Israel’s Foreign Ministry is reacting with its usual level of outrage tonight following the release of a report by the United Nations Human Rights Council ruling that the Israeli attack on the aid ship Mavi Marmara on May 31 was “clearly unlawful.”
The report chides Israel for an “unacceptable level of brutality” in the attacks, which killed nine aid workers, and said the killings were “consistent with summary executions.”
Israeli officials have maintained that the killings were in self defense and that the boat was full, conversely, of either 50 Turkish soldiers armed with assault rifles or 75 heavily armed al-Qaeda operatives. None of the passengers was charged with any crimes nor were any guns found on board.
The report went on to add that there was clear evidence of violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention by Israeli soldiers, and that overwhelming evidence supported the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and therefore permitted the delivery of humanitarian aid.
So now, armed with this UN report, who will bring charges against those responsible for the acts of the IDF in this event? And just who will be charged? Following the example of Nuremberg, everybody in the chain of command- from the private soldier to the Commander-in-Chief- should be held accountable and brought to trial. Israel cannot have it both ways and boast of one of the world's finest militaries on one hand and on the other claim the leadership didn't know of the plans given to the soldiers assigned the mission. Nor can the private soldier any longer claim he was 'just following orders' because, as we know, this defense was nullified at Nuremberg as well. So, Tel Aviv, round and round she goes- it's about time for that big ole wheel to stop turning… and guess who it's pointing at?
Who else but one (Israhell) the only evil on this planet,
Satan him self, wipe him of the face of the earth if there's
To be peace and love on planet earth.
Dude, I don't much care for Israel. But your very call for to "wipe (Israel) off the face of the earth" and saying it's "the only evil on this planet" sounds like you need look a little deeper in the mirror. We all carry it. The question is what we do about it, either as individuals or as nations. What are you doing about yours?
Why worry about a piece of paper when you're getting more goodies stolen out of the pockets of your "best friend".
Hmm, wonder if the UN is now prepared to take on these pirates in international waters the same way it did the Somali buccaneers.
Mr Mohammad, you are dreamimng. No one in the Israeli line of command is going to be charged, because they have not just massacred 6 million people. Rather they denied a convoy of ships to dock uninspected in enemy ports. Unfortunately the ships refused to be inspected, so they were boarded.
As if this was all an accident and not deliberate policy.
Also, fail hard for "6 million had to die so that we could get the right to behave like pirates"
(whoever that "we" is – apparently some people mistakenly think of themselves as the megaphone for whatever regime they currently sympathize with)
They work for the Israeli propaganda ministry.
If you search news reports, you'll see that even before the attack they were mounting a major propaganda effort. This is one of the ways they do it. Been quiet for awhile, but apparently they are mobilizing again to try to spin the shooting of people bringing humanitarian aid in the back of the head like assassins.
The 'we' is correct, although this propagandist was probably told by his propaganda team leaders not to say that.
Deliberate policy? You think that Israel deliberately murdered nine aid workers, for the fun of it? Because they enjoy killing?
You are inventing a new scenario in what Israel claimed were the intentions of the raid. There was no plan to "inspect" the cargo. The stated objective was to deny passage of humanitarian goods. You are making it sound now like a bunch of inspectors came on-board, and the ships refused them the right to inspect the cargo. Some inspectors! Murdering, humiliating, stealing private property — a good sample of routine "inspecting" that occupied territories experience daily. Hauling the ships into Israel, just to charge them from illegaly entering Israel — the kind of logic you can always use on the subjects of occupation. UN report states nothing that is already not known. What will happen as a result of this report? Nothing really. Unless US wants to use it as a proding stick to urge Israel to actually sit and negotiate. Until the end of Obama administration, which looks like a one-termer anyway.
Ah, so six million is the magic number? Below that, it's okay? Interesting set of values you have there. I guess it goes along with it being okay to act like murderous pirates as long as state sponsorship, untreated PTSD (google it if you don't know) and some wack religion gives the pirates an excuse to kill. Yes folks, that's Israel today!
The Israelis want to ignore the evidence of people dead from gunshots fired to the back of their heads at close range, and instead want to pretend this little fiction that all they did was keep a boat from docking at an 'enemy' port.
They may not have killed 6 million people, yet. But they are as good at spinning ridiculous fictions as the Holocaust deniers.
Yes, of course, the Israelis merely keep 4 million Palestinians in exile or subject them to a never-ending occupation punctuated with brutal attacks whenever the resistance fights back. Clearly there's nothing wrong with that! Wrong. The Gaza Strip is Israel's Warsaw Ghetto and the West Bank is Israel's Ostland for Lebensraum. Don't be surprised when the world finally decides to deal with the Jewish version of the Third Reich.
Zionism is digging it's own grave. the world will not tolerate this for long.
Enemy ports? Remember buddy they were in International waters to the tune of around seventy miles off shore. By that sort of pretzel logic you could argue that a night assault on any ship anywhere on the planet was "justified"…. So long, of course, as Israel calls them "the enemy"… Oh, by the way, another six million died in the camps but I don't see Lutherans, Gypsys, and rainbow warriors rappelling down to pump bullets into peoples heads and using past atrocities as cover for their own.
It is stated in international law that if a ship clearly intends to breach a blockade, it is lawful to engage it in international waters as it approaches.
Israel classes Gaza as enemy territory because rockets are fired almost daily from Gaza into Israel.
I dont see what atrocities Israel has commited, and I also dont see any attempt on Israels side of using the Holocaust as cover for its actions.
Advance unedited report here: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/do…
BTW, calling Gaza the 'enemy' is a war crime.
As the occupying force, Israel has obligations to the people of Gaza. Its illegal for Israel to imprison these people in the giant open-air concentration camp that is the Gaza strip. And its illegal for them to bomb and kill them at will. Under international law, you don't get to do this to a million plus civilians just because you didn't like the way they voted in an election.
When you hear the Israeli propaganda ministry refer to this as an 'enemy port' in their posts out here, that's the war crime.
That's what these convoys were all about. Trying to expose and bring to the world's attention the war crimes that Israel is committing through its illegal siege of Gaza and attacks on Gaza.
Funny, the first line of Israeli bs was that they had to go shoot these people execution style in the back of the head because they were threatening to 'embarrass' Israel by exposing the Israeli war-crimes in the way they treat Gaza as the enemy. Now, the Israeli spin machine has spun around so much that they've apparently gotten dizzy and confused and now they are embarrassing themselves in order to avoid the realities that they are the evil people in the world who are executing people bringing humanitarian aid by shooting them execution-style in the back of the head.
clearly unlawful with or without UN report
Five of the murdered Flotilla people were shot in back of the head at close range. This is out-and-out murder in the first degree. The killers wearing a uniform does not make it legal.
They must be tried in a court of law OUTSIDE of Israel.
The Israeli blockade is ILLEGAL in the first place.
One doesn't need to be an expert to realize that.