Israel Attack Humanitarian Ship, 10 men killed

[mylestheslasher]

Hedley - that last bit of the article you removed was bang on!

[give her dixie]

I dont think it was Hedley who removed it........

Anyhow, the latest on the Libyan boat is that it has changed course, and will now dock in Al Arish.
The Egyptians have agreed to unload and deliver the aid through the Rafah border.

This is good news, and lets hope all the aid gets in safely to Gaza in the next few days.

Egypt allows Libyan aid ship to dock in el-Arish



A Libyan aid ship originally headed to the blockaded Gaza Strip has requested and received permission to dock in Egypt instead, an Egyptian official said on Tuesday.



"Egypt has given permission to the Libyan ship to dock in el-Arish port instead of the port of Gaza," the official said, adding Egypt would allow the ship's medical cargo and passengers to pass into Gaza through the Rafah border. (Reuters)

[mylestheslasher]

I dont think it was Hedley who removed it........

Anyhow, the latest on the Libyan boat is that it has changed course, and will now dock in Al Arish.
The Egyptians have agreed to unload and deliver the aid through the Rafah border.

This is good news, and lets hope all the aid gets in safely to Gaza in the next few days.

Egypt allows Libyan aid ship to dock in el-Arish



A Libyan aid ship originally headed to the blockaded Gaza Strip has requested and received permission to dock in Egypt instead, an Egyptian official said on Tuesday.



"Egypt has given permission to the Libyan ship to dock in el-Arish port instead of the port of Gaza," the official said, adding Egypt would allow the ship's medical cargo and passengers to pass into Gaza through the Rafah border. (Reuters)

Oh has poor old Tyrone Own being reporting people to the mods again. Tell it like it is FFS.....

[Tyrones own]

Again....   Pray tell what possible reasons I of all people
on this board would have to report anyone
In fairness it was a fair yella bastard thing to post from behind
a keyboard but it is par for the course when they can get away with it!

[Hedley Lamarr]

Again....   Pray tell what possible reasons I of all people
on this board would have to report anyone
In fairness it was a fair yella b**tard thing to post from behind
a keyboard but it is par for the course when they can get away with it!

Pistols at dawn it is then

[give her dixie]

Latest on the Libyan ship sailing towards Gaza:


A Libyan Gaza-bound aid vessel stalled by Israeli navy has resumed its voyage as its organizers deny reports that the ship has shifted its course toward Egypt.

The Moldovan-flagged ship Amalthea carrying 2,000 tons of food aid and medicine to the long-besieged Gaza Strip briefly stopped moving on Wednesday as Israeli gunboats blocked its way.

An Egyptian official said the ship had been diverted to the Egyptian port of al-Arish amid Israeli threats to intercept any aid ship trying to break its years-long siege on Gaza.

"The ship has resumed its journey but the going is difficult," Yussef Sawan, head of the Tripoli-based Gaddafi Foundation, told AFP.

"Israeli naval boats are trying to block its course and divert it from the Gaza coast," he said, adding that the boat was "about three hours from Gaza."

Sawan earlier reported a malfunction in the vessel's engine but blamed the cargo ship's stop on the Israeli navy boats surrounding it.

"Eight Israeli warships are surrounding the Libyan aid ship for Gaza and preventing the continuation of its journey," he said, adding the warships were "threatening" the Amalthea which he said was still pushing it ways toward Gaza.

