In Ireland, the editorial in The Sunday Tribune has endorsed the call to boycott Israeli products. As far as I am aware this is the first such endorsement by one of the mainstream national newspapers.
Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin has said that "the blockade has to be lifted", and called the events of the past week a watershed in international treatment of the blockade.
Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland cancelled an appearance before a parliamentary committee where he was due to defend his country's actions, evidently deciding that silence was a better policy. Not surprising, given the incredulous reaction to embassy official Ruth Zakh's hysterical radio rant.
Minor correction: sailing from Ireland, Irish joint effort with Malaysians, flag Cambodia. (Ship originally confiscated by Irish authorities due to owners' failure to pay sailors, then bought, renamed, and repurposed.)
Incidentally, Denis Halliday, one of the Irish on board, is the guy who resigned as UN Assistant Secretary-General because of the child-killing sanctions on Iraq.
Guardian report on autopsy results: a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.
(In the same paper: a brief, sensible account of the recent evolution of Turkey's foreign policy.)
In an aerial video released by the Israelis (with yellow Hebrew text and a circle to draw people's attention to another incident - something being thrown, I think), I remember seeing a blurry figure approach another - who appeared to be stationary, perhaps already lying stunned or wounded on the deck - and, arm extended, discharge two shots at close range. Given that Israel had released the video, I thought I must be mistaken (was I?) - forgetting that the propagandists assume, sadly often correctly, that video so absorbs and befuddles us that we will see what we are told we are seeing, or at least forget to ask even the most basic questions ("Who is holding the camera?", "When were the images recorded?", "Why are we not seeing footage of the other things we are told happened?"). Remember how during its last war on Lebanon Israel released aerial footage of a mobile rocket launcher firing from near a house and then immediately leaving the scene? Anyone who wanted a justification for the Israeli destruction of the house some time later, killing many civilians sheltering inside, was inexplicably quite satisfied by these pictures. It seemed TV-treated brains couldn't accomodate more than one idea at a time, so that "Did Hezbollah fire any rockets from the vicinity of civilian buildings?" completely eclipsed "So if the Israelis had these images then why the hell did they bomb the house?!" People even believed that these large rockets were launched from inside houses, never wondering whether such a weapon could be fired out of a window, let alone manoeuvred into a room, or if it could, whether the blowback in a confined space might kill the person firing it, or if it didn't whether the house would afford any protection from Israeli bombs and missiles.
When it comes to Israeli propaganda, we can believe none of what we hear and half of what we see. Part of the reason for the Mavi Marmara atrocity may be that, while we tend to assume Israel's more hysterical propaganda is directed at sustaining the stupidest, most reflexively Islamophobic constituency abroad, many Israelis believe their own lines about "humanitarian terrorists", etc.
To Gaza, where they cannot impede Israel's territorial expansion in the West Bank, and can exist until they starve or are bombed to death in the next Cast Lead. Spouses of Palestinians or Palestinians who have gained residency rights elsewhere can be deported to those countries. Clearly, however, this measure is not enough for a final solution - it is only the latest step on the road to it.
Wave of Protests, Gov't Condemnation
In Ireland, the editorial in The Sunday Tribune has endorsed the call to boycott Israeli products. As far as I am aware this is the first such endorsement by one of the mainstream national newspapers.
Irish foreign minister Micheal Martin has said that "the blockade has to be lifted", and called the events of the past week a watershed in international treatment of the blockade.
Meanwhile, the Israeli ambassador to Ireland cancelled an appearance before a parliamentary committee where he was due to defend his country's actions, evidently deciding that silence was a better policy. Not surprising, given the incredulous reaction to embassy official Ruth Zakh's hysterical radio rant.
Likud Vows it will Not Arrive
It is flagged as an Irish vessel
Minor correction: sailing from Ireland, Irish joint effort with Malaysians, flag Cambodia. (Ship originally confiscated by Irish authorities due to owners' failure to pay sailors, then bought, renamed, and repurposed.)
Incidentally, Denis Halliday, one of the Irish on board, is the guy who resigned as UN Assistant Secretary-General because of the child-killing sanctions on Iraq.
Guardian report on autopsy results: a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.
(In the same paper: a brief, sensible account of the recent evolution of Turkey's foreign policy.)
In an aerial video released by the Israelis (with yellow Hebrew text and a circle to draw people's attention to another incident - something being thrown, I think), I remember seeing a blurry figure approach another - who appeared to be stationary, perhaps already lying stunned or wounded on the deck - and, arm extended, discharge two shots at close range. Given that Israel had released the video, I thought I must be mistaken (was I?) - forgetting that the propagandists assume, sadly often correctly, that video so absorbs and befuddles us that we will see what we are told we are seeing, or at least forget to ask even the most basic questions ("Who is holding the camera?", "When were the images recorded?", "Why are we not seeing footage of the other things we are told happened?"). Remember how during its last war on Lebanon Israel released aerial footage of a mobile rocket launcher firing from near a house and then immediately leaving the scene? Anyone who wanted a justification for the Israeli destruction of the house some time later, killing many civilians sheltering inside, was inexplicably quite satisfied by these pictures. It seemed TV-treated brains couldn't accomodate more than one idea at a time, so that "Did Hezbollah fire any rockets from the vicinity of civilian buildings?" completely eclipsed "So if the Israelis had these images then why the hell did they bomb the house?!" People even believed that these large rockets were launched from inside houses, never wondering whether such a weapon could be fired out of a window, let alone manoeuvred into a room, or if it could, whether the blowback in a confined space might kill the person firing it, or if it didn't whether the house would afford any protection from Israeli bombs and missiles.
When it comes to Israeli propaganda, we can believe none of what we hear and half of what we see. Part of the reason for the Mavi Marmara atrocity may be that, while we tend to assume Israel's more hysterical propaganda is directed at sustaining the stupidest, most reflexively Islamophobic constituency abroad, many Israelis believe their own lines about "humanitarian terrorists", etc.
To Gaza, where they cannot impede Israel's territorial expansion in the West Bank, and can exist until they starve or are bombed to death in the next Cast Lead. Spouses of Palestinians or Palestinians who have gained residency rights elsewhere can be deported to those countries. Clearly, however, this measure is not enough for a final solution - it is only the latest step on the road to it.