No Ships to Gaza, Netanyahu Tells Top Ministers
by Gil Ronen
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the 'Septet' of leading ministers Thursday evening that the Gaza-bound Irish ship "Rachel Corrie," and all other vessels, will not break Israel's blockade of Gaza, "not now and not in the future."
He said that the Rachel Corrie boat, now in Libyan waters about 400 miles from Israel and headed for Gaza, will be re-directed to the Ashdod port, where any humanitarian aid on board will be transferred overland to Gaza.
Several news outlets said that Netanyahu would suggest "creative ideas" for inspecting ships claiming to carry aid for Gaza. These ideas would reportedly involve the participation of United Nations crews in the inspection process. Inspections would take place in Ashdod harbor.
Earlier this week, IDF commandos' takeover of a Gaza-bound ship ended in a bloodbath, because the soldiers had been equipped and mentally prepared to deal with 'peace activists' and were surprised to find a group of armed thugs in their stead.
IDF sources said the ships in the convoy intercepted Monday were carrying spotted camouflage material, of the kind used to make military uniforms and to mask military positions. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
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Netanyahu Rejects Criticism of Deadly Raid
Video
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/insideisrael/2010/June/Netanyahu-Rejects-Criticism-of-Deadly-Raid/
JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Jewish state is facing widespread hypocrisy for defending the interception of ships trying to break the blockade of the Gaza strip.
Netanyahu tried to explain Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza strip on Tuesday saying Hamas had missiles that can reach major Israeli cities like Tel Aviv and possibly Jerusalem.
Hamas continues to smuggle thousands of Iranian rockets, missiles and other weaponry - smuggling them into Gaza in order to fire on Israel's cities.
Read Netanyahu's full statement here.
Israel allows literally tons of aid to cross into the Gaza Strip via land every day, but has kept the seaport blocked.
Nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed when Israeli troops boarded one of six ships trying to run the blockade under the guise of carrying humanitarian aid.
Israel said its soldiers were ambushed and released new footage showing the so-called peace activists attacking Israeli soldiers as they tried to board the ship Mavi Marmara.
Netanyahu defended Israel's actions.
"Under international law, and under common sense and common decency, Israel has every right to interdict this weaponry and to inspect the ships that might be transporting them," Netanyahu said.
However, the United Nations has condemned Israel for the raid.
Elliot Abrams, former deputy national security adviser for the Bush administration told CBN News the Obama administration failed to defend Israel in the U.N. Security Council by allowing the council to use the word "condemn."
"I think the United States should have been a better, tougher supporter of Israel and told the people in the United Nations who were essentially a lynch mob that we were not going to permit it," Abrams said. "We were not going to permit a condemnation or use of the word condemn for that flotilla of terrorist sympathizers."
Two more ships are on route to Gaza and negotiations are underway to prevent another violent confrontation.
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We had no choice, commando who killed 6 tells 'Post'
By YAAKOV KATZ
06/04/2010 06:13
"They were coming at us with murder in their eyes," says S., describing the "battlefield" aboard the ‘Mavi Marmara'; He hit the deck to see three officers lying wounded.
T
When St.-Sgt. S. fast-roped down from an air force Black Hawk helicopter onto the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship on Monday morning, he did not expect to be landing in what he called "a battlefield" and facing off against a group of "murderous mercenaries."
The 15th and last naval commando from Flotilla 13 (the Shayetet) to rappel down onto the ship from the helicopter, S. said on Thursday that he was immediately attacked by what the IDF has called "the mob of mercenaries" aboard the vessel, just like the soldiers who had boarded just before him.
Looking to his side, he saw three of his commanders lying wounded - one with a gunshot wound to the stomach and another with a gunshot wound to the knee. A third was lying unconscious; his skull was fractured by a devastating blow with a metal bar.
As the next in the chain of command, S., who has been in the Shayetet for three and a half years, immediately took charge.
He pushed the wounded soldiers up against the wall of the upper deck and created a perimeter of soldiers around them to begin treating their wounds, he said. He then arranged his men to form a second perimeter, and pulled out his 9 mm. Glock pistol to stave off the charging attackers and to protect his wounded comrades.
