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Israel Navy Intercepts Sole Remnant of Flotilla Heading for Gaza
The Israel Navy intercepted the French yacht Dignite-Al Karame on Tuesday after it had refused to stop heading toward the Gaza shore, as per IDF instructions.
The "Dignite/Al Karama" is carrying pro-Palestinian activists to the Gaza Strip. Israel intercepted the French yacht heading for the Gaza Strip in defiance of its naval blockade, and began towing it to shore after what the military said was an uneventful takeover (AFP) Elite troops from Shayetet 13, a naval commando unit, boarded the vessel minutes after IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz issued the order to intercept it and took it over quickly with no resistance on the part of the passengers.
When the Karame was some 50 miles away from Gaza, the Israel Navy began trailing the yacht and contacted the passengers on board, demanding they state their final destination and disclose if they are carrying any weapons.
A member of the Greek delegation to Gaza answered the questions and promised that they are not carrying any kind of weapons. He said their destination is the Gaza port.
An Israel Defense Forces official confirmed that the Israel Navy contacted the yacht, and warned it that it is nearing a blockaded area. Defense establishment sources stressed that they would not allow any kind of vessels to dock in the Gaza Strip, so any ship trying to break the blockade would be intercepted.
Following the quick interception of the vessel, the IDF sailed it to the Ashdod port where the passengers will be taken into police custody and handled by Israeli immigration authorities.
The IDF spokesperson stressed that the order to intercept the ship was issued only after the passengers repeatedly refused to answer the demands of the navy and stop sailing toward Gaza. According to the IDF spokesperson, none of the passengers were hurt and IDF soldiers offered the passengers food and beverages following the interception.
Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza Movement said the Dignite-Al Karame had previously declared Alexandria, Egypt, as its destination so it could slip out of Greece, and then changed its route to Gaza, saying it was a legal move.
Defense establishment sources said Sunday they expected no violent resistance from the 10 activists and three crew members aboard the Dignite-Al Karame, so its interception should be swift and smooth.
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28 Comments so far
Show AllI want to be around when that happens.
Free Gaza!
If it did have such an ability, no nation would ever have supported its creation.
My goodness! Those nice IDF boys (Elite troops from Shayetet 13, a naval commando unit, according to Haaretz) are serving milk and cookies to their honored guests (or unlawfully-held prisoners, in real terms). How refreshing after last year's slaughter aboard the Mavi Marmara and the savage brutality and wanton confiscation of property meted out to those taken prisoner from the 2010 flotilla.
"...offered the passengers food and beverages..." Who says you can't teach an old thug new tricks? The Israelis finally figured out that someone was watching, and they'd better behave themselves a bit differently this time. I mean, imagine...serving milk and cookies to these desperate, sulfer-spewing, extremist terrorists! How humane, how genteel can you get?
It doubtless helped that the anti-semites' attack came in the form of one small pleasure-craft and ten non-violent civilians. Yes, four frigates and elite naval commandos against one small civilian pleasure-craft would seem about right for our IDF heroes.
FWIW, I assume that reflexive staunch defenders of Israel's government, military, and abominable policies and practices toward Palestinians are such "Good Zionists", hyper-ironic as such creatures are. I don't think one can reliably distinguish passionate or zealous "amateur" apologists for Israel from paid or professional Hasbarists.
They range from articulate debate-seekers to minimalist bumper-sticker defenders who read like auto-generated robo-hasbarists. YMMV, but attempts at direct confrontation and comprehensive debate only protracts and intensifies their presence.
Tolerance and an occasional well-placed swat seems the better part of valor.
I must confess that I had taken your comments to be all too genuine as they seemed to be quite sincere in how they were written. Thank you for setting the record straight as to where you stand regarding Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.
Creative indeed. Arrest the victim to prevent the commission of the crime. Worthy of a Philip K. Dick novel.
Although Nazis produced an Aryan myth of superiority and laws to support a racist view of German nationalism in 1935 accordingly, the Zionists in fact applauded that “racial” divide which they saw as reinforcing their own identity myth. Instead of being upset by these laws, the head of Germany's Zionist Movement at the time, Mr Georg Kareski gave an interview to the SS magazine 'ANGRIFF' printed on the 23 December 1935 in which he said he had been trying for years to find a method to keep the two races (Germans & Jews) separate, and he considered the race laws from the 15th Sept 1935 supported the Jewish desires. He implied that the Jews had been struggling against assimilation for nearly 2000 years and they needed such laws to support them in their struggle.
