Rachel Corrie then Furkan Dogan, who's next?

This is from Alex Kane of Mondoweiss:

The deference to Israel “happened with Rachel Corrie. This happened with Furkan Dogan. And unfortunately from what we’re seeing, this might happen again, because the U.S. is not taking the safety of its citizens seriously,” said the CCR’s Lee.

Of course it's no worse that Israel kills Americans with impunity but when the US defers to Israel over the killing of its own citizens what chance do others have?

Flotilla questions

These are just initial unformed views on the flotilla. It may be a bit soon to do a post-mortem like this, because the flotilla might yet sail. Also, I wasn’t involved with the flotilla organising, so I don't talk about the more immediate issues the flotilla is dealing with. The piece is in the forms of questions I don’t know the answer to, but I think they’re the right questions at this time.


1. What are the successes of the flotilla?
Now the flotilla looks like failing to get to Gaza, now all the Mediterranean states have been united against the flotilla in various ways (Cyprus, Greece, Egypt, Turkey) it looks like a huge waste of effort. It’s important to tot up the successes too.

Firstly, the flotilla keeps the issue of the siege of Gaza alive. What would happen if there wasn’t a flotilla? Here’s what. Israel’s narrative of the people of Gaza ‘doing fine (if it weren’t for them evil Islamists taking their freedoms away)’ would have become gospel rather than the contested narrative it is now. The siege would become forgotten news – worthy newspapers would tut over it in some obscure article once a year, and Israel would have achieved its main aim – normalisation. The flotilla has helped prevent that.

Secondly, the flotilla isn’t just an expenditure of effort – it was also a means of mobilising. In Ireland, which managed to organise a boat by itself – one can look at the costs of this – which is 100-150,000 euro. Or one can look at the way that people who hadn’t been involved before in Palestinian activism were drawn in, attracted by the heroic nature of the venture, of the obviousness and immediacy of what the flotilla was trying to achieve. We can look at the favourable media coverage, the people educated on the issue. And we can realise that these are people who may be kept in solidarity activism.


2. Was the flotilla a tactical mistake?
We can accept that the flotilla mobilised people and kept the issue alive while at the same time recognising failures.

There are two ways we might consider it to be a mistake. We didn’t realise the extent to which states would unite in defence of the Israeli state and we should have. Not just the Mediterranean states, but the world over, states were declaring that they would let Israel attack the flotilla and merely asking them to be ‘nice’ about it – not leave too many embarrassing corpses. Israel, far from being more isolated, has displayed how it is integrated into the EU system. Now we could say we exposed the hypocrisies of the system, but so what. The flotilla wasn’t needed for that.

The other problem with the flotilla was the extent to which it became a story about the activists rather than Palestinian resistance. I’ve dealt with this earlier, but even though the flotilla folks (at least in Ireland) linked in with what Palestinians were doing, talking about their mission as a political one, it was still treated as a humanitarian aid to passive victims – this despite the participants’ best efforts. I think this should be accounted at least a partial failure


3. What lessons are to be learnt?
We need to acknowledge failure and learn from it, rather than say the flotilla was an unmitigated success. For many, especially those new to the issue, the disappointment will dissuade them from future activism. Thus the first thing is to try to get them involved in small-scale local actions that can lead to success and that can keep them involved and interested in the issue. For those drained by their flotilla experience, this will be really difficult; but it’s necessary.

Part of the unavoidable problem with the flotilla was the huge amount of time it gave to Israel to organise and mobilise other states against the flotilla. The flotilla was a big, easily attackable target, which Israel had over a year to deal with. We don’t have the power that states do – and so we need to trim our tactics accordingly. While it’s important to think big, perhaps the flotilla was premature. Giving a guerrilla war analogy, solidarity activists shouldn’t engage in pitched battles with our far stronger enemies, presenting ourselves as targets, but choose hit-and-run tactics, harrying the enemy. Eventually we might talk of liberating areas and having part of the world not bowing to Israel’s demands, but we are a way from that yet. Our successes have all been in places where Israel wasn’t expecting, in building civil society support for boycott, and in supporting civil society movements in Palestine resisting occupation. We need to expand these areas.


This is not a criticism of the flotilla people or the tactic – as a tactic it had to be tried. After last year’s massacre, solidarity activists couldn’t NOT organise another flotilla. That would have been a disaster. The question is where too now. How can we use the anger we now feel?

What's to reassert?

