spread far beyond Palestine and Syria. The more Israel paints itself into a corner the easier it will be for countries like Iran to openly wade into it.
#62 qb said, “No one said they should not defend themselves but a long term blockade and their go-it-alone approach (except for US money and arms) is cleaning out all their allies in the middle east and elsewhere.”
So what is the UN offering to do to keep missiles from hitting Israel as an alternative to a blockade? As I recall some of the Hamas rocket emplacements were inside a UN compound. At best the UN was incompetent; at worse they were in collusion with the Palestinians.
A blockade cannot be a permanent solution, but what other alternative is there to prevent rocket attacks on Israeli targets?
The only solution I can see to this is and agreement with the UN and Israel. Israel removes the blockade and the UN will stay out of the way when Israel retaliates against the next rocket attacks. Of course that will bring us back to square one and will be unpleasant for the Palestinians if Hamas continues to shoot rockets at Israel.
The change in Turkey is because an Islamist party came to power after decades of secular rule, primarily because the secularists split among numerous parties that couldn’t get the 10% required to get seats.
Yes MikeN, the fundamentalists are rising in Turkey, but the PM and President have been intervening for Israel up until 2008. The country is being pushed farther to the whacko side by events around them, but the AKP still the majority in the Turkish parliament and favours close ties with the EU. The AKP is also shooting themselves in the foot with corruption.
Benjamin, the UN pulled out of Gaza in 2009 because of the danger. Too many of their staff had been killed, mostly by Israeli tanks. The compounds are now empty and being used by Hamas.