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1. Top US Democrats: 'Israel Has Right to Defend Itself'
by Hana Levi Julian
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on the offensive Wednesday to defend Israel's right to protect its territorial waters.
Biden told reporters on Wednesday that Israel was within its legal rights in stopping the Turkey-sponsored six-ship flotilla from violating its territorial waters and breaking its naval embargo on Gaza.
Biden said during an interview on the “Charlie Rose” television program, “You can argue whether Israel should have dropped people onto that ship or not, and the – but the truth of the matter is, Israel has a right to know... whether or not arms are being smuggled in.”
Pelosi told reporters, “I know that blockades have consequences. And, again, we all saw this in real time because everyone has a camera, and I think that people make a case on either side as to who was provocative and who was not. But the fact is, this is a terribly regrettable situation. I regret the loss of life first and foremost,” she said, “and again call for a credible and transparent investigation to find out how this came to be.”
Pelosi refused to be drawn into the blame game, and emphasized that “Israel is our friend. I think with Israel we have a very close friendship, and to have a democratic Jewish state in that region is something that has been a goal of our foreign policy. It is something that is based on our national security interest; it is about us as much – even more – than it is about them. We all – many of us here – are striving for a two-state solution,” she added, “but it has to be a solution where there is security for both sides.”
Lieberman: Blockade Removal in Exchange for Shalit Visits
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman commented Thursday that Israel might consider further lifting the blockade if Hamas agrees to allow monthly visits to kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.
Shalit has been held hostage by Hamas terrorists since he was abducted by Hamas terrorists in a deadly cross-border raid by near the Kerem Shalom crossing on June 25, 2006. His condition and whereabouts remain unknown.
2. Netanyahu: This was No Love Boat
by Gil Ronen
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the Israeli public on live television at 8:00 p.m. Israel time, regarding the attempt by a terror-sympathizers' flotilla to break the blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza.
"This was no Love Boat,” he said. “This was a boat of hatred. It was a terror-supporting flotilla”
"The state of Israel faces an international campaign of hypocrisy,” Netanyahu said. “This is not the first time. Two years ago, we operated against the missiles that Hamas fired against Israel. Hamas fired at civilians and hid behind civilians. The IDF operated against Hamas in an effort to avoid hitting innocent civilians. Despite this, the UN accused Israel of war crimes and regretfully, I must say that this is what is happening now too."
"Hamas continues to arm, Iran continues to smuggle weapons into Gaza. The previous [Israeli] government placed a military blockade on Gaza to prevent weapon smuggling to Hamas. The purpose of the flotilla was to break the naval blockade of Gaza. If the blockade had been broken, this flotilla would have been followed by hundreds of ships. The amount of weapons that can be brought in by boat is far greater than what is brought in through the smuggling tunnels. An endless amount of weaponry can be brought in. It is our right and duty to inspect every ship that tries to reach Gaza, to remove the weapons and let the rest of the cargo enter.”
If Gaza turns into an Iranian port, Netanyahu said, other countries beside Israel will be threatened.
The naval commandos were attacked with knives and clubs and thrown off the deck, he said. “Their weapons were snatched and they were shot. There was an attempt to lynch IDF soldiers here. These are not peace activists. They are violent terror activists.”
The Love Boat was a 1970's television romantic comedy show / Creative Commons
3. Confirmed Hamas Leader Among Flotilla 'Activists'
by Hana Levi Julian
A confirmed terrorist leader was among the Gaza flotilla extremists aboard the Mavi Marmara on Monday, holding a Dutch passport.
Amin Abu Rashed, 43, was among the militants arrested on the Turkish vessel following the vicious attack on Israeli Naval commandos who boarded the ship. The Palestinian Authority Arab holds a Dutch passport and operates out of Rotterdam as the leader of the Hamas terrorist network in the Netherlands. He has presented himself to Dutch media and others as a “human rights activist.”
According to a report posted Tuesday on the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report, Abu Rashed – also known as Amin Abu Ibrahim – was “one of the chief organizers of the Gaza flotilla.”
The six-ship flotilla, sponsored largely by Turkey, refused to change course despite repeated Israeli requests to head for Ashdod port rather than violate an embargo on the Hamas terrorist-run Gaza region. In Ashdod, Israel promised to off-load the ships' cargo, inspect it for contraband and then deliver all legal humanitarian aid to Gaza via the land crossings – but the ships refused to comply, vowing instead to “reach Gaza or martyrdom.”
