Update - Haaretz: Netanyahu cancels Obama meeting in wake of deadly Gaza flotilla clashes
My sifting of the news so far: NYT says at least 10 dead, Al Jazeera says at least 19 (and tens of thousands protesting in Turkey). Unconfirmed reports from Haifa hospital say 25-26 dead. AJE is most informative.
And apparently even Israel does not deny that this was in international waters:
From Al Jazeera (the clearest account I have read yet):
"Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, confirmed that the attack took place in international waters, saying: "This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves."
Israel claims that the activists were armed but i) this seems extremely unlikely, and ii) if in international waters it would seem to be their right to have arms.
Alison Weir's site, If Americans Knew, has list of names of Americans who were on the ships, including one who was a survivor of the attack on the USS Liberty! Connections must be made to the USS Liberty, but this is even worse because these are civilians.
Key question: Obama cannot meet with Netanyahu after this - can he? Is he *that* desperate for AIPAC support of midterm elections that he will ignore this and be nice to Netanyahu?
In Boston there is a protest today at the Park street T stop at 4, perhaps others now being planned.
Meanwhile Rich Siegel translates Turkish television:
"We have spoken to several spokespersons from the governments of the people on board and all of them are showing their utmost digust". Back to studio: "Can you in Gaza tell us more about the situation on the ships?" No, only unconfirmed rumours and unconfirmed echos from the Israeli press claiming 15, 20 dead and 2 wounded Israeli soldiers. The people in Gaza are still waiting on the coast in a sea of Turkish and Palestinian flags.
Off camera: Israeli tv claims that there are 16 dead while a top negotiator for the Turkish government has called an emergency meeting, a Turkish navy bigwig was present. The risk of a military confrontation is not very likely between the two naval powers though. Al Jazeera is saying that there are still scuffles going on on the Mavi Marmara because there seems to be some resistance from the people on the lower decks who are being ordered on the top deck by the Israelis. There is serious resistance on the lower decks. Mass protests are awaited in Turkey. Some Turkish professor says that Israel has become a symbol for barbarity today ...
The statement from the White House was predictably teppid and faltulent. Talk of regret and waiting for the circumstances to be investigated blah blah blah.
Ombama, you’re a gutless jellyback.
Waiting to see which way the wind blows.
what a surprise. mid term elections are a coming, and just like Gaza, Barak knows who funds 50% of his phony liberal party.
He’s destined to be be a one-term President at this point, anyway. Not because of this, unfortunately, but because his relentless shilling for the big banks, the health care giants, and the oil industry.
Beyond words. Our prayers to the dead and injured.
20 dead according to Press TV:link to youtube.com
Sorry wrong link:
link to youtube.com
“This happened in waters outside of Israeli territory, but we have the right to defend ourselves.”
Continue to make Israel’s “right to defend” itself result in the massacres of peace activists, and see where that will get you.
Just like anti-semitone is invoked to silence criticism of Israel, so the constant assertions of Israeli “self-defense” as justification for cold-blooded murders is going to severely weaken the very foundation of Zionist apologia.
I never expected – did you? – an outrage on this scale. Words will no doubt fail us.
In the BBC’s language the ships are ‘aid ships’ which were ‘stormed’, definitely in international waters, by Israeli commandos, who ‘say that they came under attack with knives’ (I think I heard that correctly) and there are ‘at least 10 dead’.
Our Foreign Secretary, William Hague, has announced that ‘there is a clear need for Israel to act with restraint’, presumably using words cleared with and likely to be repeated by his American counterpart. It is said that Hague used the dreaded word ‘disproportionate’ once and was immediately threatened with withdrawal of campaign contributions – I’d be surprised if official UK calls for restraint did not fade out very quickly.
I suppose Obama’s reaction will be massively influenced by the need to secure donations for the mid-term elections, though when we look into his eyes when Netanyahu is around we might see, even through the masks of television, something other than affection.
But some of the barriers of ignorance and indifference that hide Israel’s true nature will be broken beyond repair. The only comfort I can take.
Will our ‘liberal’ Zionists wake up and smell the fascism?
They’ve already smelled it and they like it, like napalm in the morning.
Only they prefer the smell of WP. Napalm is so 70′s.
Well, so are supporters of Israel’s murderous policies.
True.
The charming commentators at ynet will say things like Turkey/Iran/Palestine/Hamas/Lebanon should try to challenge Israel, they will get crushed, we have the best, most highly-trained army in the world and better weaponry, let them start a war etc
And in the same threads, they wail about the terror of qassams and katushya rockets inflicted upon the Israelis.
Very intersting observation Frances.
Isre and the US share this psychosis, and they oscialte between “‘we are all powerful” and “we are in mortal danger and vulnerable”.
Israel like to posture about how tough they are, but as Gilad Atzimon pointed out, they haven”t actually won a war since 1967.
