Unbelievable: Israel resuming talks with Turkey over 'apology'

Little Hitler himself, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu, has confirmed that Israel is once again considering 'apologizing' to Turkey for the Mavi Marmara incident. And it may even be willing to end the blockade of Gaza.

In an interview with CNN Turk, Davutoglu said that Turkey will not make any concessions on its terms for ending the bilateral crisis: an Israeli apology for the killing of nine Turks during the 2010 raid on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara, payment of compensation to the families of the dead and wounded, and a removal of the Gaza blockade.

"It was an informal meeting," said Davutoglu of the Turkish-Israeli encounter in Geneva last week. "We are prepared to talk if the Israelis say they are prepared to fulfill our conditions."

Haaretz reported over the weekend that the special envoy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Joseph Ciechanover, and Turkish Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Feridun Sinirlioglu met last week in Geneva to try to come up with a formula that would end the rift between the two countries, which began after Operation Cast Lead and became a total rupture after the May 2010 Israel Defense Forces raid on the Mavi Marmara, which was attempting to breach the Gaza blockade.

The Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak, which is close to Islamic elements in that country, reported yesterday that during the Geneva conversation Ciechanover said Israel is prepared to apologize to Turkey for killing nine Turkish citizens on the ship and would pay compensation to the victims' families.

Ciechanover reportedly told Sinirlioglu that Israel expects, in return for these steps, that Turkey will normalize relations between the countries, return its ambassador to Tel Aviv and allow the Israeli ambassador to return to Ankara. According to the Turkish report, Ciechanover told Sinirlioglu of Israel's concern that even if it did what Turkey was demanding, it would not receive an appropriate quid pro quo and relations would not return to what they had been before.

Sinirlioglu reportedly responded that if Israel met Turkish demands, the government in Ankara would regard it as a "new leaf" in bilateral relations, and would respond as Israel requests. With that, Sinirlioglu stressed that in addition to an apology and the payment of compensation, Turkey is demanding that Israel move toward removing the Gaza blockade.

According to the report, Ciechanover did not categorically reject the proposal regarding the blockade. He noted it was a process that would take time, and that in any case Israel would need to receive guarantees from Turkey that removing the blockade would not undermine Israel's security.

The compensation is nothing new - Israel offered that two years ago, although frankly it was ridiculous then and is even more ridiculous now. But until now the apology was not going to happen (Israel suggested other language that fell short of the Turkish demands) and opening the Gaza blockade was out of the question.
The fact that Israel is even considering doing this is absurd. We've been vindicated by two blue-ribbon panels - our own and the UN's. It makes absolutely no sense to undermine our position this way. Turkey is not going to side with us against Iran or allow us to use their airspace.
What could go wrong?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Report: IHH financially linked to al-Qaeda

Leader of group that funded 2010 Gaza flotilla suspected of diverting funds to infamous terror group (ynet)Is the Istanbul-based Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) linked to al-Qaeda? IHH director Bulent Yildirim is reportedly being investigated by Turkish authorities for allegedly creating a financial partnership with the infamous terror group. Turkey's Hurriyet Daily reported Friday that Yildirim has allegedly been transferring funds to al-Qaeda through his organization. The probe, led by special taskforce appointed by Ankara, accuses Yildirim of "providing financial aid to al-Qaeda via his foundation with absolute secrecy." Prosecutors claim to have evidence suggesting that efforts were made by the IHH to conduct the financial transactions sans the official numbering and identification needed for wire transfers. The IHH, headed by Yildirim, largely funded the 2010 Gaza-bound flotilla. He has recently been able negotiate the release of two Turkish journalists kidnapped in Syria, as well as the release of 11 Iranians last February that were kidnapped by the Free Syrian Army.
I'm sure Turkey will still insist on an apology from the Israelis

Apologizing to Turkey Would Undermine Israel’s Interests Twice Over

Israel to apologize to Turkey?