The Muslim report added that Rashed and 29-year-old Dutch anthropologist Anne de Jong were offered a fast-track deportation procedure, “but refused because they [said they] want to complete their mission.” Both refused to sign the State of Israel declaration of expulsion that would have allowed them to go free.
Abu Rashed's name has previously come up in a document presented as evidence in the United States government's prosecution of the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation charity organization – a group that was funneling money to Hamas.
Global jihadists were deeply involved in the flotilla incident in other ways. Approximately 40 of those arrested on the Mavi Marmara had no identification, and many were found to be carrying thousands of dollars in cash in their pockets – the same amount for each. Israeli officials said they appeared to be mercenaries, possibly linked to Al-Qaeda, who had received their remuneration just before boarding the vessel.
IDF video evidence shows the group splitting up into teams and sending the rest of the passengers below decks, while making preparations for the ambush of the Israeli Naval commandos.
According to the GMB Daily Report, “Previous posts have described the heavy participation of the Global Muslim Brotherhood in the Gaza flotilla, the Muslim Brotherhood background of the Al Jazeera journalist reporting from the Turkish ship involved in the confrontation, and the intent of the Global Muslim Brotherhood to send another flotilla to Gaza.”
4. UN Criticizes US Use of Drones in Killing Al Qaeda's No. 3
by Hana Levi Julian
The United Nations has criticized the United States' use of armed drones in an attack that killed the Number 3 commander in the international Al Qaeda terrorist organization.
Philip Alston, the U.N. Special Representative on Extrajudicial Executions, called on the United States to limit its use of the technology outside the direct combat theaters in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Sheikh Said Al-Masri was assassinated by a CIA-operated drone in a tribal area of Pakistan near the border of Afghanistan sometime last week.
Alston issued a 29-page report warning that the growing use of the armed drones by the U.S. would result in “competing drone attacks” by dozens of countries against anyone “labeled as terrorists by one group or another.” According to the U.N. official himself, at least 40 other countries already have drone technology.
An introductory statement that accompanied the report said, “The United States seems oblivious to this fact when it asserts an ever-expanding entitlement for itself to target individuals across the globe. But this strongly-asserted but ill-defined license to kill without accountability is not an entitlement which the United States or other states can have without doing grave damage to the rules designed to protect the right to life and prevent extrajudicial executions.”
The report was submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, which the U.S. joined after President Barack Obama took office.
Alston acknowledged Wednesday in an interview with The New York Times that the Al Qaeda terrorist was “a very clearly acceptable target.” He went on to wonder “who the other strikes are against, and what efforts are being made to comply with the rules.”
The United States did not respond directly to the report, although a White House spokesman referred reporters to an earlier speech by State Department legal adviser Harold Koh.
“A state that is engagement in an armed conflict or in legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force,” Koh said.
But the United Nations has questioned the State Department's definition of what a legitimate target might be, and rejected “pre-emptive self-defense” as a justification for killing terrorism suspects away from the direct combat theater.
5. Media War on the Flotilla Clash: AP Anti-Israel Bias Exposed
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
The Washington Times daily wrote a rare verbal attack on the venerable Associated Press Wednesday, exposing clear anti-Israeli bias and false reporting in coverage of the flotilla clash.
The AP usually is outside of the range of critics, but the Times ridiculed the most widely known news service for “falsely” reporting, “The pro-Palestinian flotilla had been headed to Gaza with tens of thousands of tons of aid that Israel bans from Gaza.”
The Times wrote, “Yet, not even the Free Gaza folks claim to have brought ‘tens of thousands' of tons of aid. Their claim, which has been widely repeated and accepted by the mainstream media, is that the ships were carrying 10,000 tons…. Furthermore, much of the aid brought by the Free Gaza ships is material that Israel already permits to enter the Gaza Strip -- medical equipment, imperishable foods, and toys.”
AP, relied on by millions of readers for objectivity, reported the flotilla clash by stating, "Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel's international image.”
The mass media followed the AP story line and generally ignored the hundreds of tons of food, merchandise and supplies that are transferred every day via Gaza crossings under Israeli supervision.
The Times pointed out that only after the Mavi Marmara ship ignored Israeli Navy orders to change course from Gaza, “Israeli marines and commandos boarded the ship, some by rope ladders from helicopters. A fierce fight erupted on deck, and only after taking casualties and fearing for their lives did the commandos fire back, trying to aim first at the feet of the ‘peace activists.’"
Mass media also highlighted the one-sided coverage by blandly reporting charges by pro-Hamas elements that the IDF videos of the attack on its soldiers were doctored.