Sawan dismissed the Egyptian claim that the aid ship was due to arrive in al-Arish port. "The ship is still headed for Gaza and will not change course," he stressed

[seafoid]

Latest on the Libyan ship sailing towards Gaza:

Nice to see you back, give her Dixie. Nice to see more ships heading to Gaza too. The siege is unsustainable.
Here is a very good article on the Gaza situation written by an Israeli. 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jul/15/eyeless-gaza/?pagination=false


Can we make any sense of Israel's policy toward Gaza? I think we can—a rather sinister sense—but only if we look beyond the mass of sometimes conflicting details that have emerged since the attack on the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" on May 31. On the face of it, it's hard to understand how any government could have decided to do anything so obviously self-defeating. At the very least Israel has handed Hamas a major propaganda victory, one that should easily have been foreseen. On the other hand, there is surely something about the whole foolish, deadly episode that is emblematic of Israeli's current approach. Listen, first, to the public statements.
"Everything would have worked fine, but the passengers reacted inappropriately." Thus, a headline describing the reaction of the captain who led the Israeli naval commando team onto the Mavi Marmara—the Turkish ship that was attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza as part of the flotilla—and who was wounded in the ensuing struggle. (He was said to be speaking from his hospital bed.) He is certainly not alone in taking this view of the incident. In his first public statement after the debacle, Defense Minister Ehud Barak also blamed the activists on board the Turkish ship for what happened; he later added, in a striking non sequitur, that in the Middle East you cannot afford to show weakness, though that is precisely what the Israeli attack had demonstrated. Spokesmen for both the army and the government repeatedly said that the soldiers were in danger of being lynched—as if they were innocent victims of an ambush rather than, in effect, state-sponsored pirates attacking a convoy carrying humanitarian aid in international waters. The Israeli genius for "designer victimhood," to borrow a phrase from the Indian political philosopher Jyotirmaya Sharma, is capable of surprising flashes of ingenuity.


Within a week, the activists on the Mavi Marmara who resisted the attack had been upgraded in Israeli public discourse to terrorists—an amazingly capacious category that sometimes seems to include anyone who refuses to toe the government line. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had applied the term to the flotilla activists indiscriminately, even before the boats set sail. But it's important to emphasize that the violence by some of the activists on the Turkish boat against the Israeli commandos contradicts the basic tenets that the Israeli peace movement has embraced for many years. Those of us who work in the occupied Palestinian territories have been attacked many times, sometimes savagely, by Israeli settlers, and sometimes by soldiers and police; we do not meet violence with violence.
Such was not the case on the Mavi Marmara. Perhaps there were, indeed, hostile Islamic fundamentalists aboard the ship, as the government claims. But this is hardly the point. These boats were carrying medicines, wheelchairs, cement, and other badly needed items, not weapons. Despite the contorted rationalizations put forward by government spokesmen, including Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, the decision to mount a military attack on the flotilla is, to put it simply, indefensible on moral grounds. Moreover, aside from the moral considerations, which—contrary to popular opinion in Israel—are crucial to any meaningful reckoning, the long-term damage to Israel's interests, especially its strategic ties to Turkey, is apparent for all to see.
It's also worth noting that at the critical meeting of Cabinet ministers who made the decision, the Cabinet secretary, Zwi Hauser, advocated that the boats simply be allowed through—as indeed has happened several times before, notably with the first Free Gaza sea convoy in August 2008, with the well-known Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper aboard.1 Hauser's voice went unheeded; the ministers unanimously voted for the mission.2 The unanimity is impressive; it suggests to me that Israel is governed by people who are not merely incompetent but who are only tenuously in touch with the real world. Even more frightening is the thought that large parts of the electorate have by now been affected by this delusional state.
It's hardly a secret that the blockade of Gaza is ineffective. The lively trade through tunnels dug between Gaza and Sinai supplies whatever people can pay for, including missiles and other weapons for the Hamas government and the other militant groups. But not everyone can pay. The impoverished population of Gaza (approximately 1.5 million people crammed together in one of the densest concentrations on earth) suffers from severe shortages of some items—in particular, basic building materials such as glass and cement3:—and, of course, from the results of the vast destruction the Israeli army left behind after Operation Cast Lead in December 2008–January 2009.4 The blockade is meant to isolate and punish—and, in the most optimistic Israeli scenario, to bring down—the Hamas government, and possibly to "persuade" Hamas to release the kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit; its main effect, however, has been to isolate and punish the blockaders.