Evelyn Gordon
Commentary/Contentions
22 July '11

I’d like to add to Michael’s excellent reasons for why Israel shouldn’t apologize to Turkey about last year’s raid on a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to Gaza. As Michael noted, apologizing won’t restore the strategic alliance, because Turkey has made a strategic foreign-policy choice that precludes alliance with Israel. But apologizing wouldn’t merely be ineffective, it would be downright harmful – to both of Israel’s stated goals.
First, Israel wants to improve relations with Turkey. But by proving that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s bullying tactics work – that Ankara can actively undermine every Israeli interest while promoting vicious anti-Israel sentiment at home, and Israel will still come crawling –apologizing will ensure more of the same.
Erdogan openly supports Hamas, which he insists isn’t a terrorist organization; his government actively backed last year’s flotilla, and he now plans a state visit to Gaza. He worked to block UN sanctions on Iran, then undermined them by boosting Turkey’s gasoline exports to Tehran. He reportedly promised arms to Hezbollah. He insisted that NATO’s planned missile-defense system not give Israel information on Iran. He deemed Israel’s 2009 war with Hamas in Gaza worse than the genocide in Darfur.
He also foments anti-Israel sentiment at home. An Israeli theater was forced to cancel an appearance in Turkey after Ankara said it wouldn’t stop radical Islamists from disrupting the performance. Israel cyclists were barred from an international bike race in Turkey because Syria and Iraq said their teams wouldn’t participate if Israel did. A Turkish-Israeli concert for religious tolerance was canceled after IHH, the viciously anti-Israel group behind the flotilla, insisted. As Turkish columnist Burak Bekdil noted, these and many similar incidents aren’t coincidental; they reflect “the systematic injection of Islamist sentiments about Israel into the minds of younger, ordinary Turks, especially in the past two and a half years” of Erdogan’s reign.
By apologizing, Israel would essentially say that none of the above precludes Turkey from being a valued ally. And if so, not only would Erdogan have no incentive to change his behavior, neither would any of his successors.
Yet Israel also has a second goal: sparing its soldiers facing legal action over the nine Turks killed in the raid. Its attorney general is thus reportedly pushing for an apology, bizarrely claiming this would preclude civil or criminal suits.
In reality, however, an Israeli admission of culpability – the only kind of apology Turkey would accept (it repeatedly rejected Israel’s offer to express mere “regret”) – would make legal action more likely. Absent such an admission, Israel has a strong case: A UN report due out later this month reportedly concluded that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was legal, that it had the right to intercept the flotilla and that its soldiers opened fire in self-defense, though it also found they used excessive force. But once Israel admits culpability, it has no case. And even if Ankara promises not to pursue legal action itself, it can’t stop flotilla passengers or their relatives from doing so –which, since most belonged to IHH, they presumably would.
In short, apologizing would undermine Israel’s own interests twice over. It’s high time for Jerusalem to recognize that the clock on Turkey can’t be turned back.
via calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com

Free Gaza Movement Response to UN: Flotilla On As Planned. I DON'T GET IT EITHER!

...but the blockade is over. Egypt opened up the border. More proof that human rights were not the reason for the flotilla.

The Free Gaza movement welcomed on Sunday a call from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging Israel to end its blockade on Gaza, but responded to his call on world nations to stop the Gaza aid flotillas by insisting the mission would go ahead as planned.
via matzav.com AND more at Arutz Sheva

Egypt permanently opens Gaza border crossing

So it's official now -
the Gaza "blockade" is over.
No more need for the flotillas
full of club-wielding humanitarians
and outdated medical supplies.... um.... maybe not

Erdogan's son joins IHH

How's this for a diplomatic incident in the making? Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son has joined the IHH. I can tell you this much for sure: If he shows up on a boat trying to run the Gaza blockade, he will not be treated differently than anyone else

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Give him a cabin next to Cynthia McKinney and he will be a Zionist by the end of the voyage

IHH Leader Yildirim: “We Will Not Hesitate to Sacrifice Shaheeds to Achieve the Flotilla’s Objective”

“A Muslim,” he continued, “cannot be defeated by oppressors and infidels…The day we agree to be the slaves of the west [is the day] we taste defeat. That is the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Chechnya, but with the help of Allah, we will not permit it in Palestine…If the owners of Al-Quds are Muslims, control of the world will be in Muslim hands.”

IHH leader Bülent Yildirim in a Channel 5 telephone interview. The picture was taken during the Mavi Marmara flotilla (hasturktv.com website)

He claimed that after the events of the Mavi Marmara, contributions to IHH increased, making it possible for the organization to enlarge the humanitarian assistance it sends [to the Gaza Strip]: “If in the past we sent assistance worth $10 million, with the support of the contributors, this time we will send assistance [will be worth] $100 million.

via crethiplethi.com

...Piece Activist...

