Friday, June 4, 2010

Gaza Boat Activists Deny Israeli Story

With a bloody raid on the “Freedom Flotilla,” Israel has demonstrated, once again, its willingness to kill innocents in order to sustain its punishing blockade on the Gaza strip, even when doing so raises more and more questions about nuclear-armed Israel’s national sanity.

By Dennis Bernstein and Jesse Strauss
June 4, 2010

"Scholar Norman Finkelstein, author of a new book on Israel’s 2008-09 assault on Gaza entitled “This Time We’ve Gone Too Far,” deemed the attack on the six ships in international waters that left nine people dead Monday the actions of a “demented... lunatic state.”

According to survivors -- who include a former ambassador, a Nobel laureate and several well-known human rights activists -- the Israeli commandos came heavily armed with explosives and automatic weapons, and some opened fire from the air before landing on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish-flagged vessel leading the flotilla....

The additional fact that Israel has an estimated 200 or more nuclear warheads worries author Norman Finkelstein.

“If this is the kind of decision-making that they make after a week of intensive deliberation against a humanitarian convoy, to launch an armed commando raid in the dead of night in international waters, then what kind of action may they take in the midst of a full-fledged war, with missiles flying toward Tel Aviv, is very scary.

“I honestly don't believe that people are giving serious consideration to the fact that things are rapidly getting out of control.”

Meanwhile, despite the deadly brutality of the raid on the "Freedom Flotilla," Arraf said she and her colleagues are committed to breaking the Gaza blockade, and will not be intimidated....."

No comments: