The gaza/israel flotila

[JackTR]

I'm interested to know - what do you think? But more important - what do you know?

[YugoStrikesBack]

All I know is there is media bias everywhere. Both sides of the spectrum aren't reporting the facts accurately and this is causing further suffering for both Palestinians and Israelis.

The main reason why the distortion of facts is causing suffering is because when one side of an argument fails to state all of the facts, the radicals on the opposing side point out the bias and it causes the moderates to become further radicalized. These radicals only want continuation of war and this isn't good for anyone in either of the two territories.

Cantr is proof of how bias can lead to war. How many times has one side distorted the facts to make their case for war to the people? In the Emerald War for example, people made the Emerald Empire look like they were the second coming of the apocalypse and went into their town killing anyone linked to the empire. A lot of people killed committed nothing wrong, but the people who committed the slaughter felt justified due to the bias out there causing radicalization of the population.

I love how almost nobody have a neutral or "true" knowledge about a event they haven't witnessed. Like how both sides of a conflict color the story in their interest or opinion, and new people have no idea of what really happened. Just as in real life.

[Doug R.]

I think when you run a military blockade and beat the commandos with clubs when they are coming down rappelling lines, you're going to get shot. I also think the people that organized that blockade run knew this was a likely outcome, and used the blood of those people to stir international outrage. The Israelis are notorious for not exercising military restraint, so why would that change?

I don't believe that events with predictable /obvious outcomes are in any way outrageous or shocking. I'm not taking any moral position on the commando's actions, but I'm saying that their actions were entirely predictable, and that these people should have (and likely did/do) know better. If you put your hand in a hornet's nest, your going to get stung.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

AP INTERVIEW: Turkish aid group had terror ties
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU, Associated Press Writer Alfred De Montesquiou, Associated Press Writer 2 hrs 19 mins ago

PARIS – The Turkish Islamic charity behind a flotilla of aid ships that was raided by Israeli forces on its way to Gaza had ties to terrorism networks, including a 1999 al-Qaida plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, France's former top anti-terrorism judge said Wednesday.

The Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, had "clear, long-standing ties to terrorism and Jihad," former investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Bruguiere, who led the French judiciary's counterterrorism unit for nearly two decades before retiring in 2007, didn't indicate whether IHH now has terror ties, but said it did when he investigated it in the late 1990s.

"They were basically helping al-Qaida when (Osama) bin Laden started to want to target U.S. soil," he said.

Some members of an international terrorism cell known as the Fateh Kamel network then worked at the IHH, he said. Kamel, an Algerian-Canadian dual national, had ties to the nascent al-Qaida, Bruguiere said.

Among Kamel's followers was Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who was arrested in the U.S. state of Washington in December 1999 on his way to bomb Los Angeles International Airport as part of an al-Qaida plot.

"IHH had a role in the organization that led to the plot," Bruguiere said, reiterating sworn testimony he made in a U.S. Federal Court during Ressam's trial. Ressam is serving a 22-year prison sentence.

Bruguiere issued an international warrant for Kamel, Ressam's former mentor, who was extradited from Jordan to France in 1999 and sentenced to eight years in prison on terror-related charges.

IHH vehemently denies ties to radical groups. The group is not among some 45 groups listed as terrorists by the U.S. State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. Nine people on board the IHH flotilla were killed by Israeli forces on Monday.

"We are a legal organization," IHH board member Omer Faruk Korkmaz said late Wednesday in response to Bruguiere's statements. "We have nothing to do with any illegal organization," he said.

"We don't know Ahmed Ressam or Fateh Kamel," Korkmaz said. "We don't approve of the actions of any terrorist organization in the world."

French investigators found in the 1990s that "several members of Fateh Kamel's network worked at the IHH as a cover," Bruguiere said. "It was too systematic and too widespread for the NGO (non-governmental organization) not to know" their real goal, he said.

The former judge, renowned for tracking down convicted terrorist Carlos the Jackal, said he didn't believe the IHH could have been infiltrated by terrorists without its knowledge.

"It's hard to prove, but all elements of the investigation showed that part of the NGO served to hide jihad-type activities," Bruguiere said. "I'm convinced this was a clear strategy, known by IHH."

The judge said he was personally involved in a raid with French and Turkish police at IHH headquarters in Istanbul in 1998, where they found weapons, false documents and other "incriminating" material.

"It was clearly proven that some of the NGO's work was not charity, it was to provide a facade for moving funds, weapons and mujahedeen to and from Bosnia and Afghanistan" — areas focused on by Islamic militants then.

In Istanbul, Korkmaz, of IHH, confirmed the late '90s police raid but denied that any weapons were found and said there was no evidence found of links to militancy.

Bruguiere would not specify how many members of Kamel's terror cell worked at IHH or give their names, but he said one of the suspects, a man from Bosnia, appeared in another terror-related case as recently as 2005 — though there was no indication at the time that the man still had ties to IHH.

