Which reminds me. Having followed the media coverage of the Israeli action very carefully, have you noticed what seems a complete absence on TV of bona fide experts in maritime law?

YES, glaringly.

International law is law between states.

How can there be law between Israel on the one side, and an international community which is so against it that it regards its people as kikes and hymies?

The over-educated so called experts just made everything too complicated and some of them would say the wrong thing.

Anyway, who needs experts when we’ve got Gaunty, Littlejohn and Iain Dale and all the rest telling us mere mortals what to think.

That’s what annoys me

Now that, Michael Petek, is completely untrue on all counts and you really have no grounds for writing it.

“Poor little Israel. Threatened from all sides. Nazi Germany. Islamic terrorism. Hamas. Anti-semitism. Brutal Jihadists. Self defence. The right to return. Only democracy in the Middle East. Self defence. Iranian President threat to wipe off map. 8,000 Hamas rockets. Alliance of liberals, commies and islamists. 9/11. Chopping off hands. Subjugation of women. Taliban. Clash of civilisations. Existential threat. Self defence.”

LOL! I think I’ve seen that particular piece at least a few hundred times in the mainstream press and media.

Nile Gardiner is a stupid little shit. He works for some Thatcher/Reagan loving institute:

http://ht.ly/1UIKL

I am by no means a professor. I am just a street smarts guy. To me it is very simple. The ships were in International waters. They were boarded the same way as pirates board ships. They murdered innocent civilians, the same as pirates. This then makes them murderous pirates. If N/Korea, or Iran would have done this. America would have nuked them already. Being that is what Israel, we give them the green light and a pass as usual. Shame on Israel, and shame on America.

Case Closed.

Poor wee misunderstood Israel.

We only do racism, ethnic cleansing, paranoia and terrorism to protect us from bad people who don’t like us.

Start liking us and we’ll stop slaughtering you.

Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 4:47 PM

People murdered in International waters but the perpetartors not subject to law because of the international communitiy’s racism, towards Israel.

How do you think your little propoganda campaign on Craig’s site is going?

Believe it or not even some guys in the US are getting fed up with paying through their noses for the US subvention of Israel.

Some guys are also just as mad re-the supine Zio-spew US corporate media and the endless wars on Israel’s behalf.

This guy thinks it’s all gonna blow this summer!

http://americanjourney.blogspot.com/2010/06/united-states-of-zionist-america-im.html

No wonder the Lobby is foremost advocate for the disarming of Americans!

ScouseBilly, were they really murdered?

If you provoke the Jews you get bit!

Just like when you provoke the Arabs.

And if you’re a dhimmi under physical assault by a Muslim, woe betide you if you so much as defend yourself. All you can do under Islamic law is beg for mercy.

I sent an email to Paul Reynolds of the BBC coz I disagreed so much with one of his online pieces – in his reply he referred to the difficulty of understanding international law and I wrote back suggesting he could interview you – you know, kill two birds with one stone – an expert on int. marit. law more qualified than him to comment on the legality of the raid on the flotilla and a counterpoint to the endless number of Israeli spokespeople to redress the imbalance in reporting.

I did not hear back from him, but, in all fairness, I must say he changed some of the things criticised (obviously not just by me but other readers) which improved the article a little. I guess, though, he didn’t get in touch, or did he, Craig?

Reality Zone, North Korea did ‘do this’ two months ago to a South Korean warship, sinking it with the loss of forty-six lives.

But we musn’t over-react, as the Communists might get angry.

International law is law between states.

How can there be law between Israel on the one side, and an international community when Israel doesn’t recognise any international agreements, including the ones it has signed up to, unless they can use them in its favour. A country which also disdains foreign relations on the grounds that it despises all others as weak and feeble terrorists, anti-semites blah blah. But the most significant reason is that Israel is not a state in any normal sense of the term. It has no borders, deciding where they might be on the basis of whether it wants the land – Jews in West Bank are inside Israel, Palestinian Christians and Muslims in the West Bank are outside Israel, although ruled by them. It is a gerrymandered state to ensure one cultural group rules, all the others are second class, subjugated and powerless.

Don’t be too hard on this Petek character. The poor chap is responsible for this web site: http://www.crownofdavid.com.

I kid you not.

June, it’s true that Israel has no borders delimited by agreement, save where they coincide with the borders of Mandate Palestine. But it has borders delimited by the limits of effective territorial control. Gaza never belonged to any state after Ottoman rule ceased, and the West Bank was once – but is no longer – part of Jordan.

Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 5:05 PM

Yes, they were murdered in International waters.

Don’t try and deflect me.

Craig, you are right about the shower of piss poor ‘experts’ who are given space to pontificate and write ill-informed rubbish. I remember a few years ago when it emerged that all the ‘experts’ used by US TV channels were military people hired through government channels ie not independent in any way, although presented as such.

Although you would have a lot more cogent things to say, you have rocked the boat, have been smeared by the FO, and therefore, as they wanted, have been labelled ‘controversial’. Compliant wafflers are welcome, particularly those who go to great lengths to avoid saying anything remotely accurate, or which might imply disapproval. It is a closed shop. Look at the manufactured fuss when Pilger reported on life in the West Bank, and the barbarism of the IDF and its deliberate policy of smashing cultural and social buildings and offices.

It’s impossible to debate with these people.

Saw an Israeli representative on Yvonne Ridley’s show the other day saying that UN Resolutions were mere “recommendations”. Go figure!

Does “walking the plank” still get a mention in Maritime Law?

Great piece by Les Blough on Israel’s disinfo tactics after atrocities it’s committed:

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_60104.shtml

How will readers be better informed as a result of this article?

For becoming informed about the flotilla incident, It is useful to ask: just what is the evidence concerning whether the attack by Israel on the convoy was provoked or unprovoked?

In particular, is there evidence on the internet enables one to evaluate the following statements that some Israelis have made on other websites:

1. The Israelis only attacked one of the six ships, which was the Turkish one.

2. Some of the Turks declared their intent to kill Israeli soldiers.

3. The ‘martyr’ Turks boarded the ship separately and smuggled their luggage on board.

4. One Israeli soldier reports that the Turks had firearms which they threw overboard. This should be regarded as an allegation, and not hard evidence. But it is consistent with what happened.

Note that I am asking for websites with evidence like videos of interviews. Anti-Israel writings in general are plentifully available, as we know.

List of Zionist sado-freaks involved in Operation Cast Lead massacre:

http://palestinethinktank.com/2009/01/27/kawther-salam-names-and-photos-of-israeli-war-criminals-in-gaza/

The Zionists have told so many Big Lies this week to excuse themselves for their latest pre-planned massacre-maybe it’s about time people on the establishment left did a bit of homework on the biggest lie of the lot:the Holohoax as well!

Reams of downloadable material on what Churchill,DeGaulle,and Eisenhower somehow forgot to mention in their war memoirs are available across the web.

THE TRUTH WILL OUT!

Wait for the censor……….

ScouseBilly, those people should have known better than to mess with Jews.

Every anti-Semite knows that you have to have special training to do this safely.

Remember, a Jew can’t harm you if you grab him by his horns and wrestle him to the ground.

He might yell ‘Oy, gevalt’, but he can’t hurt you as long as you keep hold of the horns.

The problem with experts is you don’t know what they might say. Also you should know sometimes they are not exactly unbiased experts. Sure you remember the “expert” from SOAS the Channel 4 got in after the Anjadin massacre!

Paul

Dear Craig

You don’t seriously believe we’re going to end a week when tens of our brave humanitarian brothers and sisters have been murdered in cold blood reading the Telegraph do you?

Kawther Salam is just scorching on the flotilla massacre and is a far more refreshing place to be than the Telegraph!

http://www.kawther.info./wpr/

@Michael Petek:

So you indirectly admit your an anti-Semite since you know how to fight a Jew.

And how long have you been training for?

Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 5:46 PM

You’re just another prick confusing jews and zionists – how tedious.

Abe Rene, there are plenty of eyewitness accounts from flotilla members, including the Swedish novelist. Also you might look at the post mortem evidence of the murders – shots from close range, from behind etc. And you could ask why Israel felt it necessary to do this under an electronic silence, at night, with lethally armed forces, and then only release a tiny part of the video, which suits their story, and omits the crucial question of what happened before. Luckily the eye witnesses accounts corroborate and are widely available.

Not for a moment that I think you are actually interested in hearing about the usual cover ups and lies we get, as evidenced in Cast Lead and in the West Bank on a daily basis.

Shmulk, I’m not trained to fight a Jew, and I’ve never tried to do so.

I find out these things by going onto YouTube and putting the term ‘Borat’ into the search engine.