Crumbs! The Guardian had a major typo, or maybe it was a Freudian slip or plain mischief but a letter from supporters of the ill-fated Jewish boat to Gaza was headed in yesterday's print edition, Reasserting the Jewish tradition of defending injustice. Here's the full correction:

• A piece of correspondence on the letters page expressed the view that an attempt by Jewish activists on a sailing boat to break the sea blockade around Gaza this week had been important in "reasserting the Jewish tradition of standing up for the victims of injustice" (30 September, page 35). But due to an editing error, when a version of this sentence was rendered as the letter's headline a key element, the reference to victims, was missed out, so the heading read: Reasserting the Jewish tradition of defending injustice.

Maybe if they get letters from the Board of Deputies, the Zionist Federation or the Chief Rabbi complaining about the letters they did publish they could still run that headline without having to correct it. But then what's to reassert with that sorry bunch?

Tony Greenstein reports on a report

I just don't get the time to read reports these days but fortunately Tony Greenstein has read the UN's report on Israel's flotilla raid:

The Report of the UN Fact Finding Mission, established on 2nd June by the UN Human Rights Council into the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, is a devastating critique of Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and its aftermath, in particular regarding the Mavi Marmara. That Israel has dismissed its findings as 'biased' etc. is no surprise. Any independent fact finding report, such as the Goldstone Report which they have since quietly admitted is true, is always rubbished by Israel.

At 56 pages, the Report is at once both devastating in its factual conclusions and in its concise legal summary of the implications of those facts. It should be used by activists to nail the Israeli lies and the BBC’s continued peddling of those lies, in particular the Panorama programme, Death on the Med which was broadcast from the viewpoint of the killers.

It is extremely interesting that the BBC was given, according to its own boast, ‘unique access’ to the killers whilst it has refused to supply any evidence to the UN Inquiry. One wonders why it is that the Israeli state thought it could trust the BBC so much. Possibly because it knows that these days the BBC, and its wretched Director General, Mark Thompson, can always be trusted to put out a propaganda line on their behalf.

The Report begins (all numbers in square brackets are paragraph numbers [16] by expressing ‘its profound regret’ at Israel’s ‘non-recognition of and non-cooperation with the Mission.’

Unlike the BBC, the Committee made what was an obviously sensible decision regarding Israeli video footage. [20]

In light of seizure of cameras, CCTV footage and digital media storage devices and of the suppression of that material with the disclosure only of a selected and minute quantity of it, the Mission was obliged to treat with extreme caution the versions released by the Israeli authorities where those versions did not coincide with the evidence of eyewitnesses who appeared before us.’

Israel is now refusing to have its soldiers/sailors give evidence even to the UN inquiry rigged in its favour. No surprise there.

That Israeli flotilla inquiry in full

Mark Steel has a very funny comment piece in The Independent today. It's about these inquiries that get held into the circumstances surrounding wars and attacks on civilians and deals mostly with Israel's ridiculous inquiry into its attack on the Gaza flotilla but also mentions Israel's stated intention to co-operate with the UN inquiry on the same thing. I'll just post the last paragraph here but the whole thing is well worth a read:

bit by bit Israel is finding it has to answer for itself publicly, and the old excuses are not so easily accepted. From now on they'll have to put a bit more thought into their bollocks, which has got to be for the good.

I don't know. I presume that if Israel is truly co-operating with a UN inquiry then it has been rigged in their favour much like its own inquiry.

Flotillas to Gaza. The Opportunity Costs

Around the time of the last flotilla – the massacred one – Richard Irvine had an interesting article in the Guardian. Richard (personal interest disclosure: he’s also from Ireland) was pointing out the similarities between the Mavi Marmara and The Exodus. The latter was the ship taking Jewish refugees to Palestine in 1947; it provoked international outrage when British forces boarded it, killing several passengers and preventing it from reaching Palestine.

While the comparison was clever and the article interesting, what struck me forcefully were the differences between the two ships. At its most basic, there were Jews on The Exodus. With a few exceptions, there were no Palestinians on the Mavi Marmara or any other ship on the flotilla. The Exodus served as an example of Jews doing things for themselves – liberating themselves from the Displaced Person’s camps in Europe – this is what gave the story its power. The Mavi Marmara and Freedom Flotilla is an example of other people doing things for Palestinians. As a story, it pushes Palestinians to the margins.

This is not meant to be a criticism of the flotilla tactic, but rather a reflection on its opportunity costs. All tactics come with these opportunity costs, these paths closed off, resources spent that could have be used elsewhere. Nothing - no political action anyway - is perfect. But that’s not to stop us trying to make them more perfect.