Why, then, maintain the siege? And why turn a harmless convoy of activists into an existential threat, as the prime minister and other government spokesmen have repeatedly done? No doubt there are considerations of prestige and "honor," in the common Middle Eastern sense of wounded, hence fanatical and ultimately self-destructive, pride. But I think the blindness goes much deeper than this. We are observing unmistakable signs of "multiple systems failure," the direct result, in my view, of four decades of occupation. The very nature and future of Israel's society and political system are at stake, and the danger of collapse into a repressive regime run by the secret security forces is very great. Many of us would say that the line was crossed long ago.
It is important to understand the depth of the change that Israel has undergone since the present government came to power in the spring of 2009. Netanyahu heads a government composed largely of settlers and their hard-core supporters on the right. Their policy toward Palestine and Palestinians rests upon two foundations: first, the prolongation, indeed, further entrenchment, of the occupation, with the primary aim of absorbing more and more Palestinian land into Israel—a process we see advancing literally hour by hour and day by day in the West Bank. Second, there is the attempt to control the Palestinian civilian population by forcing them into fenced-off and discontinuous enclaves. Gaza is the biggest and most volatile of the latter, and it is the only one, so far, to have put a Hamas government in power; but if the political situation in the West Bank continues to worsen, or if the deadlock continues, it is likely that Gaza will not be the last such place.
Maintaining the occupation is, of course, incompatible with making peace, and indeed it should be clear by now to all that the present Israeli leadership has no interest in resolving the conflict. Quite the contrary: the ongoing proximity talks with the Palestinian Authority are no more than a diversion. I know of no one in Israel who takes them seriously, least of all the Netanyahu government. Gaza itself provides another helpful distraction. The very idea of peace based on mutuality, compromise, and at least minimal respect for the dignity of the other side is anathema to the men and women in the Cabinet who are making the decisions.
There is another critical facet to the shift that has taken place. Under conditions of escalating nationalist hysteria, Israeli dissent is harshly dealt with. Ezra Nawi, one of the heroes of Israeli nonviolent resistance to the occupation, is now in jail. (He was convicted of assaulting a policeman while protesting the demolition of houses in South Hebron, although there is excellent evidence, including video footage, showing Ezra acting in the classic mode of Gandhian-style nonviolent resistance on that day.) The determined protestors against the evictions of Palestinians from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, in East Jerusalem, are constantly being arrested and rearrested (meanwhile, another two large Palestinian families there have received eviction notices); leaders of the Israeli Arab community, such as Knesset member Ahmad Tibi, have received death threats and are routinely harassed by the security forces.
The villages of Bil'in and Na'alin, where nonviolent protest against the route of the security fence was pioneered and has continued without interruption for over four years, are now a closed military zone, off limits to Israeli peace activists. More important still is the attempt to break the back of nonviolent grassroots protest in Palestine by arresting and sometimes prosecuting, on trumped-up charges, the leading activists in the villages to the south and west of Jerusalem; someone has clearly identified this mode of resistance as a serious threat to the occupation. At least some of the items on this list may be explained by the fact that internal security is now in the hands of the ultra-right party Yisrael Beitenu, which has given us Foreign Minister Lieberman (he also, of course, voted to attack the flotilla).
What happened on the open seas on May 31 was thus no technical mishap or simple operational failure, as many Israelis would like to believe; nor was it only a function of the obvious inability on the part of the decision-makers to distinguish illusory or trivial goals from genuine Israeli interests (turning back a convoy carrying wheelchairs was never one of the latter). Rather, it expresses in a profound way the narrow, mean-hearted vision of an atavistic nationalism coupled with a delight in the fantasy of unrestricted coercion.

