FREE AHED TAMIMI. Israeli occupation authorities have arrested 16-yr-old Ahed and her mother, for posting a video of Ahed slapping an IDF soldier deployed outside the Tamimi home in the Occupied Territories. That act of defiance was apparently too much.
Tag: IDF
Why IDF soldiers don’t wear swastikas
The racist religion of the IDF soldiers
Copycatting the racist Christian soldiers of Nazi Germany in the past and the Far Right Christians in the US military of the present, the so-called Israeli Defense Forces sing and dance religious songs as they murder others of another race and culture. From the Israeli press comes this scene of Jewish racism and religious hatred in action... Video: Soldiers Keep Up the Spirit, Sing: We Rely on God
Do the 2012 London Olympics need extra security forces to protect Israeli athletes or to arrest them?
Organizers are worried about inadequate security for the Olympic Games set to begin next month in London. What security threat are they anticipating exactly? It's true the Olympics have become a bullseye for globalization critics. More and more, both athletes and groupies represent the jet set. But other than past indigenous protests in the Commonwealth territories, which amounted to no more than nonviolent blockades, what does the UK need paramilitary forces to defend against this time? Another 1972 Munich massacre? At the summer Olympics in Munich, the Israeli wrestling team was murdered by PLO terrorists called the "Black September Brigade", but the official narrative leaves off that the Israeli athletes were targeted because they were IDF soldiers who'd participated in the counter-insurgent near-complete rout of the PLO, known as Black September. So that raises an interesting question. Is London expecting to host Israeli athletes who were veterans of Operation Cast Lead or the attack on the Mavi Marmara, whose assassinations someone might want to avenge? British authorities could address that most handily with preemption, because this time the IDF campaign against Gaza was widely regarded to have violated international law. Warn Team Israel that any such veteran setting foot in England would face prosecution for war crimes. While London is at it, issue the same warning to Team USA. Yeah, and Team UK, and Team Germany, et cetera, for Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria. It's become the 2012 NATO War Criminals Olympics, gone professional, no amateur status terrorists need apply.
US Military established American caste system for workers applies for Israeli soldiers, too!
If you participate in the Pentagon imperialist military in the US, you get 10% off, special loans on houses and cars, a military pension, health care for all soldiers and their families, univeristy grants, preferential hiring privileges, and a get out of jail card free card or two in many cases, also. The list goes on and it is all designed to create a caste system inside the US working class. But did you know that you get privileged in the US if you have been a soldier in the Israeli military... no Palestinian need apply? That's right, you can get benefits courtesy of US institutions, even if the military you participated in was the Israeli Apartheid enforcing military! Served in the IDF? US universities want you! As US MBA convention gets ready to open in Tel Aviv, experts say former IDF soldiers have clear advantage when applying to American programs
Solo Gaza relief ship Dignite Al Karama presses on for the dignity of Palestine
Not only have nation states refused to sanction humanitarian relief missions to illegally besieged Gaza, events this week prove they are unanimous in prohibiting even citizens doing it themselves. Yet, one brave vessel has eluded sabotage, lawsuit, bureaucracy, and Greece's Coast Guard paramilitaries. French Freedom Flotilla II participant DIGNITE AL KARAMA presses on alone to break the siege of Gaza. Without media escort, television cameras or witnesses, the crew of eleven, joined by print reporter Quentin Girard, will have only their cellphones to apprise the world audience of their progress against the bellicose reception which Israel has promised awaits any transgressors of its 63 year occupation and subjugation of Palestine, including its open-air prison called Gaza. UPDATES: Dignite incercepted by Greek Coast Guard while refueling in Ormos Kouremenos, Crete. Taken under escort to Xinthya, where it's promised they will be able to leave in the morning. Translation of French article below. Flotilla for Gaza: The "Dignity" intercepted by Greek coast guard. For two hours, late Wednesday afternoon, the "Dignity" is moored at Ormos Kouremenos, a small port in the far east of Crete. It needs to replenish fuel one last time before sailing to Gaza. Suddenly, as it has already replentished 1,000 liters and is awaiting a second delivery, a gunboat of the Greek coast guard emerges. The passengers immediately understand. In this small bay