04-06-2010, 07:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-06-2010, 07:59 AM by Helen Reyes.)
Paul Rigby Wrote:Quote:The Mediterranean Massacre
Israel as the blond beast
by Justin Raimondo, June 02, 2010
Birthed by leftist Zionists who sought to build an egalitarian community in the midst of a desert, the modern state of Israel has taken on the characteristics of its neighbors – gone native, so to speak, both culturally and politically. The large scale infusion of North African and Asiatic populations has changed Israeli society irrevocably, so that, today, the rise of a thuggish fascist demagogue like Avigdor Lieberman, the former bouncer turned Foreign Minister, is all too believable.
Er, what? North Africans and Asiatics are innately, what, pro-fascist, uncivilized? Bollocks. Israel has marched remorselessly to the far-right because its US sponsors wanted it to.
Quote:what kind of mental processes allow a person to make such arguments?
Quite.
Contempt for Israel's butchery shouldn't blind us to grotesque nonsense like this from Raimondo.
Agree, but I think his point is basically that Israel is damaging that fragile thing known as civilisation, the rule of law, respect for human rights, on a global scale, witness the transfer of the use of torture from Israel to the United States in the last decade, right down to the level of technique.
I think the Palestinian MK has it right: this was a death-squad operation with a kill-list and orders to inflict maximum fatalities while not sinking the vessels outright. The cover stories are too visible: paint-gun lies, faked footage, "lynch mobs" etc. Israel had its own cover story for domestic consumption going into this, that the vessels carried terrorists associated with Hamas, Hezbollah, al Qaeda, insert name here. The initial arrests were supposed to be on the pretext of illegally entering Israel, then Israel would decide which prisoners to keep for terrorism charges, propaganda campaigns or ransom.
This plan was scrapped at the last minute.
Obviously some wires got crossed, the commandos were supposed to attack the peace campaigners within Gazan waters, which is not Israeli territorial waters, but Israel would pretend they were.
There is nothing legal about Israel murdering foreign nationals in international waters. Israeli internal discourse is trying to say when an "embargo" is in place it is legal to intercept violators on the high seas. This is a provisional agreement among groups of nations for dealing with specific situations, as I understand the scope of international law on the issue. Somali "pirates," for example: groups of nations agree it is legal to intercept suspected Somali pirate vessels in international waters within a defined space. Israeli has no international embargo against Gaza, they only had Egyptian complicity in sealing the Gaza ghetto, and they don't even have that now. On the contrary, the international community doesn't recognize Gaza's incorporation into Israel. The legal argument fails under any scrutiny, but the point is comfort Israelis, and not to defend Israel in the court of international opinion.
Netanyahu, Liebrman, Barak are open to indictments for war crimes, crimes against humanity and simple conspiracy to commit mass murder. I'm sure leaders in the IDF and Shin Bet are also indictable on same. If I understand it correctly, if even one EU country issues arrest warrants, they can be apprehended anywhere in the EU.
CIA agent Soetoro's wait-and-see attitude is interesting because I'm expecting the number of dead to grow once bodies dumped overboard are factored in. It's also interesting to remember that in Germany East German border guards were sentenced for firing on civilians trying to flee decades earlier. It is NOT legal to shoot people for violating international borders, no matter how much Israel would like to drag this standard of civilisation into the mud, too. Nor is it legal to shoot people in international waters, or in no-man's-lands or disputed territories. (Israel's policy of ghettoizing Gaza through long lists of prohibited imports is also illegal. Where did the Likkudniks get the idea of limiting Gazans' food supply to bare survival levels? Could it perhaps be the Third Reich's policy of limiting the food allowed per Jew in the ghettos under the pretext of wartime rationing?) CIA agent Soetoro's recent irruptions over the Arizona illegal immigrant check program, objections of violations of privacy or targeting minorities, look very odd in comparison to his silence over the deliberate, pre-planned targeting and murder of an American citizen and others on American and other vessels on the high seas. Perhaps his lack of US citizenship explains his reluctance to stand up for other American citizens.