Ship to Gaza

[frualeydis]

I feel very strange reading everybody's posts yesterday and only idahoswede mentioning Israel's attack on the so-called Freedom Flottila, which was on it's way to Gaza with food, medicine, clothes, school books etc, while still on international water and where according to the latest figures 19 people were killed.

While I do not have any personal friends on boats, quite a few of my friends do and besides we all believed that people and states will behave with a minimum of decency, not engage in what in juridical terms is piracy and murder.
While it does matter to me personally if the crew or passengers on the boat attacked the Israeli soldiers with iron pipes and knives it doesn't matter from a legal standpoint, it was self defence when the ship they were on ws being boarded by hostile forces on international water. And it will not help in any way, just strengthen the unreasonable voices of violence.

Ther are on the other hand plenty of witnesses telling about how the soldiers shot people lying in their bunks. And there are still no life signs from PhD Mattias Gardell, scholar of History of religions or of his wife PhD Edda Manga, scholar in the History of Ideas. None of those are violent people.

We went to the manifestation here in Gothenburg yesterday and it was some relief of the sorrow and tension. And it was a very dignified protest with speakers from the whole political spectrum and a focus on the politics of the Israeli government, not on the Israeli people who are not responsible for this, except insofar that they actually voted these people into office.

ETA: I'm not complaining, I really wasn't, I was just surprised, since the whole of Sweden is full of it.

Comments

[jehanearbonne.livejournal.com]

"Only idahoswede"? What am I, chopped liver? ;)

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Huh? Måste ha missat.

/Eva

[jehanearbonne.livejournal.com]

Inlägget i går kväll.

[operafantomet.livejournal.com]

I haven't posted in a while, otherwise I would have mentioned it.

In short, I'm appalled. I hear the pro and con arguments, but what it comes down do is that Israel has appointed a main enemy who threatens to destroy them, and their reaction is to break down this people in return. In my view, this has scary parallelles to what happened in Germany in the 1930s. Jews were seen as a serious threat which the "Germannic" people and Germany had to protect themselves against. We know the result.

I'm dead tired of people criticizing the state Israel being accused of antisemittism, racism etc. Israel is not Judaism. All jews are not Israeli. Not all Israeli people agree with the state Israel. They can't play that antisemittism card forever. The way they misuse it means it loose all its power, which in turns makes us less capable of spot true antisemittism. Which, admittedly, is growing in various parts of the world.

In the past I found boycott of Israeli goods as oldfashioned and silly. Now I feel it's one of the few things I can do to state my point of view. I will avoid Isralei goods as long as the state is as fucked up as it is. Reading the "Eyes in Gaza" book last year opened my eyes of how cynically Israel is trying to destroy a people. Whereas the authors has been open about where they stand in the conflict, their book is still shocking to read. And now this. The state Israel is a bully and I can't believe the world accepts it.

[noxcat.livejournal.com]

Monday was Memorial Day in the U.S., and the majority of the news was covering that here - including a bunch of fuss about Presiednt Obama not going to Arlington National Cemetery and instead going to a less well known military cemetery in Illinois (and was he dishonoring the Veterans by not going to Arlington).

Tuesday there might be more coverage of it.

[pandorasbox.livejournal.com]

I am just sick. I will message you on Facebook

[therru.livejournal.com]

I just heard on the radio that all Swedes are apparently located and alive.

Israel have committed a huge and irreversible mistake by boarding those ships.

[sarahbellem.livejournal.com]

I was away at a science fiction convention all weekend, but I did see a blip of something on CNN.com when I checked it last night. Honestly, it would not surprise me if American news channels quietly looked the other way or under-reported on the attack because of... Well... A lot of nasty international politics I won't get into here. I did hear there were a few people on the ship who are local to the Bay Area, though, so it may get a little more coverage as the days wear on (like Mary said, it was a holiday weekend here, too).

But yes, it is VERY upsetting and unsettling.

[snowywolfowl.livejournal.com]

They attacked outside of territorial waters, seized people and brought them in, and then charged them with illegal entry? Uh, to do that I think you legally have to wait until the ships you want to board are within your territorial waters, don't you?

This is not going to help what little remains of the middle eastern peace process at all.

[bracke.livejournal.com]

I think that Israel now blew all the little credidt they had left. What they did was illegal and more or less piracy. In former days Israel now would have been in war with fx Turkey after performing such a deed! I still do have a feeling of unrealness. A bit like 7/11 that took me weeks to melt.