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<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message -----
<DIV style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A
title=tanstl@aol.com href="mailto:tanstl@aol.com">David Sladky</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=undisclosed-recipients:
href="mailto:undisclosed-recipients:">undisclosed-recipients:</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Monday, June 07, 2010 6:39 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> Terror on Aid Ship: "Plan Was to Kill Activists and Deter
Future Convoys"</DIV></DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=arial color=black size=2><FONT
face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></FONT><BR><BR>
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<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><FONT
style="FONT-SIZE: 20pt" size=5><B><SPAN lang=en-US>Terror on Aid Ship: "Plan Was
to Kill Activists and Deter Future Convoys"</SPAN></B></FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-BOTTOM: 0in"><FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 16pt" size=4>by Jonathan
Cook </FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><BR></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><SPAN lang=en-US>Nazareth --An
Arab member of the Israeli parliament who was on board the international
flotilla that was attacked on Monday as it tried to take humanitarian aid to
Gaza accused Israel yesterday of intending to kill peace activists as a way to
deter future convoys.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Haneen Zoubi said
Israeli naval vessels had surrounded the flotilla’s flagship, the Mavi Marmara,
and fired on it a few minutes before commandos abseiled from a helicopter
directly above them.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Terrified passengers
had been forced off the deck when water was sprayed at them. She said she was
not aware of any provocation or resistance by the passengers, who were all
unarmed.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>She added that within
minutes of the raid beginning, three bodies had been brought to the main room on
the upper deck in which she and most other passengers were confined. Two had
gunshot wounds to the head, in what she suggested had been executions.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Two other passengers
slowly bled to death in the room after Israeli soldiers ignored messages in
Hebrew she had held up at the window calling for medical help to save them. She
said she saw seven other passengers seriously wounded.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>“<SPAN lang=en-US>Israel</SPAN>
<SPAN lang=en-US>had days to plan this military operation,” she told a press
conference in Nazareth. “They wanted many deaths to terrorise us and to send a
message that no future aid convoys should try to break the siege of
Gaza.”</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><SPAN lang=en-US>Released early
yesterday by police, apparently because of her parliamentary immunity, she said
she was speaking out while most of the hundreds of other peace activists were
either being held by Israel</SPAN> <SPAN lang=en-US>for deportation or were
under arrest.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><SPAN lang=en-US>Three other
leaders of Israel</SPAN>’<SPAN lang=en-US>s large Palestinian Arab minority,
including Sheikh Raed Salah, a spiritual leader, were arrested as their ships
docked in the southern port</SPAN> <SPAN lang=en-US>of Ashdod. Lawyers said that
under Israeli law they could be held and questioned for up to 30 days without
being charged.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Contradicting Israeli
claims, Ms Zoubi said a search by the soldiers after they took control of the
Marmara discovered no arms or other weapons.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>It was vital, she
added, that the world demand an independent UN inquiry to find out what had
happened on the ship rather than allow Israel to carry out a “whitewash” with
its own military investigation.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><SPAN lang=en-US>Ms Zoubi spoke
as Palestinians inside both Israel</SPAN> <SPAN lang=en-US>and the occupied
territories observed a general strike called by their leaders. A statement from
the High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel</SPAN>’<SPAN
lang=en-US>s Palestinian citizens, described the raid on the flotilla as
“state-sponsored terrorism”.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><SPAN lang=en-US>Demonstrations
and marches in most of the main Palestinian towns and villages in Israel</SPAN>
<SPAN lang=en-US>passed off quietly. Local analysts described the mood as angry
but subdued, not least because of the openly hostile climate that has developed
towards Palestinian citizens since crackdowns on their protests during the
Israeli attack on Gaza 18 months ago.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>However, police were
reported to have been put on high alert, with thousands of extra officers
drafted into the north, where most Palestinian citizens live.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>On Monday, clashes
between protesters and police broke out close to the al Aqsa mosque in
Jerusalem’s Old City and in the northern town of Umm al Fahm after false rumours
circulated that Sheikh Salah, the leader of Israel’s main Islamic Movement, had
been killed in the Israeli naval operation.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Even before the attack
on the flotilla, the country’s Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population,
had been braced for a backlash from the government and Jewish public for its
leaders’ participation in the flotilla. As the ships set sail, Ynet, Israel’s
most popular news website, had asked whether Ms Zoubi was an “MP in the service
of Hamas”.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>But faced with the
severe diplomatic fall-out from Israel’s killing of peace activists, Israel’s
Palestinian leaders warned that they were likely to come under even fiercer
criticism in coming days.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Yesterday right-wing
parties launched their first attacks on Ms Zoubi, demanding the revocation of
her immunity and her expulsion from the parliament. Danny Danon, a member of the
prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, called for her to be “tried for
treason”.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>In her statement on
the attack, Ms Zoubi said that at 4am on Monday she had seen at least 14 Israeli
boats surround their ship 130km out at sea, in international waters.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>She said the
passengers had been gripped with fear at the noise and confusion as the
commandos abseiled on to the deck. “I did not believe we were going to survive
more than five minutes,” she said.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Taleb al Sana, another
Arab MP, supported Ms Zoubi’s contention that Israeli claims that the commandos
shot only at the passengers’ legs were false. “I have visited the wounded in
hospital and they all have shot wounds to the head and body,” he said.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Adalah, a legal centre
for Israel’s Arab minority, said nine lawyers had been given limited access
yesterday afternoon to the hundreds of activists detained in the southern city
of Beersheva and were trying to take testimonies “in very difficult
circumstances”.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV lang=en-US style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>Its lawyers and human
rights groups were also trying to track down who had been injured and where they
being treated.</DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify>“<SPAN lang=en-US>Our view is
that Israel is intentionally trying to obstruct this work and is enforcing an
information blackout,” said Gaby Rubin, a spokeswoman for Adalah.</SPAN></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><STRONG><SPAN lang=en-US>Jonathan
Cook</SPAN></STRONG><EM><SPAN lang=en-US> is a writer and journalist based in
Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and
“Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His
website is <A href="http://www.jkcook.net/"
target=_blank>www.jkcook.net</A>.</SPAN></EM></DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><EM></EM> </DIV>
<DIV style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0.1in" align=justify><EM><SPAN lang=en-US>A version of
this article originally appeared in The National (<A
href="http://www.thenational.ae/" target=_blank>www.thenational.ae</A>),
published in Abu Dhabi.</SPAN></EM></DIV>
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