But what is missing so far from the flotilla clips on both sides is context: it is difficult to establish the sequence of events or, more simply, to determine who attacked first. The videos have made it all the more murky.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/02/world/middleeast/02media.html?hp

----------------

Gus: It's easy, mate. The Israeli commandos by the sheer fact they landed with guns and stuff from choppers in a raid, with the intention of taking over the ship are the ones WHO ATTACKED FIRST... What happened thereafter is typical of some people who feel their life is in danger and they fight the intruders... Stirrer!...

The first accounts of activists involved in Israel's devastating raid on a flotilla of aid for Gaza sharply contradicted Israel's official version of events, with one passenger insisting that commandos opened fire before they boarded.

Nilufer Cetin, a Turkish woman who had been on the Mavi Marmara, which bore the brunt of the Israeli raid, said that the ship had "turned into a lake of blood" and she and her one-year-old child had to hide in a bathroom.

Mrs Cetin, one of 45 activists who flew out of Tel Aviv yesterday, said that the clashes on the ship were "extremely bad and brutal". She said that after Israeli ships "harassed" the flotilla for two hours, from around 10pm on Sunday, they returned at 4am and told the ships to turn back.

As unbelievable as it may seem, already the media and the bribing power of the Zionists have been able to put doubts in the minds of the non-Zionists (and weight in their pockets maybe?)

What amazes me is that in this modern age there isn't any reliable independent body to oversee the UN Charter in any effective way.  The last time I looked, the Zionists had ignored over 100 UN resolutions against their behavior during the entire time of their existence as a rogue state.

Progressively, they have betrayed all agreements and contracts that they have ever made with any nation in the world, including the gullible greed of the United States of America.

It should be noted that, since the creation of Israel and Judea, subsequent to the Hebrews defeating the Canaanites, it seems no power of that era would trust the principles of the Elders of Zion.

It is indeed a complex subject and reminiscent of my childhood and I grew up noting the morals of the Bible stories of, for example, Sodom and Gomorrah, Solomon and David and so it goes on.

What is the power that these people have to withstand hatred; massacres expulsions and to be  in all ways despised?

As the wise man once said – don’t consider what they say – but go by what they do?

God Bless Australia and the world’s peoples who abide by the basic principle that all species of life have worked hard to exist – let it be so.  NE OUBLIE.

Dov Weisglass, an adviser to a former Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, once compared the approach to Palestinians as like putting them on a diet. Israel needed to make the Palestinians lose weight, but not starve to death.

He wasn't wrong. Successive Israeli governments have done their best to ensure the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, continue to suffer immeasurably.

The massacre on Monday of humanitarian activists by the Israeli military was an act of terrorism sponsored by the state to have maximum impact. Let there be no ambiguity, Israel is responsible for the deaths of these innocent civilians.

When the Palestinians last had general elections in 2006, the people voted for Hamas. Former US president Jimmy Carter declared the elections free and fair and without violence. Israel's response, with the support of the international community, was to isolate Gaza for electing the ''wrong'' government. Who are we to impose our will on another people? Would we accept such a situation here in Australia?

The typical response from pro-Israel protagonists is that Hamas is committed to Israel's destruction, and unless and until Hamas adheres to previous agreements it will not be welcomed to the negotiating table. A superficial inspection of these statements show their disingenuity.

First, the Likud government's charter states it will not allow a Palestinian state to be established, settlements will continue to grow and Jerusalem is the undivided capital of the Jewish state. Second, since the ''peace process'' began, the number of illegal settlers in the West Bank has reached 500,000. Is this a country committed to peace?

Israel Attacks Gaza Flotilla

From the Washington Post

....

How can Israel and the United States learn from mistakes and bend this crisis toward a better outcome? The answer is to use the fact that this has become an Israel-Turkey standoff, rather than just a Gaza problem. Turkey has regional ambitions, but it isn't a crazy terrorist enclave and it doesn't spout Holocaust-denying rhetoric. It's a big, strong country that wants to be a power broker. There should be a way to satisfy Turkey's hunger for respect without weakening Israel.

The right diplomatic formula should also involve the United Nations, an institution that Israel normally mistrusts, with good reason. Israel has been unable to resolve the Gaza mess on its own; it should turn now to the Security Council for help. That begins with a U.N. investigation of what happened off the Israeli coast. The next step might be a greater U.N. role in rebuilding Gaza, with real safeguards against importation of weapons.