By far the best solution to the problem of Hamas rule in Gaza would be to cut a deal with the moderate, responsible, and by now increasingly effective Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. Such an agreement, built on Israeli withdrawal to the Green Line and the evacuation of the settlements, would put an end to the overtly colonial enterprise on the West Bank, which is incompatible with basic democratic values and human rights. All careful studies show that a large majority of Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza would support such an agreement, which would in all probability undermine Hamas's attempts to retain power in Gaza or to expand its power to the West Bank.5 Instead, the Israeli right prefers to indulge in displays of impotent and self-righteous fury, as happened on the Mavi Marmara.
Israel's few remaining friends in the world clearly see that the blockade is counterproductive and must end. After his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas on June 9, President Obama suggested that the blockade should be lifted on everything except arms shipments. "The status quo that we have is...inherently unstable," he said. In one of his first statements as prime minister, David Cameron told the British Parliament, "Friends of Israel...should be saying to the Israelis that the blockade actually strengthens Hamas's grip on the economy and on Gaza and it's in their own interests to lift it and to allow these vital supplies to get through." But the Israeli government is no less clearly committed to continuing, thus compounding, its errors. Indeed, perhaps "errors" is too pale a word for the deep conceptual and spiritual malaise that shapes Israel's Palestinian policy today.
Time is running out, possibly has already run out, for a solution based on partition. Still, there are occasional flashes of something slightly new. On June 2, Moshe Arens, former minister of defense in three Likud governments and a prominent spokesman for the right (in my view, the extreme right), published a column in Haaretz arguing that an Israeli retreat from the West Bank and the evacuation of settlements are inconceivable; along with various figures on the left, such as Meron Benvenisti, the former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, he thinks that the so-called two-state solution is long dead, a chimera kept alive artificially by the leadership on both sides in order to paste over the disastrous reality on the ground. But Arens's surprising conclusion is that because the occupation is irreversible, the Palestinian population on the West Bank—some 1.5 million by his count, probably a little low—should be granted Israeli citizenship and integrated into the Israeli state. Note that Arens has intentionally left out the 1.5 million Palestinians languishing in Gaza.
There have also been recent reports of small groups of Israeli settlers in the territories who have come to the conclusion that the current situation cannot endure, and that new modes of coexistence are called for. There are, it appears, points where the far right and the far left of the Israeli spectrum might coincide; perhaps these are the points where change will begin. In the meantime, some ten thousand Israelis have demonstrated in Tel Aviv against the siege of Gaza, and the blockade continues in full force.
—June 16, 2010 

[mylestheslasher]

Again....   Pray tell what possible reasons I of all people
on this board would have to report anyone
In fairness it was a fair yella b**tard thing to post from behind
a keyboard but it is par for the course when they can get away with it!

Oh I recall on a previous thread some posts that were nasty in your direction were deleted thereafter - maybe your fairy god mother reported it.

I was wondering what you thought of that 80 something year old Holocaust survivor that was on-board one of the flotilla ships. Was she one of these merchants of hate you were talking about earlier. I heard on Fox news she was a muslim in a previous life and that she was packing an Uzi. Did you hear that too. Wasn't one of those nobel peace prize winning bastards on the ship too - trouble makers. Sure they should have been executed too. Evil anti semitic scum the lot of them I say.

[give her dixie]

Pink floyd Reunite For Palestine

Over the weekend, Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and Roger Waters reunited to perform four songs at an English benefit that raised money for young Palestinian refugees, marking the first time the two played in public since 2005's Live 8 concert.

Gilmour and Waters have had an acrimonious relationship since they first split up in the '80s, but the co-organizer of the benefit, Bella Freud, tells Rolling Stone that the two were in high spirits at the show, which suggests the two might have finally buried the hatchet. "David arrived first and then Roger came on and I saw Roger give David a hug," she says. "It was really lovely."

While the reunion was unannounced, there were plenty of preparations going into the event. Gilmour and Waters geared up for their short set by sound checking "To Know Him Is to Love Him," "Comfortably Numb" and "Wish You Were Here."

