Israel has attacked Gaza Flotilla (dead and wounded)

[Magda Hassan]

That could be interesting. A Turkish ship in international waters, and Turkey being a NATO member, attacked by Israel. Turkey declares war. NATO forced to go along as required under it own terms. Just can't see it happening some how.

[Magda Hassan]

1. Israel has just announced that it will prosecute the convoy members who "attacked" its soldiers #gaza #flotilla #fb about 5 hours ago via web

2. George Galloway says that Israel will prosecute the flotilla members for their attack on its soldiers. What for? Sleeping activist caused property damage to their live ammunition and bleed on uniforms as friendly Israeli's IDF personnel boarded boats to give early morning wake up call and greeting to ready for berthing in Gaza port?
   

[Paul Rigby]

Israeli commandos open fire after being attacked with axes & knives by Gaza flotilla "peace activists"

Pro-Israel site... l

Another pro-Israeli site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_...195997.stm

Puke-inducing commentary and interchange, but entirely typical of at least one participant, Jonathan Charles.

To think we have to pay for this stuff.

[Peter Presland]

That could be interesting. A Turkish ship in international waters, and Turkey being a NATO member, attacked by Israel. Turkey declares war. NATO forced to go along as required under it own terms. Just can't see it happening some how.

Well consider this from Israeli government mouthpiece Debka File then:

debkafile's military sources report Israeli concerns that Turkey may not confine itself to strong diplomatic retaliation for the Israel Navy's seizure Monday, May 31, of the Marmora, the Turkish vessel leading the flotilla for breaking the Gaza blockade and resort to military action along with the Iranian-backed Hizballah and Hamas. A statement from Ankara threatened "unprecedented and incalculable" reprisals, following which the Turkish chief of staff Gen. Ilker Basbug was recalled urgently to Ankara from a visit to Egypt. Greece has since halted its joint exercise with Israel in protest against the naval action.
debkafile reports from Ankara that the Turkish government is planning to continue pounding the Israeli blockade with more flotillas and have them escorted by Turkish warships and fighter jets. Israel merchant vessels moored outside Ashdod port have been instructed to sail into port and take shelter in case of missile attacks from the Gaza Strip against Ashdod and Ashkelon.
Monday morning, Israeli warplanes headed west over the Mediterranean in support of the still ongoing Israeli commando operation aboard the Turkish Marmora, the scene of violent clashes between Israeli troops and the 600 "peace activists," some of them armed. Ankara later reported 15 dead aboard the vessel.
Israeli army spokesman, Col. Avi Beneyahu, called the incident "an act of terror on the high seas." Far from being a humanitarian mission, the flotilla was sponsored personally by Turkish prime minister Recep Erdogan to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza and permit arms supplies and terrorist to reach the Strip unrestricted. It aimed at provoking a widely publicized international incident with fatalities and showing Israel using strong-arm tactics against unarmed peace-lovers.
Its leaders and the nations involved therefore refused to heed warnings that the vessels would be prevented from entering Gaza Port and rejected Israeli offers to ferry their aid cargo overland to the Gaza Strip. Population within missile range of Gaza advised to take shelter in secured areas.
An estimated 19 activists were killed battling with Israeli troops, and dozens injured. Official sources cite 10 fatalities,although by Monday afternoon, there were still no official confirmed figures. Ten Israeli soldiers were wounded, two critically. They were all ferried to Israeli hospitals by helicopter.
The pro-Hamas passengers were described as mobbing the Israeli commandos as they were dropped onto the Marmara's deck, using knives and iron bars to beat them and shooting with a sidearm snatched from a soldier and at least two other pistols recovered empty from two of the bodies.
Israeli security forces are preparing for the Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas to go back to shooting missiles and rockets against Israeli towns, in support of the seaborne attack on Israeli commandos. The police are also on special alert in and around Israeli Arab communities, after Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyah called them out on a general strike, and the Holy Places, especially in Jerusalem.
Egypt will face pressure to end its joint embargo on Gaza with Israel at the Arab League Council meeting urgently Tuesday, June 1. Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas demanded the session.
Demonstrations against Israel were staged in Syrian and Lebanese towns. Jordan hands stiff complaint to head of Israeli diplomatic mission in Amman.

Also, note the Orwellian inversion - delivered with a grave straight face no doubt:

Israeli army spokesman, Col. Avi Beneyahu, called the incident "an act of terror on the high seas."

