Israel. The real reason for the attack

[Flavour]

Would Egypt (or rather, would the US let Egypt) let Iranian navy boats through the Suez canal?

 

[bingiman]

Israel will probably end up bombing Iran, as a proxy for the rest of the world.

probably

 

[bingiman]

or maybe

 

[Knotted]

You know damn well that your use of the term "conspiracy" is being used here simply as a smear. You wish to associate my argument with the kind of lunacy associated with 9/11 or Kennedy. The kind of argument that sees all and every discrepancy as evidence for an increasingly intricate and unprovable theory and pulls in all and every unrelated "fact" to construct a grand narrative". By using the term "conspiracy in this sense, you are being dishonest and I object to your use of the term.

Was there a cabinet level plan (conspiracy if you like) to kill protesters to further an agenda, yes I am saying there was. If you disagree then you are free to show how that can not be the case. You can't and you won't. Instead you are content to scream "lunacy" at me instead. You are free to do that too of course just as I am free to treat your "argument" with contempt.

I have given you several examples of the Israeli government engineering situations to further their own agenda. Why is it so incomprehensible that they engineered this one?

One thing I certainly don't believe is the idea that the IDF let some of it's elite commandos get beaten and captured by a bunch of civilians armed with sticks. The IDF have just been humiliated in front of the world. Consider that Israel's strategy is to be feared rather than loved. They had to compensate for the debacle in Lebanon 2006 by levelling Gaza. They need to world to understand that you don't mess with the IDF. Now the Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet, has shown pictures of captured commandos crying like little girls.

They expected the passengers to surrender before the might of the fearsome IDF. They miscalculated.

By the way it's interesting to note that Netanyahu has gone quite mental. His recent pronouncements allege that the combatants were some sort of mercenaries who boarded the ship after it left Turkey - apparently without anybody noticing. Why is he saying this? It doesn't mitigate the IDF actions morally or legally. Rather, it's a desperate attempt to restore the military reputation of the IDF.

 

[agricola]

Iran now offering to escort next convoy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/06/gaza-blockade-iran-aid-convoy

An utterly impractical offer which will be impossible for the Iranians to make good on.

Returning to the OP, the release of the IHH pictures does go a long way to support the theory that this part of the raid was a massive fuckup by the IDF, and must surely result in considerable political fallout in Israel - after all, we were told not so long ago that the raid was approved of by the cabinet. It is surely a conspiracy theory too far to suggest that they dropped those guys into the mob and risked numerous Shalits deliberately.

 

[tangentlama]

An utterly impractical offer which will be impossible for the Iranians to make good on.

Returning to the OP, the release of the IHH pictures does go a long way to support the theory that this part of the raid was a massive fuckup by the IDF, and must surely result in considerable political fallout in Israel - after all, we were told not so long ago that the raid was approved of by the cabinet. It is surely a conspiracy theory too far to suggest that they dropped those guys into the mob and risked numerous Shalits deliberately.

Agreed.

Gaza needs self-determination and an end to aid, not to be dependent constantly on others.
The extra aid Gazans need now is so they can get their infrastructure and businesses & industries working again.

 

[dylans]

An utterly impractical offer which will be impossible for the Iranians to make good on.

Returning to the OP, the release of the IHH pictures does go a long way to support the theory that this part of the raid was a massive fuckup by the IDF, and must surely result in considerable political fallout in Israel - after all, we were told not so long ago that the raid was approved of by the cabinet. It is surely a conspiracy theory too far to suggest that they dropped those guys into the mob and risked numerous Shalits deliberately.

They came in shooting and people defended themselves as best they could. Faced with commandos shooting at random they had little choice. All the witness reports say the commandos were shooting before they hit the deck. The autopsy indicates executions

Passengers grabbed Israeli guns to stop the killing.



something else has occurred to me which is worth speculating on. The israeli's claim they initially used paint ball guns remember?
Well we have seen lots of photos and some footage. We have seen lots of blood. Anyone see any paint?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Would Egypt (or rather, would the US let Egypt) let Iranian navy boats through the Suez canal?

Highly unlikely. Egypt and Israel have a pretty close trading relationship. Neither side would want to fuck that up.

 

[audiotech]

The autopsy indicates executions

Claim that:

Israel Had Assassination List.

A Turkish autopsy report shows the nine slain victims were shot a total of thirty times, many at close range. The Guardian newspaper reports five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/7/headlines#2

 

[dylans]

Report: Israel Had Assassination List

Passengers who were aboard the Mavi Marmara continue to provide new accounts of the Israeli assault. Some are now claiming they discovered a list of people the Israeli military intended to assassinate during their raid on the ship. The Independent of London reports passengers seized a booklet during their altercations with the Israeli forces who rappelled aboard. The passengers claim the booklet contained names and pictures of passengers the Israeli military intended to shoot dead.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/7/headlines#2

More details have emerged on the Obama administration’s expansion of covert military operations abroad. Last month, the New York Times reported the US has authorized a major expansion of clandestine military operations abroad that includes intelligence gathering for a possible attack on Iran

Can i say told you so, now?

