I guess that means they’re not Holocaust deniers, even if they are most definitely antisemites. Also, the warning to not to forget 9/11 would suggest that at least one flotillista acknowledges that Al Qaeda, and not some Mossad/CIA combination, carried out that outrage.
Update: Some commenters in this thread, led by an overexcited Max Blumenthal, are claiming this recording is fake, because the video is labeled “Mavi Marmara,” but you can hear the voice of a passenger who was on another ship. If you play the clip again, you’ll hear very clearly that the Navy is addressing another ship in the flotilla, the Defne Y, on an open channel.
Here’s an excerpt from an email I received from an IDF spokesperson: “It was an open channel, any of the boats could have come on it and said whatever they wanted. I was originally told that it was from the mavi marmara, but after having spoken to some people who were there there is no way to really know. In terms of the channels, we were trying speak with the defne y, but as with any boat when we request that they get on a channel, they can tell the other boats in the flotilla what channel we are on and then anyone can get on it. We should have clarified when we put up the short version that it was from different boats in the flotilla.”
And here is a longer excerpt of the Auschwitz exchange:
While I have no problem believing the veracity of the transmission, I am wondering how a challenge to its actuality will be answered; after all tapes are easy to manipulate.
J - these are “highlights” from an exchange that went on for hours. There will be those who will say this tape recording has been doctored, because they are predisposed to believe that.
“There will be those who will say this tape recording has been doctored, because they are predisposed to believe that.”
Probably, but I am not one of those. It’s important to present the evidence in such a way that skeptical but not anti-Israel people will be able to believe.
I don’t know what the answer is, since I am not a media expert, but perhaps releasing more of the tape and highlighting these phrases would help.
I’ve listened three times and damn if it doesn’t strike me as fake, contrary to all the videos I’ve been seeing released by the IDF. I think someone needs to take the time to put the entire thing on the Internet. Also, is it possible to identify the speakers as to anyone who was on board? I’m sorry, but that last one at the end just doesn’t even make sense other than as an effort to piss off American listeners.
Ben -
The burden of proof lies with those who created the video and in turn those who try to use it as evidence. Are you comfortable being associated with propagating ultimately baseless things like this?
Further, our heavily-armed, well-trained, combat veteran commandos give the IDF a bad name if they cannot squelch a group of people with kitchen knives, slingshots and sticks/poles, without using live rounds.
Your position is untenable.
-Avi
Lorri
“I think someone needs to take the time to put the entire thing on the Internet. Also, is it possible to identify the speakers as to anyone who was on board?”
That’s a great idea, Lorri.
Avi S. “Further, our heavily-armed, well-trained, combat veteran commandos give the IDF a bad name if they cannot squelch a group of people with kitchen knives, slingshots and sticks/poles, without using live rounds. Your position is untenable.”
This is ridiculous, Avi.
I am a veteran of the US armed forces and I can tell you that a soldier in the midst of a riotous crowd is in real danger of being killed. This is why soldiers and (police officers) come in force to squelch a violent crowd.
The IDF made a mistake and it was in assuming that the people on the ship were peaceful demonstrators and not jihadists looking for a confrontation and martyrdom.
The IDF soldiers acted as soldiers acted with more compassion that soldiers from many countries in a similar situation. Can you imagine how Turkish troops would have reacted to Kurdish demonstrators, peaceful or not, not to mention Armenians.
There is a lot of hypocrisy out there, when it comes to Jews.
I also don’t think that the audio tape is “propaganda,” Avi.
Proving its authenticity is another matter. I like Lorri’s suggestion, though.
http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/idf-releases-apparently-doctored-audio-press-reports-as-fact
There’s almost this kind of desperation to propagandize…I wonder why
As much as some people want to see the flotilla incident in the context of the Holocaust, it’s becoming painfully clear this audio was doctored:
http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/idf-releases-apparently-doctored-audio-press-reports-as-fact/
“As much as some people want to see the flotilla incident in the context of the Holocaust”
Max seems to miss the point that the context of the Holocaust was provided not by Israelis or Israel’s supporters but by people whose causes he champions (I include Linda Grant’s gratuitous analogy to Exodus 47 as being on the side of the Blumenthal, even though she claims to be a more even-handed observer). What this blog has done is simply report what the “peace activists” were saying.
