http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JoGwq9k5lw

The savage attack on the Gaza flotilla is a wake-up call for every Israeli and further proof of the government’s growing paranoia

The defiant and paranoid spirit emanating from the likes of Binyamin Netanyahu is poisoning the internal public discourse. Photograph: Bernat Armangue/AP

A few months ago I was handed a leaflet from the group that organised the humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza. I entertained the idea of joining it as a journalist because I believed the presence of journalists and of Israelis would make its journey safer. I gave up the idea because the pressing chores of life were more demanding and also – I wonder if I’ll ever be able to forgive myself for this sentiment – I was somewhat horrified by the idea of spending a lot of time on a ship with a bunch of Kumbaya-singing hippies.

I did not think the IDF would attack the ships. I thought Israel was too clever, too PR aware, to jeopardise the lives of foreign nationals for the whole world to see. I didn’t for a moment foresee anything resembling the murderous carnage the world witnessed on Monday morning. Little did I know.

I must have forgotten that even though Likud and Labour governments might be prone to identical behaviour when it comes to land grabbing, settlement building and Palestinian human rights oppression, there is still a great difference in their levels of stupidity, and their disregard of international public opinion. The one good thing about traditional Labour governments is that, on occasion, a raised cautioning finger from the US administration or an international outcry might make them stop and think for a minute.

What harm would have come to Israel if it had let the protesters embark in Gaza and deliver their goods? The world media generally yawns at such initiatives, and all the activists could have rationally hoped for would have been a photo op in an obscure back page of a number of broadsheets. Israel could have come out of it looking majestically generous.

But Israel has moved into a new stage in the last few months. The defiant and paranoid spirit emanating from Binyamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman and their opportunistic and violent Labour ally, Ehud Barak, is poisoning the internal public discourse. Ministers and members of parliament are openly inciting against Palestinian citizens of Israel and their political representatives in the most racist manner, and against leftwing activists – Jewish as well as Arab. The talk about “traitors”, “backstabbers”, “snitches” and “fifth column” are increasingly reminiscent of the Weimar republic.

It is not just Hamas and Hezbollah, or even the whole of the Palestinian people that seems to be the enemy, it is everybody: from “hypocritical and Muslim-infested” Europe to the soapy liberals among the Israelis, from the journalists to the lawyers. Journalist Anat Kam is facing trial on spying allegations for leaking military documents when serving as a soldier, and journalist Uri Blau has gone into exile in London under intimidating threats of facing similar charges for publishing them.

Ameer Makhoul and Dr Omar Saeed (human right activists and Israeli citizens) were arrested in the middle of the night at their homes some two weeks ago, and were unlawfully prevented from conferring with their lawyers for 12 days. Now they are facing trial on extremely controversial spying allegations. In this atmosphere, no wonder the government now starts killing European human rights activists and protesters in an act of terrorist piracy.

The international peace movement has shown that it consists of much more that “Kumbaya-singing hippies”. It showed immense courage and solidarity with Gaza’s people, and paid an incredibly heavy price in the lives of heroic activists. They have followed the footsteps of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, in sacrificing their lives while exposing the evils of the Israeli occupation forces.

Any decent Israeli citizen is faced with very clear choices today. The first is to support the government and the army, to pretend to buy into their stories about “gunfire coming from the ship”. The second is to align ourselves with the people who died on board the Gaza flotilla, and to back their struggle for a better future in Israel in Palestine.

The Israeli government proves day after day that when you start robbing human rights off someone, you end up robbing them off everyone. The savage attack in the Mediterranean should be a wake-up call for every Israeli. If we do not speak up now, nobody will be left when the Netanyahu-Lieberman-Barak thugs come for us.

At least nine people have been killed and more than 30 wounded when an Israeli commando stormed the biggest boat of a flotilla carrying 800 humanitarians, peace activists, and aid workers. The flotilla was trying to break through the three-year blockade put in place by Israel after Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006 and seized control of Gaza. The ships were carrying some 10 tons of humanitarian aid. The commandos boarded the ship from helicopters at 4 a.m. Video from , who can be heard clearly shouting, “We are being attacked in international waters,” and audio from , a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, show that the ship was boarded while still in international waters. The last known coordinates of the flotilla was latitude: 32.64113, longitude: 33.56727–approximately 65 miles off the coast of Netanya. Israeli police have also imprisoned 16 passengers.