 

[agricola]

They came in shooting and people defended themselves as best they could. Faced with commandos shooting at random they had little choice. All the witness reports say the commandos were shooting before they hit the deck. The autopsy indicates executions

Passengers grabbed Israeli guns to stop the killing.



something else has occurred to me which is worth speculating on. The israeli's claim they initially used paint ball guns remember?
Well we have seen lots of photos and some footage. We have seen lots of blood. Anyone see any paint?

I think you have it backwards, tbh.

The initial footage from the passengers and the newly released photos both seem to fairly clearly indicate that at least some of the first wave of IDF to board the Mavi Mamara were overwhelmed and captured, irrespective of whether they were armed with paintball guns and/or normal ones. Had they shot up the deck as they landed then we would have seen it (there is no shooting audible or visible on the first film footage, nor does anyone appear to be taking cover) and they probably would not have got into the situation that they clearly got into.

It is the second lot who boarded and started shooting people up, probably after being directed to do whatever it took to free the men captured in the first raid. Any assassinations / extra-judicial killings would probably have taken place after the "captives" had been recovered and the persons responsible for their capture identified, though personally I think its more likely that the IDF just shot anyone reasonably near to a downed Israeli.

 

[butchersapron]

Intelligence gathering is always going on. Right now even. So no, you can't.

 

[audiotech]

The other result of this attack is the growth of an Israeli nationalist fervour, that is becoming increasingly violent with the centre ground, ordinary Israeli's and this right-wing nationalist current coming together.

 

[dylans]

Intelligence gathering is always going on. Right now even. So no, you can't.

Yeah I know but still there is that nagging feeling at the back of my mind that "fuck I just may have got it right."

 

[elbows]

Yeah I know but still there is that nagging feeling at the back of my mind that "fuck I just may have got it right."

Well it will just have to stay there, nagging away, until the expected reality either emerges or it doesnt.

I certainly dont anticipate with any certainty a looming attack on Iran, but I am hedging my bets as it wouldnt shock me if it happened either.

 

[dylans]

Well it will just have to stay there, nagging away, until the expected reality either emerges or it doesnt.

I certainly dont anticipate with any certainty a looming attack on Iran, but I am hedging my bets as it wouldnt shock me if it happened either.

To be honest neither do I and neither did I posit an imminent attack. I suggested that the ground was being laid for conflict on Israeli terms. Isolation and an end to the irritating peace process allowing for increased settlement buildiing and expansion. Forcing Obama off the fence and firmly on side. A rightward shift in Israeli popular opinion. All these are indicated by events. And I have to say this, the evidence coming out from witnesses on the boats is more and more suggesting an Israeli plan to kill some of those on that ship. On this I am more convinced than ever that I was right

The future isn't readable in anything but a vague sense and there are too many variables that could alter any projection. I did however predict an attempt to provoke a conflict with Hezbollah and an upsurge in Palestinian based attacks. I think these are still very real possibilities in the near future. Iran is a terrifying possibility and on that I will be very grateful to be proved wrong.

 

[dylans]

Let's nail this "it was a fuck up" theory once and for all.

Mr Elshayyal, a reporter for the Arab channel al-Jazeera, was standing to one side of the ship and had a view of the front and back of the vessel when the fighting started. By his account, soldiers fired down on the protesters from the helicopters before an Israeli soldier had even set foot on the ship. A man next to him was shot through the top of his head, dying instantly

.

"What I saw were shots being fired from the helicopter above and moments later from below – from the ships," Mr Elshayyal said. "As far as I am concerned, it's a lie to say they only started shooting on deck.

At least two other eyewitnesses saw soldiers firing from above the ships before they landed on the Marmara's deck. It is possible that this is what prompted the fierce resistance to the soldiers when they dropped down

Below, the protesters rummaged through captured soldiers' belongings and claimed to unearth a document that they allege is a list of people Israel intended to assassinate. The booklet, written in Hebrew and in English, contained some photographs of passengers on the Marmara, including the leader of IHH, the Turkish charity that provided two of the ships, an 88-year-old priest and Ra'ad Salah, head of the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mr Elshayyal said.