Collaboration went much further. Zionists had to convince the people of what they call their Diaspora, even those who were not religious, and even if they were not generally feeling persecuted. But racism and persecution can be easily called up and organized by stealth. Perhaps the most ardent Zionists collaborator with the German SS was agent Feivel Polkes of the Hagannah (the forerunner of the IDF) the Zionist underground military organization in British-run Palestine. Polkes availed his services to gather information for Germany as long as it did not conflict with his own political ends. Among other things, he would vigorously support German foreign policy interests in the Middle East using influence to secure sources of oil for the German Reich … “if German foreign currency regulations for Jews emigrating to Palestine would be relaxed”. Polkes wanted the Nazis to use their powers of persuasion to ensure that German refugees only went to Palestine. The Gestapo were happy to do “everything in those days to promote emigration, particularly to Palestine.” SS files show that in return for information from Polkes on Jewish attempts to kill Hitler, “pressure will be exerted on the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland to oblige Jews who emigrate from Germany to go exclusively to Palestine, and not to other countries.” Not only were the Zionists trying to close the doors of Britain and the USA to Jewish refugees: they were pressing the Nazis not to allow anyone to leave unless it was for Palestine, and passing information to the Gestapo.
The Transfer (Haavara) Agreement (which promoted the emigration of German Jews to Palestine) implemented in 1933 and abandoned at the beginning of WWII is an important example of this cooperation between Hitler’s Germany and international Zionism. Through this agreement, Hitler’s Third Reich did more than any other government during the 1930’s to support Jewish development in Palestine and further the Zionist goals.” It boosted the Nazi economy at a time when Jews worldwide were encouraged by other Zionist organizations to boycott German goods. Goods worth a total of 139.5 million Reich mark were transferred by 1939. The Agreement also made it possible to settle a large number of German Jews in Palestine.
Before Hitler came to power, less than 3% of Germany's 500,000 Jews belonged to the Zionist movement. The Zionists had limited success in their drive to relocate German Jews to Palestine. Of the two and a half million Jews seeking refuge from the Nazis between 1935 and 1943, less than 9% went to settle in Palestine. Quoting The Order of the SS (1981), Professor Frederic Reider, "By the end of 1939, 150,000 Austrian Jews had left, by choice, to go to live in Palestine, as had also 120,000 German Jews and 78,000 from Bohemia/Moravia. This emigration had been organised by the Third Reich, with Hagannah’s approval, and was carried out clandestinely by boat, despite the draconian measures taken by Britain to stop it.
While gaining cooperation with Hitler on the one side in founding of a Eretz Israel in Palestine, some 60% of all capital invested in the settler economy in Palestine between 1933 and 1939 came from Nazi Germany, by June 1937, the largest exporter to Palestine was Germany and that was despite, simultaneously, “The worldwide boycott against Germany in 1933 and the later all-out declaration of war against Germany initiated by the Zionist leaders and the World Jewish Congress (apparently) enraged Hitler so that he threatened to destroy the Jews…”
If the Jews are the trees and Israel the forest where does the nation of Israel end? The blurring of that answer has been the work of the Zionist forester managing the estate for so many years. In building myths and wars of continued territorial expansion, in designs, deceptions and abuses to conceive a nation the forester has lost perspective and blighted his trees with a perversion. The historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand wrote; “In the Israeli discourse about roots there is a degree of perversion. This is an ethnocentric, biological, genetic discourse. But Israel has no existence as a Jewish state: If Israel does not develop and become an open, multicultural society we will have a Kosovo in the Galilee. The consciousness concerning the right to this place must be more flexible and varied,”
You're just as much of an idiot as oldy and trotsky333.
The occupation and reconstruction of Germany by the allies after the second world war was as such the temporary removal of sovereignty which preceded the establishment of a de-nazified democratic government, at least in the west, and a communist dictatorship in the east which was later reunified, peacefully joining the west.
Personally, I do not see a nuclear powered, colonialist, fascist/racist, nationalist, expansionist, Zionist regime such as the one running Israel today ever transcending or seeding power to a true democracy with equal rights for all its citizens, Jew, Muslim, Christian, Palestinian, Arab, Bedouin, Ethiopian, etc.... without having its sovereignty suspended in some way to "de-Zionize" (as in De-Bathefy Iraq, or de-Nazify Germany) that country and prosecute the criminal elements for their war crimes and crimes against humanity that have been committed and continue to be committed daily.
Although support in the rest of the world for the Zionist regime in Israel is dwindling the fact that the USA is party to those crimes and is complicit in the criminal entity because its own government is under the thumb of the same financial interests which benefit, in fact is not too much different from the situation that existed vis-a-vis Germany in the 1930's. Just ask the Bush family! To understand this better listen to the talk by Omar Barghouti — BDS: The global struggle for Palestinian rights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QODAPfPAaw&feature=player_embedded
As far as "reparations" are concerned, that is a very tricky question? After WW I they tried to hold Germany and the German people responsible for the damages (mostly caused by two king cousins and their pompous assed governments, and it got worse making the way for WW II. All rational people who believe in justice can see that what is needed is an equitable accommodation of "all" reasonable interests and that must include, "the right of return" of the displaced Palestinians and their descendent who were made stateless refugees, as well as proper compensation for their lands and properties. And in these terms Going Green is right that the present Zionist regime is diametrically opposed to any such eventuality and no doubt would use any force of war to prevent it.