Israeli spokesman Mark Regev said he was confident that the aid workers opened fire first on the commandos. But the aid workers have noted that all the ships were searched at port by both the Turkish and the Cyprus governments and no weapons were found. Video of the siege shows some of the passengers armed with marbles and slingshots.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has given his full support to the operation but has cut short a trip to Canada and canceled completely the meeting that was to take place on Tuesday with President Obama at the White House. Last June, Obama sent a note to the Israeli government officially protesting the blockade and demanding that the border crossings into Gaza be opened to facilitate reconstruction. The U.S. demanded that the Israelis allow more food and medicine into the territory, that cash transfers to banks in the Gaza Strip be permitted, and that construction materials such as cement and iron be allowed in.

. Read The Daily Beast’s complete coverage of the crisis in Israel.The names of the dead are not yet known, but passengers aboard the ships included retired U.S. diplomats Amb. Edward Peck and Col. Ann Wright, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, and former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday, as well as humanitarian aid and human-rights workers, several MPs from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Turkey, Malaysia, and Palestinian members of the Knesset.

This is not the first attempt by the group, known collectively as the , to break through Israel’s blockade. In the summer of 2008, the organization set sail from Cyprus on two small wooden fishing boats carrying 44 activists from 17 different countries. That mission successfully docked at Gaza–the first international ships to do so since 1957. Bolstered by their initial success, leaders of the Free Gaza Movement organized four more successful trips in 2008, transporting tons of aid and dozens of United Nations workers, international activists, and members of European parliaments to the Gaza Strip.

But circumstances changed after the devastating war in December of 2008 between Israel and Hamas (Operation Cast Lead, as the Israelis called it). When the Free Gaza Movement organized an emergency delegation to deliver three tons of medical supplies and a handful of doctors and surgeons to Gaza, they were intercepted by the Israeli Navy, which rammed their ship, almost sinking it. In January 2009, the group bought another ship and once again set sail to Gaza. Once again they were turned back by the Israeli navy. Last June, the organization tried a third time to break through the blockade, this time taking with them Nobel Peace Prize winner Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The Israeli navy boarded that ship, confiscated the materials on board, arrested the passengers, including Maguire and McKinney, and detained them in an Israeli prison for a week. Although the ship was never returned, the Israeli government claimed to have delivered the medical supplies on board to Gaza, though all the other material, including the food, toys, and reconstruction material were seized and, presumably, destroyed.

The Israeli government has instructed the Free Gaza Movement to try to deliver its supplies through official channels. But considering that those channels are strictly controlled by the government itself, it is difficult to take the suggestion seriously. If such “official channels” were actually effective in delivering aid to the Gazans, then there would not be the massive starvation and malnutrition that we are seeing today in Gaza.

Then again, according to the Israeli government, everything is just fine in Gaza. No need to worry. Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak has made the extraordinary claim that there is absolutely no shortage in humanitarian aid to the Gazans and that food and supplies are regularly and freely transferred to the area.

That will come as a surprise not only to the hundreds of thousands of starving Gazans living on piles of rubble that used to be their homes, but to just about every single human-rights and international aid organization in the world, including the United Nations, all of which have repeatedly reported that the blockade is causing extreme hardship, severe malnutrition in children, and increased poverty in Gaza. The World Health Organization recently passed a resolution demanding that Israel end the blockade, claiming that it has caused a devastating shortage of medicines in the Gaza Strip. (Predictably, the United States opposed the WHO resolution, saying that it “stirred up tensions.” Heaven forbid!)