But one thing is fast becoming clear – many of the dead were shot multiple times at point-blank range. One was a journalist taking photographs. "A man was shot ... between the eyebrows, which indicates that it was not an attack that took place from self-defence," Hassan Ghani, a passenger, said in an account posted on YouTube. "The soldier had time to set up the shot." Mattias Gardell, a Swedish activist, told the TT news bureau: "The Israelis committed premeditated murder ... Two people were killed by shots in the forehead, one was shot in the back of the head and one in the chest."

Perhaps I am wrong. There is one sure way of proving it one way or the other. That is for Israel to release the footage they have in their possession. The fact that they won't should only add to suspicions that they have something to hide.

Meanwhile, much of the video footage confiscated from Marmara passengers remains undisclosed, and Israel has sought to undermine some eyewitness accounts by alleging some of the passengers were terrorist sympathisers bent on martyrdom.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...he-truth-film-evidence-destroyed-1992517.html

 

[agricola]

Let's nail this "it was a fuck up" theory once and for all.

The important thing to note is that the first footage recieved of this was from the people aboard the Mavi Mamara which - vitally - has no evidence of the IDF shooting as they descended. Indeed, as I said the fact that there are plenty of people on deck in a mob and clearly not in cover strongly suggests that there was no shooting prior to the first guys roping in.

Nor does the large number of bullets fired / found in the bodies suggest that there were executions - it probably means that the IDF spared noone in order to get the men from the first assault back. As was stated before, this probably meant that anyone stood near a prone commando got shot.

Finally the question of hit-lists is almost certainly moot without some form of confirmation that they were death lists - as this forum surely must know by now, booklets or sheets of paper with names and pictures are often issued to police over here for major protests.

Meanwhile, its of course heartening to see Helen Thomas having her career ended for this outrageous piece of anti-semitic bile.*



* since this is a heated thread, please do not take that last sentence seriously

 

[dylans]

More evidence that the killings were planned.

The Foundation for Human Rights, Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), organizer of the aid flotilla attacked by Israel, presented new evidence on Friday that prove that Israeli intelligence services had chosen their targets prior to the assault.

Israeli Attack to Humanitarian Caravan Condenmed The IHH president, Bülent Yildirim, accused Israel of taking advantage of the attack against the ship to carry out selective killing of members of the international humanitarian aid group bringing food and medicine to Palestinians in blockaded Gaza.



In a press conference, Yildirim showed two photos in which appeared some plastic paper sheets with the names and pictures of activists who should have been supposedly found in the attack and be killed by the Israeli troops.

"All the Israeli soldiers had a list in their hands with the names of the 16 people who needed to be killed; I was the first and Rahid Salah (leader of Islamic Movement in Israel) was the third in that list. They killed two people looking like me and another looking like Salah," noted Yildirim.

The leader also explained that some activists knew Hebrew and could hear Israeli soldiers repeatedly saying through their walkie talkies: "we have killed Rahid Salah."

The names in the list also include IHH member Ahmet Emin Dag; Hylarion Capycci, Israeli mosque catholic bishop; as well as European citizens members of the Free Gaza movement.

There were Israeli pacifists on board the Turkish ship, including an MP who later expelt from Tel Aviv’s Parliament for supporting the aid flotilla.

http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=194586&Itemid=1


And more evidence here.

Did Israel deliberately murder civilians aboard Freedom Flotilla?

http://palsolidarity.org/2010/06/12665/

 

[agricola]

More evidence that the killings were planned.

Not really - was any of the sixteen people on the list killed?

 

[dylans]

Not really - was any of the sixteen people on the list killed?

I'm not sure but the fact is as they make their voices heard, more and more witnesses are claiming that the IDF came in firing.

It really is fucking outrageous that there is to be no international investigation on the killing of foreign nationals on the high seas and that Israel are not compelled to hand over the footage they stole. Because then we could end this speculation and establish facts. The very fact that Israel refuse both should be seen as evidence that they have something to hide and are afraid of the truth

 

[agricola]

It really is fucking outrageous that there is to be no international investigation on the killing of foreign nationals on the high seas and that Israel are not compelled to hand over the footage they stole. Because then we could end this speculation and establish facts. The very fact that Israel refuse both should be seen as evidence that they have something to hide and are afraid of the truth

Indeed, and it is worth again pointing out that international law is crystal clear on this - the investigation of (and jurisdiction under which indictments would be brought) incidents on ships in the high seas is the responsibility of the nation under which the vessel is flagged, in this case either Turkey or the Comoros Islands (having heard both as being the flag nation in the case of the Mavi Mamara - and if it is the Comoros then its probably better that either Turkey conduct it (since it was a Turkish boat in all but flag, most of the passengers and all of the victims were Turks) or an international enquiry takes place).

The Israelis have absolutely no legal basis to insist that they have first (and indeed sole) dibs on conducting the investigation into what went on. They can conduct their own investigation, of course - but that shouldnt replace the investigation that should take place into what transpired.