Elements within the charity supported jihadi operations in the 1990s, Bruguiere said, before adding: "I don't know whether they continued to do so" more recently.

"But it seemed clear at the time that it was thanks to a measure of political backing within the Turkish government that it (IHH) could continue to operate," despite the strong suspicions against it, Bruguiere said.

Bruguiere retired from the judiciary in 2007 when he took part in an election to become a lawmaker in the conservative party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. He lost his bid.

Bruguiere, 67, is now the coordinator for the European Union in a terrorism finance tracking program jointly run with the United States.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters on Wednesday that "we know that IHH representatives have met with senior Hamas officials in Turkey, Syria, and Gaza over the past three years. That is obviously of great concern to us."

But, he said the U.S. could not "validate" that IHH has connections to al Qaida.
Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

[Doug R.]

I also think the people that organized that blockade run knew this was a likely outcome, and used the blood of those people to stir international outrage.

PARIS – The Turkish Islamic charity behind a flotilla of aid ships that was raided by Israeli forces on its way to Gaza had ties to terrorism networks, including a 1999 al-Qaida plot to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, France's former top anti-terrorism judge said Wednesday.

See? There you go.

[YugoStrikesBack]

^Those facts about the IHH are curiously not included in Al-Jazeera's reporting on the incident.

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Whoops...

http://maxblumenthal.com/2010/06/under- ... eda-links/

Under Scrutiny, IDF Retracts Claims About Flotilla’s Al Qaeda Links

When placed under journalistic scrutiny, the IDF is being forced to admit that its claims about the flotilla’s links to international terror are based on innuendo, not facts. [...] Lia Tarachansky of The Real News Network and I called the IDF press office to ask for more conclusive evidence. Tarachansky reached the IDF’s Israel desk, interviewing a spokesperson in Hebrew; I spoke with the North America desk, using English. We both received the same reply from Army spokespeople: “We don’t have any evidence. ..."

Of course, what that article doesn't mention, is what possible civilian and humanitarian use could there be for NVG's, body armor, and weapons? Just because those guys weren't Al-Qaeda doesn't make the situation automatically not suspicious at all.

[YugoStrikesBack]

It wasn't the Israeli's really making the Al Qaeda links, it was intelligence individuals from other countries, France in particular I believe.

Whoops....

[EchoMan]

It wasn't the Israeli's really making the Al Qaeda links, it was intelligence individuals from other countries, France in particular I believe.

Whoops....

Happy barf-day btw!

[nitefyre]

There were also other ways to execute the policies Israel was looking to effect, such as searching the ships for weapons after they docked. A military assault with commandos repelling from helicopters sends a signal that is difficult to sympathize with.

P.S. The tragedy in the gulf is also another worthy topic of concern.

[returner]

Agreed.

[JackTR]

There were also other ways to execute the policies Israel was looking to effect, such as searching the ships for weapons after they docked. A military assault with commandos repelling from helicopters sends a signal that is difficult to sympathize with.

The ships were headed to the Gaza port, how could Israel check the cargo there?

Did you heard about the Irish ship, the Rachel Corrie?

[gejyspa]

There were also other ways to execute the policies Israel was looking to effect, such as searching the ships for weapons after they docked. A military assault with commandos repelling from helicopters sends a signal that is difficult to sympathize with.

And, indeed, all the Israelis wanted to do was divert the ship to Ashdod, where the cargo would be examined, and allowed to pass overland to Gaza if it was indeed humanitarian, as all the other ships in the flotilla complied with, and indeed, such was passed through....

[Keegan Ingrassia]

Reuters edited terrorist flotilla photos to hide weapons

The British-based Reuters news agency has been stung for the second time by charges that it edited politically sensitive photos in a way that casts Israel in a bad light. But this time Reuters claims it wasn’t at fault.

The news agency reacted to questions raised by an American blogger who showed that Reuters' photo service edited out knives and blood traces from pictures taken aboard the activist ship Mavi Marmara during a clash with Israeli commandos last week. Nine people were killed and scores were injured in the clash.

The pictures of the fight were released by IHH, the Turkish-based group that sponsored the six-ship fleet that tried to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.

In one photo, an Israeli commando is shown lying on the deck of the ship, surrounded by activists. The uncut photo released by IHH shows the hand of an unidentified activist holding a knife. But in the Reuters photo, the hand is visible but the knife has been edited out.

The blog “Little Green Footballs” challenged Reuters' editing of the photo.

“That’s a very interesting way to crop the photo. Most people would consider that knife an important part of the context. There was a huge controversy over whether the activists were armed. Cropping out a knife, in a picture showing a soldier who’s apparently been stabbed, seems like a very odd editorial decision. Unless someone was trying to hide it,” the blog stated.

In a second photo the unedited print issued by IHH showed blood along the ship's railing and a hand holding a knife as an Israeli soldier lies on the deck. Both the blood and the knife were missing in the photo that Reuters released.

Reuters on Tuesday denied it intended to alter the political meanings of the photographs.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/08 ... commandos/