The Israeli Intelligence and Information Center has done a report on the flotilla raid raid saying that 7 out of 9 victims wanted to be martyrs. Big news in Israel.
About the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Center:
In March 2010 the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center released a voluminous refutation of the Goldstone Report.[i] It was based largely on “interrogations of terrorist operatives,” “reports from IDF forces,” “Israeli intelligence information,” and unverifiable and indecipherable photographic evidence. Despite ample evidence assembled by human rights organizations, the Israeli document denied that Gazans were suffering a humanitarian crisis before the Israeli attack (it blamed Hamas for the shortages that did arise);[ii] denied that the Israeli raid on Gaza on 4 November 2008 caused the breakdown of the ceasefire with Hamas;[iii] and denied that Israel used Palestinians as human shields.[iv]
It also falsely alleged that the Goldstone Report made “almost no mention of the brutal means of repression used by Hamas against its opponents”;[v] that the Report devoted “just three paragraphs” to Hamas’s “rocket and mortar fire during Operation Cast Lead” and downplayed Israeli civilian deaths;[vi] that the Report “absolved” Hamas “of all responsibility for war crimes”;[vii] that the Report gave “superficial” treatment to “the terrorists organizations’ use of civilians as human shields”;[viii] and that the Report relied on “the unreliable casualty statistics provided by Hamas.”[ix]
On more than one occasion the Israeli document tests the limits of chutzpah and credulity: it rebukes not Israel but Hamas for “unwillingness to cooperate with the [Goldstone] Mission,” and purports that “Hamas operatives would position innocent civilians near IDF tanks to prevent IDF soldiers from shooting at them.”[x] So, Hamas dragged Palestinian civilians to Israeli tank positions, ordered them to stay put, and then beat a retreat. Regrettably, the document never says if the civilians did stay put.
[i] Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Hamas and the Terrorist Threat from the Gaza Strip: The main findings of the Goldstone Report versus the factual findings (March 2010).
[ii] Ibid., p. 69.
[iii] Ibid., pp. IV, 8, 73, 80. Whereas a prior publication of the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center had reported that Hamas was “careful to maintain the ceasefire,” and sought to “enforce the terms of the arrangement on the other terrorist organizations”, in this document it is alleged that the ceasefire was “systematically and repeatedly violated by Hamas,” and Hamas “made no effective effort to impose the lull” on the other “terrorist organizations.” Still, its own graphs showed that just one rocket and one mortar were fired at Israel in October 2008 and it did concede that “the first five months of the lull were relatively quiet” (ibid., pp. 74, 79).
[iv] Ibid., p. IV.
[v] Ibid., pp. 3, 35 (cf. Goldstone Report, paras. 1345-72).
[vi] Ibid., pp. 95, 97 (cf. Goldstone Report, paras. 1604-6, 1610-36, 1647-74, 1682-91; the Report explicitly stated that “the impact on [Israeli] communities is greater than the numbers of fatalities and injuries actually sustained” (para. 1647)).
[vii] Ibid., pp. VIII, 57 (cf. Goldstone Report, paras. 1687-91). The document chastised the Goldstone Report for referring to “Palestinian armed groups” instead of explicitly implicating Hamas, but the Report reciprocally referred to “Israeli armed forces.”
[viii] Ibid., p. 120 (cf. Goldstone Report, paras. 475-98).
[ix] Ibid., pp. 315, 321-22 (cf. Goldstone Report, paras. 352-63). The document indulged the baseless speculation that Palestinian families seeking “financial compensation” might have reported deaths from “natural causes” as invasion-related (ibid., p. 322).
[x] Ibid., pp. 318, 196.
