More on exploiting the Palestinian cause at the expense of actual Palestinians

A couple of years ago, a Palestinian refugee camp was encircled and laid siege to by an army of tanks and Armored Personnel Carriers. Attacks initiated by Palestinian militants triggered an overwhelming response from the army that took the life of almost 500 people, including many civilians. International organizations struggled to send aid to the refugee camps, where the inhabitants were left without basic amenities like electricity and running water. During the conflict, six U.N. personnel were killed when their car was bombed.

Government ministers and spokesmen tried to explain to the international community that the Palestinian militants were backed by Syria and global jihadist elements. Al Qaeda condemned the government and the army, declaring that the attack was part of a "crusade" against their Palestinian brothers.

At the time, there was little international outcry. No world leader decried the "prison camps" in Lebanon. No demonstrations took place around the world; no U.N. investigation panels were created and little media attention was attracted. In fact, the plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon garners very little attention internationally.

Today, there are more than 400,000 Palestinians in Lebanon who are deprived of their most basic rights. The Lebanese government has a list of tens of professions that a Palestinian is forbidden from being engaged in, including professions such as medicine, law and engineering. Palestinians are forbidden from owning property and need a special permit to leave their towns. Unlike all other foreign nationals in Lebanon, they are denied access to the health-care system. According to Amnesty international, the Palestinians in Lebanon suffer from "discrimination and marginalization" and are treated like "second class citizens" and "denied their full range of human rights."

Amnesty also states that most Palestinian refugees in Lebanon have little choice but to live in overcrowded and deteriorating camps and informal gatherings that lack basic infrastructure.

In view of the worsening plight of the Palestinians in Lebanon, it is the height of irony that a Lebanese flotilla is organizing to leave the port of Tripoli in the next few days to bring aid to Palestinians in Gaza. According to one of the organizers, the participants are "united by a feeling of stark injustice."

This attitude exposes the dishonesty of the whole flotilla exercise. Whether it is from Turkey, Ireland or Cyprus, those that participate in these flotillas reek of hypocrisy. There are currently 100 armed conflicts and dozens of territorial disputes around the world. There have been millions of people killed and hundreds of millions live in abject poverty without access to basic staples. And yet hundreds of high-minded "humanitarian activists" are spending millions of dollars to reach Gaza and hand money to Hamas that will never reach the innocent civilians of Gaza.

Read the rest: "The Flotilla Farce," Danny Ayalon. Wall Street Journal. July 29, 2010.


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"Turkey working to prevent Lebanese sail to Gaza,"  Itamar Eichner. Yediot Aharanoth. July 27, 2010.

Officials in Jerusalem were surprised to learn that Turkey is working to prevent Lebanese ships from attempting to sail to Gaza in violation of an Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run territory, the Yedioth Ahronoth daily reported Tuesday.

Israeli officials estimate that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who visited Damascus and Beirut last week, asked the Lebanese government to prevent the flotilla's departure as part of Ankara's efforts to ease tensions with Israel.

Methinks Erdogan and his party bit off more than they can chew, both internationally and domestically, with their flotilla demagoguery.  Perhaps they even realize it. From what I understand, many Turks are not impressed with the direction he's taking their nation. There has been much speculation that the flotilla business was manufactured, at least in part, as a stunt to boost his party's standing before upcoming elections. He thought the time was right to solidify the Islamicization of Turkey, with that necessary element of any good Islamicist movement, an orgy of public Jew-bashing. Has Erdogan's scheme backfired? Am I jumping to wishful conclusions?

See also: 
"An Open Letter to Mr. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan," IPT News, July 1, 2010

Read more at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/2039/an-open-letter-to-mr-recep-tayyip-erdogan

Ceki Gülcü's blog "Erdogan and the next election"

Each time the Turkish PM Erdogan picks a fight with Israel, his approval ratings go up by several points. On January 2009, at a panel on the Middle-east at Davos (Switzerland), Erdogan had very harsh words towards Israeli President Shimon Peres, calling him an expert-assassin and a baby-killer. Erdogan, talking in Turkish, addressed President Peres in the colloquial "Sen"-form instead of the more polite "Siz"-form. The "Sen"-form when addressing a foreign statesman is unheard of in Turkish politics. On his return to Turkey, Erdogan was greeted as a hero by a huge crowd. Anti-jewish and anti-western sentiment is very strong in Turkey, especially within the least educated parts of society. The West in general and the Jews in particular are routinely blamed for a variety of ills ranging from AIDS to the economic difficulties facing the country. Two months after Davos, in April 2009, the AKP (Erdogan's party) won the elections by a 20% margin. The race was expected to be much closer before Erdogan's intervention at Davos.

Standing up to Israel has so far been a winning strategy for Erdogan and the AKP. The next parliamentary elections are scheduled for November 2010. According to several polls, if elections were held today, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi or CHP (Republican People's Party), the leading opposition party, would prevail by a 10% margin. These polls predate the Gaza flotilla operation, mounted with the help and full-knowledge of the Turkish government.

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Qanta Ahmed on the toxic impact of Jew-hatred in Islamic societies

Qanta Ahmed, a Pakistani doctor and author, reflects on the damage that obsessive Israel-bashing is doing to Muslims and Islamic societies.

"Israel and the Flotilla: On the Dangers of a Binary View," Qanta Ahmed. The Huffington Post. June 20, 2010.