Israel needs to embrace the paradox: Sometimes the best way to manage an intractable problem is to internationalize it.

----------

Gus: up to now, the Gaza "problem" and the Palestinian West Bank "problem" aren't really problems for Israel. They have used these skirmishes as an excuse to grab more and more of the "Greater Israel" lands (Palestine) into its own... To the Israelis, the "occupied" territories are Israeli lands "occupied by the Palestinian". The only solution in the Israeli psyche is to absorb the Palestinians in their generous Israeli mist, till the Palestinians melt into thin air. The "two-state solution" isn't a solution as far as the Israelis are concerned thus it will "never" happen... This infuriates the Palestinians whose disappointed "extremists" thus niggle the Israelis with inefficient weak attacks to which the Israelis respond with full force and numerous clinical murders. Such was the war with Lebanon in 2006 and the Gaza incursion of 2009...

Meanwhile the world can play the violin, pickle some onions or send "peaceniks" on blockade-buster boats... They will be raided... and I would not be surprised if the water of Gaza from now on do not get peppered with israeli mines and a warning to "unauthorised vessels" they risk to blow themselves up... in the event of which, the Israelis could say: "It ain't our fault we warned you... Your choice was not to come through"

By ETHAN BRONNER

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration considers Israel’s blockade of Gaza to be untenable and plans to press for another approach to ensure Israel’s security while allowing more supplies into the impoverished Palestinian area, senior American officials said Wednesday.

The officials say that Israel’s deadly attack on a flotilla trying to break the siege and the resulting international condemnation create a new opportunity to push for increased engagement with the Palestinian Authority and a less harsh policy toward Gaza.

“There is no question that we need a new approach to Gaza,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy shift is still in the early stages. He was reflecting a broadly held view in the upper reaches of the administration.

Israel would insist that any approach take into account three factors: Israel’s security; the need to prevent any benefit to Hamas, the Islamist rulers of Gaza; and the four-year-old captivity of an Israeli soldier held by Hamas, Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit.

Since the botched raid that killed nine activists on Monday, the Israeli government has said that the blockade was necessary to protect Israel against the infiltration into Gaza of weapons and fighters sponsored by Iran.

If there were no blockade in place, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Israeli television on Wednesday evening, it would mean “an Iranian port in Gaza.” He added, “Israel will continue to maintain its right to defend itself.”

But the American officials said they believed that even Mr. Netanyahu understood that a new approach was needed.

Yet Mr. Netanyahu has resisted American pressure in the past. The Obama administration initially demanded a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but had to accept a 10-month partial freeze. Pressure on Israel also carries domestic political risks for Mr. Obama, given the passion of its supporters in the United States.

-------------------------------

Gus: the United States and the United Nations have to enforce a two states policy, even if Israel carries on screaming or kicking... In fact, it may need to be a three states policy — with no new settlements in "occupied" territories EVER. Israel should allow Qatar to turn Gaza into a new prosperous state, where there would much be less intent and hatred to wage war, from a repleat position, than from a starving and ill-treated populace...  Qatar woulf have a calming influence on Hamas .... Anything less won't work.

Ah... I see. Israel doesn't wan't the problem to be solved... It gives the Israelis their purpose to be.

Israelis arrived shooting, say flotilla activists

‘It was like war,’ say the activists. Israel’s claim of self-defence is ‘ridiculous’

By Jack Bremer
LAST UPDATED 8:14 AM, JUNE 2, 2010
International pressure is mounting on Israel to launch a full and honest inquiry into the Freedom Flotilla disaster, as more first-hand accounts of the Israeli commando raid emerge from the pro-Palestinian activists aboard the aid ships.
In almost every respect, the eye-witness accounts tell a different story to the version offered so far by the Israeli military and politicians.

DID THE ISRAELIS ACT IN SELF-DEFENCE? The German politician Annette Groth, who was travelling on the flotilla's biggest ship, the Mavi Marmara, said the Israeli claim that its commandos acted in self-defence was "ridiculous".

"It was like war," said Groth (above). "They had guns, Taser weapons, some type of teargas and other weaponry, compared to two-and-a-half wooden sticks we had between us. To talk of self-defence is ridiculous."

Nilufer Cetin, one of the many Turkish activists on board, told how she hid in her cabin below deck while the ship "turned into a lake of blood".