You simply could not make this stuff up could you?

This could get dangerous quickly - and so of course it damned well should for Zionist Israel.

[Magda Hassan]

Apparently, the ships are being taken to Haifa by the IDF, not Ashdod, to avoid publicity.

[Magda Hassan]

Nice clear and strong piece by Lenin's Tomb. My bolding.

The reason for the slaughter of the Free Gaza activists posted by lenin

The Israeli government and media has been vilifying the Free Gaza movement in a rabid build-up for weeks, but who would have anticipated this bloody culmination? Who would have expected this act of high seas piracy? Israeli claims that they were fired at, or even attacked with "knives" and "other cold weapons" when they illegally boarded the flotilla, before going on to stalk the sleeping and the innocent can surely be dismissed as vulgar propaganda. From the people who gave us the fastest re-definition of the term 'civilian' of any belligerent state in recent history, such talk is emetic. The idea that there was a "fight", any kind of meaningful combat, between unarmed peace activists and trained killers is just absurd. But let's note a few things. For a start, it is Israel's official contention that there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, that their murderous blockade has no severe consequences for the people of Gaza, even at the same time as their official spokespersons speak of Gaza explicitly in the language of genocide. This after the Goldstone report and a mountain of evidence compiled by relief agencies and NGOs documenting the effects of Israel's blockade. It is, of course, absurd and despicable, but it should remind us what kind of state we're dealing with, what kind of logical somersaults it is capable of performing while maintaing perfect equanimity.

Now recall that for weeks the Israeli state has been declaring that the aid flotilla constitutes a violent attack on Israeli sovereignty, though Israel has no sovereign right to police the borders of Gaza. They claimed that the convoy was bringing assistance to terrorists, and warned that it was being funded by the Turkish Muslim Brotherhood. They claim that such aid vessels help keep Hamas in power and Gilad Shalit (who he?) locked up. They claim that the convoy, rather than the blockade itself, constitutes a violation of international law. Israel's ability to exhale falsehoods and absurdities seamlessly, poker-faced, and then to suddenly and without missing a beat alter its story when it becomes clear that not even its loyalist drones are gullible enough to believe it, is not unique but it has a unique pedigree. For the Israeli state is singular in its self-righteousness. This is built in to official doctrine and practise, entrenched in its forms of governmentality. It is always the victim, no matter what it's doing today - whether slaughtering refugees in Sabra and Shatilla, or murdering sleeping families in Dahiya, from Nakba to Cast Lead - it is always on the precipice of being exterminated by a new wave of Arab Nazis. Given this, any effort to undermine its 'defensive' actions is an attack not only on its expansive notions of sovereignty, but on the 'Jewish state'.

By the logic of Israel, any abridgment of its right to murder Palestinians constitutes an act of antisemitism, an existential attack on the Jewish people, whom they represent by proxy. Its job, then, is to do whatever it deems fit in discouraging and punishing said 'antisemites' while aggressively retailing whatever they do to an increasingly hostile world which, at any rate, they insist is driven by exterminationist antisemitism anyway. If the two ends - the violent preservation of Israeli supremacy in the Middle East, and the global PR - increasingly come into conflict, this is only because of a 'new antisemitism', not because of anything Israel actually does.

In other words, by the twisted logic of Zionism: Israel can impose a blockade on Gaza that systematically starves civilians, leaves them to die without medicine, destroys their sewage and power systems, leaves them utterly dependent on international aid delivery which it imposes the most grotesque restrictions on; then it can demonise and assault an aid flotilla intended to break the blockade, fire on the residents, murder people in their sleep, the better to deter anyone from attempting to violate its supremacy in Palestine again; then it can manufacture whatever story it requires to force a hostile world to accept its actions, muddy the waters, juggle narratives, befuddle and confuse people, following up one bit of legerdemain with yet another and another, etc; and it can do all this while remaining the perpetual victim (remember Sderot!), while doing nothing more than defending itself, defending its famed "right to exist", and by proxy the right of the Jewish people to exist. That, the logic of Zionism upon which the Israeli state is founded, alone explains the insane combination of thuggishness, deceit, secrecy and sanctimony that has always characterised Israel's conduct.

Meanwhile, the British government is rapidly moving to fulfil its promise to make it possible for Israeli war criminals to visit the UK without being disturbed by Inspector Knacker.

