Putting a face on the Israeli assault on Gaza Aid Flotilla
American, 19, Among Gaza Flotilla Dead
Furkan Dogan Was Shot Five Times, Including Four Times in Head Via ABC by Zoe Magee, June 3, 2010
"The (ship)Rachel Corrie will not be allowed into Gaza," "We are watching it and waiting to see what will happen. Hopefully, the people on board will direct to the port in Ashdod. "The naval blockade is still in effect and the ship will not be allowed to enter into the naval blockade area." Israeli warning to any ship trying to run the Gaza Blockade. ABC News
It is fitting to remember Rachel's fight to end injustice as the world contemplates Israel's latest outrage
(SAN FRANCISCO) - The MV Rachel Corrie is one of the ships in the international aid Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by Israeli naval forces on May 31, 2010. Remember Rachel Corrie, the 22-year old peace activist from Washington State, who attempted to stop a bulldozer operated by the Israeli military from demolishing homes and other buildings in Gaza. Rachel was struck and killed. Some witnesses claimed she was struck deliberately, but an Israeli inquiry found her death to be an accident.
From: Remembering Rachel Corrie Ralph E. Stone Salem-News.com may 31, 2010
Rachel Corri is an Irish ship so there is a connection with what the English put the Irish through in the Irish Famine (Genocide) when the English set up a blockade to prevent humanitarian aid coming from America and other countries.
Photo Memorial Statues in Dublin For the million or more who died during The Irish Famine
The Justice Department has confirmed it’s opened a criminal and civil investigation into the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, now believed to be the worst environmental disaster in US history. For residents of southern Louisiana, the spill is impacting the ecology, the economy and entire ways of life.Amy Goodman Via Democracy Now
70,000 barrels a day
First BP's Deepwater horizon blowout still gushing oil is an Environmental disaster and an economic disaster for thousands of people and businesses, fisheries and fishermen and tourism, sports fishing and the death of a way of life a culture made extinct - does it qualify as cultural Genocide- does Genocide imply intent -could it be Genocide as a by product of Criminal behavior , criminal Negligence, due to Greed -maybe Greed could be their defense -like any addict not completely responsible for their actions-they don't need prison they need an encounter group GA Greed Anonymous - Strange days in deed
On Front Lines of BP Oil Spill: Democracy Now! Travels Across Coastal Louisiana by Amy Goodman and Sharif Kouddos Democracy Now via Truthout, June 02, 2010
The Justice Department has confirmed it’s opened a criminal and civil investigation into the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast, now believed to be the worst environmental disaster in US history. For residents of southern Louisiana, the spill is impacting the ecology, the economy and entire ways of life. Over the past several days, Democracy Now! traveled across the bayous and towns of coastal Louisiana meeting the people on the front lines of the onrush of BP’s oil slick.
Amy Goodman interviews Dean Blanchard owner of one of the largest shrimp businesses in Louisiana who has been shut down due to BP's negligence. Blanchard talks candidly and says he's not afraid of BP but many people he knows are.
...We don’t want to see the oil business end, but we want to see unsafe practices end. And they ought to be punished to make sure that this never happens again. When you liability a company to a day and a quarter’s work, you know, the original liability was $75 million. If you take $75 million and divide it into $6 billion for a quarter, it’s a day and a quarter’s work, was the only liability they had to worry about. If you only had to worry about losing your driver’s license for a day and a quarter for drunk driving, you’d drink and drive. You wouldn’t worry, huh? And that’s the problem, you know? They got such a good deal, they became complacent. And they were just looking at the bottom line and not looking at the consequences. So we got to teach BP a lesson.
Amy Goodman: Were there warning signs?
Dean Blanchard: Oh, of course, of course. You know, look, I’m in the shrimp business, but I eat breakfast with people that retired out the oil company every morning. We got a, you know, small town breakfast deal. And, you know, BP been having a bad reputation for a long time, you know?
Amy Goodman: In what way?
Dean Blanchard: Well, they’re known for cutting corners and being a cheap company, you know? Not following all the rules. Look what happened.
Amy Goodman: Tony Hayworth, the CEO of BP, was asked about workers getting sick. And he said we should think about food poisoning, because a lot of people are out here, and an army, he says, is ruled by its stomach.
Dean Blanchard: So you mean to tell me he wasn’t satisfied with running us out of business, he’s going to come in here and insult our cajun cooking? Come on. You’ve got four different crews on four different boats that get sick, and for some kind of way, all four of 'em, four cajun people that's known for their cooking, would serve bad food? No, it’s impossible. He’s just looking for excuse. If he was so worried about the cooking, why did he confiscate the people’s clothes that were brought to the hospital? Once they were put into hospital gowns, their clothes was taken by BP, is what I understand. So I don’t think you need people’s clothes to test for food poisoning. You’d only need people’s clothes to test for chemical poisoning.
how many bullets to the brain is acceptable -one shot and the person hits the floor 3 more is just rage.
American, 19, Among Gaza Flotilla Dead
Furkan Dogan Was Shot Five Times, Including Four Times in Head Via ABC by Zoe Magee, June 3, 2010
A U.S. citizen who lived in Turkey is among the nine people killed when Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish aid ship heading for the Gaza Strip, officials said today. The victim was identified as Furkan Dogan, 19, a Turkish-American. A forensic report said he was shot at close range, with four bullets in his head and one in his chest, according to the Anatolian news agency
.
