Israel threatens to seize Jewish aid boat bound for Gaza
The 'Irene' sailed from Famagusta in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus on Sunday, carrying Jewish activists from Israel and abroad.
By Anshel Pfeffer Tags: Israel news Jewish world Gaza flotillaThe Israel Navy is planning to take control Tuesday of a Gaza-bound aid boat organized by Jewish activists from Israel and abroad.
The military has been closely watching the vessel, named the Irene, since it left the port of Famagusta in Turkish-controlled northern Cyprus on Sunday.
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Jewish activists aboard a boat in a bid to breach the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, September 26, 2010. |
| Photo by: AP |
On the ship are 10 left-wing Jewish activists, five of whom carry Israeli passports, and a load of humanitarian aid. On Monday night, the boat was spotted about 70 miles off the Gaza coast, and the navy had expected it to try to dock in the territory Tuesday morning.
An Israel Defense Forces official confirmed Monday that the military intends to refuse to let the boat dock in Gaza, not only in a bid to maintain the naval blockade but out of concern for the safety of the Israeli citizens onboard once in the territory.
Military officials said the boat was carrying a negligible load of supplies, and describes the action as a "provocation" that disrupts the navy's operation.
An army source said that when the vessel reaches the area where the naval blockade begins, the military will offer to transfer its supplies to the port of Ashdod and order the crew to turn around. Should they refuse, the source said, the Shayetet 13 naval commando unit will seize control of the boat and transport it to Ashdod, where crew members will be detained for trying to violate the blockade.
Military officials said they do not expect to encounter physical resistance, and that after examining the supplies, they would transfer them to Gaza by land.
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Dear friends: My grandparents had a violent death in Fasists Blocade in Leningrad, Israel made a PEACEFUL Blocade against DIFFERENT WEAPONS and double- military/civil use of materials to antisemitic aggressors to GAZA. Every nations, including Jews, have own "politicaly blind" people. Sincerely, Vlad
Why is Gaza Looking more like the Warsaw Ghetto?
complete idiots with not more than a couple hundred kilograms of "supplies" that are otherwise available in the gaza mall. those with israeli citizenship should be arrested and tried the others unceremoniously deported and barred further or return entry for a period of time… perhaps a lifetime. first allow them to enter gaza waters to allow their actions to be certain, specific and illegal.
IF IT WERE UP TO ME THINGS LIKE THIS WOULD WIND UP DIFFERENTLY. FIRST OF ALL THOSE ON THE BOAT WOULD BE BROUGHT BACK TO ISRAEL TO FACE TRIAL ON CHARGES OF SEDITION. AND SECOND AND EVEN MORE IMPORTANT THE WRITERS AND OWNERS AND PUBLISHERS OF THIS NEWSPAPER WOULD ALSO FACE CHARGES. THIS NEWSPAPER WOULD BE STRIPPED OF ALL ITS ASSETS, ITS BANK ACCOUNTS, OFFICES, PRESSES AND PERSONAL ASSETS OF THE PUBLISHERS AND ALL SENT PACKING.
We should celebrate the diversity of opinions. People have their right to demonstrate, and Israel showed exemplar behavior while capturing the boat. We should stop complaining if they are right or wrong those people on the boat, we should use this as an example of democracy in action to the rest of the world and the Arab countries in particular.
The siege of Gaza has nothing to do with Israeli security, nothing Israeli does to the Palestinians is about security. It's always been about using economic warfare to ethnically cleanse Palestine of the real descendants of the biblical Hebrews, the Palestinian Arabs so all their land can be stolen. In Gaza the embargo makes a working economy impossible and with it a functional political entity. You can't recognize a state without a functional political entity. In the West Bank the goal is the same but it's done by balkanizing the land with the apartheid wall. Eventually the Zionists will get their apartheid state but it will destroy Israel because it will end the same way the one in South Africa did, for the same reasons. Isn't it time we admitted the truth??
No pity to be shown, Israel on it's own shall show the world who's on the thron.
Of course they will shoot and kill the people holding cameras and go on shopping sprees with all the cash and credit cards the IDF steal, but in a compassionate manner, of course.
The Palestinians would treat these jews like brothers were they permitted to put in in Gaza.
This publication attracts more self-hating Jews than honey draws bees. You people better start studying bible prophecy. Your stupidity in not understanding this ancient conflict is going to get 2/3rds of your country wiped out eventually. By the way, read Bill Salus' book Isralestine. It describes, based on scripture, what is about to happen very soon to the people of Gaza and the surrounding nations. Hint: They are wiped out!
just like Yitzhak Rabin did, spray the water after survivors try to swim for their life.
One of the people onboard this vessel is an 82 years old holocaust survivor, should he be drown as well Moshe? I'm just curious
The Israeli navy will board this small boat. The Israeli navy shot a 20-year-old Palestinian fisherman dead while working on his small fishing boat off the beach of Gaza City last Friday. Such are the activities of the Israeli navy.
I am curious as to what hamas will do with a boat load of Jews? The braintrust of the Jewish boat better hope the Israeli navy intervenes or these sailors may have a very long stay in Gaza.
