Israel attacks Gaza flotilla - Many dead

[Joe]

Had a lot of raw emotional energy floating around after studying this whole situation so I blogged about it. If you guys want to run it on sott or tweak it prior feel free. The original has all the links.

Good job Puck. Took the liberty of updating it a bit. Published on Sott.

 

[EdgeofDawn]

I wonder what the odds are of this happening.

Report: Turkish PM May Sail to Gaza Himself
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/05/report-turkish-pm-may-go-to-gaza-himself/

 

[Joe]

I wonder what the odds are of this happening.

Report: Turkish PM May Sail to Gaza Himself
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/06/05/report-turkish-pm-may-go-to-gaza-himself/

If he does, I would build a statue in his honor!

 

[aurora]

I don't think that the Turkish PM will sail to Gaza. His party's popularity is on a decline and he is using this incident for gaining some points and also stopping the people from talking about other unpopular subjects like high rate of unemployment, trade deficit, human rights abuses etc. etc.

 

[judyanderson12]

One reason I don't post more about things I read or have experienced is a little lack of finesse and knowledge about exactly how to do that. I quit fooling with computers just when the PCs were becoming popular (hoping to paint a picture for y'all). I have read through the instructions for quoting a couple of times and haven't tried it yet, but this article I just read on the Veterans Today website was pretty to the point and contains a good video clip of more Finkelstein.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/06/04/gordon-duff-what-israels-execution-of-an-american-teen-means/

Jazper

 

[EdgeofDawn]

Has anyone seen this yet? Apparently, I'm in the minority for not finding it funny. :(
_http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KUcv452KbU&feature=email

 

[mkrnhr]

John, the world is truly ponerized, and apparently it is polarizing more and more

 

[EdgeofDawn]

John, the world is truly ponerized, and apparently it is polarizing more and more

Yeah, check out the disturbing posts by dadyzgrl on that video! Ugh...

 

[mkrnhr]

I hope the Cs will say something about what's happening, it is like something deep happening in the human psyche.

 

[EdgeofDawn]

I hope the Cs will say something about what's happening, it is like something deep happening in the human psyche.

Yeah, it's really depressing me lately. Go to a news site and read the comments on the articles on stuff like the flotilla massacre. At least 90% of them are full of hate and violence. It seems like so many people are really losing it lately. Disintegrating, like the C's said I guess...

 

[aragorn]

Okay, this goes beyond pathethic IMO; the IDF is trying to explaing the doctored audio:

_http://www.freegaza.org/home/56-news/1217-idf-admits-it-doctored-the-audio-tapes?lang=en

IDF Admits It Doctored the Audio Tapes

WRITTEN BY FREE GAZA TEAM | 06 JUNE 2010
POSTED IN NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Cyprus, June 6, 2010) The IDF admitted today in a press release (_http://idfspokesperson.com/2010/06/05/clarificationcorrection-regarding-audio-transmission-between-israeli-navy-and-flotilla-on-31-may-2010-posted-on-5-june-2010/) that it doctored audio footage from its exchanges with the Gaza flotilla in order to paint the flotilla passengers as anti-Semites.

However, their comments made no more sense with this explanation: “This transmission had originally cited the Mavi Marmara ship as being the source of these remarks, however, due to an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the “Freedom Flotilla” responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified.

During radio transmissions between Israeli Navy and the ships of the “Free Gaza” Flotilla on 31 May 2010, the Israeli Navy ship attempts to make contact with the ‘Defne Y’ on channel 16. Other ships from the flotilla respond on the channel, without identifying themselves. At some point during the radio exchange the Israeli Navy is told by one of the ships to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” (2:05) and “don’t forget 9-11. (5:42).”

According to our Captain of Challenger 1, Denis Healey, a man with 25 years of experience on the sea, there would be no way that anyone could communicate with each other without the entire fleet hearing the exchange. “There was no exchange like this by anyone on any boat during the entire time I was piloting the boat,” said Denis.

Huwaida Arraf, the woman you hear on the radio, concurred. “The open channel is always the open channel, and everyone knows who is on the radio.”

All radio transmissions on the sea are heard by all captains. Once again, Israel is caught in a lie trying to defned itself for the murder and mayhem it committed the morning of May 31, 2010.

Contact:Huwaida Arraf, +970-598-336-215 or +972-548-817-046

Greta Berlin 00 357 99 18 72 75

Audrey Bomse 00 357 96 48 98 05

Mary Hughes 00 357 96 38 38 09

If you follow the link you'll find the IDF:s official explanation with the edited clip and the 'unedited':

_http://idfspokesperson.com/2010/06/05/clarificationcorrection-regarding-audio-transmission-between-israeli-navy-and-flotilla-on-31-may-2010-posted-on-5-june-2010/

Israel Defense Force Spokesperson

Posted on 5 June 2010
Clarification/Correction Regarding Audio Transmission Between Flotilla and Israeli Navy

5 June 2010

Yesterday evening on 4 June 2010, the IDF released an audio recording of a radio transmission between the Israeli Navy vessel and the Flotilla ships wherein unidentified flotilla passengers tell the Israeli Navy vessel to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” and “we’re helping Arabs go against the US, don’t forget 9/11.” There have been questions regarding the authenticity of the recording as well as its attribution to a communication with the Mavi Marmara.