Amnesty International has written numerous reports about how the blockade has destroyed the livelihoods of Gaza’s farmers and fishermen and limited access to medical care. The U.N.’s Association for International Development Agencies has documented the disastrous impact of the blockade on Gaza’s health services. According to one report, long delays for those seeking medical treatment in Israel caused the deaths of 28 people last year alone. The Vatican has called Gaza “one big concentration camp.” The U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated that the blockade has imposed “unacceptable hardships” on innocent civilians while “empowering extremists.” Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who has called the blockade a “crime and an atrocity,” echoed Ban’s statement. “I think politically speaking [the blockade] has worked even to strengthen the popularity of Hamas and to the detriment of the popularity of Fatah,” Carter said.

Confronted with these statements and statistics, the response of the Israeli government has been as predictable as it is absurd. After all, all of these international aid and human-rights organizations are against Israel, didn’t you know? Amnesty International is “borderline anti-Semitic,” as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has declared. Human Rights Watch has an “anti-Israel bias,” according to AIPAC. And please don’t get Israeli politicians started on the United Nations! Whatever criticisms these organizations have against Israel are obviously biased and need not be taken seriously.

As to why continue the blockade in Gaza? Well that’s an easy question for the Israeli government to answer. “Hamas, which rules Gaza, is a terror organization supported by Iran,” said Defense Minister Barak. “It smuggles weapons and rockets with the sole purpose of harming Israelis, as it has done many times in the past.”

OK, fine. Hamas is bad. We get it. But what about the rest of the 1.5 million men, women, and children living in what has become the most densely packed region on earth? How can the cutting off of food, medical supplies, gas, and electricity to the entire population of Gaza be understood in any other way except as an act of collective punishment?

Despite the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing Gazans, Israel’s blockade has gotten very little international attention. Despite a promise by the international community to pledge over $4 billion of aid to help rebuild Gaza in 2009, almost none of that money has reached Gazans. Most Americans, it seems, could not care less about what is taking place in Gaza. Ask the average pundit on TV about it and the response will inevitably be, “Hamas.”

End of conversation.

And yet, do we not all have a moral obligation to put politics aside and stand up for the suffering of our fellow human beings no matter where they are? Are we not obligated to work toward overturning the profoundly immoral policies that have made the situation in Gaza intolerable for its inhabitants? And if the world’s governments are not willing to take action to address this unprecedented crisis, then does it not fall on the citizens of the world to do something about it?

“When the tsunami hit Indonesia, the world came together to provide aid for those affected,” said Ramzi Kysia, a volunteer who has been with the Free Gaza Movement since 2006. “When the earthquake hit Haiti, again, the world came together to help those who were suffering. And yet what we have in Gaza is a man-made disaster, a man-made humanitarian crisis. But it is every bit as bad as any natural disaster.”

Responsibility Is With Hamas For Attack On Gaza Flotilla! Yochanan Plesener

FROM CYNTHIA MCKINNEY ON MAY 31, 2010: “I am outraged at Israel’s latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel’s needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activiests. But I’m even more outraged that once again, Israel has been aided and abetted by the silence of the world’s onlookers whose hearts have grown cold with indifference.”

EXCERPT:
“First, absent any intention by the flotilla to attack Israel, or any suspicion of piracy, it was unlawful for Israel to forcibly board foreign merchant vessels in international waters.

Secondly, such action amounted to an unlawful interference in the enforcement jurisdiction of the “flag-States” (countries of registration) of those vessels, such as Turkey.

Thirdly, it violated the fundamental principle of freedom of navigation on the high seas, codified in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982.

Fourthly, under international human rights law, the apprehension and detention of those on board the vessels likely amounts to arbitrary, unlawful detention, contrary to article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, since there is lawful basis for detention.

Fifthly, if Israeli forces killed people, they may not only have infringed the human right to life, but they may also have committed serious international crimes. Under article 3 of the Rome Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation of 1988, it is an international crime for any person to seize or exercise control over a ship by force, and also a crime to injure or kill any person in the process.

Ironically, that treaty was adopted after Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Italian cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, in 1985, in which a Jewish American was killed.

In such cases, any claim of self-defence by Israeli forces is irrelevant. The treaty necessarily adopts a strict approach. One cannot attack a ship and then claim self-defence if the people on board resist the unlawful use of violence.

Legally speaking, government military forces rappelling onto a ship to illegally capture it are treated no differently than other criminals. The right of self-defence in such situations rests with the passengers on board: a person is legally entitled to resist one’s own unlawful capture, abduction and detention.”

Associate Professor Ben Saul is Co-Director of the Sydney Centre for International Law at The University of Sydney, a barrister, and a leading international authority on terrorism in international law. Dr Saul teaches the law of armed conflict and has been involved in such cases in The Hague, the Israeli Supreme Court, and in the Balibo coronial inquest.

YouTube – Flotilla Massacre: Cynthia McKinney interviewed on CBC’s Connect with Mark Kelley.

International Backlash Against Israel Grows After Violent Attack On Humanitarian Flotilla

Arabs & Muslims Called On To Rise Up In Front Of Israeli Embassies

Thousands In The Street In Istanbul Turkey After Israel Attacks Gaza Flotilla

[still waiting for confirmation on this. seems like prepared propaganda, especially the packaging for the weapon - since the boat was already searched by Turkey before it left.]

JERUSALEM (AFP) – The Israeli army released footage on Monday of the resistance put up by pro-Palestinian activists as commandos stormed an aid ship headed to Gaza in an operation that has sparked a diplomatic furor.

Video images showed troops rappelling down to the deck of one of the vessels in the aid flotilla and coming under repeated attack by a group of people waving poles and chairs.

As a black-clad figure climbs down a rope from a chopper, someone on deck lobs a projectile at him and a group of baton-wielding passengers converge on him as he drops to the ground in chaotic scenes in which it appears that the passengers had the upper hand.

In the black-and-white footage, which appears to have been shot from a nearby vessel, at least six passengers can be seen on the deck of the vessel, repeatedly raising their sticks and forcefully hitting something or someone out of shot on the ground.

As the scenes of violence unfold, soldiers watching the operation from the nearby ship can be heard speaking in Hebrew. “They’re really beating them badly,” one says.

Among the crowd of at least 20 or so passengers milling around on the deck, at least two can be seen pushing one of the Israeli commandos over the railing onto a lower deck, pulling some kind of kit off his back as he falls.

“Wow, they’ve thrown a fighter over the edge,” another voice says. “They’ve just shoved him over.”

Another demonstrator can be seen waving a white chair over his head in the melee, which also shows one commando pointing what appears to be a paint-ball gun at the passengers.

Israel has come under furious attack from countries across the globe in the wake of the attack which left at least nine protesters dead, most of them reportedly Turkish.

Much of the criticism has focused on Israel’s use of live ammunition against the pro-Palestinian activists who were in international waters as they sought to run the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since the Islamist Hamas movement seized control [was democratically elected by the people of Palestine to protect them from the israelis] of the territory in 2007.

The following two videos were posted by IDF at Youtube:

The following video is from AFP:

In what could be a serious blow to Israel’s narrative on the killing of at least nine humanitarian activists making their way to Gaza through international waters, raw video by an Al Jazeera producer, who was filming during the raid, appears to provide evidence that the IDF opened fire on the flotilla even before boarding it.

Israeli forces assert they came under attack by the pro-Palestine civilian group, and video released by the IDF appears to show one soldier being tossed overboard amid a scuffle with unidentified individuals wielding melee weapons, like clubs and chairs.

However, in raw video captured by an Al Jazeera producer and published to YouTube late Monday, two journalists provide a play-by-play of the harrowing event as pops and cracks echo in the background. Even before the Israeli forces were aboard, one says, they were pelting the boat with tear gas and stun grenades, injuring numerous people.

Then he confirms the first death, saying the individual was killed by “munitions,” but not specifying whether it was a bullet or something else. Then he confirms that Israeli forces were boarding the ship.

Another of the reporters featured in the video works for the Iranian network Press TV. “We are being hit by tear gas, stun grenades, we have navy ships on either side, helicopters overhead,” he said. “We are being attacked from every single side. This is in international waters, not Israeli waters, not in the 68-mile exclusion zone. We are being attacked in international waters completely illegally.”

“The organizers are telling me now, they are raising a white flag — they are raising a white flag to the Israeli army,” the Al Jazeera reporter said. “This is after one person has been killed; a civilian has been killed by munition. That number could be more … Despite the white flag being raised, despite the white flag being raised, the Israeli army is still shooting, still firing live munitions.”