Gilmour and Waters were originally planning to play three songs. But one attendee, British financier Arpad Busson, was so taken with the performance, he donated £50,000 to get them to play "Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2." "Some other people were also saying they'd give £200,000 for them to play one more song," Freud adds. "People were crying — really! I know it sounds corny, but it was magic. David and Roger — they looked so happy up there and they made something so beautiful happen."

Also playing at the event was Tom Jones

[give her dixie]

The Irish Times - Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Trimble suspends link to Israel group during inquiry


FORMER ULSTER Unionist leader David Trimble has suspended his membership of a pro-Israel group led by former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar until he finishes an inquiry into the storming of ships bound for Gaza by Israeli soldiers.

Lord Trimble was appointed as one of two foreign observers to a five-strong panel set up by Israel to investigate the incident in late May, which saw the deaths of nine Turkish activists.

The Friends of Israel Initiative, led by Mr Aznar, urges western nations to give a better hearing to the country. It launched its campaign in the Palace of Westminster yesterday.

Conservative MP Robert Halfont said he had "been struck as a newly elected MP that whenever Israel is talked about, there is almost an orgy of criticism from so many MPs".

Lord Trimble's place on the inquiry team, Mr Halfont said, had been questioned by some MPs who asked how he "could be independent when he was a Friend of Israel . . . I tabled an amendment, saying, one, Lord Trimble had won the Nobel Peace Prize; two, he knew more about terrorism than anyone else; and, three, it was perfectly possible to be a Friend of Israel and a friend of peace," Mr Halfont told the crowded launch.

Mr Aznar said the former UUP leader had "frozen" his membership of the new body – which will be launched on Capitol Hill in Washington shortly – until the Gaza inquiry is completed.

Acknowledging that supporters of the group will be "automatically stigmatized as Zionist conspirators", Mr Aznar said it was important "that someone stands up and says, 'Enough is enough'.

"We are not Israelis, and most of us are non-Jews," he said, adding that Israel was being subjected to "a soft war" that threatened to undermine the international legitimacy of the state.

The country's enemies hoped Israel could "be isolated and turned into a pariah state . . . At that point, anything is possible. If Israel goes down, we all go down," Mr Aznar told the meeting.

[whiskeysteve]

Lord Trimble's place on the inquiry team, Mr Halfont said, had been questioned by some MPs who asked how he "could be independent when he was a Friend of Israel . . . I tabled an amendment, saying, one, Lord Trimble had won the Nobel Peace Prize; two, he knew more about terrorism than anyone else; and, three, it was perfectly possible to be a Friend of Israel and a friend of peace," Mr Halfont told the crowded launch.

Jesus Wept

[give her dixie]

Turkish group may re-send flotilla aid ships to bust Gaza siege

Head of group behind May aid flotilla says Israel, which impounded the vessels, painted and repaired bullet holes to 'hide all the proof.'

By Reuters


The group behind a flotilla of ships that sailed to Gaza in May despite an Israeli naval blockade and ended when Israeli forces stormed the ships and killed nine activists said on Saturday it may use the vessels for another run on the blockade.

The Mavi Marmara, aboard which Israel's deadly raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla resulted in the deaths of 9 Turkish activists, leaving Haifa on August 5, 2010


Israel released the three ships this week after sending the Turkish Foreign Ministry a message that said it expected Turkey to prevent the vessels, which arrived in the east Mediterranean port of Iskenderun earlier on Saturday, from attempting to reach Hamas-run Gaza again.

Huseyin Oruc, a board member at the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Aid (IHH), which owns the ships, told Reuters TV that if the blockade on Gaza continued, the boats may take part in another mission.

"If the problem is not solved, many flotillas ... will sail to Gaza. If necessary, these boats can also be used for this," Oruc said.

"We have purchased these three boats for Palestinian needs. If it is necessary, we can use easily use them. These boats are humanitarian boats," he added.