They would have lost in ’73 had Nixom not rushed arms supplies to them, they got their asses handed to them in Lebanon both times and picking on the Palestinians was simply gutless and cowardly bullying.
Israel wouldn’t last in any conventional war because they have no stomach for loss of life and forgotten to how fight armies with real wespons. The only reason they believe their own hype is that they know that the US is there to wipe their nose in teh event it gets bloodied.
I know! I just can’t understand it. On the one hand, you’re terribly proud of your “moral”, highly-trained, US-funded defense force consisting of teenagers armed to the teeth, acting out some video-game immersion fantasy. You brag and blow about how Israel is a super-power (in the vein of Moshe Dayan’s “mad dog”, I suppose it is). You keep jockeying for war with all the Arab states and trumpet the ’67 war endlessly. You carry on about how Israel is eternal and is a fact on the ground and here to stay etc
But on the other hand, you wail and weep about the existential threat to Israel, how no other nation faces such awful awful hostility, everybody hates the Jews, Hamas rockets, Hezbollah rockets, rocks being thrown at your soldiers (OMG, my heart bleeds for your incredibly well-armed trigger-happy nutjobs), and believe that peace activists, toys and chocolate are all Hamas puppets.
Is it possible to have both an inferiority and a superiority complex at the same time?
Sure. Israel is at one and the same time the only safe haven in the world for Jews and a nation surrounded by enemies lusting to slaughter the Jews.
“”Is it possible to have both an inferiority and a superiority complex at the same time?”
Yes it is apparently. Just look at our super power military complaining about home made IED’s in Iraq.
I’m really surprised by this. I wrote yesterday that except for sites like this, I expected this to be a non event, that is, Israel would peacefully seize the boats and direct them to an Israeli port. It is difficult for me to understand why Israel would do otherwise. The only explanation for this violence seems to me to be that the idea behind the obliteration of Gaza a year or so ago, that is, “let’s teach these people a lesson they’ll really remember,” is now the mind set of Israel. Any threat to it, even a peaceful one as the flotilla, will be met with severe force so that not only will these people realize their error but anyone who thinks of following up will be deterred from similar actions.
It is clear that when Rahm Emmanuel was in Israel recently and the flotilla was on its way toward it he discussed this with Netanyahu. This option had to be considered and the US response had to be known. Since Israel can expect no opposition from Congress, we should probably look for a resolution praising Israel’s actions, it only had to worry about Obama. But since Obama was begging Netanyahu to come to the US to be friends so that the American Jewish money will again flow into Democratic coffers I expect a tepid response, if any, from him.
History teaches us that Israel can do what it wants when it wants. It does not have to abide by the rules of other nations. As a nation that is under the belief it is constantly being attacked, it believes it has the right to do any forceful pre-emptive act it deems necessary. As History teaches, this too will soon blow over and things will fall back to normal except there will probably not be any future flotillas.
matt connolly, this is Iron Wall in action. Jabotinsky made Iron Wall a foundational doctrine of right-wing zionism; Bibi is his acolyte.
Prof Ian Lustick explains Iron Wall dcotrine, about 20 min. in
link to edmaysproductions.net
Note the timing.
Today is a holiday in the U.S. Everyone is at their cottage in a hammock, far away from 24/7 newsfeeds.
This was deliberate, in my view.
Consider: had the IDF waited until the ships crossed the international boundary, any confrontation would have likely coincided with NYahoo’s trip to Washington. Shades of Biden.
So instead they make a conscious decision to execute the operation in international waters on the calculation that this trangression will be easier to manage than any confrontation when the news cycle is running full-tilt and focussed on a meeting between the two leaders.
Note that Gaza followed the same pattern. Launched over the Christmas holidays (snooze) and stopped just in time for the inauguration.
That’s how cynical these people are.
Hasbara in its most physical, brutal form.
“‘Note that Gaza followed the same pattern. Launched over the Christmas holidays (snooze) and stopped just in time for the inauguration.”‘
More specifically, the precursor to Gaza, was launched on the day of the US Presidential elections.
>> More specifically, the precursor to Gaza, was launched on the day of the US Presidential elections.
Good point. You are referring to the raid that scuttled the ceasefire? The one Witty can’t remember? Buried in much bigger news.
An appreciation of the timing exposes motivations and strips Israel’s excuses of any credibility.
The cynicism is utterly breathtaking.
One more thought on the timing aspect. Note that Georgia, a country stuffed to the gills with Israeli advisors, attacked its “breakaway” provinces during the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics.
To these guys, waging war is like selling soap.
indeed. White House comments line is “closed for the holiday.”
call to White House switchboard was met with “White House is closed; comment line is closed.”
emails will accumulate and prolly be deleted en masse. In any event, by tomorrow morning, Bibi will already be in US. He should be denied entry.
They forget the bloggers.
There are now 4 diaries on the rec list at Daily Kos condemning the Israeli piracy. Even during Cast Lead, this didn’t happen.