Early reports put the number of victims between nine and 19, with dozens injured. (Update: Figures from major wire services put the number at 10, but it may yet change.) The actual number has not yet been confirmed, as the IDF took all the Gaza aid flotilla participants into custody. Numerous victims were reported to be from Turkey. Palestinian leadership called the incident a “war crime.” Israeli ally Turkey also pledged their regional neighbor will “face the consequences” for the killings and reportedly planned to send military escort with a future Gaza aid flotilla.

“At least four Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation, some from gunfire, according to the military,” The New York Times added.

“Our soldiers had to defend themselves, to defend their lives,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly said. Other Israeli officials have called the charity organization responsible a group of “extremist supporters of terror.” The IDF also alleged that weapons were found on board and that activists opened fire first, calling the the resulting violence a result of “provocation.”

However, if these reporters’ immediate accounting of the events proves accurate, the truth of Israel’s claim that they opened fire in self defense would seem to be in doubt.

Portions of the raw video were featured by Al Jazeera and AFP, although the beginning segment and the most clear allegations that Israel opened fire before boarding were not included in their entirety.

This video was published to YouTube by user WilliamTomg on May 31, 2010.

The action sparked protests around the world within hours.

In Turkey crowds took to the streets in several cities to vent fury after the storming of a Turkish passenger boat in the flotilla that left at least nine dead, most of them believed to be Turkish nationals.

“Damn Israel!”, “A tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye, revenge, revenge!” yelled protesters in Istanbul where about 10,000 people converged on the central Taksim square after marching from the Israeli consulate.

“Turkish soldiers to Gaza,” shouted some, as others torched Israeli flags.

“I call on the government to expel the Israeli consul… And if necessary, we are ready for war,” Seref Mangal, 40, told AFP. A banner carried by the crowd read: “Close down the Zionist embassy.”

In the capital Ankara about 1,000 people gathered outside the residence of Israeli ambassador Gabby Levy and shouted “Damn the Zionist murderers!” and “Israel will drown in the blood of the martyrs!”.

They threw eggs and plastic bottles into the garden of the residency. Reports said demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the country.

In London more than 1,000 people — some of whom had friends on the ships carrying aid to blockaded Gaza — protested outside the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron and the Israeli embassy.

Chanting “Free Palestine” and brandishing the Palestinian flag and banners condemning Israeli “war crimes”, activists blocked a major route through the capital. Hundreds of police stood guard outside the embassy.

“We have close friends on the boat on which people were killed and we are here waiting for news,” said Kate Hudson, the chairwoman of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

In Paris about 500 people joined a noisy protest near the Israeli embassy, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “Palestine will survive, Palestine will conquer”.

Scuffles broke out when a dozen rival protestors waving Israeli flags approached, prompting police to fire tear gas, but calm was soon restored. Another 1,300 people rallied in the city of Lille.

Greek police used tear gas to force back around 1,500 protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Athens, while another 2,000 people rallied in the northern city of Thessaloniki.

In Lebanon thousands of Palestinian refugees and activists waving Palestinian flags and banners marched in the country’s 12 refugee camps.

“Where is the international community? Where are human rights?” they chanted in the Al-Bass camp in the southern coastal city of Tyre.

In Beirut hundreds gathered in the city centre called on Israeli embassies in the Arab world to be shut down and for Israeli ambassadors to be expelled.

At a demonstration of about 3,000 people at the Beddawi camp in the northern city of Tripoli, anger also turned on Israel’s traditional ally, the United States.

“God is great and America is the greatest evil,” they chanted. “Give us weapons, give us weapons and send us on to Gaza.”

There were even demonstrations inside Israel, where hundreds of protestors flooded the streets of the northern Arab city of Nazareth as Israeli police raised the level of alert across the country and deployed reinforcements.

More than 2,000 people in Amman protested what Jordan’s Information Minister Nabil Sharif dubbed a “heinous crime”.