Furkan Dogan, the American citizen who was born in the U.S. in 1991, one of nine activists killed in Monday's pre-dawn military takeover of six aid ships by Israeli forces in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Dogan's body was to be flown to his family's hometown of Kayseri for burial late Thursday, June 3, 2010, the state-run Anatolia News Agency reported. Collapse
Dogan was a high school student studying social sciences in the town of Kayseri in central Turkey. He was born in Troy, N.Y., and moved to Turkey at the age of 2. He will be buried in his hometown tomorrow.
(as for Turkey's response to the Israeli raid and killings told a news conference.)
"Israel made one of the greatest mistakes in its history. It will see in time what a huge mistake it made," he said.
Equally harsh words are being used by the Israelis.
The alliance is dead, a senior official in Jerusalem said Tuesday night, according to Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. "The Turks are right about one thing: Irreversible harm has been caused to the relations. In the situation that has been created, Turkey will no longer be a strategic ally of Israel."
(and eyewitness describes how they got guns away from IDF but threw the guns into the sea)
They [Israeli commandos] were trying to land on the boat. So obviously there was this hand-to-hand combat and during that process the people on the boat were basically able to disarm some of the soldiers because they did have guns with them," Burney told Reuters. "So they basically took the guns away from them and took the cartridges out and threw them away."
Asked if anyone had used the guns against the Israeli commandos, Burney said, "No, not at all."
"Yes, we took their guns. It would be self defence even if we fired their guns," Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the IHH, said.
"We told our friends on board we will die, become martyrs, but never let us be shown... as the ones who used guns," he said, adding that people shouted that the weapons should not be used.
"By this decision, our friends accepted death, and we threw all the guns we took from them into the sea," Yildirim said.
and Israel says it will stop the next ship trying to break the blockade to deliver humanitarian goods as well
Meanwhile, Israel is preparing for a new ship to run the blockade, the Irish ship MV Rachel Corrie, due to arrive in the area Friday.
"The Rachel Corrie will not be allowed into Gaza," David said. "We are watching it and waiting to see what will happen. Hopefully, the people on board will direct to the port in Ashdod. "The naval blockade is still in effect and the ship will not be allowed to enter into the naval blockade area."
Former U.N. assistant secretary general Denis Halliday, who is on board the Rachel Corrie, told ABC News that they do not intend to stop their mission or head to the Israeli port of Ashdod instead.
"It's a totally unacceptable embargo. There's no justification for it, there's no legality for it, it's not endorsed by the U.N., it's not endorsed by anybody else. It's an Israeli military zone which is without legal status," he said in a phone interview from the ship today.
Israel’s Explanation for Deadly Gaza Aid Attack "Full of Holes as a Window Screen"–Former US Ambassador Edward Peck
Carmon via Democracy Now June 2, 2010
Former US Ambassador Edward Peck was on the Gaza aid flotilla that came under attack by Israeli forces. At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded. Peck says Israel’s explanation for the attack is "twisting the truth" and is "as full of holes as a window screen."
Flotilla Passengers Huwaida Arraf of Free Gaza Movement and Retired Army Col. Ann Wright Respond to Israeli Claims on Deadly Assault Huwaida-ann Democracy Now June 3, 2010
Huwaida Arraf, chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and retired US Col. Ann Wright were on the flotilla when it was attacked. They join us to describe the assault and their subsequent detention in Israeli prison. We also speak to Sawsan Zaher, a staff attorney at Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, who interviewed many of the activists in detention.
Remembering Rachel Corrie Ralph E. Stone Salem-News.com may 31, 2010
It is fitting to remember Rachel's fight to end injustice as the world contemplates Israel's latest outrage
(SAN FRANCISCO) - The MV Rachel Corrie is one of the ships in the international aid Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by Israeli naval forces on May 31, 2010. Remember Rachel Corrie, the 22-year old peace activist from Washington State, who attempted to stop a bulldozer operated by the Israeli military from demolishing homes and other buildings in Gaza. Rachel was struck and killed. Some witnesses claimed she was struck deliberately, but an Israeli inquiry found her death to be an accident.
At last year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, I saw "Rachel," a documentary about the 2003 incident. The film depicts the circumstances surrounding her death. The documentary is not just about Corrie's death. It is also about activists who fight injustice without hope of winning, but do so without despair.
The film is also about the ongoing conflict in Gaza, which stretches back to the creation of Israel in 1947. Then, the United Nations partitioned the land, allotting the Jews 55 percent of Palestine.
The Arabs did not agree to this partition. In the 1948 “war of independence” (called the “El Naqua,” the catastrophe, by the Arabs), Israel ended up with 78 percent of the area of Palestine. This war displaced 750,000 Palestinians and over 450 Arab villages were erased.
In the war of 1967, the remaining Palestinian territory was captured by Israel. Out of this captured land, Israel created the West Bank and the Gaza Strip by chopping up the land into isolated enclaves surrounded by Jewish settlements and Israeli occupation forces. The Palestinians lost 78 percent of their land to Israel and are left with 22 percent.
Recently, Israel has erected a wall or fence, which cuts deep into Palestinian territory, joining large Jewish settlement blocks to Israel, further confining the Palestinians to isolated enclaves.
Israel continues to establish new settlements (called outposts), demolishing homes and uprooting plantations in the process. And the Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes on and on.
and so it goes,
GORD.
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