The ships will keep coming. The blockade of Gaza and theoccupationof Palestine is illegal. It is such courageous Israelis and Jews who will save Israel from itself. Free Palestine and in the doing, Free Israel. Occupation and colonisation may subjugate and imprison the occupied and colonised but it imprisons and debases those who occupy and colonise.
Palestine is a has been just like atlantis. and those looking for it are just, let's say Stupid. end of discution
Left wing people shall not have the right to free speech and vote as their ideology does not comply with the norms of Western culture.
"Left wing people shall not have the right to free speech" Wasn't that the ideology of other odious regimes from the past? You endorse those regimes, their principles and beliefs?
Why not use the current terminology, "Famagusta in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus."
It is about time to let the UN forces to control this area. we can not hold these people under a constan siege just because we are afraid..
The Jewish idea was wrong 2010 years ago they still have not accepted that all people are equal!! They will never be at peace and fear death as they know what awaits them. Not saying that all Jews fall into this but the leaders need to think what they do will effect everyone!
The implication that they'd be kidnapped, or otherwise harmed, by Hamas is complete hasbara BS! I don't in believe that Hamas is in any way a sainted organization...but neither do I believe that they'd bring harm to anyone - Israeli, Jew, or Israeli Jew - who show empathy and solidarity with Gaza against the Israeli embargo. Nor is Hamas stupid - so this is ESPECIALLY true for Israeli, Jew, or Israeli Jew. They would most likely, in fact, be better received and protected than they would be in Israel!
The Turks on the island has suffered a similar fate just as the Jewish activists on board. They all had to go through the horrible process of surviving a genocide. It's no wonder that a Jewish Holocaust survivor would have sympathy for the Turkish Cypriots and vice versa.
One may criticise the Turkish occupation of Cyrprus but to compare it to the Israeli occupation of Palestine is dishonest. Those living in Turkish occupied Cyprus have full rights as citizens; do not live in an apartheid State; are not imprisoned in concentration camps like Gaza; are not imprisoned behind checkpoint, settler only roads, concrete walls, barbed wire and the guns of soldiers. They are also free to leave the country and return; to bring wives, husbands, parents and children to live with them and generally to live free lives. And any understanding of history shows that most of the citizens of this part of Cyrpus were originally from Turkey, not Greece. The occupation may be wrong for Cyrpus but it does not inflict the human rights abuses which Israel's occupation does.
Regret to tell you it is a real B.S. Have you ever been there on Greek side or on Turkish side? You should listen to people there!!!!
more people might die for dumb and illicit reasons
Not the act of trying to bring them relief...
The back of the Israeli apartheid regime will be broken by people standing up to injustice and with flotilla after flotilla of humanitarian aid trying to dock in Gaza.
No apartheid in Israel, where the 20% Arab minority have rights, rights they don't enjoy in the Arab world.
pure bull. RETURN SHALIT. Stop the rockets fired into Israel or, more cast lead with a vengeance.
We are talking about the apartheid system where the 20% of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship receive inferior education and health services; are not allowed to bring husbands, wives, parents, children to live with them in Israel; are not allowed to leave Israel to work overseas because they will be denied re-entry; are not allowed to build anywhere they choose but kept to designated areas unlike Jewish Israelis; are not allowed to extend their homes as Jewish Israelis may; are not allowed to travel into Occupied Palestine as they choose.... that apartheid! And, instead of comparing the rights of non-Jewish Israelis with non-democratic nations, tyrannical dictatorships and repressive regimes, how about comparing them with other democracies where, you will quickly see, Israel fails her non-Jewish citizens appallingly.
I live in the U.S., and these losers aren't all Jewish. Just like we have a bunch of idiots walking around the U.S. dressed up as hassidic orthodox jews somehow magically appearing wherever there's a camera, so are these morons getting paid behind the scenes by anti-israel campaigns. Israel needs to have a zero tolerance policy. Anyone brought to Ashdod will not be deported until their home country confirms their true identities, so that Israel can ban them from ever returning into the country or the 2nd time it's jail time. Simple as that.
Take your "symbolic" aid through Israel's proper established channels via Ashdod and you could have delivered even more goods had you not grandstanded yourselves and instead put that extra money wasted on chartering a boat, etc. into even more needed items. However, you'll find your greatest challenge will not lie with Israeli resistance to your kind offer but rather with keeping the prying hands of Hams from confiscating what you brought for free and then charging exorbitant markups in sales to profit from their people. Knowing this already, your movement should rather be named, Jews for Justice for Palestinians Achieved by Fighting Their Injustice By Hamas, or something like that.
If you read the UNHRC report you will see that non-resistant passengers on several flotilla boats other than the Mavi Marmara were injured by Israelis using stun grenades, electroshock weapons etc, In addition many were simply beaten up.
What's the word? A Jew who carries an Israeli passport.... There's a word for that. On the tip of my tongue it is, too. 'Israelis!' Knew I'd remember.
I think the word your looking for is kidnap.
...Haaretz does it all the time. They once printed a headline that went as follows: "Jewish teens beat Palestinian youth". I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen - until this "Jews with Israeli passports" came along. I'd say that one just moved into the number one spot.
as Americans from a distance.
Now THAT'S funny!