Demonstrators included Islamist opposition leaders and carried banners that read “We Will not Surrender” and “Break Gaza Blockade.” They also demanded that Jordan shut down the Jewish state’s embassy and expel the Israeli ambassador.

In Iran’s capital Tehran, dozens of people pelted stones at the UN office chanting: “This savage regime of Israel must be wiped out.”

They burnt the Israeli flag and tore up pictures of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In Pakistan politicians, lawmakers and journalists staged a peaceful protest in Islamabad, denouncing the killings and calling on the United Nations and the United States to intervene.

Hundreds of Bosnians marched through Sarajevo, brandishing Palestinian flags. “We wanted to raise our voice to denounce a new attempt at genocide in modern times,” one of the organisers, Edvin Cudic, told Srna news agency.

Around 200 people demonstrated outside the UN’s European headquarters in Geneva demanding an inquiry into the raid, while in the Netherlands 400 rallied outside the Israeli embassy in The Hague.

There were also protests in Egypt while in Kuwait activists were planning rallies.

After Israeli PM Netanyahu canceled a planned meeting with President Obama, the White House stressed the importance of “learning all the facts” before jumping to conclusions.

Even for eyes burnt witnessing human suffering, there is something shocking, something impossible, about watching Israeli soldiers, armed and in gas masks, fast-roping from helicopters onto an aid ship filled with civilians — journalists, parliamentarians, human rights activists, mothers, doctors — headed to Gaza to break the inhuman siege that keeps 1.5 million people somewhere between life and death.

The Mavi Marmara, carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid, was flying a white flag: a universal symbol of non-violence. It was also flying the Turkish flag, in international waters, giving it status as a sovereign extension of Turkey. Regardless, Israel attacked. For what does Israel fight? Its existence, or the continuance of a regime of collective punishment calculated to destroy the Palestinians? Or are these the same thing? Dead: 19. Injured: 60. Who gave the order? Will NATO react to an attack on one of its members?

Simple public murder

The right to exist cannot be asserted through murder. The very acceptance of Israel into the United Nations System was — in 1948 — conditioned on the former recognising the equal rights of Arabs, in particular the right of return of Palestinians. Not only has Israel prevented the return of refugees, it took over by force and occupied in 1967 the rest of historic Palestine. From founding until now we have witnessed an unending catalogue of Israeli atrocities. By these countless atrocities, Israel has forfeited any claim to legality — it is moreover a state that refuses to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or consider giving up its nuclear weapons.

Gaza is both the world’s largest open-air prison and the 21st century’s undeclared concentration camp. Everybody knows it. The UN knows it. The US president knows it. Tens of thousands of civil servants in countries across the world know it. The siege is a way of sealing the exits, and of slow killing. It is an atrocity on the same level as genocide. Here every man and woman has a moral duty: inaction is complicity and a betrayal of humanity. All legal rights are with those who attempt to end this situation by whatever means.

The Freedom Flotilla is such an attempt: it is a refusal of inhuman suffering. Its symbolism is more powerful than any navy. As such, it remains what it was as it embarked on its journey: a signal of the collapse of the blockade. Where earlier lone vessels tried to reach Gaza, now they go in groups. More will follow. When a thousand ships set sail, what would Israel do?

Israel on trial

Israel lost the battle for international public opinion a long time ago. None can forget the relentless strafing of a captive civilian population in Israel’s last war on Gaza. Who can Israel hope to persuade now?

—    We condemn the illegal, immoral and inhuman blockade on Gaza, and all who uphold it

—    We condemn Israel

—    We condemn Israel’s brutal attack on peace activists in international waters. We declare that 700 brave souls, from 50 nations, represent something real that Israeli propaganda cannot erase

—    We mourn the 19 murdered and express hope and solidarity with the 60 injured. We demand of Israel the release of all activists detained

—    We call on all international institutions — including the UN, the EU and human rights agencies and organisations — to declare themselves unequivocally on this latest Israeli atrocity and to work towards ending Israeli impunity

—    We demand an international tribunal to judge all Israeli crimes, past and present. We call on the UN General Assembly to request of the International Court of Justice an advisory opinion on the legality of Israel within the United Nations System given its systematic and gross disrespect of international law and moral authority

—    We support all efforts by all means to free the people of Gaza from their prison and their suffering, including sanctions and divestment against Israel, a general boycott, and the boycott — by workers federations — of all ships going to and from Israel

—    We call upon people everywhere to express their solidarity with the dead and injured, and with Palestinians under occupation, in local expressions of outrage wherever it is deemed useful.