I find it strange that a person of such education and intelligence as Max should fail to note this very simple fact. But then as noted above he is prone to excitability which may account for the momentary lapse in proper judgment…
Anyway, since he seems so heavily invested with the flotilla’s population and their righteous aims I wish he would offer an explanation as to how was the exhortation to “Go back to Auschwitz” is an appropriate response to the Israeli navy’s request.
Matt says: “There’s almost this kind of desperation to propagandize…I wonder why”
It’s hard to know if he means the pro Israel people or the anti-Israel people. However since he linked to a post on Max Blumenthal website in which Max says that the Israeli video is a fake I suppose that Matt is talking about the pro Israel side.
Now, Max Blumenthal offers no evidence that the tape was doctored he mere says that it “obviously was” as if what is obvious to Max were evidential.
Then Max Blumenthal posted above saying:
“As much as some people want to see the flotilla incident in the context of the Holocaust, it’s becoming painfully clear this audio was doctored”
Again he offered to evidence that it is “painfully clear this audio was doctored.”
What Max Blumenthal and people like him who support the Hamas regime in Gaza in the name of Human rights can’t explain is why supposed liberals would support the Fascist regime of Hamas which is pledged in its founding document to kill the Jews in “Palestine” and elsewhere.
It seems that each generation wants to repeat the “heroism” of previous generations by fighting against oppression, be it the international brigade fighting in Spain, or the movement against apartheid South Africa to name a just a few such endeavors.
However, these other movements didn’t make common cause with fascists as the so called “free Gaza movement” has. (If they really wanted to free Gaza they would be fighting Hamas and not Israel.) It’s as if the republican army had thrown in with Franco rather than with the government during the Spanish civil war.
Hamas is a part of the Muslim Brotherhood which has one of its goals the demonization of Jews. During the 30’s and 40’s it supported the Nazi regime and never changed its mind. They have also bequeathed this mind set all Islamicist movements from Iran to Western Europe. Read the letter that Van Gogh’s murderer a few years back affixed to the body of the murdered artists and you will get a good idea of the kind of antisemitic rants that are usual in these circles.
Hence it’s not unexpected that an pro Hamas captain of a Turkish vessel would tell a Jew “go back t Auschwitz.”
That an ignorant Max Blumenthal thinks it is tells us more about him and the people who frequent his blog (especially their ignorance about history and lack of knowledge of the Islamist movements) than it does about those who don’t automatically think that the tape was “doctored.”
ever heard of the “the Filipino Monkey”?
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/06/gaza.flotilla.recordings/index.html?hpt=T2
Avi, you are flogging a dead horse. You, Blumenthal and the others are incapable of admitting that there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that these antisemitic slurs were faked - or do you honestly believe that editing a tape to cut out squawks, signals and other unnecessary audio is the same thing?
It’s strange - you are defending people who want to kill you. I’m stumped on that one.
“It’s strange - you are defending people who want to kill you. I’m stumped on that one”…
O that’s what they want to do kill all Jews, so helping the people of Gaza is what just cover?
You really want to believe that tape hey Ben,why will that somehow make it less of a crime what the IDF did.
For god sake man they killed 9 unarmed people.
And for what the crime of bringing a few tons of much needed aid.
That’s it in a nut shell,they did not deserve to die.
Maybe its time to pull back to the 67 borders and let Palestinians be, surely 50 years of misery is enough.
In fact please explain to me why Israel will not accept the 67 borders, why Israel continues to build settlements on occupied lands ? That’s all I ask just answer those two questions.