Stephen Lendman

Even America's major media can't duck a crime this grave - attacking and slaughtering up to 20 Gaza Freedom Flotilla activists and injuring dozens more.

New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined "At Least 10 Killed as Israel Intercepts Aid Flotilla, saying:

"The Israeli Navy raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning....The incident drew widespread international condemnation, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country's actions in several European countries....The killings also coincided with preparations for a planned visit to Washington on Tuesday (June 1) by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."

Late word is it's postponed.

The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times carried similar reports, trying, but hardly able to downplay a major crime.

The UK-based Stop the War Coalition called it "Yet another act of Israeli barbarism" in announcing an "emergency demonstration" at 2:00PM near the prime minister's Downing Street residence, saying spread the word and come.

In Gaza, thousands protested, expressing anger, outrage and sympathy, carrying banners condemning willful crimes, and calling for Arab solidarity. Similar demonstrations turned out in Amman, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Ankara, Istanbul, Beirut and other regional cities.

More »

Gilad Atzmon

"The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its ‘power of deterrence’ expands with the more dead it leaves behind."

As I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured. Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.

For days the Israeli government prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters. Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along. What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.

Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters. At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.

More »

Seyyed Mohieddin Sajedi

Israel cannot live without creating crises. Tel Aviv's strategy is to respond to a crisis by creating another one. This policy helps the Zionist regime to buy time by cashing in on the new crisis, and forget the previous one or seek to tackle it with the help of its allies.

Attacking the aid flotilla for Gaza is part of the same strategy. Israel knows well that if the boats make it into Gaza, the next convoys will be on the way, shattering Israel's hope of maintaining a full blockade on 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Killing is the first option considered by the Israeli regime and army to settle an issue. Israel is no stranger to murder, even before it was founded. Over 60 years on since the Zionist regime proclaimed its establishment, not even one day has passed without news of an individual or individuals being killed by Israeli forces.

The Israeli raid on the Gaza peace convoy is not justifiable, whatsoever. To justify the brutal attack, however, certain Western media and governments announced, as usual, that Israeli troops had opened fire in self-defense. This comes as the authority in charge of Israeli prisons had already said it was preparing to take peace activists into custody, just in case. Israeli official circles had even announced earlier that the Israeli regime itself would take charge of delivering the international aid supplies to Gaza, and that the boats crewed by peace activists had no right to enter Gaza port. To avoid any operational problems, Israel once again bombarded Gaza's already-demolished airport. Everything had been pre-planned for killing.

More »

Stephen Lendman

This writer's earlier article exposed how Israel restricted free expression protests to suppress opposition to its Gaza war. It covered efforts by the police, State Prosecutor's Office, General Security Services (GSS), the courts, and academic institutions to support arrests and imprisonments of Israeli Arabs and Jewish protestors, to keep nonviolent resistance from spreading.

See the complete article HERE.

A mid-April article stayed on the theme in discussing state persecution of Israeli journalists, Anat Kam and Uri Blau.

For the complete article, go HERE.

On April 28, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) covered more recent abuses by Israel's West Bank proxy, Fatah's General Intelligence Service (GIS) against Muhannad Salahat, a writer and human rights activist. Also, writer Walid al-Hodali's Preventive Security Service (PSS) arrest, confiscation of his personal computer, and refusal to return it after his release. These actions violate international human rights standards, the Palestinian Basic Law, and other relevant PA ones.

Salahat was arrested, prevented from traveling, and summoned to appear before GIS interrogators. He explained what happened as follows:

On March 28 at 10PM, he was arrested at the Jericho Palestinian Crossing and Search Center, interrogated several times, and not at first given reasons. He was then asked about his writings and documentary films for Al-Jazeera television - "crimes and grave errors that he committed against the Palestinian national project, represented by the Palestinian Authority."

During detention and interrogation, he was mistreated and forced to let GIS read his incoming emails. After release on April 12, GIS kept his laptop, camera, and external hard drive containing documentary film footage. They also required him to call "all his friends and ask them to end the media campaign that they had launched against the Palestinian Authority."

More »

Jeff Gates

The U.S.-Israeli relationship has long been America’s Achilles heel. Our first president warned against “entangled alliances” particularly when, as here, there’s a “passionate attachment.”

Our “special relationship” with this rogue state has placed the U.S. outside the same system of international law that we now seek to impose on others, including Iran.

Our handling of the current crisis on the Korean peninsula could restore our tattered reputation.

What’s the first issue that needs to be addressed?

Here’s where you the reader may well ask: “Do you mean the issue concerning the collapse of Building 7 of the World Trade Center?” No, but nor is that question irrelevant to this latest crisis.

Here’s the second issue that must be addressed: to which nations has Israel transferred nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology? Is North Korea on the list?

That issue became relevant with the release of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. Archival research by author Sasha Polakowsky-Suransky uncovered “top secret” minutes of a military agreement signed in April 1975 between Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and South Africa’s defense minister P.W. Botha.

Though Israel denies the conclusions reached by reporters for The Guardian (U.K.), the agreement suggests an offer of nuclear weapons while its Apartheid regime was under international sanctions.

More »