where there are only fishing boats made of wood, they know it is there for them. The gunboat approaches, also an unmarked car. The Coast Guard ask politely for our papers. Thus began a two-hour discussion and document control board where everything is carefully checked. Activists trample board. "It's too bad", everyone is thinking. This was the last step before the big crossing. A dozen men in uniform, very polite, surround the Dignity. The phone calls multiply, presumably to refer to a distant authority. The Coast Guard require passports, they carefully register the names. They don't find much wrong with the boat. The captain didn't have a logbook and the marina's entry fee, 30 euros, hadn't yet been tendered. Except that in this small fishing harbor, there was no place to declare one's arrival. We must wait. Passengers prepare to eat, the menu that night, chicken pasta, coppa and lentils. "We're Very Sorry" Eventually the Coast Guard announced that we must follow them to another port to sign authorizations and that the "Dignity" will be able to leave the next morning. It's 10PM. In the meantime they keep the boat's papers to make photocopies. They ensure that there is no problem. One of them apologized repeatedly: "Sorry." Omeyya Seddik, one of the passengers replied, "You're doing your jobs, that's normal." The "Dignity" is off again into the night toward the port of Xinthya, escorted by the Coast Guard boat which heads off without delay. Too fast. Many times it seems to disappear into the night as if really she doesn't want to be followed. The passengers do not know how to react. What to do? Keep a slim hope? Or immediately broadcast our circumstances and risk making
IDF’s Anarchist Bible, Old Testament: sulfur as a weapon, mind you it stinks
FOR HOW-TO FANS: Israel's IDF says sulfur can be poured unto its soldiers to immobilize them, even used "to light them up like human torches" supposedly. Uh, sounds promising. References please? The Old Testament of course! Literally the proverbial fire and brimstone, I kid you not. The IDF is publicizing the biblical war making technology because it is accusing the Gaza Flotilla II activists of harboring this plan. The drawback, Israel disingenuously omits --because hey, who needs to explain the obvious-- a would-be victim can smell this attack coming. The smell of sulfur is inescapable, you wouldn't even have time to blame it on the police search dogs.
Press intimidation, frivolous lawfare, and sabotage, it’s hasbarapocalypse
You're looking at an underwater photo of the starboard propeller of the passenger ship "Juliano" berthed in Piraeus, Greece, waiting to sail with the "Stay Human" Freedom Flotilla II departing soon to break the siege of Gaza. Reports of sabotage babelfished, even as some flotilla participants quickly issued a retraction. As diver video documented, someone assailed the propeller shaft casing, luckily repairable, but Greek authorities could seize on the incident to delay the activists with an investigation, or insist on further inspections, using anticipation of sabotage to delay or forbid the voyage. Whodunnit? Sooner than point the finger at whoever took the intelligence contract, better to focus on the flotilla's irrepressible forward momentum. Notice how the Hasbara themes want to presage the relief effort's dwindling relevance? Sabotage would grant Israel too easy success. You can't kill activism but in the shadows. Fortunately the flotilla vessels are arrayed at various Mediterranean ports, and the identities are being kept secret, much as the internet chorus would like to track them by satellite. So far the flotilla organizer strategies have been impeccable. Media reports of nonviolence classes counter Israeli anticipation of violence. The American boat's decision to bring only a cargo of letters appears to have been a savvy maneuver around the US DOJ's predictable enforcement of its anti-terrorism statutes. Yes, Hamas was democratically elected, but on the books it's a terrorist entity and supporting it materially will result in charges. It seems inconceivable, but surprise seems to be a recurring judicial theme. The US delegation comprises the antiwar movements most luminary, I have to credit them now for not being too reckless. Where would the rest of us be, if they are behind bars? Next I expect we will see the wit behind naming their boat after President Obama's bestseller Audacity of Hope. What's that going to do for his Google-metrics? Obama won't be able to mention it again, without drawing reference to the Gaza relief mission he didn't support. The flotilla2 organizers don't hope to provoke Israel, nor shame the IDF to "Stay Human," they want to sail the the people of Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel asserts its right to besiege Gaza, to starve, harass and demoralize the Palestinians in hope that eventually they'll just want to leave. And that's why the flotilla must not pass.
