Yesterday we saw initial reactions to the so-called "peace activists" and their flotillas to bring aid to Gaza and today reactions are flying out faster than people can actually read them, but so is new information about just who funded and organized those flotillas.
The Weekly Standard explains who those organizers were:
The convoy of ships allegedly trying to bring aid to the Gaza Strip was organized by a group belonging to an officially designated terrorist organization.
As was pointed out yesterday by PMW, Al-Jazeera TV documented the pre-battle atmosphere created by men on board the flotilla, who chanted a well-known Islamic battle cry invoking the killing and defeat of Jews in battle:
"[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!"
Video of that is also provided.
The Spectator provides more information that isn't widely spread through the media:
Gaza’s markets are full of produce, thousands of tons of supplies are travelling into Gaza every week through the Israeli-controlled border crossings, and there is no starvation or humanitarian crisis. It was always obvious that the flotilla was not the humanitarian exercise it was said to be. Here is footage of the IDF offering to dock the Marmara -- the main flotilla ship -- at Ashdod and transfer its supplies and being told ‘Negative, negative, our destination is Gaza’.
And now we can see that the real purpose of this invasion -- backed by the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), a radical Islamic organization outlawed by Israel in 2008 for allegedly serving as a major component in Hamas’s global fund-raising machine -- was to incite a violent uprising in the Middle East and across the Islamic world. As I write, reports are coming in of Arab rioting in Jerusalem.
The notion – uncritically swallowed by the lazy, ignorant and bigoted BBC and other western media – that the flotilla organisers are ‘peace activists’ is simply ludicrous. This research by the Danish Institute for International Studies details the part played by the IHH in Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya. According to the French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere testifying at the Seattle trial of would-be al Qaeda Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressamin, the IHH had played ‘[a]n important role’ in the al Qaeda Millenium bomb plot targeting Los Angeles airport. It was also involved in weapons trafficking, and played in addition a key role in galvanizing anti-Western sentiment among Turkish Muslims in the lead-up to the 2003 war in Iraq. ‘Peace activists’ these people most certainly are not.
And this flotilla was but the latest jihadi attack, deploying the Islamists’ signature strategy of violence and media manipulation.
Let us not forget why there is a blockade to begin with.
I keep seeing people talk about Gaza, yet I hear nothing but birds chirping when Sderot is mentioned.
Sderot:
Sderot, less than a mile from Gaza, has been the target of Palestinian rocket attacks that have killed 13 residents, wounded hundreds, caused millions of dollars in damage, disrupted daily life and wreaked havoc on the local economy. According to MSNBC, "nearly everyone [has been] traumatized by the frequent sound of air-raid sirens and explosions of incoming projectiles". All local schools have been fortified. From mid-June 2007 to mid-February 2008, 771 rockets and 857 mortar bombs were fired at Sderot and the western Negev, an average of three or four each a day.
More
February 10, 2002 was the first time Palestinians launched rockets into Israel, rather than at Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. One of the rockets landed in Kibbutz Saad. A Qassam first hit an Israeli city on March 5, 2002 when two rockets struck the southern city of Sderot. Some rockets have hit as far as the edge of Ashkelon. The total number of Qassam rockets launched exceeded 1,000 by June 9, 2006. During the year 2006 alone, more than 1,000 rockets were launched. In 2008, 1750 rockets were launched.
Launched from Gaza, at Israel civilians, continuously for years.
The blockade is there for a damn good reason, to allow, food, medicine and needed supplies to Gazans without allowing weapons to kill and terrorize more Israelis.
Jennifer Rubin, Commentary Magazine, with "Does Israel Have a Right to Defend Itself?"
The rule set for Israel, which applies to no other nation in the world, is an intentionally impossible one to meet: the Jewish state can only defend itself without harming terrorists, who abide by no laws of war and exercise no concern for Israeli casualties. Words are twisted: Israel is transformed into ”the aggressor” in each instance, and the “peace” forces — in this case, populated by Turkish IHH forces with ties to Hamas and other terror groups — are those that attacks Israelis. This is a critical moment for Israel, for its supporters, for American Jewry, and for Obama. Who will defend Israel’s right to defend itself, and who will fall in with the venomous critics who will be satisfied only when Israel is a defenseless shell of its former self? We will see once again who is pro-Israel — and willing to defy partisan loyalty if need be — and who is so in name only
Last word goes to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
"Our policy was and will continue to be that Israel would let humanitarian aid, any kind of goods that are meant for peace, to the civilian population of Gaza.
We have no problems with the people of Gaza. We do have a conflict with the terrorist regime of Hamas, supported by Iran. We want to maintain a situation where we prevent weapons and war materials from coming into Gaza, and allowing humanitarian aid to go to the population of Gaza"
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