But before looking at these costs and weaknesses, we need to recognise that the flotillas have probably been the most successful tactic used to promote Palestine solidarity. As a way of demonstrating and creating international solidarity with Palestine it is unparalleled. As a means of reaching out to the public in our home countries and giving them a way of getting involved, it has surpassed anything else we’ve done. For instance in Ireland, thousands donated their fivers and tenners for bags of cement to Gaza and once this was done, these people were invested in the convoy; they were part of Palestine solidarity in an immediate and (sorry for the pun) concrete way. Connected in a way they hadn’t been before. And while comparisons with Sharpeville (or more extremely with 9/11) may be overstated, the flotillas have made the world aware as never before, of the brutality and random cruelty of the Israeli regime. Israel, unlike South Africa, has been able to get away with killing schoolchildren. But killing (non-Palestinian) aid activists was a step too far, too much for the rest of the world to stomach.

Yet things have been lost. One of the prime things cast overboard in the stories about the flotilla has been the agency of Palestinians. The stories are all about the activists and the aid. This, after all, is what made them easier to sell to the media. At the most cynical, there was the shock factor that Israel has descended to killing and brutalising white(ish) people, not just Arabs, Palestinians. But one does not need to be cynical – in Ireland the last flotilla was about ‘area man’, people from Cork, Donegal, somewhere nearby. It’s easy to get our media to write up stories about our generosity and our actions, be it a group of nurses raising money for medicines or retired bus-drivers on a sponsored run for the flotilla. This is all good. It makes solidarity much more immediate, more real for people than stories about foreigners in a far away land once again doing unspeakable things to each other.

But where are the Palestinians in these stories? They are indistinct, the object of aid, the victims of oppression. They are not seen as agents capable of liberating themselves, but passively awaiting our aid, our bravery. Not actors in this drama but once again assigned the role of spectators to their own history. Activists may be empowered by the flotilla story, but does this correspondingly disempower Palestinians? Perhaps not; the stories Irish or British people tell themselves so as to get involved in solidarity activism aren’t necessarily listened to by Palestinians. They have their own narrativws of action.

And yet… the mantle of despair and victimhood placed over Palestinians must have some effect. This is something solidarity activists are aware of. Speaking from experience, the Irish flotilla people were trying to assign agency to Palestinians, stressing the point of view of Gazans, how Palestinians are trying to break the siege, how they want the borders to be opened so the can be self-reliant, not recipients of aid. But actions speak louder than words and the flotilla tactic remains an action in which Palestinians are largely absent.

We can ask then whether this tactic builds Palestinian capacity to resist, or control of their own struggle. Long-term the hope is that it will - it will help end the siege, enabling Palestinians to have more control over their own futures. But asking the question more specifically: does the process of building the flotilla build Palestinian capacity inside the Occupied Territories? Also does it build specifically Palestinian diaspora activism and capacity the same way it builds other international solidarity activism? Should we be worried if it doesn’t? Considering that it is Palestinian struggle that will win freedom for Palestine, with international solidarity activism simply playing an ancillary role – I’d say yes, definitely.

Relating the flotilla tactic to domestic solidarity activism offers a useful pointer. There is a second opportunity cost to flotillas – the costs to international solidarity organisations to raise millions, only to have the millions captured by Israel. This is simply part of the cost of organising around sending people to Gaza, rather than around domestic activism. Groups like the ISM and EAPPI have been dealing with this quandary for years now. They recognise that Palestinians are pretty clear about what they want – it’s not so much for international activists to act as heroes in Israel/Palestine as for them to get involved in home country work when they return. These two groups stress this point, and in Ireland at any rate, so does the Free Gaza Movement, creating a good balance between flotilla work and domestic activism.

I can only speak for the Irish experience, but speaking for it, the flotilla organisers and participants have done a brilliant job in promoting and getting involved in Palestine solidarity work in this country. They have met ministers and local politicians, done press conferences and interviews, and have spoken up and down the country encouraging people to get active in solidarity work and to boycott, boycott, boycott Israel. This is aside from their work in trying to get another flotilla up and running. They have kept to an exhausting schedule upon returning, when it would have been much easier to lie back and recover from the trauma and craziness of the flotilla. They deserve the highest of praise for this. So, while there are undoubtedly some who would fetishise the flotilla, the majority of organisers and participants here most certainly do not, and conscientiously and deliberately promote domestic activism.

