Opinion Editorials, July 2011

 Israeli Freedom Flotilla II Terrorism

By Stephen Lendman

 Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, July 4, 2011

 
Daily, Israel keeps proving its lawless rogue credentials, notably by blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza. As a result, it finds new ways to show contempt for human rights, rule of law standards, civility, fundamental Judaic tenets, and its very legitimacy as a nation state, established by mass slaughter and displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their homeland.
 
Today, its war against humanity dirty tricks/state terrorism arsenal includes propaganda, intimidating lawsuits, pressure on other governments, sabotage, subversion, cold-blodded murder, and whatever else it takes to ruthlessly commit slow-motion genocide against nearly 1.7 million Gazans, besides daily crimes against others in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
 
No wonder growing numbers of fed up Jews are leaving,  voting with their feet, including studies showing half or more there actively consider it, and why not. 
 
Israel is an armed camp, a warrior state, a modern-day Sparta, institutionalizing militarism as a way of life. Young children are taught this ideology in school, including to hate, not respect non-Jews, especially Muslims as violent enemies and human rights activists supporting them.
 
Freedom Flotilla II participants are among them - vilified, sabotaged, delayed, and now blocked from departing by Greece's complicit rogue government, after agreeing to surrender its sovereignty to Western bankers despite mass street protests against it.
 
In fact, Greece's Washington embassy published an "Announcement on the Flotilla," accessed through the following link:
 
http://www.mfa.gr/www.mfa.gr/AuthoritiesAbroad/North+America/USA/EmbassyWashington/Articles/en-US/Announcement+on+the+Flotilla.htm
 
In part it says:
 
"Prohibition of the departure of ships with Greek and foreign flags from Greek ports to the maritime area of Gaza today." 
 
In other words, Gaza-bound ships in Greek ports are prohibited from sailing because Israel and Washington demand it - a clear international law violation.
 
Moreover, "all appropriate measures are taken for the implementation of the said decision....Furthermore, the broader maritime area of eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating in such campaign."
 
On July 1, the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) headlined, "Greek cabinet votes to stop Flotilla as US Boat to Gaza forced back to port," saying:
 
Its planned departure already delayed over a week, "the US Boat to Gaza decided Friday to challenge" Greece's government by leaving Athens without permission. However, before reaching international waters, Greek Coast Guard vessels forced it back to port and arrested its captain for leaving port without permission, disturbing sea traffic, and endangering the lives of his passengers. In other words, when no legitimate charges exist, rogue authorities invent them.
 
Moreover, Greek officials told Canadian boat participants that "the Office of the President has demanded the seizure of their boat." At the same time, Greece's cabinet voted to keep participating boats from leaving, succumbing to Washington and Israeli pressure to block them. 
 
Free Gaza Movement (FGM) founder Greta Berlin issued a statement, saying: "Israel is doing its very, very best to make sure we don't get out of port," stooping to any depth to do it with help from its Washington paymaster partner, equally contemptuous of human rights and rule of law standards.
 
In fact, Obama provides daily proof of his out-of-control lawlessness, showing perhaps he's America's worst ever president, a hard-earned distinction given challenging competition for top honors. 
 
Regularly, however, he's outdistancing the pack, including his rogue predecessor, multiplying his wars by three, continuing his criminal policies, and adding new ones of his own.
 
Possible US/Israeli Sabotage
 
Suspicions are that US Navy Seals and/or Israeli Syayetet 13 commandos sabotaged one boat for Greek, Norwegian and Swedish passengers by cutting off its propeller shaft, and disabled an Irish one altogether in Gocek, Turkey (MV Saoirse), forcing it to abandon its mission but not its determination to try again.
 
Why not despite Senator Mark Kirk's (R. IL) early June statement saying America should:
 
"should make available all necessary special operation and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk."
 
In a free democratic country, those remarks would minimally get him censured, vilified and disgraced. in fact, he should be banned from government service and prosecuted for supporting sabotage and harm to humanitarian passengers, punishing him for supporting crimes against humanity and perhaps war.
 
However, he's not alone. Besides Obama, Clinton and other administration rogues, as well as legions of them in Congress, Texas Gov. Rick Perry asked Attorney General Eric Holder to take legal steps to stop US participants and prosecute them if they refuse. Perry, in fact, is a right-wing extremist with presidential ambitions, hoping to do to America what he's done to Texas, governing it like George Bush.
 
IMEMC also headlined another July 1 article, "Free Flotilla activists: 'Gaza blockade has been extended to Greece,' " saying:
 
Two boats were sabotaged, one disabled, another forced back to port after sailing, and Greek police boarded the Canadian vessel (the Tahrir), blocking its departure, making Greece complicit in Israeli/Washington crimes against humanity, what their street brutality does daily against angry citizen activism. 
 
At first, "port authorities (tried) to take the Tahrir's official transit logs (required for sailing)." However, passengers balked, demanding an explanation why. "When authorities (got) photocopies," they lost interest in the originals. According to organizing committee member Irene McInnes:
 
"The government of Israel, shamefully with the tacit support of (Canada's) Harper government (a willing co-conspirator), is doing everything in its power to maintain the blockade. Yet we will persevere in our attempts," no matter what rogue governments do.
 