Anyone else here note how this thread at Twitter got suppressed, apparently? I know next to nothing about the service, but there was a lot of noise about this. Thoughts, anyone?
BYahoo may stay home, but tomorrow in Congress we will see its members rise to acclaim a resolution that “Israel has the right to defend itself.”
Bet on it.
(look for Boxer & Grayson to make these statements.)
Waiting for Witty.
He disappeared, he claims for two weeks, we all hope forever. I think you can find his last comment on the really long thread with over 500 comments : Update, initial reports…
Here’s hoping the slimy collaborator stays in his spider hole for a long time to come.
Israel isn’t defending itself. It’s defending the illegal acquisition of Palestinian territory, has been since at least 1948. link to wp.me
Haaretz writes Netanyahu cancelled the meeting. Another foto-opportunity lost.
(AP) JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli prime minister’s office says he’s canceling White House visit to deal with Gaza crisis.
link to cbsnews.com
Netanyahu should be arrested right after stepping on US soil. For terrorism.
Netanyahu’s not heading into the US. He’s runing back home.
Not surprising. This could potentially mean war, after all.
Hard to imagine anything lending more validity to Richard Goldstone’s report than this. If after all the Israelis are willing to do this while when there ain’t no guns around other than their own and there obviously are camcorders a plenty a-runnin’ ….
Interesting also this instance’s made-in-Israel verbal game they play throwing out first this and then that language until they find some formulation they think is best when facing some issue: At first some Israeli spokesman said that that there was an attempt to “lynch” their heavily armed soldiers by these boat-people; now the latest I’ve seen is that they were “ambushed.”
So did Dick Witty slither away as soon as he heard his fellow ZioCultists go nutso on the activists ship?
Yep. Gone for two weeks, by which he means he’ll sit at home clutching his pearls while his polished turd of a state goes on a PR rampage trying to justify the murder of innocents. Then when the world is just jaded and sickened by the suffocating moral cowardice of superpower governments, he’ll show up again with some platitudinous bullshit about how the past is past, we must focus on the present and reconciliation etc.
Cliff,
Live and let live…
Great job B’Yahoo. Israel just earned itself an increasing group
of new critics of the increasingly fascist state. Dershowitz will have
his hands full this week.
Overnight I was wondering whether these 15 or so deaths could do what the 1500 in Gaza or 2000 or more in Lebanon couldn’t and awaken international action. I fear not.
Another thing I wondered is what this will mean for Turkey’s internal politics. If Erdogan tries to react strongly, will the military be emboldened? It has been chafing against him for years now. As the flotilla set sale, Israeli commentators tried to vilify Erdogan as an Islamist and that this flotilla was part of his attempts to Islamize the country!?
this interesting comment on another blog, responding to the assertion that Erdogan supported the flotilla because an election was coming up & Erdogan needed to ‘rally the troops.’
au contraire:
the party that’s behind the flotilla is Erdogan’s opposition party, thus, Erdogan is in a double bind. Wonder if Bibi is aware of that.
CNN also said that Israel boarded all 6 ships but only the Turkish ship put up resistance. Shall I believe that?
link to news.blogs.cnn.com
“If Israel could do this in full view of the world, imagine what they’ve done behind our backs…”
The Guardian, quoting El País, (at 4.22pm):
n’yu gave an interview on the CBC which was aired while the attack was taking place. I watched with the sound off. N’yu looked like everyone’s kindly uncle.
“..if in international waters it would seem to be their right to have arms”
Under a master at arms.
Commercial shipping use deterrents. Long-Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), water cannons, anti boarding devices.
Hiring mercenary companies is also fraught with legalities in respect to Merchant Shipping. Private vessels under contract to the military use armed, trained, military personnel.
Individuals still have the right to have small arms. But that is irrelevant — there is no credible evidence that the activists were armed at all, whereas we have video of IDF shock troops landing with guns blazing.
Individuals bearing arms on a vessel is ultimately governed by the vessel’s master and his decision is only relevant when in International waters.
Going on past record , anything Israel says when it comes to the I/P conflict should be examined very very closely. When justification is the motive, honesty isn’t.
Right. But nothing you’ve said changes things. (I suppose to be fair it clarifies things for people who aren’t aware of jurisdictional issues where they pertain to international waters, and for that your contribution is appreciated.)
When you say “vessel’s master,” you refer to the ship’s captain, right? I guess in all fairness I’m not a lawyer — I think I have a pretty good grasp of the legalities of the situation but I suppose I should make sure.
Someone is always ultimately responsible with a boat, just as we are with any form of conveyance on land.
In general terms, a ‘vessel’s master’ refers to whoever is in charge of a vessel, big or small where as ‘captain’ is a qualification. Their are various degrees of qualification required by owners and insurance companies, depending on the size/value/cargo/passenger.
Circa 2008 the infamous Blackwater were looking at ways of running mercenary units to service Merchant shipping because of the rise in piracy. Even they saw the problems there’d be in territorial waters and ports.