Irish state broadcaster RTE is reporting that the “Strofades IV” - a boat hired by Ken O’Keefe and other sane and rational lovers of the international limelight to bring aid to Gaza - is steaming back to Greece from the Libyan port of Derna with the self-righteous ones as unwilling passengers. Why? Because the ship’s captain got tired of being given the run around instead of his agreed fee. Check this story out too for further amusing background.
I’m asking because, in his report to the scrupulously neutral and balanced UN Human Rights Council in September 2009, Judge Richard Goldstone and his fellow commissioners said: “Statements by Israeli political and military leaders prior to and during the military operations in Gaza indicate that the Israeli military conception of what was necessary in a war with Hamas viewed disproportionate destruction and creating the maximum disruption in the lives of many people as a legitimate means to achieve not only military but also political goals.”
Continue reading ‘Goldstone, Goldstone, Wherefore Are Thou, Goldstone?’
“World By Storm” is the pseudonym of one of the principal writers at The Cedar Lounge Revolution, an excellent Irish politics blog. In this entry he distracts himself from Ireland’s catastrophic economic situation by considering the Northern Ireland analogy. Unlike most people so tempted, he can’t be accused of ignorance of Irish politics and history.
When waged with appropriate means to achieve realistic ends, the answer is, “It’s a really effective means of imposing your will on the enemy”. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to senior Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar. He classifies those who continue to fire rockets at Israel as rebels and continues:
1. Imagine you came across an interview with Pope Benedict XVI in which one of the questions put to him concerned claims that he was a Roman Catholic and practiced the rituals of that church. What would you make of that?
There are human rights problems in many parts of the world and not everybody can take an interest in all of them. So you couldn’t, for example, reasonably criticize the Free Burma Campaign for not being concerned about the rights of indigenous people in Chile, that’s not what it’s for. However, if a group goes out of its way to spit in the face of one group of victims of human rights abuses in order, in its own view, to help members of a separate group with different problems then you can reasonably question its motives.
Continue reading ‘The “Irene”, Occupied Cyprus, Gaza and Good Jews’
I gave an interview to broadcaster RT based on my recent Huffington Post article, in which I argued that the Libyan regime’s decision to dispatch a ship to Gaza is the political equivalent of money laundering; instead of washing dirty notes, you wash a bloodstained reputation in the name of humanitarianism.
Instant universal condemnation of Israel, with no criticism of Hamas, after the flotilla clash with Israel’s navy, has not helped those who truly seek peace. Rather, the world has further emboldened Hamas in its rejectionist stance. “May 31 was and will be a turning point,” Haniyeh declared. “It marks the beginning of the delegitimization of the Zionist project in our country.” The Hamas leader, for sure, was not speaking only of Gaza.
A flavor of my op-ed for Fox News, which you can read in full here.
Haaretz is reporting that David Trimble is going to be one of the foreign observers participating in Israel’s inquiry into the Mavi Marmara affair.
… at least for the time being. That’s not the view of the hairier elements of the Israeli right, it’s the view of the Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is opposed to lifting the naval blockade of the Gaza Strip because this would bolster Hamas, according to what he told United States President Barack Obama during their meeting at the White House Wednesday. Egypt also supports this position.
The rest here
Watch this report from Richard Landes on PJTV. (You can’t embed their material so click on the link.)
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who lost authority over Gaza three years ago this month in the very bloody Hamas coup, is suddenly asserting responsibility for the 1.5 million Palestinians living there. His nemesis, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, already was way ahead in feeling the world love as European governments, in the wake of the May 31 flotilla clash, joined with the ranks of traditional Hamas backers in the Arab and Islamic worlds in calling for lifting the blockade of Gaza. President Obama, meeting with Abbas, put icing on the Hamas cake by calling the situation in Gaza “unsustainable.”
But let us look beyond the Mavi Marmara. Though Israelis and Palestinians get most of the limelight, much of the script is written elsewhere. The newest entrant in the larger drama is Turkey, where the flotilla was financed and put to sea. Ankara’s fierce response to the incident was a rallying cry to the region.Next to Iran, Nato member Turkey is now the biggest headache for the west. With Egypt sinking into torpor and Riyadh firmly ensconced on the fence between Washington and Tehran, Turkey has seen the leadership of the region up for grabs - and is going for it. It has drawn Syria into its orbit and has reached a nuclear deal with Iran, its rival for hegemony.
What better way to pursue this end than to lead a crusade against the Jewish state? Going after the “Little Satan” is the card that trumps them all, and it embarrasses the “Great Satan” to boot. The real game is about dominance at the expense of America, which US President Barack Obama has yet to grasp. Neither has Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Sailing into the Turkish trap was a blunder worthy of General Custer at Little Big Horn.
A provocative, brilliantly-argued piece by Josef Joffe from the Financial Times, which in publishing it has done something to mend its growing reputation for Robert Fiskesque editorials on the Middle East.
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The Guardian here makes great play of the fact that the autopsies carried out on those killed on the Mavi Marmara show that five of them received gunshot wounds to the head and one was shot between the eyes. The piece quotes a pro-Palestinian activist in the UK as accusing the Israeli commandos having had a “shoot-to-kill” policy.
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Linda Grant has a piece here in which she compares the Gaza flotilla with the Exodus. If I understand it correctly, its main point is that legality or justifiability of the conduct of Britain and Israel in each case is largely irrelevant, what really matters is the broader public perception of what occurred and the images on which that perception is based.
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