Before releasing the ships, Israel, which had impounded the vessels after the May 31 raid, had unsuccessfully sought a promise that they would not be sent to Gaza again.

The raid caused a deep rift in relations between Israel and Turkey, once its closest Muslim ally. Turkey demanded an apology, withdrew its ambassador and canceled joint military exercises with Israel.

Turkey also listed the return of the vessels as one of several conditions for normalizing relations.

The converted cruise liner Mavi Marmara, aboard which Israeli navy commandos clashed with Turkish activists and killed nine, and two cargo ships were accompanied by Turkish tugboats from Israel because their motors were not functioning.

The Mavi Marmara appeared to be freshly painted, though signs in Hebrew and Arabic script were still visible. Clothing and personal effects could be seen through the ship's windows, and what appeared to be a bullet hole near the captain's cabin was seen from the nearby shore.

Oruc said the boats had been painted to cover bullet holes and other evidence.

"Thousands of bullets hit the boat, and it was damaged everywhere. When they captured the boats, the Israelis hid all of this proof on the outside of the boat. They have been repaired and were painted," he said.

Local officials told reporters prosecutors would board the ships on Monday to investigate for evidence of what happened during the raid.

Israel has admitted to mistakes, but said its marines were justified in using lethal force because the Mavi Marmara's activists had attacked them with clubs, knives and guns.

It also has taken fence-mending measures, such as easing overland trade to Gaza and lifting a travel advisory to Turkey for Israeli tourists

[give her dixie]

Netanyahu to Gaza flotilla probe: IDF coordinated the deadly raid

PM tells Turkel Commission that he had put Defense Minister Barak in charge of the operation during his North American visit.
By Barak Ravid and Haaretz Service


On May 31, Israel Navy commandos boarded the six ships that made up the flotilla, which was primarily made up of activists from a Turkish organization, in an effort to prevent them from breaking through an Israeli marine blockade and reaching Gaza. The naval commandos who boarded the sixth ship - the Mavi Marmara - were met with violence and the nine were killed in the subsequent clashes.

The incident exacerbated tensions between Israel and Turkey, whose formerly friendly relations had been strained by a three-week Israel Defense Forces operation in the Gaza Strip in December 2008.

When asked by the head of the panel, retired chief justice Jacob Turkel, whether or not it was the IDF which decided the means by which to halt the flotilla, Netanyahu said, "Yes, that's standard procedure." He added that it is the role of politicians "to determine policy" while "it is up to the military to execute it."

"The IDF had always decided on the ways in which to enforce the blockade [on Gaza] and has done its job well," the prime minister said, saying that this was the "division of labor."


When asked by the commission how the decision on military action was received, Netanyahu said that that all of those involved "felt that the raid was a last resort, and the instructions were to conduct it with as little friction as possible."

"The IDF had looked into several options, as per my instructions, but also according to the instructions of the defense minister and the chief of staff," Netanyahu said.

When panel member Amos Horev's asked which options were considered, Netanyahu evaded the question, instead asking to discuss the matter behind closed doors.

When asked by former justice Turkel who Netanyahu had put in charge of the operation during his trip to the United States a few days prior to the flotilla's arrival, the PM named Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

"I want there to be one person," Netanyahu said, adding that Barak had been "that person, I had a very important meeting with [U.S. President Barack] Obama."

The prime minister also told the commission that the implications of a military operation was discussed during the May 26 meeting of senior cabinet members known as the Forum of Seven, but said that the discussion had centered more around the public relations fallout the operation might have.

"We didn't discuss the details of the operation, except for the media impact," Netanyahu said. He declined to answer several questions from panel members, saying he would only respond to them behind closed doors.

Regarding the information Israel had received prior to the flotilla's arrival, Netanyahu said that Israel had known that the convoy had been organized by the IHH, which was declared a terror organization more than a year prior by the defense minister.