[Jan Klimkowski]

Turkish PM: Aid ship raid is Israeli state terrorism

Published: 05.31.10, 18:23 / Israel News

Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused Israel of state terrorism after Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza.

"This action, totally contrary to the principles of international law, is inhumane state terrorism. Nobody should think we will keep quiet in the face of this," Erdogan told reporters from Chile, where he was cutting short an official visit to Latin America to deal with the crisis. (Reuters)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,...26,00.html

Correct. But how far is Turkey prepared to go?

The geopolitical wildcard is Iran.

Presumably the Turkish PM could refuse to allow American, NATO and Israeli aircraft to use Turkish airspace in any attack on Iran, but the Israelis would probably fly directly across Iraqi airspace. Regardless of what the sovereign Iraqi government thinks.

The UN security council is meeting in emergency session later today, but America and Britain will likely veto any resolution condemning the Israeli slaughter of the peaceniks.

I also note that the Israeli spin doctors - military and political - keep on claiming their commandoes were about to be "lynched".

The word "lynch" has a very specific meaning. I've yet to see any evidence to support this repeated Israeli claim.

[Peter Lemkin]

Politically lynched....maybe....actually lynched....not a chance....:bebored: But Propaganda is all about the spin and lie to divert the viewers attention and thoughts from the facts...to the invented scenario....the magician's [or intelligence apparatchik's ] slight 'o hand and diversion of attention from the real acts to the phony ones.

[Keith Millea]

Motherfuckers

[Myra Bronstein]

That could be interesting. A Turkish ship in international waters, and Turkey being a NATO member, attacked by Israel. Turkey declares war. NATO forced to go along as required under it own terms. Just can't see it happening some how.

Daily Kos has a good thread on this scenario. Update added recently.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/5...-Doctrine.

"Israel's attack tests NATO Doctrine. [Update] NATO agrees

by 8ackgr0und N015e

Share this on Twitter - Israel's attack tests NATO Doctrine. [Update] NATO agrees

Sun May 30, 2010 at 10:37:32 PM PDT

Israel's attack on the MV Blue Mamara, a Turkish vessel, means they just attacked a member of NATO. According to the NATO Charter, Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

If you think there is wiggle room in that definition, you would be mistaken. Article 6 is explicit about where attacks will trigger responses. Vessels in the Mediterranean Sea are mentioned explicitly.

Article 6 (1)
For the purpose of Article 5, an armed attack on one or more of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack:

on the territory of any of the Parties in Europe or North America, on the Algerian Departments of France (2), on the territory of or on the Islands under the jurisdiction of any of the Parties in the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer;

on the forces, vessels, or aircraft of any of the Parties, when in or over these territories or any other area in Europe in which occupation forces of any of the Parties were stationed on the date when the Treaty entered into force or the Mediterranean Sea or the North Atlantic area north of the Tropic of Cancer.

(1) The definition of the territories to which Article 5 applies was revised by Article 2 of the Protocol to the North Atlantic Treaty on the accession of Greece and Turkey signed on 22 October 1951.

(2) On January 16, 1963, the North Atlantic Council noted that insofar as the former Algerian Departments of France were concerned, the relevant clauses of this Treaty had become inapplicable as from July 3, 1962.

If the former Soviet Union had attacked a NATO vessel in the Mediterranean, we know what would have happened. Of course, that never happened for obvious reasons. In fact, Article 5 was never invoked until the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. After 9/11, the US invoked Article 5 for the first time in the history of NATO. That's why NATO forces are still in Afghanistan.

Attacking vessels on the high seas is not the sort of thing people ignore. When the PLO boarded a vessel (the Achille Lauro) and took it over, killing one of the passengers (Leon Klinghoffer), the UN responded by redefining piracy. Nations cannot be guilty of piracy -- by definition. However, this certainly seems to be a criminal act at a minimum. Some might even consider it an act of war. The question now is whether an Israeli attack on the MV Blue Mamara, a Turkish vessel, and thus a vessel of a NATO member, in the Mediterranean Sea leads Turkey to invoke its rights under Article 5 of the NATO Treaty.

The US media is very slow to cover this early on, while Europe and even Ha'aretz is giving this front page coverage.

I wonder if Rahm is still in Israel? This certainly has the potential to develop into an ugly confrontation."

UPDATE This is no longer an academic discussion. According to the Economic Times:

NATO will hold emergency talks on Tuesday at Turkey's behest after the deadly Israeli raid on a flotilla of aid-carrying ships bound for Gaza