So to clarify: the audio was edited down to cut out periods of silence over the radio as well as incomprehensible comments so as to make it easier for people to listen to the exchange. We have now uploaded the entire segment of 5 minutes and 58 seconds in which the exchange took place and the comments were made.

This transmission had originally cited the Mavi Marmara ship as being the source of these remarks, however, due to an open channel, the specific ship or ships in the “Freedom Flotilla” responding to the Israeli Navy could not be identified. During radio transmissions between Israeli Navy and the ships of the “Free Gaza” Flotilla on 31 May 2010, the Israeli Navy ship attempts to make contact with the ‘Defne Y’ on channel 1-6. Other ships from the flotilla respond on the channel, without identifying themselves. At some point during the radio exchange the Israeli Navy is told by one of the ships to “shut up, go back to Auschwitz” (2:05) and “don’t forget 9-11″ (5:42).

Below are both the edited and unedited version of the exchange:

Edited(this we've already seen): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxY7Q7CvQPQ&feature=player_embedded

Unedited(more smoke and mirrors): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dE2StbDL_Q&feature=player_embedded#!

We hope that this clarifies any questions that may have been raised regarding the radio exchange.

Added: Good analysis of this new 'unedited' clip here: _http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/idf-admits-it-doctored-flotilla-audio-clip-washington-posts-kessler-must-retract/

Partial quote of the article:

[...] t’s nice that the IDF has “clarified” its doctoring of footage. But the new clip it has released that supposedly shows “the entire segment…in which the exchange took place and the comments were made” is highly suspect as well. Why? Because it contains an exchange with Huwaida Arraf that Arraf claims took place on an entirely different attempt to break the siege — Arraf has led previous aid boats to Gaza that were intercepted and hijacked by the IDF. Arraf told Ma’an News:

“I was by the radio the whole time there was any communication. Mine was the only boat in which I answered and not the captain and they all answered in a very professional manner.” Arraf told Ma’an that while she might have spoken of having permission from the Gaza Port Authority on a previous attempt to break the blockade, she is certain that she did not say it on Monday morning. ”When they radioed us, we were still 100 miles away,” she explained.

 

[aragorn]

More testimonies:

_http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=129190

Israelis threw 4 injured into the sea

Activist Idris Simsek, who was on board one of the six ships of the Freedom Flotilla during the Israeli attack, claims that four wounded activists were thrown into the sea.

The Israeli troops also put immense psychological pressure on the activists of the Freedom Flotilla, the Turkish daily Today's Zaman quoted Simsek as saying in an article published on Saturday.

Simsek said they expected some harassment from the Israeli forces but did not expect an armed attack.

He went on to say that he witnessed that the person who waived the white flag to surrender was shot by the Israeli troops.

Erol Demir, another activist who was on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, said there is film footage of the chaos and the carnage on the ship and stated that the footage will show the real face of the Israeli military to the entire world.

“They even shot those who surrendered. Many of our friends saw this. They told me that there were handcuffed people who were shot,” he added.

Hakan Albayrak, a journalist from the Turkish daily Yeni Safak who was also on the ship, said, “It was an outright massacre what Israel did out there. They attacked us in international waters… We had no weapons. I think we lost more people.”

The Israeli military attacked the Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea early on May 31, killing nine Turkish citizens on board the six ships and injuring about 50 other people.

The fate of three other Freedom Flotilla activists is still unknown.

Israel also arrested nearly 700 activists from 42 countries on board the ships of the Freedom Flotilla, which was attempting to break the siege of Gaza in order to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian assistance to the long-suffering people of the territory.

SG/HGL

I hope that this film footage can be rescued and distributed!

 

[Buddy]

Thanks for that latest info, Aragorn. Some of the difficulty I've been having lately involves, not only witnessing the casualties and brutality towards the Flotilla victims, but accepting that there can be such complete ignorance, absurdity and criminal intentions concerning those doctored audios and their 'explanations'. It boggles the mind.

 

[judyanderson12]

Thanks for that latest info, Aragorn. Some of the difficulty I've been having lately involves, not only witnessing the casualties and brutality towards the Flotilla victims, but accepting that there can be such complete ignorance, absurdity and criminal intentions concerning those doctored audios and their 'explanations'. It boggles the mind.

Bud, I (living in the United States) am so aware of the "numbness" of most Americans. If they watch MSM (and most of them do to "know" what's going on?), they are constantly bombarded with the misinformation and because of that constant bombardment, most are simply looking for ways to avoid and lessen the intense pain, emotionally and physically (converted from the emotions, I think). So I keep that in mind when attempting to understand the puzzle of peoples' reactions in order to not generate more anger and judgment in myself. Again, IGNORANCE. (by the way, I'm attempting to use the "quote" function??????)

 

[Buddy]

I understand what you're saying Jazper. You know, what boggles the most is to see the Israeli government and the IDF so deep into their illusions about themselves, that they can't imagine anyone NOT believing their 'side' of a bogus story, so they must keep hastily manufacturing lie after lie, to try and cover their tracks.

STS is not very creative, though, (as we can see with the hastily manufactured audio), so as long as we keep pulling their criminalities into the light, eventually they must go into such mad flip-flopping that they won't be able to find their way back into the deep (of their illusions), osit.