And so rephrasing the rather rhetorical questions I made above, can the same balance be made with respect to conscientiously and deliberately promoting Palestinian activities in the Occupied Territories and diaspora? It’s a difficult one to answer, but should be addressed. How about – even symbolically, getting the ships to take back something from Palestinians in Gaza – symbols of future exports from Gaza? Or ensure that there are Gazans on the organising committee, in constant contact with Western journalists. Or alternatively, using the flotilla to push and expand Palestinian diaspora political activism. After all, if we’re making comparisons with the Exodus, how about a boat with Palestinian exiles sailing to Gaza (They’d need to be citizens of other countries, so Israel’s brutality will hopefully be restrained).

To end: Of course there are some shortcomings in the flotilla tactic. But they’re not insurmountable. It should be possible to think of imaginative ways to overcome any weaknesses in what has already proved to be an imaginative, motivating and above all, effective tactic.

More on Turkey less for Turkey

Here's a useful article by Asmi Bishara in Al Ahram warning against praising Turkey too highly over its support for the Palestinian cause:

Turkey's actions are built up to signify the emergence of a neo-Ottoman state, or even the resurgence of the Islamic caliphate. Ankara's tensions with Tel Aviv are exaggerated to the point where some forecast a Turkey invasion of Israel in retaliation for that attack on the Freedom Flotilla, whereas other minds mould Prime Minister Erdogan into the statue of the valiant hero loyal to the Arab/Muslim nation. "After all, Saladin wasn't an Arab," they say, as if there were such concepts as ethnic nationalism and modern nation states in the age of Saladin.

But...

There's always a butt.

When Turkey sent a flotilla

It didn't take us long to get back to the emerald isle but I have just been sent a link to the story of another time when a flotilla was sent from Turkey to aid those suffering from a lack of food because of the genocidal policies of their neighbours. I have only seen this on facebook and one other site but it all looks well researched:

Ireland was ridden with famine and disease between 1845 and 1849. Also known as the Great Hunger, this famine had lasting effects: at least one million people died due to famine-related diseases and more than one million Irish fled, mainly to the United States, England, Canada, and Australia.

Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid sent five ships full of food supplies and funds as charity. However, the British administration did not give permission for these ships to enter the ports of Belfast or Dublin. Taner Baytok, former Turkish ambassador to Ireland, recounts in his memoirs that these ships secretly discharged their load in Drogheda, a town approximately 70 miles north of Dublin.

On May 2, 1995, commemorating this charity, the mayor of Drogheda, Alderman Frank Goddfrey, paid honor to Baytok and erected a plaque in the Westcourt Hotel, which was then the City Hall where Turkish seamen stayed. Baytok says he first learned of this act of charity from an article by Thomas P. O’Neill published in The Threshold magazine in 1957.

The Otoman sultan declared that he would donate £10,000, but on the orders of Queen Victoria the British Ambassador in Istanbul informed the Sultan that he should reduce this amount, for the Queen’s donation was only £2,000. As noted in the letter of gratitude from the “noblemen, gentlemen, and inhabitants of Ireland,” the amount donated by Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid was reduced by the Queen to one thousand pounds.

I can only wonder what was happening in Armenia at the time but it's an interesting tale with an obvious parallel today.

Don't mention the flotilla

The Israeli government has asked that its supporters from various zionist parties in occupied Palestine refrain from copycat flotilla exercises aimed at discrediting the Turkish government. See this in the Jerusalem Post:

A group of Israeli left-wing activists who were angry about the Turkish attacks on IDF soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara two weeks ago decided Monday to cancel the flotilla that they were planning to Cyprus to protest the Turkish occupation of the island’s northern half.

The Jerusalem Post reported exclusively on June 5 about the planned flotilla, which was to be led by former MK Alex Goldfarb (Tzomet, Yi’ud) and Modi’in Meretz activist Pinhas Har-Zahav.

Of course, the segregationism and ethnic cleansing supported by all zionist parties isn't everyone's idea of left wing but I said this is from the Jerusalem Post. But why would the Israeli government want to call a halt to a hasbara by deed action?

Israeli government officials persuaded the activists to cancel the voyage, because they were worried that the media attention would remind international media of the Gaza flotilla when most of the world’s attention had shifted to other issues like the British Petroleum spill and the World Cup.

“The publicity we already received did its part in reminding the world [that the Turks are occupiers],” one of the organizers of the flotilla said. “Personally it’s depressing for me that we didn’t get to go. But the government officials we spoke to were professionals, and they told us that doing it now was not right for the state, so we listened to them.”

Spoken like a true left wing activist, a left wing zionist activist, ie, in plain English, an extreme right wing activist.