Read more: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/64030,news-comment,news-politics,israeli-commandos-arrived-shooting-say-freedom-flotilla-activists#ixzz0pm5Bmnto

Israel has dismissed a decision by the UN Human Rights Council to launch a probe into its deadly attack on an aid convoy, calling the UN body of no moral authority.

"The authority of this council, which once again is working stubbornly against Israel, has reached rock bottom," AFP quoted said Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman Ygal Palmor as saying on Thursday.

A six-ship fleet carrying with some 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid and accompanied by hundreds of international activists, the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla came under Israeli fire while it was in international waters.

Amid mounting international protests against the Israeli attack, the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on Wednesday adopted a resolution which condemned "outrageous" move and ordered an independent international investigation into the naval strike.

The Israeli foreign ministry, however, criticized the UNHRC's decision, arguing some of the council's members states who signed the resolution were in a "bad position to present themselves as defenders of human rights," accusing them of "massive violation of human rights."

The Human Rights Council earlier conducted an independent probe into the devastating Gaza offensive Israel launched in late 2008, which claimed the lives of more than 1,400 people &30151; mostly civilians - and left thousands more injured.

A final report by the council's special Gaza war commission, led by South African judge Richard Goldstone, found Israel of war crimes, including deliberate targeting of civilians and using Palestinian civilians and human shields.

Backed by the United States, Israel refused to cooperate with the Goldstone investigation.

Israel dismisses UNHRC Flotilla probe

meanwhile .....

from Crikey .....

Israel's PR war on 'hate boat': a Crikey wrap

Jason Whittaker writes:

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAEL FLOTILLA ATTACK

"This wasn't a Love Boat," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight, in the face of growing condemnation of the deadly commando raid on a flotilla of activists challenging Israel's navel blockade of Gaza on Wednesday. And he mounted a social media campaign to convince the world the threat was not simply to Israel but global nuclear security.

The Jerusalem Post posted video to You Tube of Netanyahu addressing the international reaction. He branded those on the boats a "vicious mob" and "supporters of terrorism" and, while expressing regret for the loss of life, "we will never apologise for defending ourselves".

"This was a hate boat. These weren't pacifists, they weren't peace activists, these were violent supporters of terrorism. I think that the evidence that the lives of the Israeli seamen were in danger is crystal clear. If you are a fair-minded observer and you look at those videos you know this simple truth."

Netanyahu pleaded with the world to examine videos of the attack. A compilation of footage - titled 'Keeping Lies Afloat' - was posted by the government on You Tube, and linked to via Netanyahu's Facebook page and Twitter account.

The New York Times reports the video was made by New York-based advocacy group Fuel For Truth - which states its mission as to "disseminate accurate information about Israel and the Middle East to young Americans, 18 to 34." As the Times notes, the video employs "faux-hip lingo employed by ad copywriters who want to reach out to young people".

Israel certainly had plenty of support on Facebook. Liliana Enachescu wrote: "I think people around the world can see the truth. We are just simple people. In fact we are the force. Tomorow we will change the politics will force media to tell us the truth." And Mitchell Risenhoover: "Mr. Netanyahu, remember the God of Israel is on your side, and many Christians are praying for your safety and wellbeing."

Israel is under attack from "international hypocrisy", Netanyahu declared. His case was two-fold: the flotilla was delivering arms to Hamas, and materials to Iran for nuclear weaponry.

"I say to the responsible leaders of all the nations, the international community cannot afford a uranium port on the Mediterranean," he said.

Increasingly, the battle is being fought in the media. Former Netanyahu political adviser Israel Kasnett writes in the Jerusalem Post that Israel should have known the bad press was coming:

"Israel must be able to pre-empt negative PR by preparing and educating foreign governments and populations on the exact circumstances faced by Israel and the course of action that will be taken based on unfolding events. Pre-emptive diplomacy would at least minimise the harsh reaction Israel often witnesses when events take a wrong turn."

But supporters of the flotilla say the action was about combating Israel's "well oiled spin machine". Lauren Booth, a journalist and campaigner who was part of the first effort to break the Gaza blockade in 2008, writes in The Guardian:

"Our mission was simply to show the population of Gaza that normal people cared about their plight; that we saw their hunger, their fear, their imprisonment, their struggle; and that we - everyday folk with good hearts - would do what we could to bring their plight to the eyes of the world."