The attackers had already seized two pistols from the commandos, and fired repeatedly at them. Facing more than a dozen of the mercenaries, and convinced their lives were in danger, he and his colleagues opened fire, he said. S. singlehandedly killed six men. His colleagues killed another three.
On Thursday, S. sat down with The Jerusalem Post at the Shayetet's base in northern Israel for an exclusive interview, during which he described the dramatic events aboard the Mavi Marmara on Monday; he is being considered for a medal of valor.
"When I hit the deck, I was immediately attacked by people with bats, metal pipes and axes," S. told the Post. "These were without a doubt terrorists. I could see the murderous rage in their eyes and that they were coming to kill us."
S. does not look like a hero. Well-built, like all commandos in the Shayetet, he is also soft-spoken and stingy with words, but his commander Lt.-Col. T. fills in the blanks.
"S. did a remarkable job," T. said. "He stabilized the situation and succeeded in hitting six of the terrorists."
Based on preliminary results of its investigation into the navy's takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which ended with nine dead passengers and more than 30 wounded, the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.
The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck, the IDF said. All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades.
The IDF's understanding is that the mercenaries mainly chose dual-purpose items of this sort rather than guns, since opening fire would have made it blatantly clear that they were terrorists and not so-called peace activists.
Nevertheless, the IDF suspects that the group did have some guns of its own. Israeli forensic experts who examined the ship found casings belonging to a weapon that was not used by the commandos, and the Turkish captain of the ship later told the IDF that the "mercenaries" threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel.
T. said he realized the group they were facing was well-trained and likely ex-military after the commandos threw a number of stun grenades and fired warning shots before rappelling down onto the deck. "They didn't even flinch," he said. "Regular people would move."
Each squad of the "mercenaries" was equipped with a Motorola communication device, the IDF said, so they could pass information to one another. Assessments in the defense establishment are that members of the group were affiliated with international global jihad elements and had undergone training in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
S. on Thursday downplayed his involvement in the operation. "I did what I was trained to do and now I move on," he said.
In contrast to earlier reports, the commandos said that they began using their weapons within a minute and a half after boarding the ship, due to the extreme violence they faced. One of the reasons S. pulled out his gun right after landing on the ship was because one of the mercenaries was pointing a pistol, snatched from one of the commandos, at another commando's head.
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Protesters at Turkish Embassy Call Erdogan 'Terrorist'
by Maayana Miskin
1,500 Israelis held a protest Thursday opposite the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv. The demonstrators expressed their anger over Turkey's involvement in sending ships to Gaza in defiance of Israel's naval blockade.
Some of the protesters were heard shouting that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is "a terrorist."
Media outlets reported that the protesters had set fire to a Turkish flag. Participants in the rally denied the reports, and said they had set fire to a red shirt, not a flag. There were also reports of a smoke bomb hurled at the embassy.
Among the protesters were many fans of the Betar Jerusalem soccer team, who bore the team's flag as well as Israeli flags and banners condemning terrorism and supporting the IDF. "Shayetet 13, we're with you," one banner declared in reference to the IDF commando unit that overcame the Gaza-bound ships and redirected them to Ashdod.
The unit was attacked by passengers on the ship and opened fire, leaving nine people dead. There were wounded among both passengers and soldiers.
The IDF action was denounced throughout the Arab and Muslim world and particularly in Turkey, where thousands of people marched Thursday in the funeral procession of the Turkish citizens killed in the clash. (IsraelNationalNews.com
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IDF: Mercenaries to blame for violence
By YAAKOV KATZ
06/04/2010 05:06
Army says some 50 well-trained passengers were recruited in Turkey.
The IDF has identified one of the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara , which navy commandos commandeered earlier this week, as the ringleader of a group of mercenaries who were recruited from a city in northwest Turkey, according to new details from the military's ongoing investigation of the Gaza flotilla.