Israel's internal inquiry insults intelligence

No surprises there, I know. According to The Guardian, Israel's inquiry into the flotilla attack has the backing of Barack Obama. That of itself should show how useless it is going to be to those of us who want the truth out. But it gets worse.

Richard Silverstein in Tikkun Olam draws attention to what he calls a "searing editorial" in Ha'aretz bemoaning the fact that the head of the inquiry is actually opposed to its existence:

Netanyahu's panel will have no powers, not even those of a government probe, and its proposed chairman does not believe in such a panel. In an interview to Army Radio, Tirkel said there is no choice but to establish a state committee of inquiry. He opposed bringing in foreign observers and made clear that he is not a devotee of drawing conclusions about individuals and dismissing those responsible for failures. When a Haaretz reporter confronted Tirkel about these remarks, the former justice evaded the question saying, "I don't remember what I said."

The disagreements that erupted at the week's end between Netanyahu and his deputy, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon, over the question of whether Ya'alon was updated in time about the action underscored the suspicion of serious faults in the decision-making process with regard to the flotilla. Instead of being part of the whitewash, Tirkel, whose dodging of his earlier statements does him no honor, should return his mandate to the prime minister and demand that Netanyahu establish a government committee of inquiry with real powers.

But even a searing Ha'aretz editorial doesn't convey the fully farcical nature of the inquiry.

The Guardian reports that Obama is happy and that's that. It mentions the international observers who are intended to soft-soap world opinion but says nothing of their backgrounds.

The observers are Lord (David) Trimble, former Ulster Unionist Party leader, and Ken Watkin, a former Judge Advocate General of the Canadian Armed Forces.

So what about Trimble? Here's the BBC:

David Trimble recently joined an international "Friends of Israel" group set up by Dore Gold, a close associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

And what about Watkin? Here's his Wikipedia entry:

Ken Watkin was implicated in the Canadian Afghan detainee issue, in which several detainees arrested by the Canadian Forces went missing or were tortured following their transfer to the Afghan National Police and National Directorate of Security. According to a report in the Toronto Star, while acting as the Judge Advocate General, Ken Watkin advised the Canadian Forces command that they could be "criminally negligent" for transferring detainees to a risk of torture in Afghan hands. Mr. Watkin refused to answer questions when called to testify in Canada's House of Commons about whether he was directed to authorize the transfers or had knowledge of Canadian diplomatic reports of torture, and claimed that solicitor-client privilege owed to the Government of Canada prevented him answering the House's questions.

Yup, these are just the people you'd want to observe an inquiry established by the State of Israel to look into the international legal aspects of an attack by Israel on a boat in international waters.

Dana International goes nationalist after Spanish & Turkish gigs nixed

According to a Hebrew-language newsite Mako.co.il June 9, Israeli chanteuse Dana International was livid after the recent cancellation of gigs in Spain and Turkey. International had been scheduled to perform at the European pride festival in Madrid. Then Israeli commandos slaughtered nine Turkish activists in the assault on the Turkish seige of Gaza-breaking aid ship Mavi Marmara, prompting global revulsion, protests, and stepped-up BDS activity:

"After what has happened, and as human rights campaigners, it seemed barbaric to us to have them taking part," Antonio Poveda, president of Spain's Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals, told the British daily The Guardian. "We don't just defend our own little patch."

Poveda told the French news agency AFP that because Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai had not condemned the attack, the invitation would be withdrawn. The float was sponsored by the Tel Aviv municipality. (JTA, June 14)

Incensed by the cancellations, International decided to rally round the troops. From Mako (Google translation a bit rough):

"Dana was offended, angry Dana, Dana did not shut up"

Performances by Dana International in Spain and Turkey were eliminated, but is not going to shut up. Tomorrow she will stand for an interview with foreign media print shirt wearing a symbol of the IDF, in solidarity

"The army soldiers are above everything."

"Dana is very offended, Dana angry, the first time she encountered such a thing," says Shai Kerem, personal administration of Dana International, after her impressions in Turkey and Spain were set months in advance were canceled, apparently due to the situation of Israel's new community International.

"Dana was supposed to appear in Spain at the Pride Parade which is very disappointing," adds Kerem. "We must not forget that this is also an economic injury, and of course a professional hit, and emotionally. She then appeared there before, then suddenly not? This is an unpleasant feeling and hope that murky cloud will disappear and so the following performances."