"We have a legal and moral obligation to challenge the blockade, given the failure of the international community to act," said committee member Dylan Penner. "This is why we must continue our attempts to sail to Gaza: to challenge the illegal and immoral blockade," and Canada's criminal support along with America's and Israel's.
 
They may win the battle. They've already lost the war, creating a worldwide cause celebre, shaming them for denying humanitarian justice. If Flotilla II vessels reach Gaza, it'll be a bonus, what criminal governments are too blind to see.
 
According to Reuters on July 1, Flotilla vessels will sail next week, "a spokeswoman said on Friday," adding:
 
"We want to move the boats by July 5 to get to our rendezvous point no later than July 6 or 7....We will go with what we have," hoping to defeat dirty tricks trying to stop them, including by suing to be allowed to sail. 
 
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials call the mission  "provocative." They lied, an Israeli specialty, disgracefully replicated by Washington, Canada, Greece, and other complicit governments, shooting themselves in the foot in the process.
 
In spite of determined efforts to stop them, activists hope to sail anyway. Perhaps Greece's Coast Guard will use "gunboat diplomacy" or worse to stop them, violating international law brazenly like rogue pirates, complicit with Israel and Washington ready to deploy commando killers against unarmed humanitarian activists.
 
US Boat/Audacity of Hope lead organizer Col. Ann Wright (a former State Department official who protested the Iraq war by resigning) said:
 
"We could see the handwriting on the wall, that they were going to try to shut down all the ports across the Mediterranean." As for Greece, she added: "It's not surprising (they) succumbed to the pressure," but lost what's left from its soul in the process, destroying its remaining credentials as democracy's birthplace.
 
After more a week blocked in Greek ports, every ship still can't sail, showing how far its government will violate international law for Israeli and Washington criminals.
 
On June 30, Netanyahu thanked Prime Minister Papandreou and other world leaders for acting "against the provocation flotilla." 
 
On July 1, IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich claimed Tarek Hamud, son-in-law of Khaled Mashal (Hamas' Damascus-based head) was a leading Flotilla organizer when, in fact, participants say they never heard of him.
 
Nonetheless, an agitprop Israeli press release said:
 
"According to Israeli military intelligence, the terrorist organization Hamas and several organizations behind the 2011 Gaza flotilla have similar funding sources. Three Islamic charity funds from the Hamas-affiliated Charity Coalition directly fund Hamas and some of the organizations connected to the 2011 Gaza flotilla."
 
With no corroborating evidence whatever, the statement is a bald faced lie, common Israeli/Washington fabrications to support their terror tactics. 
 
In fact, Hamas spokesman Izzat al-Risheq emphatically said Hamud "has nothing to do with the flotilla in any way. He is in his house right now in Damascus. This is a lie by the Israeli Army aimed at getting people to oppose this humane mission."
 
The Flotilla, of course, has nothing to do with Hamas. Like earlier missions and others to come, it's about breaching Gaza's siege as a first step to ending it and liberating Palestine altogether. Because of growing support worldwide, sooner or later it's coming.
 
A Final Comment
 
At the same time Israel suffocates Gazans and blocks vital humanitarian aid, Obama's war on terror lawlessness persecutes innocent Muslims at home, prosecuting them for crimes they never conceived or committed.
 
An earlier article discussed entrapping innocent Muslims, accessed through the following link:
 
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/06/entrapping-innocent-muslims.html
 
Another discussed the Newburgh 4, accessed through the link below:
 
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/08/no-letup-in-political-witch-hunts-under.html
 
Every case involves manufacturing homegrown threats to incite fear as justification to wage global wars against nonbelligerent countries, posing no threat to America or their neighbors.
 
On May 20, 2009, four New York men were bogusly charged with planning to bomb a Bronx synagogue and community center, as well as implausibly shoot down Air National Guard jets with stinger missiles. Prosecutions and convictions followed. 
 
Then on June 29, the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said three of the four got 25 year sentences even though there was no plot or crime. The fourth defendant will be sentenced later.
 
At issue was lawless entrapment, involving an FBI sting against unwitting victims - in this case, four poor black Newburgh, New York men who converted to Islam, two while in prison for unrelated minor offenses. 
 
A Pakistani man named Shahed Hussain (aka Malik) was a paid FBI informant, facing prison and/or deportation on dozens of fraud counts. In return for leniency, he was enlisted to cooperate and well paid for his efforts.
 
He's the same man used earlier for four separate stings, Yassin Aref among them, another innocent man, entrapped and victimized, now serving a 15 year prison term unjustly. 
 
In post-9/11 America, they're among many Muslim victims of police state justice. They've been targeted, persecuted, arrested, imprisoned, kept in isolation, denied bail, tried on secret evidence on trumped-up charges, convicted by juries too intimidated to acquit, and sentenced to long prison terms for being Muslims in America at the wrong time. 
 
Others were targeted for their environmental and/or animal rights activism. Washington calls them "ecoterrorists." It went on under Bush and now Obama. He's also waging six global wars simultaneously, as well as funding, arming and supporting Israeli terror against nonviolent Palestinian civilians for being Muslims, not Jews.
 
A web of lies and international complicity sustain this, harming millions of victims globally, including in America and Israel, paying for their governments' crimes.
 
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. 
 
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

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