As the world gears up for Freedom Flotilla 2, the latest waterborne rescue convoy for the beleaugured Palestinian enclave of Gaza, it seems a good time for a review of certain pertinent facts:

1. 
   There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza
2. 
   Even before the first "Freedom Flotilla", there was no humanitarian crisis in Gaza
3. 
   Gaza has a higher standard of living than Egypt
4. 
   Israel supports democracy both for itself and for all nations of the Middle East
5. 
   Hamas attacks pro-democracy protesters
6. 
   Israel's blockade of Gaza is perfectly legal, "according to the law of blockade which was derived from customary international law and codified in the 1909 Declaration of London"
7. 
   Some of the main organizers of these flotillas are radical Islamist IHH terrorists in league with Al Qaeda
   
8. 
   Gaza flotilla participants have chanted about killing Jews
9. 
   Before boarding the Mavi Marmara, the IDF politely warned those on board that they were approaching a naval blockade and offered escort to a port where aid could be unloaded. The response: “Shut up, go back to Auschwitz” and “We’re helping Arabs go against the U.S., don’t forget 9/11.”
10. 
    Those terrorists and their thuggish "humanitarian aid worker" friends tried to murder Israeli personnel with iron bars, knives and five-on-one beatings (so much for peaceful civil disobedience)
11. 
    If the flotilla organizers really, really want to get their aid into Gaza (and don't want to put the stuff on Israeli trucks that already ship in tons of material goods every day), they could just dock at Egypt. The military junta in charge of the newly, er, democratic country has decided that it's a good idea to fling open the border to an Islamist terror statelet (What could possibly go wrong?).

via propagandistmag.com

Guardian approved anti-Semitic cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, graces the halls of UN Human Rights Council

At a recent session of the UN Human Rights Council a UN-accredited NGO with terrorist affiliations (IHH) distributed a publication containing the following picture:

This image (published during the flotilla incident in June) – of a demonic Israel, with the swastika substituted for the star of David on the Israeli flag, as an octopus strangling freedom-loving innocents – was created by the notorious anti-Semitic cartoonist Carlos Latuff.
Latuff is an extreme left-wing political activist who won second place in the notorious Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Competition, and is one of the more prolific anti-Israel cartoonists on the web, with a staggering amount of work dedicated to advancing explicitly anti-Semitic political imagery  - and frequently illustrates comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.
(Also, of note, a regular blogger at the site, Mondoweiss, posted, in early June, the very same “Octopus” cartoon shown above.)
As we noted previously, Latuff’s work has been posted on various radical left websites and blogs, as well as several terrorist affiliated websites such as ‘The Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance’ (JAMI) magazine.
So Latuff’s hateful depictions have been employed by quite a wide range of extremists: the anti-Zionist Jewish left, radical Islamist NGOs, and even publications of Islamist terrorist movements.
Latuff is also the same “artist” published by the Guardian during their “Palestine Papers” series to depict Mahmoud Abbas as a gun-toting sinister-looking Orthodox Jewish “settler”, to advance the view that Abbas was a traitor for allegedly showing a willingness to make concessions with Israel – a cartoon which reinforced the abhorrent pejorative depictions of Orthodox Jews used frequently in anti-Semitic caricatures throughout the Middle East.



Here’s Latuff’s Tweet of the cartoon:

The Guardian sure keeps very interesting company.

via cifwatch.com

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Terrorist Group IHH Linked to Flotilla Attacks Again in May

Peace Activists out of Tarantino film? IHH want to go to Gaza? it is easy to get in from 

 Egypt these days 

 AP Photo

  via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

 

IHH Premeditated Violence

via youtube.com

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

June 10th

Peace Activists out of Tarantino film?

From: Carol Shelby Date: June 7, Tehillim please for the son of our daughters friend who was one of the commandos attacked by one of these good, kind peace activists. He is at present recovering in Tel HaShomer. He was shot in the legs, had his ear cut off with a knife, (it has been re-attached so we pray it will be O.K.) and badly injured in the arms. He faces many months of treatment and physio. His name is: Daniel Lazar ben Tina Taabel Lea.

there is a conversation on my facebook profile that related to this here

Below, a first hand account from Amir, an Israeli soldier who was there.

Hello Uncle Erwin,

This is Amir writing you after reading what you sent to my father, Eitan. As you know, it was my unit and my friends who were on the ship. My commander was injured badly as a result of the "pacifists" violence. I want to tell you how he was injured so you could tell the story. It shows just how horrible and inhuman were the activists.

My commander was the first soldier that rappelled down from the helicopter to the ship. When he touched ground, he got hit in the head with a pole and stabbed in the stomach with a knife. When he drew out his secondary weapon-a handgun (his primary weapon was a regular paintball gun: "Tippman 98 custom") he was shot in the leg. He managed to fire a single shot before he was tossed from the balcony by 4 Arab activists, to the lower deck (a 12 feet fall). He was then dragged by other activists to a room in the lower deck were he was stripped down by 2 activists.