The attack and aftermath will reshape Middle East relations. As David Ignatius, a columnist with the Washington Post, notes: "Israel picked a fight with Turkey, a more dangerous foe than Hamas".

"How can Israel and the United States learn from mistakes and bend this crisis toward a better outcome? The answer is to use the fact that this has become an Israel-Turkey standoff, rather than just a Gaza problem. Turkey has regional ambitions, but it isn't a crazy terrorist enclave and it doesn't spout Holocaust-denying rhetoric. It's a big, strong country that wants to be a power broker. There should be a way to satisfy Turkey's hunger for respect without weakening Israel."

For the United States, having Israel and Turkey "at each other's throats" is destabilising, the NY Times' Thomas L. Friedman writes: "We have got to move quickly to get them both back to the center before this spins out of control."

So is Israel now a burden for the US? As Time reports, the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency made that suggestion on Tuesday - as the White House stays mostly quiet on the issue. As Tony Karon writes:

"The US certainly pays a political price in the Middle East for the perception that it is avoiding criticising or pressuring the Israelis. From its failure to get the Netanyahu government to impose a settlement freeze to the likelihood that Israel will ignore Washington's call for the Jewish state to sign on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Obama Administration has seen the Arab world rapidly lose hope in the US after the optimism prompted by the new President's early statements."

Meanwhile, Israel is moving to deport 618 international detainees - including four Australians - caught up in the flotilla attack. Hundreds of activists are landing on chartered flights in Turkey and Greece; Fairfax correspondent Paul McGeough and photojournalist Kate Geraghty were due to land in Turkey this morning.

Geraghty has told her employers she was tasered during the "pretty full on" attack. "It hurt and it made me feel sick," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted her as saying before boarding her flight.

Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin told The Guardian troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara - contradicting Israeli claims that force was not used until the boarding party was attacked.

"It was extremely bad and very tough clashes took place. The Mavi Marmara is filled with blood," she said. "There were sound and smoke bombs and later they used gas bombs. Following the bombings they started to come on board from helicopters.

"I am one of the first passengers to be sent home, just because I have baby. When we arrived at the Israeli port of Ashdod we were met by the Israeli interior and foreign ministry officials and police; there were no soldiers. They asked me only a few questions. But they took everything - cameras, laptops, cellphones, personal belongings including our clothes."

Kutlu Tiryaki, a captain of another vessel in the flotilla, told The Guardian: "We continuously told them we did not have weapons, we came here to bring humanitarian help and not to fight."

But The Times reports the Foundation for Human Rights, Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief - 40 members were on the Mavi Marmara - has "a history of involvement in Islamic extremism around the world and has been linked with an attempted bombing of an airport in the US".

Somewhere on this site, someone asked a pertinent question: Why do people go to war and stuff — including the huffing and puffing — and deadly actions — of the chosen people?

Here is the answer, etched into our anal history. Er... I meant our animal history... We're apes... But we fudge our ancestry by bringing in gods and intelligent stuff such as more "evolved" weaponry into a more efficient killing — and also using some magnificent excuses and porkied motives...

------------------------

By NICHOLAS WADE

Every day, John Mitani or a colleague is up at sunrise to check on the action among the chimpanzees at Ngogo, in Uganda’s Kibale National Park. Most days the male chimps behave a lot like frat boys, making a lot of noise or beating each other up. But once every 10 to 14 days, they do something more adult and cooperative: they wage war.

A band of males, up to 20 or so, will assemble in single file and move to the edge of their territory. They fall into unusual silence as they penetrate deep into the area controlled by the neighboring group. They tensely scan the treetops and startle at every noise. “It’s quite clear that they are looking for individuals of the other community,” Dr. Mitani says.

When the enemy is encountered, the patrol’s reaction depends on its assessment of the opposing force. If they seem to be outnumbered, members of the patrol will break file and bolt back to home territory. But if a single chimp has wandered into their path, they will attack. Enemy males will be held down, then bitten and battered to death. Females are usually let go, but their babies will be eaten.

These killings have a purpose, but one that did not emerge until after Ngogo chimps’ patrols had been tracked and cataloged for 10 years. The Ngogo group has about 150 chimps and is particularly large, about three times the usual size. And its size makes it unusually aggressive. Its males directed most of their patrols against a chimp group that lived in a region to the northeast of their territory. Last year, the Ngogo chimps stopped patrolling the region and annexed it outright, increasing their home territory by 22 percent, Dr. Mitani said in a report being published Tuesday in Current Biology with his colleagues David P. Watts of Yale University and Sylvia J. Amsler of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Dr. Mitani is at the University of Michigan.