Palestinians are now objectified political pawns, rather than a people. While we are comfortable with the longstanding objectification of Palestinians by Israelis as the 'other' in the form of a security threat (after all Israel must balance a constant struggle to determine the needs of a terrorized Israeli citizenship over the needs of an exploding ever-younger ever impoverished, increasingly radicalized Gaza population) we fail to encounter our own sinister objectification of the Palestinians which we accomplish so effectively all by ourselves. This objectification is not only held by their revolving, corrupt leadership, but also by an objectifying Muslim world. We the Muslims need the Palestinians to remain locked in their plight so that they might continue to serve as the Ummah's scotoma (a blindspot) which literally prevents us from seeing our own more immediate distresses, distresses which might demand our attention and perhaps even require societal interventions . We would be lost, disarmed, and stunned without an external locus for our rage which is so piercingly trained on Gaza and the West Bank, so piercing in fact that Darfur barely warrants a sidelong glance.

Does this exonerate Israel? No. Does this implicate Muslims? You bet.

Let me continue the self-flagellation.

During this same period of Flotilla Face-Offs with the IDF, Pakistan, my nation of matrilineal and patrimonial heritage has witnessed the extraordinary massacre of 120 moderate, pacifist Muslims, followers of the Ahmadiyyah movement that subscribes to peaceful, pluralistic Islam. Specifically, they embrace non-violence, condemning violent jihad. They were massacred, in cold blood, in worship, by fellow citizens, fellow Pakistanis, fellow Muslims. Most of the murdered were elderly, and male. Hundreds more were injured, some of whom are still dying this week. Emergency services did not arrive for over two hours. Pakistani police stood back, apparently allowing the carnage to occur, supposedly too afraid to engage. Awaiting special operations commandos to intervene, in their uncertainty, perhaps their tacit tolerance, Pakistani police became silent accomplices to the massacre. Many of the pacifist Muslim worshipers died of uncomplicated hemorrhagic shock within mere minutes of advanced medical care.

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Of course Free Gaza is not a humanitarian group (Elder of Ziyon)

From the series, "it's just political"

Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (via Elder of Zyon)
June 27, 2010.

"Barry Rubin, and some other blogs, have been talking about the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center's finding documents on the flotilla ships that indicate that Free Gaza's aims were not humanitarian, but political, and that they seemed to be instructing their members not to explicitly show that they are de facto supporters of Hamas in order to avoid apparent ties to terror."


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Lebanese Ship Plots Course for HypocriSea

Here comes another batch of useful idiots and aspiring martyrs to try to break the naval blockade of Gaza. A few fun facts about this latest publicity stunt: 

*Their ship is named after an ancient Israelite lady, Miriam. Irony bonus points! 

*Probably no Palestinians are more marginalized than the 425,000 whom Lebanon has kept in refugee camps for 3+ generations, denying them citizenship, banning them from working in most professions, denying them access to public education, health care, and social services. All in the name of "preserving their identity"--the cynical abuse of the Palestinian cause in sharp relief. Please excuse me if this outpouring of solicitude for Gaza strikes me as hypocritical and more about sticking it to the Jews than about helping Palestinians.  (Don't believe me about that Lebanon would be so cruel to its "brothers?" A powerful case comes from even the most unlikely corners...)

*Hezbollah banned Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe's request to join flotilla on grounds that
her 'nudity, degradation and immodest dress' would shame passengers. (Wehbe denies the story). I guess this means there won't be any racy floorshow, the staple of any good Mediterranean cruise.

*Hezbollah's Executive Council Chief, Hashem Safieddine (what is up with all these crypto-Zionists names?), is already claiming victory; says Zionists are quaking in their boots at the prospect of this "women's flotilla." "Zionists fear boat carrying women who want to deliver aid to Gaza, so how will they be able to face rockets in next war?" It's always nice to hear terrorists at least be honest about the level at which they are operating--that old medieval nexus of honor, fear, and shame.  

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Good post-flotilla coverage from German TV

In a report called, "Questionable Peace Mission," German broadcaster Südwestrundfunk interviews members of the left-wing German political party, Die Linke, who were on the Mavi Marmara. They ask how the flotillistas felt to be "fellow-travelers" with right-wing, violent Islamists. The short answer is, "not interested in thinking about it."

See also Op-Ed by Leon de Winter in today's Wall Street Journal explaining the strange alliance in Europe between purported peace activists on the far left and Islamist reactionaries on the far right.


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New video from Mavi Marmara and testimony from ship captain

"Bloodied walls, slingshots, seen in new footage of Marmara," Yediot Aharanot. June 11, 2010.

Turkish opposition parties wary of Erdogan's provocative role in Gaza flotilla

"Criticism in Turkey: Erdogan knew Gaza sail would be violent," Yitzhak Benhorin.  Yediot Aharanot. June 9, 2010.

"Enjoy the 'bridge,'" Burak Bekdil. Hurriyet Daily News (English edition). 

"Egyptian lawmaker slammed for speaking of beaten troops"

Other flotillistas boast (earlier some in Turkey did) about making some Israeli soldiers cry and holding them captive for a brief moment.  Oops is right.

"Egyptian lawmaker slammed for speaking of beaten troops," Roee Nahmias. Yediot Aharanot. June 8, 2010

A fitting culmination to a cynical affair:

"Hamas refuses to allow aid ships into Gaza," Hanan Greenberg. Yediot Aharanot. June 7, 2010.