They took off his vest, helmet and shirt, leaving him with only his pants and shoes on. When they finished they took a knife and expanded the wound he already had in his stomach. They cut his ab muscles horizontally and by hand spilled his guts out. When they finished they raised him up and walked him on the deck outside. He was conscious the whole time. If you are asking yourself why they did all that, here comes the reason. They wanted to show the soldiers their commander's body so they will be demoralized and scared. Luckily, when they walked him on the deck a soldier saw him and managed to shoot the activist that was walking him down the outside corridor. He shot him with a special non-lethal bullet that didn't kill him. My commander managed to jump from the deck to the water and swim to an army rescue boat (his guts still out of his body, and now in salty sea water). That was how he was saved.

The activists that did this to him are alive, now in Turkey, and treated as heroes. I'm sorry if I described this with too many details, but I thought it was necessary for the credibility. Please tell this story to anyone who will listen. I think that these days you are one of Israel's best spokesman.

Thanks uncle Erwin, Shabbat shalom!

Amir

IHH terror organization is behind the Gaza Flotilla

The notion – uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media – that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous. This research by the Danish Institute for International Studies details the part played by the IHH in Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. According to the French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testifying at the Seattle trial of would-be al Qaeda Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressamin, the IHH had played ‘[a]n important role’ in the al Qaeda Millenium bomb plot targeting Los Angeles airport. It was also involved in weapons trafficking, and played in addition a key role in galvanizing anti-Western sentiment among Turkish Muslims in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq. ‘Peace activists’ these people most certainly are not.
And this flotilla was but the latest jihadi attack, deploying the Islamists’ signature strategy of violence and media manipulation. Here from MEMRI (via Just Journalism) is a clip showing the hysteria against Israel being whipped up on board before the ships set sail, with the chanting of intifada songs about ‘Khaybar’ – the iconic slaughter of Jews by Muslims in the 7^th century which is used as a rallying cry to kill the Jews today -- and threats of ‘martyrdom’. This was not merely a propaganda stunt, but a terrorist attack.

via spectator.co.uk

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Egypt Opens Border to Gaza and Turkey threatens warships against Israel

Maybe I don't speak for everyone in Dearborn. But those people gotten up to demonstrate at City Hall today don't speak for me.
I haven't felt much like blogging lately. But someone in Dearborn has to provide some outlet for the facts of what happened to the "humanitarian" flotilla that was trying to break the blockade on Gaza. The local news is not doing it.
Steve Emerson has written this:

Violence and Humanitarian Aid
IPT News
June 1, 2010
Condemnations of Israel's commando raid on the flotilla trying to break a blockade on Gaza are pouring in after 10 people were reported killed in the violence at sea early Monday.
Egypt announced Tuesday that it would open its border with Gaza, which Reuters describes as "a major boost for Hamas and a blow to efforts by Israel and its Western allies to cripple the Islamists." Turkey is threatening to send more ships, escorted by its own navy, while there are fears Hizballah will use the incident to justify a new wave of rocket attacks toward Israel.
Was it, as some suggest, the plan of flotilla organizers all along?
It's worth remembering why the aid was being transported by sea in the first place. A convoy led by then-British MP George Galloway ended in violence at the Egyptian-Gaza border in early January after authorities delayed their entry into Gaza.
An Egyptian police officer was shot and killed by Hamas gunmen. Egypt deported Galloway, made it clear he was unwelcome there again, and told the convoy it could no longer enter through its crossing. Galloway's partner in that convoy was the Turkish-based International Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), which helped lead the flotilla.
IHH was a key player in the Free Gaza Movement flotilla. Israeli officials say IHH is tied to Hamas, and even to al Qaeda, and it was banned in Israel in 2008 for being "part of Hamas's fundraising network." Court papers in the U.S. prosecution of Abdurahman Alamoudi also tie it to terrorist activity, citing French intelligence expert Jean Louis-Bruguiere's assessment that IHH played "[a]n important role" in the Millennium bomb plot.
IHH also is part of the Union of Good, a collection of charities run by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. The union was designated by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008 as a terrorist entity due to its fund-raising activities on behalf of Hamas and Hamas-controlled organizations in the West Bank and Gaza.
During the past year, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has chronicled the Hamas-ties of relief convoy participants, led by Galloway. In March 2009, he defiantly handed a bag of cash directly to a Hamas minister and announced that:

"By Allah, we carried a lot of cash here. You thought we were all fat. We are not fat. This is money that we have around our waists ... We are giving you now 100 vehicles and all of the contents. And we make no apology for what I am about to say: We are giving them to the elected government of Palestine; to the Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh."