I can tell you that it will not pass in silence," [said Kerem]. "Tomorrow arrives a Dutch television crew to do a story about the night life of Tel Aviv and Israel, yes it happens now. Dana, who always goes with her truth, will stand for an interview tomorrow with a special T-shirt printed with the IDF logo and she will be photographed with that. To say that as far as she is concerned the Israeli army is beyond all political debate. The soldiers and the army are doing the work for all of us and they are beyond all controversies. "

Unfortunately I haven't been able to locate a picture of International in her IDF shirt. Given the rising global outrage at Israel's behaviour, such a sartorial choice may not have been the best PR move, lest she find herself getting further cancellations. But it reflects the rising wave of jingoism amongst Israelis, 91% of whom favor military interdiction of the impending further seige-breaking flotillas. International's taking part in Israeli government-sponsored gaywashing of Israel's repression of Palestinians made her a legit boycott target.

Further reflections on what happened in Madrid from Ali Abunimah can be seen at his blog. See also this Oct 1, 2009 article on a Palestinian queer activist in Ha'aretz, "'Stop using Palestinian gays to whitewash Israel's image."

And check out Palestinian Queers for BDS


In San Francisco, Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT) are battling more gaywashing:

Israeli Government Out of Our Film Festival!

For the first time since 2007, the Israeli Consulate is a sponsor of the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival. Queer communities have been targeted by the "Brand Israel" campaign as a receptive audience, and a useful cloak for Israel's oppressive policies. But we are not so desperate for acceptance that we will ally ourselves with racists and murderers.

Picket opening night
Thursday June 17, 6 p.m.
Castro Theater, San Francisco

And in Toronto, LGBT leading activists are now in "open revolt" against the organizers of that city's pride events, after the organizers succumbed to pressure to bar Queers United Against Israeli Apartheid (QuAIA) from participating in the parade, because of their use of the phrase "Israeli apartheid."Muzzlewatch has the latest as of June 11.

Lastly, if anyone should come across that picture of International in her IDF T-Shirt, I'd be much obliged. & if anyone can clear up the Hebrew Google Translate above, that'd be fabulous.

UPDATE: 6/20 Thanks to an Israeli reader, we now have evidence that Dana did not disappoint. In a recent appearance on "Israeli Idol," as one of the judges, Ms. National indeed appeared proudly sporting an IDF t-shirt. Here's a couple screenshots:


Click on the right-hand pic to enlarge, and "Israeli Defense Forces" in English can be clearly seen under the Hebrew letters for IDF (Zadik, Hey, Lamed, aka, "Tsahal") on Dana's shirt.

The hasbara outfit "Israel 21c," which describes itself as a " nonpolitical, nonprofit organization that informs Americans about 21st century Israel, its people, its institutions and its contributions to global society," and has partnered with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and with AIPAC, reported June 10 that International is taking part in an all-Israeli "rock against the boycott" concert:

In a column she wrote in today’s Yediot Aharonot, Dana expressed regret at the cancellations, both her own and those of the foreign artists who bailed, and said that music and politics should not be mixed.

She added, however, that there’s enough major talent in Israel without any help from abroad, and jumped aboard a planned gala concert later this month at Park Hayarkon or Rabin Square initiated by the Culture Ministry and featuring the country’s top performers to specifically prove that point.

International's comment about how music and politics shouldn't mix brings to mind Elton John telling his Israeli audience that musicians "don't cherry-pick our conscience" while playing his boycott-busting concert there recently, as noted by David Hirsh of the anti-boycott Engage site. Apparently playing Sun City during S. Africa's apartheid regime and performing at the recent wedding of the homophobic, racist blowhard Rush Limbaugh (for a million bucks) didn't prick Elton's conscience either, if that's any consolation to Hirsh.

Go 'way from my window....

Well well. I'd better point out that Bob Dylan, the man who gave us the song, Neighbourhood Bully, is not, as far as I know, boycotting Israel. But his unofficial fansite, Dylanchords is boycotting Israel. Here's a little slice of Ha'aretz:

One of the largest fan sites dedicated to Bob Dylan songs, dylanchords, has recently blocked Israeli IP users access over the Israel Defense Forces' raid on the Gaza –bound Freedom Flotilla two weeks ago.

Israelis who wish to learn how to strum the Dylan song "The times they are a' changing," will have to look elsewhere, as the webpage redirects Israeli web users to the webmaster's blog.

The Ha'aretz piece concludes with a little round up of recent cancellations in the wake of Israel's attack on the flotilla.

Last week, veteran American rock band Pixies canceled their upcoming concert in Israel, the organizers of a festival in which the band was to participate.

The announcement followed recent concert cancellations by the Klaxons and the Gorillaz Sound System in the wake of Israel's raid of the Gaza flotilla.