According to the PM, It was obvious that the "flotilla organizers were interested with clashing with the IDF," adding that that was the information "that I had as well as that which every other member of the Forum of Seven had as well as any official who dealt with the matter."

Netanyahu's opening statement: Panel will find Israel had acted within the law

In opening remarks given prior to the panel's questioning, Netanyahu praised the mission set forth by the panel saying, "no country or army examines itself more thoroughly than Israel and the IDF."

He continued by reiterating what he saw as the importance of Israel's naval blockade of Gaza, saying that the measure was intended to stop shipments of arms from arriving at the Hamas-ruled Strip.

"Hamas has transformed the Gaza Strip into a terrorist enclave sponsored by Iran," Netanyahu said, describing the "thousands of rockets and missiles" Iran supplies as well as the "military training and funding" that Iran gives to Hamas.

Netanyahu said he hoped the panel would emphasize in its report Hamas's violations of international law: "inciting to genocide; systematically and intentionally firing on civilians; using civilians as human shields; and preventing visits by the Red Cross to kidnapped IDF soldier, Gilad Shalit."

Netanyahu added that the world was bent on considering the situation in Gaza as a humanitarian crisis, even though there had been photos published of Gaza market stalls filled "to the brim" with food. Food and medicine had all been allowed into Gaza, the Prime Minister noted.
"While we did prevent a humanitarian crisis, we did not succeed in preventing the image of a humanitarian crisis – an image that was entirely false," Netanyahu said.

The Karin A, a ship intercepted by Israel carrying Iranian weapons, was used as evidence by the Prime Minister to denote the danger of an "open sea lane to Gaza."

Netanyahu described efforts that the government made in the month before the flotilla left for Gaza.

"During the month of May, a continual diplomatic effort to this end was made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs vis-a-vis many countries, including countries whose citizens were on-board or whose harbors could be used by the flotilla at any stage of its voyage – including Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, Britain, the United Nations, and above all with Turkey," Netanyahu said.

Elaborating on the political contacts that were made, Netanyahu said that on May 14, his office contacted some of the "highest ranking" Turkish officials. The ensuing conversation was on preventing a violent confrontation, Netanyahu noted. He said that on May 27, four days before the raid, he personally appealed to a senior official in Egyptian government and requested that they work in conjunction with the government of Turkey.

"Nonetheless, it became clear that these political efforts would not stop the ship," Netanyahu said. "Given the lack of effective pressure by the Turkish government and the lack of any desire on the part of the flotilla organizers to redirect their ships to alternative ports, none of the diplomatic efforts were effective."

Netanyahu wrapped up his statement by saying the IDF soldiers had the right to defend themselves against the violent activists who, as seen in the videos released, attacked them with clubs, knives, and live weapons.


The Turkel comission's mandate

The panel investigating the  raid on a the Turkish Gaza flotilla was recently granted greater authority after Turkel told the government the committee could not do its job without expanded investigative powers.

Until the change in the committee's mandate, the panel was only supposed to determine whether Israel's efforts to stop the flotilla from reaching Gaza accorded with international law, and whether the soldiers' use of force was proportionate.

It had no power to subpoena witnesses and could not draw personal conclusions against those involved in the raid.

However, following Turkel's demand to turn the panel into a full-fledged governmental inquiry committee with real teeth, the committee was granted the power to subpoena witnesses and documents, warn those who testify before it that the panel's findings could harm them, and hire outside experts in relevant fields.

The committee does not, however, have the authority to subpoena IDF soldiers.

Soldiers and officers instead testified before the internal army probe into the raid's operational aspects that was headed by Maj. Gen. (res.) Giora Eiland, who is scheduled to present his findings to the Turkel Committee

[spuds]

peter canavan was name dropping the famous john huron tonight on setanta ireland 
mentioned the gazza gaa team and jerseys

[muppet]

http://www.mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html