Freedom Flotilla II faces Shayetet13 in showdown at the naval siege of Gaza
It promises to be quite a showdown. Israel has repeated that it will let no ship through to Gaza, the IDF has promised "surprises" for the would-be blockade-runners, while this relief convoy is upping the ante with luminaries political and literary. The US boat is carrying novelist Alice Walker and a who's who of peace activists, no less than Medea Benjamin, Kathy Kelly, Ray McGovern, and Ann Wright. There will be journalists from CBS, CNN and NPR, so you'd think Israel wouldn't dare jam their signal and superimpose its own news package like it did with the Mavi Marmara, but maybe it won't have to. We've seen water hose on Freedom Riders before, only this time the blastees will be activist-squires. You might wonder what kind of sympathy they'll garner, that is if an audience will see it at all. Will there be an independent media vessel cruising alongside the flotilla, with footage and equipment outside the jurisdiction of an Isreali commando raid? In the past the IDF was able to confiscate every scrap of evidence which could be used against them, at least until their doctored video could shape the official narrative. Then too, with the absence of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Palestine-champions like Ken O'Keefe, the IDF's interdiction may meet no resistance at all. Remember the MV Rachel Corrie, surrendering themselves with nary a ripple of media coverage? Another less provocative strategy adopted by the US boat was not to carry any aid cargo, simply letters of support from American donors. I'm not sure why, except that the IDF cannot accuse them of smuggling anything past the blockade. But what does that make the Audacity of Hope exactly? The Freedom Flotilla is what, if it's not a relief convoy? There's time before the flotilla leaves from Greece, please please please put something aboard to take to Gaza. Break the siege with SOMETHING. You can't very well assert that Israel wouldn't otherwise grant entry to all these American activists, many of the Jewish, through the formal border crossings, with or without stacks of correspondence. I'll spare further critique for now and wish Team Nonviolence the best success. NotMyTribe has complied a Twitter list of who to follow on the Freedom Flotilla II. Here is an incomplete listing of the passengers on three ships, Ireland's MV Saoirse, Canada's Tahrir, and USA's The Audacity of Hope. Ireland - MV Saoirse National Coordinator Fintan Lane, Skipper Shane Dillon, John Hearne, Pat Fitzgerald, Paul Murphy, Hugh Lewis, Rik Walton, Mags O'Brien, Gerard Barron, Jim Roche, Zoe Lawlor, John Mallon, Charlie McMenamin, Philip McCullough, Hussein Hamed, Aine Joyce, Former Fianna Fáil TD Chris Andrews, Senator Mark Daly, Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó’ Snodaigh, Sinn Féin councilor Gerry MacLochlainn, artist Felim Egan, rugby international Trevor Hogan. Representing the Irish Ship to Gaza campaign, the Free Gaza Movement, Irish Anti-War Movement, and Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Canada - Tahrir Rifat Audeh, Stéphan Corriveau, Karen DeVito, Bachar Elsolh, David Heap, Miles Howe, Soha Kneen, Irene MacInnes, David Milne, Marie-Eve Rancourt, Jase Tanner, Kevin Neish, Dylan Penner
The man-purse for behind enemy lines
A staple of army surplus stores since the days Banana Republic was the Starbucks of olive drab, the Israeli Paratrooper Bag was marketed as the Swiss Army Knife of handbags. Beside the ludicrous notion that an airborne assault fighter would shoulder a single-strapped man-purse, the red logo of a winged parachute raises another incongruity. For what pretext does a nation's defensive force have "paratroopers?" I know the US/UK imperial powers label their entire military as being for defense, but they've got client states to dominate. Every nation's special forces are now synonymous with SWAT, basically unconstitutional deployment of paramilitary forces against their own populations. Even if we grant governments this tool of repression, they don't use parachutes. Paratroopers are the advance team for an invading army, dropped behind enemy lines to demolish another's defenses against the main assault. And that's why Israel is so unsuccessful in defending itself, it's attacking.
Furkan Dogan was no Leon Klinghoffer, (nor Abu Abbas, ergo no press for him)
Interesting that when Palestinians hijack a passenger ship, and kill one person, it's quite a different story than when the Israelis pirate a ship and kill nine, even when one is an American. We remember the Achille Lauro, and the wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer executed when the hijackers' demands were being ignored. 19-year-old Furkan Dogan was executed without the Israeli Commandos making clear why they had any authority to attack the Mavi Marmara in international waters. Not one complaint from the US press or government. The difference is of course that Dogan was not Jewish, but Muslim. Israel's own brand of antisemitic racism, obviously America's too. I wonder if Midnight on the Mavi Marmara will be immortalized like the Voyage of Terror: the Achille Lauro Affair? We all know that story. Evil Arabs seize innocent passengers, negotiate release of passengers for escape flight, American renege on safe passage, intercept plane and capture the terrorists, all except for the ringleader whose name become household for nefarious evildoer. Americans still knew the Iagoian Abu Abbas when he was captured in the invasion of Iraq and died in US captivity. What had been the point of hijacking the Achille Lauro? Prisoner release? Something about Palestine and Israel? That part is certainly fuzzy. Apparently giving voice to the motives of terrorist acts is to play into their hands, ergo, they're simply despicable "terrorists," no one else's freedom fighters.
