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Must keep up the pressure all week. Just click the link and send your support for the humanitarian aid convoy to the Israeli embassy:
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/62...paign_KEY=3142
Fate of Gaza flotilla remains vague
By Jerusalem Post | May 26, 2010
While the navy is preparing to stop nine international aid ships that will try to reach the Gaza Strip later this week, the military is still waiting to receive a final order of what to do from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
In the past, Israel has threatened, like it is now, to stop activists’ vessels from reaching the Gaza Port but then allowed them through the IDF blockade. Netanyahu has made no comment on the matter, remaining purposely vague to keep the organizers guessing as to Israel’s true intentions.
Though vague on whether the ships will be allowed to arrive, government spokesmen are unequivocal in stating that what interests the organizers are not human rights in Gaza, but rather bashing Israel.
The vessels, carrying 10,000 tons of cargo and some 550 pro-Palestinian activists, will probably reach the coastal waters of Gaza by Friday or Saturday, Dror Feiler, one of the organizers, said by satellite phone from aboard the Swedish-Greek ship Sofia.
The ships set sail from Ireland, Sweden, Turkey and Greece, Feiler said. Some are carrying television crews that plan to broadcast live any confrontation between the IDF and the activists.
“This is not going to look good on television,” said the 58-year-old Feiler, who was born in Tel Aviv and has lived in Stockholm since 1973. He served in the IDF Paratroopers Brigade and refused to serve in the territories in 1970 as one of the first “refuseniks.”
“We’re on a peaceful mission to help end the misery of the people in Gaza and it’s going to be very ugly if Israeli soldiers try to take over our ships,” he said.
In January 2004, Feiler‘s artwork “Snow White and The Madness of Truth” was vandalized by then-Israeli ambassador to Sweden Zvi Mazel. Mazel said it was anti-Semitic.
Feiler is now the chairman of the Swedish organization Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and the European organization European Jews for a Just Peace.
The navy is preparing an operational plan to stop the ships.
In addition, the IDF has established a task force together with the Israel Police, the Foreign Ministry and the Prisons Service to coordinate efforts to stop the flotilla and manage the media fallout.
The ministry and Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories have in recent days launched a media campaign to stress that the supplies the ships are carrying are unnecessary and that Israel – together with various international organizations – already transfers these supplies to Gaza via land crossings.
The police and the Prisons Service will be on standby to deal with the arrest of the activists, if that becomes necessary.
One official pointed out that the flotilla, billed as an effort to bring humanitarian supplies into Gaza, comes after the Financial Times, in a story it ran on Monday, wrote that the 200 to 300 smuggling tunnels from Egypt into Gaza “have become so efficient that shops all over Gaza are bursting with goods.”
According to the FT report, “Branded products such as Coca-Cola, Nescafé, Snickers and Heinz ketchup – long absent as a result of the Israeli blockade – are both cheap and widely available. However, the tunnel operators have also flooded Gaza with Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese air conditioning units. Tunnel operators and traders alike complain of a saturated market – and falling prices.”
Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev said, “These people call themselves human rights activist, but they are the opposite. They have nothing whatsoever to say about the human rights of Israeli civilians who have been on the receiving end of Hamas rockets for years. They have nothing whatsoever to say about the human rights of Palestinians who live in Gaza under the jackboots of the Hamas regime that oppresses women, Christians, and gays – a regime that has brutally suppressed all political opposition, destroyed independent media, closed down Internet cafes, and has even made it illegal for a male hairdresser to cut the hair of a woman.”
Regev pointed out that in the past the leaders of this movement have come to Gaza and “eagerly had their photographs taken with Hamas leaders. Some human rights activists,” he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the land crossings were more than capable of meeting Gaza’s needs.
According to Palmor, 15,000 tons of supplies enter Gaza each week, including meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, milk powder, baby food, wheat and other staples. In addition, he said, building materials are allowed in when monitored by international organizations that ensure that the materials will not be commandeered by Hamas for the fortification of bunkers.
Palmor said the organizers of the flotilla are aware that land crossings remain the most efficient way of transferring goods. But, he said, “they are less interested in bringing in aid than in promoting their radical agenda, playing into the hands of Hamas provocations. While they have wrapped themselves in a humanitarian cloak, they are engaging in political propaganda and not in pro-Palestinian aid.”