I wonder if the times are a'changing.

What a difference 2 days make

Abbas: We demand an end to Gaza siege; entire world stands with us, Ha'aretz, June 10

Abbas to Obama: I'm against lifting the Gaza naval blockade, Ha'aretz, June 12

Humaniterrorists and the return to wherever

Here's an interesting and funny clip which I can neither download nor embed but I can link to it here. It's the Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert hosting Israeli Ambassador to the USA, Michael Oren. It's not great all the way through but the ending is well worth the wait. You could even say that the end justifies the means.

Many thanks to Michael T in the comments for sending the link.

Jews against Jews for justice at sea

Here's today's front page story from the Jewish Chronicle:

Community representatives have reacted with outrage to the news that an all-Jewish flotilla of anti-Israel campaigners is planning to sail to Gaza next month, pledging to break the blockade.

The flotilla, to be captained by the British sailor, Glyn Secker of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, will sail under the auspices of European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP), an umbrella organisation of groups from 10 countries,

Mr Secker said it would show that "not all Jews support Israel" and would "say emphatically: not in our name".

The JC clearly doesn't like the idea that Jews acting against Israel keeping the Palestinians "on a diet" are in any way representative of Jews in general, hence "community representatives have reacted with outrage to.....an all-Jewish flotilla of anti-Israel campaigners".

Israel sets up "objective" inquiry into flotilla attack

Ynet is the online expression of the Israeli daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronoth. That's Hebrew for "who's the idiot?" No, it's not really. It means "latest news". It's a tabloid in shape, size and style preferring "drama and human interest over sophisticated analysis". Having said that, even though it wasn't me that actually said that, I had thought that since going on line, the paper did seem to be going for the analysis one associates more with Ha'aretz. I put that down to the fact that with an international market for its English translation, Yediot Ahronoth, would have to seek a certain credibility. But I was wrong.

Anyway, this report says that the chief of the Israeli army has asked a retired major-general, Giora Eiland, to head the inquiry by a panel. In fairness, the inquiry is only about "operational issues", like presumably, did they shoot enough people quickly enough? did they move quickly enough to confiscate cameras and phones? that sort of thing but:

The move is somewhat exceptional, since the IDF is usually satisfied with internal inquests conducted by the units heading various operations.

Now that tells a tale in itself but see this:

Military sources said the purpose of the panel's work it to provide objective conclusions by professional who were not a part of the operation and therefore cannot be affected by the results.

This objectivity, added the sources, would allow the panel to draw a wider range of conclusions, which may shed a different light on the events.

Different from the ludicrous idea that élite Israeli commandos were subjected to "a brutal ambush at sea"?

Israel's piracy update

I've never known the hasbara machine to suffer such a major malfunction. Antony Lerman in yesterday's Comment is free suggests that Israel had it all its own way on the day it killed nine activists in international waters but so many facts are speaking for themselves that even zionist domination of the media cannot help Israel's battered image.

Martin Rowson in The Guardian has really summed up what most people must surely think of Israel now and possibly for some time now:

And of course, it's not just an image problem. In killing nine people from a country whose rulers have been allied with Israel, Israel has behaved more like the nazis than it has in its treatment of the Palestinians. The nazis too were so racist they held even their allies in eastern Europe in contempt. That's what Israel's attitude to Turkey reminds me of. For Tony Greenstein, who has told a few people off for likening Israel to the nazis before now, Mark Regev is what reminds him of the nazi propaganda effort. So we have Israel's ethno-religious supremacy, its relentless militarism, its racist contempt even for allies and its increasingly ludicrous propaganda and still the moderators at Comment is free will delete comments that make the obvious comparison of Israel to the nazis.

Has Israel tried to crush Rachel Corrie again?

Oh how they try. The Daily Telegraph, (aka the Torygraph), once the most pro-zio newspaper in the UK, is running a report that Israel has sabotaged communications systems on the Rachel Corrie ship bound for Gaza.

The cargo ship, laden with building supplies, cement, medical and educational equipment and wheelchairs as well as Irish and Malaysian activists, set off on Saturday despite warnings from Israel that it would halt any attempt to break the blockade.

On Monday nine people were killed when Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish-registered Mavi Marmara, which was part of a flotilla of six ships attempting to dock at Gaza.

Named after a 23-year-old American activist who was crushed to death by a bulldozer during a protest in Gaza in 2003, the Rachel Corrie was nearing the coast when the systems went down.

