Israel’s deadly attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was flagrantly illegal. The Flotilla, carefully searched for arms before disembarkation, enjoyed the right of free navigation in international waters, and Israel had no legal justification to interrupt its peaceful mission. George Bisharat comments. Read more about Gaza occupation and siege are illegal
For one thing, as soon as I wrote those words I was able to weep. Which I had not been able to do since learning of the attack by armed Israeli commandos on defenseless peace activists carrying aid to Gaza who tried to fend them off using chairs and sticks. I am thankful to know what it means to be good. Alice Walker writes for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about You will have no protection
Israel’s bloody attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May killing at least nine and injuring dozens of activists carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, has already intensified global actions for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it respects international law and human rights. Adri Nieuwhof reports for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about Global boycotts of Israel intensify after bloody Flotilla attack
TELAVIV (IPS) - Attempts by media to interview some of the hundreds of Freedom Flotilla members, who were being deported from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport, Wednesday, were thwarted by Israeli authorities. “No you will not be able to talk to them or interview them,” a deputy-spokesman from Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs told IPS. Read more about Israel censors news on deadly Flotilla raid
UNITEDNATIONS (IPS) - Less than 48 hours after the Israeli attack on a flotilla of six ships carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, the most powerful political body at the United Nations acted most ineffectively: it opted for a shaky “presidential statement” instead of a demanding resolution. Read more about US helps Israel avert international inquiry
Since Israel’s massacre of over 1,400 people in Gaza global civil society movements have stepped up their campaigns for solidarity with Palestinians. Governments, by contrast, carried on with business as usual. Israel’s lethal attack on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza may change that, spurring governments to take unprecedented action to check Israel’s growing lawlessness. EI’s Ali Abunimah comments. Read more about The day the world became Gaza
Israel has sent the world a loud message: we will do whatever we want wherever want. So what if we kill civilians in international waters? In response, the world gets the typical excuses and rationales it has come to expect from the United States, Egypt, and all the other states that should be levying demands on Israel to free Palestinians from siege, occupation and apartheid. Radhika Sainath comments for The Electronic Intifada. Read more about The urgency of this moment
I don’t write poems but, in any case, poems are not poems. Long ago, I was made to understand that Palestine was not Palestine; I was also informed that Palestinians were not Palestinians; They also explained to me that ethnic cleansing was not ethnic cleansing. And when naive old me saw freedom fighters they patiently showed me that they were not freedom fighters, and that resistance was not resistance. Read more about A massacre is not a massacre
Last night, 1 June 2010, Judge Dina Cohen of the Magistrates’ Court in Ashkelon, after a nine-hour hearing before a packed courtroom, decided to extend the detention of Arab political leaders Mr. Muhammed Zeidan, Sheikh Raed Salah, Sheikh Hamad Abu Daabes and Ms. Lubna Masarwa for one week, until 8 June 2010. Read more about Rights org condemns detention of political leaders after Flotilla raid
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. Jonathan Cook reports. Read more about Israeli MP's terror aboard aid ship