 

[little_legs]

Meanwhile, its of course heartening to see Helen Thomas having her career ended for this outrageous piece of anti-semitic bile.*



* since this is a heated thread, please do not take that last sentence seriously

'offensive and reprehensible', ha?

shit. when they made her, they broke them all. while i can't blame the obama administration for trying to distance themselves from her, it's a shame she is retiring.

if she'd left during the bush years, i would not give a toss, but she is having to go when no one dares to question the obama administration on the handling of the israel situation domestically. the woman is the white house institution. a few days ago she was the white house press guy robert gibbs about the handling of the events and the aid to israel and he was kind of hopeless.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

I also came across the Helen Thomas story today never having heard of her before. is the same video clip shown in the context of a Fox News broadcast. It helps to show the dominant American media attitude to anyone opposing Israel.

If you go to the Youtube link I provided you will see that there are also a lot of other videos about this story and some of Thomas's older videos where she has a go at Bush about American support for Israeli military acts. Strange then that she was not required to resign during the reign of the Republicans while she took the same line as now, but under Obama the Democrat her newspaper sacked her.

 

[Spion]

'offensive and reprehensible', ha?

Indeed. And yet it's a fairly standard piece of the zionist narrative that Palestinians should go and live in other arab countries

 

[laptop]

Indeed. And yet it's a fairly standard piece of the zionist narrative that Palestinians should go and live in other arab countries

It's the bog-standard Zionist narrative that there's no such thing as a Palestinian - just "Arabs". Who should, indeed, just move over a bit.

 

[dylans]

Yet more evidence from Witnesses that the Israeli's fired before landing on the deck

Witness statement by Jamal Elshayyal, a reporter from Al Jazeera who was aboard the Mavi Marmara.

Interview here
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/reporter-disputes-israeli-account-of-raid/

In his account of the start of the raid, which left nine activists dead and has sparked calls for an independent investigation, Mr. Elshayyal insisted that the Israelis had fired live ammunition at the ship from the air before commandos landed on the boat and said that he had seen someone shot and killed by a bullet that hit the top of his head. He said, in part:

As soon as this attack started, I was on the top deck and within just a few minutes there were live shots being fired from above the ship, from above, from where the helicopters were. [...]

The first shots that were fired were either some sort of sound grenades, there was some tear gas that was fired as well as rubber-coated bullets. They were fired initially and the live bullets came roughly about five minutes after that

.

It was evident there was definitely fire from the air, because one of the people who was killed was clearly shot from above — he was shot, the bullet targeted him at the top of his head. There was also fire coming from the sea as well. Most of the fire initially from the sea was tear gas canisters, sound grenades, but then it became live fire. After I finished filing that last report and I was going down below deck one of the passengers who was on the side of the deck holding a water hose — trying to hose off, if you will, the advancing Israeli navy — was shot in his arm by soldiers in the boats below. [...]

There is no doubt from what I saw that live ammunition was fired before any Israeli soldier was on deck. What I saw, the sequence of events that took place, there was a pool camera, so reporters took it in turns to file, so after I had done my first file, I turned around to see what was going on and there were several shots fired. In fact, one of the helicopters at the front of the ship, you could almost see the soldiers pointing their guns down through some sort of hole or compartment at the bottom side of the helicopter and firing almost indiscriminately without even looking where they were firing. And those bullets were definitely live bullets.

Another Witness report

Kevin Ovenden of Britain, an activist on the ship that arrived in İstanbul on Thursday, also said a man who had pointed a camera at the soldiers was shot directly through the forehead with live ammunition, with the exit wound blowing away back of his skull.

 

[butchersapron]

The two people from bristol who came home yesterday have both said clearly and repeatedly they were fired upon before being boarded.

 

[kyser_soze]

TBH, does any of this really matter? For those who already loath and despise zionism, this is just another example of how the Israeli government sticks a finger up at the world and how little it cares for world opinion. To the apologists it's a justified action in an ongoing war.

Does whether it was planned or not make any real difference to anything? Will it result in those who ordered the assault being bought up on charges? Will it add anything to anything regarding a long term solution?

Isreal once again proves that it's governed by a bunch of bastards. This is not news.

 

[dylans]

Of course it matters. If this was planned.It means the Israeli government didn't merely fuck up. It means the Israeli government sat down and drew up plans to deliberately kill citizens of foreign nations in international waters. To attack a ship sailing under a foreign flag and kill citizens of a NATO member state. In effect it was an act of war

It also begs the question I posed in the OP, why?

And it indicates a much wider strategic plan and one that suggests this is the first act in a deliberately engineered drama that is still unfolding.