Those on board include Mairead Corrigan Maguire, the Nobel Peace laureate and founder of the Northern Ireland Peace People and Denis Halliday, a retired Irish diplomat who was once United Nations assistant secretary-general.

Audrey Bomse of the Free Gaza Movement said: “The situation is we lost all contact with the boat.

“We assume this was sabotage by the Israelis.”

She went on: “As a result of these threats, we're going to pull Rachel Corrie into a port, add more high-profile people on board, and insist that journalists from around the world also come with us.

“We're hoping communications get turned back on so we can inform them of the decision.”

It is thought organisers are considering sending another boat alongside the Rachel Corrie if communications are not restored.

So will Israel try to crush Rachel Corrie again? Their star will fall further if they do.....and if they don't.

Israel's falling star

Mike Marqusee's site is a mine of info on various subjects and he's always a good read on Palestine. Yesterday he published a piece on how Israel has gone down in the estimation of even its most supine friends in the UK parliament and why he believes that that has happened:

Wednesday’s Commons debate on Gaza was a remarkable illustration of just how weak Israel’s position has become in this country, as in others. Hague’s statement was probably more forceful than David Milliband’s would have been were he still Foreign Secretary. But it was strongly criticised as not going far enough by at least twenty MPs from nearly every party in the House. Defence of Israel was left to the DUP; even Louise Ellman and Denis Macshane, committed defenders of Israel, could not bring themselves to challenge the consensus that the assault on the Gaza flotilla was an outrage (they confined themselves to attacks on Hamas). The legion of MPs who’ve enjoyed expenses paid visits to Israel were silent.

Following Milliband’s strained effort to establish some significant difference between himself and Hague, more substantive responses came form Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas and others who called for sanctions against Israel. They pointed out that Israel had ignored international condemnation on numerous previous occasions, and that it was the failure of governments to move beyond condemnation that had led the Israelis to believe they could act against the Gaza boats with impunity.

Just an aside here, a noticeable feature of the return to power of the official right are some significant moves to the left. Various right wing policies of the outgoing Labour government have been ditched by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition. And see in the quote above how it was two Labour MPs who tried to defend Israel's latest disgrace by distraction rather than by reference to the atrocity itself.

Anyway, what has made Israel's star fall so far in the eyes of its natural supporters?

A major factor in the shift is of course the sheer indefensibility of Israeli behaviour. But that would not be perceived as it now is had it not been for the long-term, patient, grass roots campaigning by pro-Palestinian activists, who come from a wide range of political, religious and ethnic backgrounds. It is the international solidarity movement that has put sanctions on the agenda. It is the international solidarity movement that has ensured the blockade of Gaza has not been forgotten; pressure on Israel to end the blockade is now growing because actions taken by that movement have forced it on to governments’ agendas. The bravery and sacrifices of the people on the boats, along with so many others in previous actions, has made a huge difference. Without it, public awareness and debate would be entirely other than it currently is. Those who have advised a sotto voce approach to Israel have been proved wrong. In contrast, huge credit belongs to those who have forced the issue – from the volunteers on the aid boats to the students at Berkeley California who waged a determined campaign for disinvestment in deficne of a wave of insult and misrepresentation. Those who have persisted, often at considerable personal cost, in challenging the complacency and indifference of others are the reason why Israel is now in the dock as it has never been before. This Saturday’s demonstrations in London and elsewhere will show that their ranks are swelling.

But what was Israel playing at?

Had the intention merely been to stop the boats reaching Gaza, than entirely different tactics would have been employed. It is not an accident that the attack took place in international waters. That was part of the message the Israelis wanted to send: that they can reach out and punish their enemies even outside their own jurisdiction, that they regard supporters of the Palestinians, from whatever country, as fair game. It was meant to be a warning to the rest of us, but it has backfired. Far from being intimidated, activists will now redouble their campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions. And they are likely to meet a more sympathetic response than ever.

So is this the beginning of the end for Israel? I'm sure there's life in the old dog yet but this does seem to be a turning point.

Demonstrate against Israel on June 5, 2010

Saturday 5 June • Gaza Flotilla March • End the Siege of Gaza: Freedom for Palestine Assemble Downing Street • London • 1.30pm • March to the Israeli Embassy Called by Stop the War Coalition, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, British Muslim Initiative, CND & Viva Palestina Has Israel's lie-master in chief Mark Regev read Mark Steels article?... Democracy Now video on the flotilla attack. Essential viewing... Eyewitness accounts of Israel's unprovoked attack on a peaceful aid flotilla... Fed up with the free rein the BBC gives Israel to justify heinous crimes? Here's how to complain...