Image via Wikipediahttp://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/06/03/edward_peck_on_gaza
Edward Peck, a career foreign service officer and former ambassador, was with the Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla that was raided by Israel on Monday. He was detained by Israel, processed and expelled from the country. Now back in the United States, he spoke with Salon on Thursday.
One of the things that distresses me is the extent to which Israel has been successful in, for example, getting Americans to ask questions as to why the passengers on that big Turkish ship attacked the Israeli soldiers.
I said, wait a minute, wait a minute, they were descending the ship against people who were attacking it. You've got it backwards. There are civilians, men and woman, on a Turkish-flagged vessel, in international waters. And here comes a group of heavily armed -- forget the paintball story -- heavily armed guys who are going to take over the ship by force and then take it to Israel, where the passengers don't want to go.
All of a sudden, the people on the Turkish ship are described as terrorist, Israel-hating, Hamas supporters, murderers and killers. I say to myself, What would you expect the Israelis to call these people? Tree-hugging environmentalists? No, they're all killers! Every single one of them. It's called smearing the opposition. And the press seems to take that.
Emotion high as Turkey buries its Gaza flotilla dead
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10226151.stm
Israel has said there is no need for an international inquiry into the incident, insisting its own will meet the "highest international standards".
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) voted earlier to set up an investigation.
( Internal whitewash now becomes internationally o.k. Not so fast. )
Jeremy Bowen BBC News, Istanbul
For Turks, it is not just that civilians died. The raid is seen as an attack on their country's honour and sovereignty and, like the Gaza war and the Iraq invasion, it is detaching some Turks at least from old friends in the West and pushing them closer to the Muslim Middle East.
Canadians on Gaza flotilla arrive in Turkey
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/06/03/bc-gaza-flotilla-canadians.html?ref=rss
Kevin Neish of Victoria, along with Rifat Audeh and Farooq Burney, were arrested by Israeli commandos after a violent confrontation at sea that left nine activists dead.
Blunt said Neish called her from the Istanbul airport Wednesday night and stated that he had been "brutalized" by officers while in custody and suffered deep bruises on his arms after being bound for up to 25 hours by plastic handcuffs.
She said Neish also told him soldiers "menaced" him with assault rifles and attack dogs and he was repeatedly threatened with death.
What does Israel fear from media coverage?
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/01/israel/index.html
Physically blocking journalists from reporting on their conduct is what Israel does (as well as others); recall this from The New York Times on January 6, 2009, regarding Israel's war in Gaza:
Supreme Court ruling against the two-month-old Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza.
Each time, they were turned back on security grounds, even as relief workers and other foreign citizens were permitted to cross the border. On Tuesday the reporters were told to not even bother going to the border.
And so for an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to cover it waited in clusters away from direct contact with any fighting or Palestinian suffering, but with full access to Israeli political and militar. the government is seeking to entirely control the message and narrative for reasons both of politics and military strategy. Isn't it strange how Plucky, Democratic Israel goes to such extreme lengths to prevent any media coverage of what they do, any journalistic interference with their propaganda machine, in light of the fact that -- as always -- They Did Absolutely Nothing Wrong?
Thomas Jefferson answered that question quite some time ago:
Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.Israel will use more aggressive force in the future to prevent ships from breaking the sea blockade on the Gaza Strip, a top Navy commander told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
"We boarded the ship and were attacked as if it was a war," the officer said. "That will mean that we will have to come prepared in the future as if it was a war."
Key Tribal Principles: my side is always right, and the group which my parents taught me from childhood to love and cherish can do no wrong.
We're a country in which having the Executive Branch investigate alleged lawbreaking by the Executive Branch is called "oversight," so maybe this all makes sense when viewed through that lens.
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