Nice Work CNN [NOT]
CNN has this up: Gaza relief boat damaged in encounter with Israeli vessel
(CNN) — An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said.
CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked in the Lebanese port city of Tyre, severe damage was visible to the forward port side of the boat, and the front left window and part of the roof had collapsed. It was flying the flag of Gibraltar.
The Dignity was carrying crew and 16 passengers — physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and human rights activists from the Free Gaza Solidarity Movement — who were trying to reach Gaza through an Israeli blockade of the territory.
Also on board was former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney.
Penhaul said an Israeli patrol boat shined its spotlight on the Dignity, and then it and another patrol boat shadowed the Dignity for about a half hour before the collision.
One patrol boat “very severely rammed” the Dignity, Penhaul said.
Penhaul is a CNN reporter. He was on the vessel. He says the Israelis rammed the vessel. Why is CNN using “weasel terms” like “made contact”. The Dignity was severely damaged and taking on water. Everyone on the vessel says they were rammed by the Israeli navy vessels. The assault occurred 90 miles from Gaza in international waters.
Why is CNN reporting on Israeli protests about Cynthia McKinney being on a vessel in international waters and downplaying the facts reported by their own employee? It doesn’t take any great store of knowledge to know you have been rammed by another vessel. Their employee told them what the boat was carrying and who was on board. The law of the sea is another international norm Israel doesn’t feel obliged to follow.
18 comments
I love the reference by the guy in the video to “these people”. So a bunch of European anti-semitic crackpots and a racist congresswoman try to run a blockade, and CNN is acting like they are nice passersby. Hey, a-holes, what do you think “run a blockade” means?
Speaking personally, I truly hope Israel continues these typical tactics. Perhaps in 8 years, the World will finally view Israel as they deservedly view the USA. Israel has been masterful at making the World feel guilt and much sympathy because of the treatment of Jews (and many other stated injustices over the centuries) during WW2. It’s way past time the World woke up and stopped giving the bastard bully a free pass on everything they do. Perhaps, in time, the World may (at least privately) think that perhaps, though rather extreme and harsh measures were used, Hitler wasn’t so bad after all.
There is much of History that the Jews and now the State of Israel have forced to be rewritten. It’s past time for the truth to be shown the light of day. Not that I have any illusions that will ever happen. Israel is simply a bunch of petulant, immature, uncaring bullies. Certainly there must be some exceptions, but they are conspicuously ineffectual.
I have no idea how much time I have left me, but I do hope that before my end, I see the end of Israel. That would give me some peace as I leave. 🙂 And anyone who want to label me in some way, such as anti-Semitic or other such nonsensical slogan, they can collectively shove their heads up their anatomical region where the sun never shines. 🙂 I’d be happy to help. 🙂
And PS… expect no apologies. LOL
Oh… and as it’s NYE, Happy New Year! It will be easy to miss. It’ll be the same as the old year. Enjoy. 🙂
edited to remove an ad hominem attack.
Its my understanding that most of the world doesn’t have a lot of love/respect for Israels’ neocon tendencies.
I’m just tired of my tax dollars being used to kill Palestinian children.
this makes me sad that i didn’t vote for cynthia mckinney after all.
Sometimes I think the Israeli government is the best friend that the enemies of Israel could ask for.
Gawd, Stan, I’d hate to see what you write when you’re NOT “remov[ing] an ad hominem attack.”
One need not be an “a-hole,” or “anti-semitic [sic],” or “racist,” or even anti-Israel to object to the ramming of a relief boat in international waters. It was a morally reprehensible act, and would have been so no matter who committed it.
Forty years ago, in my youth, I was a vocal supporter of Israel. Now I perceive Israel as the most paranoid among nations, willing to ignore any and all international laws and human rights obligations in pursuit of their wrongly perceived security self-interest. As an American citizen, I disapprove of such wantonness when the U.S. commits it, and unless you wish to engage in a screamingly obvious double standard, you must do the same when Israel engages in it. Nothing… ever, under any circumstances… justifies deliberate human rights violations against noncombatants in international waters. If you are going to advocate committing them, spare me your lamentations when you suffer them.
Stan, let me explain some things to you.
You hit the moderation cue because you have never commented here before. I try not to moderate, so people can speak their minds, but that doesn’t excuse bad manners. You don’t know the other people who regularly comment here, so you don’t know the back stories that influence their opinions.