The IDF identified a group of about 50 men - of the 700 on board - who were well-trained and were stationed throughout the ship, mostly on the upper deck, where they laid an ambush for the IDF soldiers who rappelled onto the deck from helicopters.
The members of this violent group were not carrying identity cards or passports. Instead, each of them had an envelope in his pocket with about $10,000 in cash. The defense establishment suspects the funding for the mercenaries may have come from elements within the Turkish government.
According to sources within the defense establishment, one member of the group, who appears to have been the ringleader, traveled to the city of Bursa in northwest Turkey and allegedly recruited mercenaries for the flotilla there.
In videos from the Marmara released this week by the IDF, this group of men can be seen preparing to confront IDF commandos. The videos, taken by the ship's security cameras, show the group of activists brandishing metal bars, slingshots, and other assorted weaponry.
The group was split up into smaller squads that were distributed throughout the deck and communicated with one another with handheld communication devices. The men wore bulletproof vests and gas masks.
One video clearly shows a member of the group throwing a stun grenade onto the IDF commando vessel that pulled up alongside the Marmara. Another video shows how groups of at least four or five men swarmed each commando that landed on the top deck, beating them with metal bars, and in one case throwing a soldier off the third deck.
Soldiers testified that in at least two instances their sidearms were taken from them, as were their helmets and vests. Two soldiers jumped off the ship into the water to save themselves from being lynched.
On Wednesday, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i told a Knesset hearing that all nine men killed on the Marmara were "involved in the fighting."
"There were no innocents among the dead," Vilna'i said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Media Watch reported Thursday that three of the four Turks killed on ship sought a martyr's death.
PMW quoted from the official Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat al-Jadida:
"Three of the four Turks killed in the Israeli attack on the ‘Freedom Flotilla' bound for the Gaza Strip wanted to die as martyrs, said their relatives and friends. The wife of one of them, Ali Haydar Bengi, told the Vatan daily: "He used to help the poor and the oppressed. For years, he wanted to go to Palestine. And he constantly prayed to Allah to grant him shahada (martyrdom).
"Ali worked at telephone repair shop in Diyarbakir, the largest city in southeastern Turkey. Sabir Ceylan, a friend of Ali, told the Milliyet newspaper: ‘Before embarking on this journey , he said he desired to become a martyr. He had a strong desire to die as a martyr.'
"Another Turkish victim was Ali Ekber Yaratilmis, a 55-year old pensioner. He was a father of five who lived in Ankara. Ali volunteered for the Turkish Aid and Human Rights Organization , which transfers aid to Gaza. A friend, Mehmet Faruk Cevher, told the Sabah daily that ‘devoted his life to charity work, that's why he went to Gaza. He always wanted to become a martyr.'
"The third victim was Ibrahim Bilgen, a 61-year old pensioner and father of six sons. He was a supporter of the Felicity Party, an Islamic movement in the southeastern city of Siirt, Anatolia news agency reported. His brother-in-law, Nuri Mergen, told the agency: He was an exemplary man and a truly good man. That's why he was truly worthy of shahada (martyrdom). Allah granted him the death that he wished for.'"
Palestinian Media Watch reported in the last two days that participants on board were chanting Islamic battle cries and talking about their coming martyrdom during the days before the confrontation.
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4 Kassam rockets hit Israel
By JPOST.COM STAFF
06/04/2010 00:04
No casualties reported in latest violence from the Gaza Strip.
Four Kassam rockets were launched into Israel Thursday night. The rockets set off warning sirens in Sderot and Ashkelon, and exploded in open areas.
There were no reports of casualties or damage in the latest attacks from the Strip.
On Tuesday three Islamic Jihad operatives were killed in an IAF airstrike in northern Gaza after firing two rockets into southern Israel. The rockets caused no injuries.
Tensions have been high since Israeli naval commandos boarded a flotilla carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to Gaza on Monday, causing a violent clash. Nine activists were said to have been killed in the incident, and several IDF commandos were wounded.