Occasionally, pro-Israel columnists were able to insert the full picture, and the pro-Israel New York Post published a hard-hitting editorial Wednesday under the headline “Terrorists at the Helm.” It stated, “The convoy was organized and manned by the Foundation for Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) -- as bloody-handed a terrorist gang as exists in the Mideast… The media is in full-throated condemnation mode, as is the 'nternational community.' No surprise there -- that's what they do best."
“Has a seaborne intifada now begun? If so, its purpose is not peace, but rather the destruction of Israel and the eviction of democracy and human rights from the Middle East.”
However, the overwhelmingly unquestioning acceptance of flotilla’s organizers’ statements and accusations, echoed and encouraged by Arab and most Western countries, precluded any room for discussion. The result was that the IHH could ignore Israeli documentation that its militants staged a lynch of Israeli Navy commandos expecting peaceful resistance by activists.
In an article was otherwise critical of Israel, Richard Spencer, a London Daily Telegraph Middle East correspondent, noted that the media acceptance of the Turkish militants’ claims allowed them to pay no attention to the IDF documented evidence of a lynch.
He wrote, “The flotilla’s supporters simply refused to engage with [Israel’s] arguments. There was no violence by the activists, they asserted, often with footage of club-wielding activists replayed as they spoke…"
“It wasn’t that they argued the violence was justified as needed to repel an illegal attack by the Israelis: it was as if it wasn’t taking place at all. This paradox largely went unchallenged by the presenters.”
6. Al-Qaeda's Number 3 Killed in US Air Strike
by Hana Levi Julian
The third highest commander in the international Al-Qaeda terrorist organization is reported dead following a missile attack by United States armed forces.
Sheikh Said al-Masri – whose nom de guerre was Mustafa Abu al-Yazid – was killed last week along with his wife, three daughters and a grandchild as well as others, according to a report posted Tuesday on the group's Internet web site.
Al-Masri was Al-Qaeda's top commander in Afghanistan and was one of the founders of the terrorist group. If his death is confirmed, it would make him the top Al-Qaeda leader to be assassinated in the past 18 months, and the first important kill by the Obama administration.
It is believed the Egyptian-born terrorist commander was killed in an air strike by a CIA drone on a terrorist compound in one of the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The reports that his family were killed as well seem to point to the presence of civilians at the compound.
The 55-year-old Al-Masri was considered to be the fiscal “executive” who financed Al-Qaeda's “9/11” attack on New York and Washington in 2001 and provided day-to-day operational planning for the group.
He also provided the funds for a bombing attack on the New York subway system that was thwarted by local police officers. The attack, which targeted Grand Central Station and Times Square subway trains during rush-hour traffic, was timed to strike just days after the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terror destruction of the World Trade Center in New York.
The principal suspect in the foiled bombing, Najibullah Zazi, pleaded guilty and turned state's witness, helping prosecutors trace the plot back to Pakistan where he and several friends received terrorist training in 2008. Zazi, a Colorado airport van driver linked to an Afghanistan-born Muslim cleric, admitted he intended to attack the subway in retaliation for U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan.
7. MK Ben-Simon Strafes IDF Naval Op on French TV
by Gil Ronen
MK Daniel Ben-Simon (Labor) broke ranks with other Jewish Knesset members who all supported the IDF publicly following the naval confrontation with the pro-terror flotilla. Ben Simon told French television channel BFM-TV that Israeli public opinion is extremely critical of the IDF action and of its results. The political ramifications of the action, he said, will be taken into account in the coming days.
His statements were not corroborated by statistics or polls, and on the contrary, spontaneous support for the IDF action could be seen and heard all over Israel.
Ben-Simon's statements were a departure from the patriotic line toed by other Israeli interviewees on French news channels. Israeli Ambassador to France Daniel Shek, for instance, told RTL that Israeli forces had acted in self-defense against an attack by armed passengers in the flotilla.
Ben-Simon was also highly critical of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who leads his own party.
Maariv reporter Kalman Liebskind reported earlier this week that Ben-Simon's wife, Uriela Ben-Tzvi, heads a PR firm named Ben Or Media that represents the New Israel Fund and many of the radical organizations it supports. The office is currently working with the Palestinian Authority to spread support for its boycott of goods manufactured by Jews in Judea and Samaria, Liebskind reported, noting that it is possible that Ben-Simon is benefiting financially – through his wife – as a result of the boycott. When he asked Ben-Simon for his position on this matter, the MK hung up the phone on him.
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