Some of the people who comment here are former spooks and special ops types who, unlike the mass of people, know the real truth about a number of things. There will be code words passed that don’t make a lot of sense to the casual reader, but pass along a lot of information to other spooks.
Hebrew and Arabic are both Semitic languages derived from the same root language. This means that both Arabs and Israelis are Semitic peoples, so if you favor the Palestinians over the Israelis you might be called anti-Israeli, but can’t be called anti-Semitic.
Arabs and Israelis are both predominately Caucasians racially, so, again, there is nothing racist about demonstrating a preference for one over the other.
There are no blockades in international waters. What the Israelis did is a violation of international law, and was essentially the same sort of action that caused the United States to declared war against Germany in 1917. If the Israeli vessels had engaged the ship in Gaza or Israeli territorial waters, things would be different, but they didn’t. They committed a naked act of aggression in international waters.
Delivering medical assistance to the sick and wounded is not an act of war or aggression, but denying or blocking humanitarian assistance is. Hundreds of Gazans have died during the Israeli siege prior to the bombings, many at Israeli check points attempting to reach hospitals for treatment. Denying people food and medicine is not how civilized countries are supposed to conduct themselves.
I posted about another spy for Israel in the US pleading guilty in the post prior to this one. Spying is not the action of a “friend”.
When you deliberately attack a US naval vessel and kill 34 American sailors in international waters [USS Liberty, 1967], you are not a friend.
You want to cheerlead for Israel, Stan? Fine, go for it, but don’t expect those with more knowledge and experience than you obviously have to go along with you.
I agree, John. The Israelis I’ve met were all nice normal people, but the governments they elect have been Strangelovian for years. It doesn’t work; it has never worked.
Steve, I edited the comment. It was bad, and I deleted the one after it, which was worse.
It is getting out of hand when the Israeli prime minister talks about settlers acting like cossacks, and other politicians give up their careers because they think the country resembles Germany just before the Nazis took over.
Every time they do this, Hamas and the whackos get stronger.
Amazing how things like this brings out the frothy mouths. 🙂 Reminds me of when I was blogging about the Bush Admin between ’04 and ’06. Lot of very frothy mouths then, they are conspicuous silent these days. 😉
I have a friend (a Jew) in Israel that I chat with and have since about ’01. He was in the Army (and that’s all the details I am prepared to give). He is also furious and frustrated. Nobody there knows who they can truly trust, paranoia is rampant. He compares Israel today with E. Germany of the 60’s & 70’s and the current rulers with the STASI.
As I’ve stated previously, I have spent much time in the Mid East (officially and otherwise), and actually learned a great deal about how things *actually* work there, rather than the propaganda spread everywhere for normal consumption of the masses. Israel is not at all liked. The fact is, without the obvious backing of the USA, Israel would probably have been dealt with some time ago. One day, when the USA final grows up and get’s tired of being used and played for suckers by Israel, they may tell the ME nations to do what they please and stay out of affairs they actually have no idea about. One day, the USA may realise that the DO need the good will of most of the ME, they do NOT need Israel. 🙂
It’s easy to see why Bush/Chaney love them so much and like to emulate them, as they have tried to do.
I also know about the USS Liberty Bryan and Steve. And about the cover-up by Johnson & McNamara. It was required reading for those of us working ME. The evidence that the incident was *NOT* a simple case of ‘mistaken identity’ were overwhelming. I read that Admiral Moorer (ret.) had asked: “Why would our government put Israel’s interests ahead of our own?”. A very good question then, and a very good question now. I find the irony of the USA (who purports to be the most ‘Christan Faith’ based Nation on Earth) supporting Israel even when Israel attacks them, and would love nothing more than to see an end of Christianity, is just too much. And it isn’t a case of ‘turning the other cheek’, though it may be martyrdom perhaps.
As I said, I make no apologies for what I said. If people want to purposely read anything into what I, Bryan or anyone else here has actually written, that is entirely their own problem. Speaking for myself, I like to be briefly entertained by clueless drones. 🙂 It does become boring and tedious after a time, parrots have no imagination. 🙂
It all boils down to the UAR was a Soviet client, and Israel was deemed to be a bulwark against Soviet expansion. “Opposing the Commies” was all that any government had to claim to be mindlessly backed by the US government at the time. [Time out for a graphic of dominoes falling over]
The truly stupid part was that the KGB couldn’t care less what a country’s politics were, hell, they supported fascists in some areas, they just wanted to cause unrest. Like the Soviet Union was really interested in two sand patches without oil, like Syria and Egypt.