After the January convoy, a Palestinian media outlet reported that Hamas political and militant leaders were fighting for control of $1 million delivered in the Viva Palestina/IHH convoy. And last week, before the confrontation on the Mediterranean, Palestinian political scientist Talal Okal told the Christian Science Monitor that Hamas controls anything that comes in from the relief efforts. Hamas activists were even seen driving ambulances the convoy left behind:

"They want to show that they dominate everything, and that everything in Gaza passes under their eyes. So, if these boats arrive, Hamas will receive it [the aid] and distribute it how they want, to their supporters and according to their policies."

With that in mind, Israel's concern that the flotilla might carry goods Hamas could use in weapons and explosives isn't so far-fetched.
In Monday's violence, the videos speak for themselves. Israeli commandos were beaten as they landed on the ship's deck by men wielding pipes, knives and other weapons. One commando said he thought the crowd was trying to lynch him. Israeli officials say the initial plan was to use paintball guns to gain control of the ship and that the navy team had handguns for use only if their lives were threatened.
Flotilla members grabbed at least one gun from a soldier, contributing to the decision to fire back, Israeli military officials said.
The Israelis, it seems, weren't prepared for what met them. But any notion that the ship carried peaceful activists is ludicrous. They wanted a confrontation.
According to London's Times, a flotilla passenger told a reporter during a stop in Cyprus:

"We are now waiting for one of two good things — either to reach Gaza or achieve martyrdom."

She was not alone.
Al-Aqsa television, the Hamas station in Gaza, interviewed Professor Abd Al-Fatah Nu'man last week. According to a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Nu'man said:

"Yesterday, the commander of the fleet said: 'We will not allow the Zionists to come near us, and we will wage resistance against them.' With what will they wage resistance? With their fingernails. These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them."

As it turns out, they had much more than their fingernails. Clubs, knives and slingshots are among the weapons found on the ship and seen on the video in attacks on the commandos.
It's clear, though, that the commandos were not the ones looking to hurt people. The Times report indicates passengers on five other ships in the flotilla were trained in non-violent resistance.
Israeli forces took control of those ships without reports of any injuries. They were taken to the Israeli port at Ashdod where officials pledged genuine humanitarian supplies will go to Gaza's civilians.
That's what officials said would happen when they urged the flotilla to give up peacefully:

"Delivery of the supplies, in accordance with the authority's regulations will be through the formal land crossings and under your observation, after which, you can return to your home ports aboard the vessels on which you arrived."

Contrast that with the message flotilla participants conveyed from the beginning. Passengers chanted "Khaibar, Khaibar ya Yahud Jaysh Muhammed Safayood" (Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!")
That's a taunt invoking a massacre of Jews.
Der Spiegel writer Christoph Schult thought the Israelis over-reacted, but recognized the passengers were spoiling for a fight:

"But as the Israeli army stormed the largest ship, the Mavi Marmara, the activists they encountered were in no way exclusively docile peaceniks. Some of the 'peace activists' received the Israelis with crow bars and sling shots. Some of the self-professed "human rights activists" reportedly even tore the weapons from soldiers and began to shoot.
That's not what a peaceful protest looks like."

Even Israelis and their supporters are openly wondering whether the country fell into a trap – designed to provoke Israel into action that cost it more in international pressure than in upholding its blockade of Hamas in Gaza.
Lost in all of this is the reason there is a blockade on Gaza at all. When Israel ended the occupation of Gaza by unilaterally withdrawing – even removing its own citizens by force – Hamas responded with increased terror attacks and launching thousands of crude rockets at Israeli civilians. It also kidnapped an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, and has refused to hand him back after four years.
Newsweek's Joe Klein, a frequent critic of Israeli policy, noted the underlying causes in a column about the flotilla attack:

"And the blockade is not total--food and humanitarian supplies are allowed through by the Israelis, which renders the humanitarian aspects of the flotilla redundant. The real purpose of the flotilla is to dramatize the inhuman conditions in Gaza. But those conditions are as attributable to Hamas's behavior, especially its refusal to release Shalit and to negotiate, as they are to Israel's intransigence. If I were an Israeli--even an Israel opponent of the Netanyahu coalition--I would be utterly opposed to making concessions to an organization as historically intransigent and violent as Hamas, unless there were signs that Hamas was willing to behave more reasonably."

For all those who say they want life to improve for Palestinians in Gaza, they can do things to end the blockade and enhance the quality of life. But it begins with Hamas leadership and their belief, perhaps a correct one, that they are winning the propaganda war by preserving the status quo. Until that changes, conditions will not improve for Palestinians in Gaza.
What flotilla organizers call the legitimate government in Gaza is a murderous band of religious fanatics who seek no compromise, no peace that recognizes the state of Israel and calls for its destruction. Monday's violence will only entrench their hard line.

via dearbornunderground.blogspot.com

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