The objective of the 10-year campaign was clearly to capture territory, the researchers concluded. The Ngogo males could control more fruit trees, their females would have more to eat and so would reproduce faster, and the group would grow larger, stronger and more likely to survive. The chimps’ waging of war is thus “adaptive,” Dr. Mitani and his colleagues concluded, meaning that natural selection has wired the behavior into the chimps’ neural circuitry because it promotes their survival.

Chimpanzee warfare is of particular interest because of the possibility that both humans and chimps inherited an instinct for aggressive territoriality from their joint ancestor who lived some five million years ago. Only two previous cases of chimp warfare have been recorded, neither as clear-cut as the Ngogo case.

-----------------

We human-apes have perfected the art of killing each other, while the chimp gangs sort-of-fake it to a point with "intimidation" and a bit of rough tactics... see toon at top...

Israel has asked the UN to suspend attempts to organise an international inquiry into a deadly raid on a ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said any inquiry should be shelved because new attempts to breach the blockade were still being organised.

Nine pro-Palestinian activists died when Israeli soldiers stormed a Turkish aid ship in May.

The UN has called for an impartial and credible inquiry into the raid.

Israel has announced its own inquiry but some European governments have expressed scepticism about its credibility.

Mr Barak spoke after talks with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has been trying to organise the international inquiry called for by the Security Council.

Lebanon warned

"We expressed our view that for the time being, as long as new flotillas are in preparation, it is probably better to leave it on the shelf for a certain time and we are moving ahead with our independent investigation, which we believe is clearly independent, reliable, credible and should be allowed to work," Mr Barak said.

-------------------------

More from the planet of the inquiry fudging chimps... see comment above and toon at top.

Assisted Suicide

Israel is facing a bleak future, yet there is no reason to think that it will change course anytime soon. The political center of gravity in Israel has shifted sharply to the right and there is no sizable pro-peace political party or movement. Moreover, it remains firmly committed to the belief that what cannot be solved by force can be solved with greater force, and many Israelis view the Palestinians with contempt if not hatred. Neither the Palestinians nor any of Israel’s immediate neighbors are powerful enough to deter it, and the lobby will remain influential enough over the next decade to protect Israel from meaningful U.S. pressure.

Remarkably, the lobby is helping Israel commit national suicide while also doing serious damage to American security interests. Voices challenging this tragic situation have grown slightly more numerous in recent years, but the majority of political commentators and virtually all U.S. politicians seem blissfully ignorant of where this is headed, or unwilling to risk their careers by speaking out.  
__________________________________________

John J. Mearsheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and coauthor of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy.

http://amconmag.com/article/2010/aug/01/00010/

By MICHAEL SLACKMAN and ETHAN BRONNER

GAZA CITY — The women were bleary-eyed, their voices weak, their hands red and calloused. How could they be expected to cook and clean without water or electricity? What could they do in homes that were dark and hot all day? How could they cope with husbands who had not worked for years and children who were angry and aimless?

Sitting with eight other women at a stress clinic, Jamalat Wadi, 28, tried to listen to the mental health worker. But she could not contain herself. She has eight children, and her unemployed husband spends his days on sedatives.

“Our husbands don’t work, my kids are not in school, I get nervous, I yell at them, I cry, I fight with my husband,” she blurted. “My husband starts fighting with us and then he cries: ‘What am I going to do? What can I do?’ ”

The others knew exactly what she meant.

The Palestinians of Gaza, most of them descended from refugees of the 1948 war that created Israel, have lived through decades of conflict and confrontation. Their scars have accumulated like layers of sedimentary rock, each marking a different crisis — homelessness, occupation, war, dependency.

Today, however, two developments have conspired to turn a difficult life into a new torment: a three-year blockade by Israel and Egypt that has locked them in the small enclave and crushed what there was of a formal local economy; and the bitter rivalry between Palestinian factions, which has undermined identity and purpose, divided families and caused a severe shortage of electricity in the middle of summer.

There are plenty of things to buy in Gaza; goods are brought over the border or smuggled through the tunnels with Egypt. That is not the problem.