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/62...paign_KEY=3142
Fate of Gaza flotilla remains vague
By Jerusalem Post | May 26, 2010
While the navy is preparing to stop nine international aid ships that will try to reach the Gaza Strip later this week, the military is still waiting to receive a final order of what to do from Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, defense officials told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
In the past, Israel has threatened, like it is now, to stop activists’ vessels from reaching the Gaza Port but then allowed them through the IDF blockade. Netanyahu has made no comment on the matter, remaining purposely vague to keep the organizers guessing as to Israel’s true intentions.
Though vague on whether the ships will be allowed to arrive, government spokesmen are unequivocal in stating that what interests the organizers are not human rights in Gaza, but rather bashing Israel.
The vessels, carrying 10,000 tons of cargo and some 550 pro-Palestinian activists, will probably reach the coastal waters of Gaza by Friday or Saturday, Dror Feiler, one of the organizers, said by satellite phone from aboard the Swedish-Greek ship Sofia.
The ships set sail from Ireland, Sweden, Turkey and Greece, Feiler said. Some are carrying television crews that plan to broadcast live any confrontation between the IDF and the activists.
“This is not going to look good on television,” said the 58-year-old Feiler, who was born in Tel Aviv and has lived in Stockholm since 1973. He served in the IDF Paratroopers Brigade and refused to serve in the territories in 1970 as one of the first “refuseniks.”
“We’re on a peaceful mission to help end the misery of the people in Gaza and it’s going to be very ugly if Israeli soldiers try to take over our ships,” he said.
In January 2004, Feiler‘s artwork “Snow White and The Madness of Truth” was vandalized by then-Israeli ambassador to Sweden Zvi Mazel. Mazel said it was anti-Semitic.
Feiler is now the chairman of the Swedish organization Jews for Israeli-Palestinian Peace and the European organization European Jews for a Just Peace.
The navy is preparing an operational plan to stop the ships.
In addition, the IDF has established a task force together with the Israel Police, the Foreign Ministry and the Prisons Service to coordinate efforts to stop the flotilla and manage the media fallout.
The ministry and Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories have in recent days launched a media campaign to stress that the supplies the ships are carrying are unnecessary and that Israel – together with various international organizations – already transfers these supplies to Gaza via land crossings.
The police and the Prisons Service will be on standby to deal with the arrest of the activists, if that becomes necessary.
One official pointed out that the flotilla, billed as an effort to bring humanitarian supplies into Gaza, comes after the Financial Times, in a story it ran on Monday, wrote that the 200 to 300 smuggling tunnels from Egypt into Gaza “have become so efficient that shops all over Gaza are bursting with goods.”
According to the FT report, “Branded products such as Coca-Cola, Nescafé, Snickers and Heinz ketchup – long absent as a result of the Israeli blockade – are both cheap and widely available. However, the tunnel operators have also flooded Gaza with Korean refrigerators, German food mixers and Chinese air conditioning units. Tunnel operators and traders alike complain of a saturated market – and falling prices.”
Netanyahu’s spokesman Mark Regev said, “These people call themselves human rights activist, but they are the opposite. They have nothing whatsoever to say about the human rights of Israeli civilians who have been on the receiving end of Hamas rockets for years. They have nothing whatsoever to say about the human rights of Palestinians who live in Gaza under the jackboots of the Hamas regime that oppresses women, Christians, and gays – a regime that has brutally suppressed all political opposition, destroyed independent media, closed down Internet cafes, and has even made it illegal for a male hairdresser to cut the hair of a woman.”
Regev pointed out that in the past the leaders of this movement have come to Gaza and “eagerly had their photographs taken with Hamas leaders. Some human rights activists,” he said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that the land crossings were more than capable of meeting Gaza’s needs.
According to Palmor, 15,000 tons of supplies enter Gaza each week, including meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, milk powder, baby food, wheat and other staples. In addition, he said, building materials are allowed in when monitored by international organizations that ensure that the materials will not be commandeered by Hamas for the fortification of bunkers.
Palmor said the organizers of the flotilla are aware that land crossings remain the most efficient way of transferring goods. But, he said, “they are less interested in bringing in aid than in promoting their radical agenda, playing into the hands of Hamas provocations. While they have wrapped themselves in a humanitarian cloak, they are engaging in political propaganda and not in pro-Palestinian aid.”
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