We call on all associations, unions, parliaments, professionals and others to endorse this appeal and its demands. Please distribute and act upon it.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee

http://brusselstribunal.org

Please circulate this appeal widely and show your solidarity with the people of Gaza and the victims of Israeli killings by signing this appeal athttp://www.petitiononline.com/GazaSol/petition.html.

For information contact: info@brusselstribunal.org

Palestinians ride boats in a preparation ceremony to receive the international aid convoy “Freedom Flotilla” in Gaza Seaport, on May 30, 2010.  (Xinhua/Yasser Qudih)

JERUSALEM, May 31 (Xinhua) — Israeli forces on Monday attacked an international flotilla carrying aid to besieged Gaza, killing at least 10 people, an Israeli television reported.

A human rights organization Free Gaza Movement also said clashes happened between an international aid flotilla bound for Gaza and Israeli navy, causing several casualties.

Israeli commandos dropped from a helicopter onto the deck of a Turkish ship at about 4:30 a.m. and immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians.

Israel Defense Forces spokesman’s office cannot confirm the report at the press time.

Live image from the flotilla shows that Israeli soldiers from the helicopter and a number of speedboats boarded one of the ships at night. Activists wearing life vests were treating what appeared to be injuries for unknown reasons.

Israeli navy on Sunday night sighted the pro-Palestinian “Freedom Flotilla” bound for the Gaza Strip and ordered the convoy to dock at an Israeli harbor.

Troops boarded the flotilla and clashed with the activists after they ignored Israeli orders to turn back, Turkey’s NTV reported Monday.

The flotilla of six ships set sail from a port in Cyprus on Sunday and was expected to reach Gaza by Monday morning, Al-Jazeera reported.

The flotilla, originally made up of nine ships from Turkey, Britain, Ireland, Greece, Kuwait and Algeria, were carrying around 10,000 tons of aid including cement, water purification systems and wheelchairs. One of the ships had not arrived and two others had been damaged.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-05/31/c_13325000.htm

Israel Kills 10 On Humanitarian Mission Into Gaza!

The anticipation can finally be realized as today sees the launch of Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined, the powerful new documentary which will put the final nail in the coffin of any doubts that a dictatorial elite is openly setting up an authoritarian system of world government designed to concentrate power and crush the freedom and living standards of the middle class.

The Infowars team have poured 18 months of blood sweat and tears into a film that represents a call to action for Infowarriors around the globe to use this tool as a means of unlocking millions more minds from the matrix.

The impact the film will achieve is solely in the hands of you, the audience, in making the movie go viral in the same way as Loose Change, the Obama Deception and Endgame achieved viral success, and in turn waking up millions more people to the New World Order system and enabling them to take the first steps in resisting their tyranny.

Film maker Jason Bermas has collected a truly monumental amount of video archive and document material to render completely obsolete claims that the agenda of today’s ruling elite is not the open move towards a global totalitarian world government which will be run to the detriment of the people in the self-interests of the tiny ruling class that sit atop the power pyramid.

Invisible Empire is all conspiracy and no theory – proving beyond doubt how the elite have openly conspired to insidiously rule the globe via the engines of the CFR, the United Nations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderberg group, which were born out of the historical Round Table groups first set up by Cecil Rhodes.

Invisible Empire will be more than just a film– it is the culmination of years of research by Jason Bermas into the inner-workings and most revealing public statements by the New World Order and the most trusted stewards of their dark vision. Invisible Empire promises to unveil the long-term agenda for world control, just as Fabled Enemies and Loose Change Final Cut forever stripped away the facade of the official story of 9/11 and exposed the dark truth that lies behind.

Invisible Empire: A New World Order Defined

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NO24XmP1c5E