In fact, talk about food and people here get angry because it implies that their struggle is over subsistence rather than quality of life. The issue is not hunger. It is idleness, uncertainty and despair.

see toon at top

Israeli navy vessels are shadowing a Libyan-chartered ship carrying aid for Gaza, in defiance of the blockade, amid confusion about its final destination.

The organisers of the shipment, the Gaddafi Foundation, insist the Moldovan-flagged Amalthea is ignoring a warning from Israel to change course.

Israeli officials say the captain has agreed to divert to Egypt but the ship cannot move owing to engine problems.

The Amalthea left Greece on Saturday and was due to reach Gaza on Wednesday.

The attempt to break the blockade comes six weeks after nine activists were killed when Israeli commandos boarded another aid ship bound for Gaza.

Their history of a terrible injustice seems to be this.  The WW II produced many displaced persons and the "powers that be" set about trying to re-locate people, as close as possible, to their countries of origin? Fact?

However, the gypsies; the politicians; the Communists; the homosexuals; the mentally disadvantaged;  the Russians, the Jews and in particular the major NAZI target of the Slavs (displaced persons) who were all considered "intermensch" and were contained in concentration camps where they could be controlled?

The point I am trying to make is that the Jewish people, at least in this instance, were not THE purpose of the Holocaust although their hierarchy in the US may have upset them when they declared WAR on Germany is 1933.

However, when considering the facts, does anyone believe that the holocaust was ONLY against the Jewish people?

There is no argument against the opinion that the Holocaust happened and should never happen again but, juxtapose that against the massacres that have happened due to the uncontrolled military power of the UK, the US, the Turks, the Russians ad infinitum.

I believe that a “Holocaust” of course did happen but, and that is a big but, it was not a crime against ONLY the Jewish people, but against civilization as the Zionists are even repeating while we communicate.

God Bless Australia and may we feel innocent of any of the Holocausts that have happened without our involvement.  NE OUBLIE.

In comments that will play well in Turkey, Mr Cameron frankly addressed the situation in Gaza. Speaking to business leaders in Ankara, Mr Cameron condemned Israel's land and sea blockade of Gaza, aimed at weakening the Islamist group Hamas, which seized control of the strip in 2007.

"Let me be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change," said Mr Cameron, reiterating comments that he made earlier to the House of Commons. "Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."

Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, applauded Mr Cameron's words, and repeated his condemnation of the flotilla assault in international waters, comparing it to Somali piracy.

Israel's relations with Turkey, already strained after the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict, further deteriorated when Israeli commandos boarded the lead ship of a flotilla aimed at breaching the Gaza blockade. Israeli troops killed nine activists, mostly Turks, prompting an international outcry.

Mr Cameron yesterday reiterated earlier comments that the attack was "unacceptable" and called for a "swift, transparent and rigorous" investigation of the raid.

---------------------

Good on cameron for expressing such solid views for an English PM...

David Cameron was embroiled in an angry diplomatic row with Israel tonight after describing the Gaza Strip as a prison camp for its 1.5 million Palestinian residents.

The prime minister drew fire at home and in Israel for remarks he made in Turkey about the need to further ease the blockade of the coastal territory, following the lifting of some restrictions last month. But Arabs and many others will agree wholeheartedly with his words.

"The situation in Gaza has to change," he told businessmen in Ankara. "Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."

Foreign Office sources suggested Downing Street had been remiss in omitting from Cameron's speech the sort of "balancing" comments that are routinely made about Israel's security – especially the fate of a captured soldier being held by Hamas – when its policies on the Palestinians are criticised.

---------------

see comment above...

There has been "little improvement" for people in Gaza since Israel announced it was easing its economic blockade of the territory six months ago.

That is the verdict of a new report by aid agencies and rights groups working inside the Palestinian territory.

A ban on most exports from Gaza is "crippling" the economy, they say.

The report, "Dashed Hopes: Continuation of the Gaza Blockade", was compiled by 21 different groups, including Oxfam, Amnesty and Save the Children.

"Only a fraction of the aid needed has made it to the civilians trapped in Gaza by the blockade," said Jeremy Hobbs, Director of Oxfam International.

"Israel's failure to live up to its commitments and the lack of international action to lift the blockade are depriving Palestinians in Gaza of access to clean water, electricity, jobs and a peaceful future," Mr Hobbs added.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11868589

Meanwhile see the movie the zionist would hate...:

June, 1982 - The First Lebanon War. A lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town - a simple mission that turns into a nightmare..

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483831/