Accounting for IDF missing intelligence
The results of Israel's self-investigation of the Mavi Marmara Massacre are in: surprise, the IDF commandos did no wrong, but were set back by a deficiency of intelligence. It's what many of us were already thinking, but there's another punchline which Israel invites by pairing the deadly raid with IDF "intelligence" assets gone missing. Six passengers of the humanitarian convoy are still unaccounted for. Rumors spread they may have been tossed off the ship, or languish in Israeli detention, but the trouble is, the six are also lacking for anyone missing them. Without friends or families registering concern, the convoy organizers can now deduce that the six were agents of Israel, who elected obviously to stay behind in Israel. Might this be because they were the principal provocateurs brandishing the pipes to give the IDF boarders pretext to fire upon the activists? That would be a "pretext" in hindsight of course, because the record is emerging that the Israeli commandos were firing on the ship well in advance of attempting a boarding party. One of the objectives Israel had in detaining the activists was to prevent their account of the raid from reaching public eyes before the IDF could inundate Youtube with clips of what it planned to pretend had happened. From the video spread round by the IDF, one gets the impression the Israeli soldiers were pummeled to within an inch of their lives. But in reality the soldiers emerged nearly unscathed. Is it possible the pipe-wielders were striking against the deck and serving also to keep the genuine activists at bay? In fact the video footage which the activists succeeded in spiriting past their IDF jailers show the same scene devoid of what Israel described as a "lynch." What may have looked like beatings, from Israel's thermal camera aimed from beside the Marmara, did not register at all from up close. Curiously stealthy choreography. While we look for the incriminating names, here are the US senators and congressmen who've signed on to letters drafted by AIPAC to show their support for Israel's raid on the humanitarian convoy, and to urge President Obama to use the Security Council veto power to block any effort to investigate the killings. Signatories to the Reid-McConnell Letter on the Gaza Flotilla Incident Total Number of Signatories: 85 As of June 18, 2010 Senator State Party Alexander, Lamar TN R Barrasso, John WY R Baucus, Max MT D Bayh, Evan IN D Begich, Mark AK D Bennet, Michael CO D Bennett, Robert UT R Bond, Christopher MO R Boxer, Barbara CA D Brown, Scott MA R Brown, Sherrod OH D Brownback, Sam KS R Burr, Richard NC R Burris, Roland W. IL D Cantwell, Maria WA D Cardin, Ben MD D Carper, Tom DE D Casey Jr., Bob PA D Chambliss, Saxby GA R Coburn, Tom OK R Cochran, Thad MS R Collins, Susan ME R Conrad, Kent ND D Corker, Bob TN R Cornyn, John TX R Crapo, Mike ID R DeMint, Jim SC
If you really don’t want to kill civilians, don’t point loaded guns at them.
I tell you what, if Bibi actually gets away with this shit, based on the defense he's mounting, then Death Row inmates across America will be rejoicing. What's the difference between Armed Robbery and Capital Murder? A twitch of the finger. Israel and the U.S. have this habit of (AFTER killing usually large numbers of Civilians in "accidents") insisting that they trained their Soldier/Cops to "minimize the risk" of blowing away civilians. That's a God-Damn lie. If they were to do "everything we can" to not kill civilians, one of the first and the most important elements of such a policy would be Not Shooting In Their Direction. When IDF blew away KIDS in Gaza they accused the Palestinians of the murders that were committed through bullets coming from Israeli Galil Rifles (a reworked AK-47 that fires U.S. standard .30 caliber rounds) held by Israeli soldiers. In an action where the IDF were actively invading a country they themselves had formally recognized as being Not Israel. Guess that when you declare a region to be SEMI autonomous it's like what my cousin used to laugh about in advertising... a Semi-Boneless Steak. Does it have bones in it or not? But a Semi-Autonomous country is one in which the Ruling Imperial Nation tells the peasants they won't get any benefits of Citizenship but still have to obey King Benjamin Netanyahu. And if the Peasants dare object to being declared not second, third or ANY class of citizen, but declared to be Subject to the governing whim of the IDF Master Race... then it's Their Fault that the IDF Gestapo/slash/TotenKopfSchutzStaffl murder their Kids. Bibi is calling the Murders aboard the relief ships a "Botched Raid". Oh, and King Bibi is having who, exactly, handle the evidence, as in the shot up boats, the bodies of the victims, the Murder Weapons? Why, Good Righteous Courageous King Benjamin is having the Murderers Themselves do the investigation. This is like when American Pigs murder somebody, who gets to investigate the Police Claims of "suicide by cop"? The Internal Affairs Division, of course. Let me remind our readers (and Our Readers should recognize that I'm not actually asking their permission to say anything) that having the Police in any form, including the IDF Commando Murder Teams, investigate murders committed by their Fellow Cops will GUARANTEE that the Murderous PIGS will be acquitted and the victims blamed for their own deaths. Look for, in the next three weeks, an IDF "investigation" to Clear The Commando MURDER Team of any wrongdoing. It's the way PIGS always do it, their Pigs and Our Pigs.