The anti-Communists in the US government were a major hemorrhoid when it came to real American interests. There were moves that I swear to Bast were jokes on the part of the KGB. They did things just to watch the US react stupidly. They probably had an office pool going.
Speaking of Christians, consider all of the tourists that are stranded by this mess, having gone to Bethlehem for Christmas. They start this on a Sabbath during Hanukkah, two days after Christmas, and New Year’s Eve for Muslims. Nice planning.
There were moves that I swear to Bast were jokes on the part of the KGB.
Oh yes!! LOL You are dead right there my friend! 😀 I’ve told you some of my background, so you can understand that I was in a position to know about such things. Of course, nobody in the US admin or services believed us when we tried to tell them. Paranoia was rampant in the USA then (well, that hasn’t changed at all it seems apart from the paranoia being much more vague and general).
However, they were not *jokes* as in *Funny, ha ha*. They were more intended to waste US resources, and make the US a laughing stock in the eyes of most of the World. The USSR did enjoy some small successes there. As you said, they did things just to watch the US react stupidly. 🙂 As with Israel and others, the USSR (and now Russia) were past masters at subterfuge and deception. The USA tends to take things at face value, and the World knows it. 🙂 Puppets on strings… 😉
BTW… I wasn’t sure I should mention this here, but my Israeli friend told me it’s public domain now. He said that the Israeli lead pilot of the group who attacked the USS Liberty reported that he saw the vessel flying the US flag. He was ordered to ignore the flag and continue the attack. He refused and returned to base where he was arrested. radio monitors in the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon heard the pilot’s protests. Apparently, the then U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dwight Porter has confirmed this. Also, one fact that has been kept out of the press is that the aircraft that attacked the liberty had all their markings removed, making it an intentional covert op, as you and I know too well how that works. 🙂 From what I know of it, I (and others) believe Israel intended to sink the USS Liberty and blame Egypt for it with *proof*, again dragging the United States into a war on Israel’s behalf.
The time wasters were easy to spot, but these were things that almost always involved the Bulgarians that had no real purpose. You had to report them upstream, but you knew they were amateur theatricals, not real craft. You had to be careful when the Bulgarians were working, because they were also used if something was too nasty for the Russians to want to be directly involved with if it blew up.
It was annoying, because these things generally weren’t part of our brief, but belonged to “the Company” or State. We had our own concerns and didn’t need to cover their turf too. It caused bad feelings, that were never that good in the best of times.
The idiots who can’t tell time are already setting off fireworks. There’s still three hours to go. It annoys me and the cats.
We were posting at the same time.
I can’t comment on that as I might say things that aren’t open-sourced yet. The stuff is slowly and surely being declassified so one day…
It’s not like the Israelis didn’t know the vessel was in the area, it’s not something you can hide. They admit that they had tracked and ID’s the Liberty earlier, but claim they lost track of it. Right, the Israelis couldn’t track ships as large as the Liberty moving 25 miles off-shore when they were preparing for a major assault. Pull the other one, it has bells on.
Yeah… I understand about that. I’m just waiting for the 30 year secrecy NDA to expire here. Then I may publish a book!
Israel seems to have a history and habit of pulling the US strings. Lavon. Libya. Liberty (hmmm… is there a pattern with ‘L’ words?) 😉 LOL Possibly even 9/11. 😮 Oops… where DID I leave my tinfoil hat? Hmmm… Oh, right… 20+ years ago, somewhere near the UAE!
One day… One day. 😉
9/11 was almost a given after we started mucking about in Afghanistan. Nothing good has ever come from messing with those guys. They don’t forgive or forget, and if you mess them over on a deal at some point you or your descendants will pay a price. They use old grudges to keep themselves warm in the winter. Bin Laden paid his bills, we didn’t.
With all of the immigrants from Russia, who knows what Israel will do next. The Russians have aligned with the Likud, so they be in a position to cause mischief. People keep forgetting how long it has been since the end of WWII. Israel is a nation of immigrants whose paperwork is not exactly in order, so who do you trust?