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Website highlights disproportionate media coverage of Israel
Video
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=21221
With nearly the entire international community participating in the public lynch of Israel over the deaths of nine violent "peace" activists aboard the intercepted Gaza aid flotilla, one website worked to snap people out of what it called their "OCID" - Obsessive Compulsive Israel Disorder.
FreeMiddleEast.com noted that the flotilla incident was only the latest example of the enormously exaggerated media coverage and UN attention Israel receives any time it acts against its enemies.
While the deaths of a handful of activists who used lethal force against the Israeli boarding party resulted in days worth of front page news and emergency sessions by every major UN body, outright massacres and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people have gone almost entirely unnoticed.
In a moving video circulated on the Internet, the FreeMiddleEast.com team recounted the story of Aisha Hassan, a little girl from the blood-soaked Darfur region of Sudan. Aisha's baby brothers and big sister were burned alive, her father was beaten to death and her mother was raped and then hacked to pieces, all by government-backed Muslim militiamen. Her story failed to make make headlines or evoke any kind of response from the UN.
Aisha is far from the only one to be dismissed as the world salivates over every opportunity to skewer Israel.
In recent years, some 300,000 people, most of them innocent civilians, were raped and massacred in Darfur. Two million people, 60 percent of them children, were and remain displaced. Some in the international community focused passing attention on Darfur, but it was far less than is focused on Israel. And most stopped caring about these Africans as the Darfur conflict became passe.
In a more specific example, PajamasMedia recalled the frantic coverage and UN attention elicited when Israeli forces taking part in the 2009 war against Hamas in Gaza accidentally killed 40 civilians while returning fire on terrorists who were using those civilians as cover.
Just a week earlier, 100 men, women and children seeking refuge in a church in the Democratic Republic of Congo were hacked to death by members of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a Ugandan rebel group. The story received scant media coverage, and again, no major response from the UN. The lack of media coverage in that instance was especially surprising as the LRA claims to be a Christian movement that wants to establish a theocratic state based on the Ten Commandments, all while using brainwashed child soldiers to carry out its brutality. Considering the media's seeming desire to besmirch Christians at every turn, one would think the LRA and its actions would warrant at least as much coverage as Israel.
But Africa is old news, or rather news that very few ever really cared about. Tens of millions there continue to die every year from AIDS and starvation, but the comparatively tiny conflict between a few million Jews and their Arab neighbors is for some reason far more interesting and evokes far greater passion.
In light of this logic-defying obsession with Israel, it is difficult not to recognize a spiritual connection.
The Jews are the people chosen by God to demonstrate His relationship to all mankind, and the restoration of Israel as a nation-state is part of His ultimate plan of redemption. The spiritual forces opposed to God's will would naturally like to do everything possible to disrupt and destroy those physical components of His plan.
And so, while millions suffer and die elsewhere, those who are deceived and manipulated by the enemies of God squander the international community's vast resources on disproportionate media coverage and bloated monitoring and aid agencies all aimed at bringing Israel low.
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US VP Biden backs Israeli flotilla raid
US Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday supported Israel's right to board the Free Gaza flotilla that attempted to break the Israeli maritime blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
"You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not ... but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know - they're at war with Hamas - has a right to know whether or not arms are being smuggled in," Biden said in an interview with Charlie Rose.
Maritime blockades of enemy territory are permitted under international law, and those imposing the blockade are permitted to search vessels trying to break into enemy territory even in international waters.
Israel has argued this point, but even the so-called "legal experts" at the UN continue to insist that Israel's actions against the flotilla constitute a crime.
The support of the US vice president is certain to help Israel's case, though Biden didn't miss the opportunity to appease those of Israel's enemies that Washington is trying to make nice with by criticizing the Israeli embargo against Gaza.
While Biden was understanding about preventing weapons from entering Gaza, he said the Obama Administration is pressuring Israel to allow building materials to enter the territory.
Israel has severely limited the entry of building materials precisely because Hamas had been using items such as metal pipe and tubing to build rockets. Much of the cement entering Gaza prior to Israel's 2009 armed intervention had been used by Hamas to build bunkers to hide and store those rockets
