Testimonials

From a Pulse Media post entitled The Shocking Truth:

The following eyewitness testimonies of the Freedom Flotilla massacre were filmed on 11 June 2010 by Shaun Dey of Reel News for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

They say it all in these videos; nothing more for me to say.

Why the Lack of Soul-Searching?

Jonathan Cook gives indispensable insight into why most Israelis are indignant over global condemnation of the IDF attack on the Freedom Flotilla:

Israelis have not responded in any of the ways we might have expected. There has been little soul-searching about the morality, let alone legality, of soldiers invading ships in international waters and killing civilians. In the main, Israelis have not been interested in asking tough questions of their political and military leaders about why the incident was handled so badly. And only a few commentators appear concerned about the diplomatic fall-out.

Instead, Israelis are engaged in a Kafkaesque conversation in which the military attack on the civilian ships is characterised as a legitimate “act of self-defence”, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it, and the killing of nine aid activists is transformed into an attempted “lynching of our soldiers” by terrorists.

* * *

One commentator in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper summed up the feelings of Israelis brought to the fore by the flotilla episode as the “helplessness of a poor lonely victim, confronting the rage of a lynch mob and frantically realising that these are his last moments”. This “psychosis”, as he called it, is not surprising: it derives from the sanctified place of the Holocaust in the Israeli education system.

The Holocaust’s lesson for most Israelis is not a universal one that might inspire them to oppose racism, or fanatical dictators or the bullying herd mentality that can all too quickly grip nations, or even state-sponsored genocide.

Instead, Israelis have been taught to see in the Holocaust a different message: that the world is plagued by a unique and ineradicable hatred of Jews, and that the only safety for the Jewish people is to be found in the creation of a super-power Jewish state that answers to no one. Put bluntly, Israel’s motto is: only Jewish power can prevent Jewish victimhood.

* * *

The angry demonstrations sweeping the country against the world’s denunciations; the calls to revoke the citizenship of the Israeli Arab MP on board -- or worse, to execute her -- for treason; and the local media’s endless recycling of the soldiers’ testimonies of being “bullied” by the activists demonstrate the desperate need of Israelis to justify every injustice or atrocity while clinging to the illusion of victimhood.

The lessons imbibed from this episode -- like the lessons Israelis learnt from the Goldstone report last year into the war crimes committed during Israel’s attack on Gaza, or the international criticisms of the massive firepower unleashed on Lebanon before that -- are the same: that the world hates us, and that we are alone.

What will it take for this mass psychosis to resolve?

A Moral Example

My new hero, Ken O'Keefe, who disarmed two Israeli commandos upon witnessing them murder two of his fellow activists on the good ship Mavi Marmara:

Ken O’Keefe, former US Marine, Gulf War veteran, and now survivor of the Mavi Marmara massacre, has issued a remarkable and searing statement from Istanbul. “While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else, was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.

In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.“

O’Keefe was a human shield in Iraq who formally renounced his US citizenship in protest in 2001; he now has Irish as well as Palestinian citizenship. On the morning of the attack, as he describes it, he was “directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day.” Subsequently brutalised by the Israeli military, he is defiant: “I challenge any critic of merit, publicly, to debate me on a large stage over our actions that day. I would especially love to debate with any Israeli leader who accuses us of wrongdoing, it would be my tremendous pleasure to face off with you. All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns, so I am ripe to see you in a new context“.

This man has followed his conscience where few of us would dare tread... and has already left an example to emulate. I just don't have enough words to express my admiration.

Just what the world needs at this most precarious moment....

On the Way to Gaza

Same ol', same ol'... but, perhaps, this particular instance of criminal brazenness will force the world to put its foot down.

Of course, there is hardly anything new here – Israeli forces using disproportionate violence, killing civilians with impunity. But on this occasion, the murderous incident is not in some poor ghetto in the Gaza Strip hidden from the full view of the world. Up to now, Israeli disinformation could afford just enough wriggle room to sow doubts over such events. The cynical phrases of “terror suspects” and “self defence” parroted by the western mainstream media served to give the Israeli government and its backers in Washington a degree of political cover for otherwise heinous conduct.

Will justice be served?

Let's not hold our breath.....

Following On the Previous Post....

Palestine/Israel history since 1948....

Atrocity

Arundhati Roy offers an alternative to the lies and distortions we've been fed all our lives.

To Think She Would Be President

Evil... it looks like this:

Palin tells followers to ‘reload’ and ‘aim for’ Democrats

Since the passage of health care reform last weekend, there has been increasingly violent language coming from opponents of the legislation, along with vandalism directed at Democratic members of Congress.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has now done her part to raise the rhetorical intensity, telling her Twitter followers, "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: 'Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!'"

Palin then refers supporters to her Facebook page, where she once again employs gun imagery in offering a list of 20 potentially vulnerable pro-reform Democrats in Congress.

As things become increasingly chaotic and desperate for a certain segment (or two) of America, look for the ugliness to go "hyper-real."

This all has the look and feel of an orchestrated mind-op, meant to present a rationalization for yet another push toward a Police State.

We've lived in an overtly-scripted pseudo-reality for 30 years.

The Gist