Why don’t you try it yourself? Look for him performing a song called ‘Throw the Jew Down the Well’. If there were any charts in Gaza, it would be at the top of them.

MP: you are an idiot with paranoid, delusional tendencies, not to mention a God complex.

Talking of music I liked this video I found on the excellent Gilad Atzmon’s site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5Oqx3gRxNY

It is worth reading this piece from Atzmon on a particularly disgusting Hasbara video

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/a-glimpse-into-jewish-collective-morbidity-introduction-by-g.html

Abe Rene: Questions 1 and 4 appear to be answered in this article

http://www.smh.com.au/world/prayers-tear-gas-and-terror-20100603-x7ew.html

by an Australian reporter who was on one of the other ships, based on what he could see and on interviews. There are also some photographs by another Australian, possibly the only source to evade seizure by the Israeli military. In brief:

1) The Mavi Marmara is a large ship with multiple decks, and presumably difficult to board. Also, the activists fought back, at least initially.

4) A few guns were seized from the soldiers and thrown overboard (according to witnesses).

To answer question 3, we can look up the people who died, for example here

http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2010/06/putting-names-to-faces.html

There is no evidence anyone joined the flotilla secretly.

Gilad’s a good guy – he proves that there is proportion of Israelis, although it is tiny, who are not brainwashed by the relentless rubbish spewed out by the thuggish regime. Breaking the Silence is also excellent, although predictably the fascists have tried very hard to break them and silence them, ironically.

Mr Petek…

do you know the comedian who plays and wrote Borat… is Jewish !

a damn fine comedian he is too

June, Hamas are idiots with paranoid, delusional tendencies, not to mention a God complex.

Yes, I do know that Borat is played by Jewish comedian Sascha Baron Cohen.

By the way, I just heard Turkish forces are massing in northern Cyprus, with a view perhaps to providing an armed escort for a Gaza convoy.

That’s part of Turkey’s ongoing crime of aggression against Cyprus, which means that anyone who wants to can legally attack Turkey. If Prime Minister Erdogan sets sail, the Israelis could impound the ship and arrest him then.

I’ve also heard that a group of Israeli students are organising a humanitarian aid convoy to sail to Turkey with aid for the oppressed Armenian, Kurdish and Greek minorities.

“ScouseBilly, those people should have known better than to mess with Jews.”

Ha, ha! The other way round methinks.

Pantywaist IDF commandos should know better than to get into a bar room brawl with Turkish sailors!

Just remind us, won’t you, you idiot, where the enclave is that Turkey is holding 1.7 million people, half of them children and only allowing in 25% of essential foods and medicines, while denying them paper, pencils, livestock, paint and all the other deadly weapons they might threaten the Turks with. Your attempts at some sort of equivalence are truly pathetic since there is no equivalent to the medieaval, fascist regime that calls itself the Israeli government. No other country in the world is holding seige and imprisoning nearly 2 million people, while at the same time threatening them, strafing them and killing them. and you talk bollocks about Cyprus. The Armenians in Jerusalem hate the Israelis for the way they are treated, as do all the other religions by the Jewish suprematicism and racism. Trying to adop them for your nasty little wars of aggression on civilians is a demonstration of your desperation.

“And if you’re a dhimmi ”

thats only is possible if one is paying a jizya tax .

are you .. is anyone?

“Saw an Israeli representative on Yvonne Ridley’s show the other day saying that UN Resolutions were mere “recommendations”. Go figure!”

he was of the zionist federation of uk

Yes, the latest hasbara ‘argument’ is that there is no international law, no UN, no treaties. Ha ha, desperation or what. Of course the implication which the Israeli idiots are keen to get over – then there is no justice, or human rights, and no holding to account of anybody. How convenient that would be for them. And they would be very happy to live with that, as it it is the principle they apply to all outside the magic circle of a nationalist grouping.

June, don’t you recognise chutzpah when you see it?

In answer to your question, there are 2.2 million Armenians in Turkey, 1 million of whom live in six vilayets . . . whoops . . . sorry, my mistake!

Looks like they slaughtered them all.

Look the dead were only Turks, killing them is not much different from killing Arabs!

Are you going to attack Israel foor killing Arabs next you antisemites?

If Israel isn’t allowed to kill Arabs why don’t you attack the UK and America for killing them?

You people are acting like the dead were white.

Well said anonymous one!

Impassioned demolition of another typical Israeli disinfo tactic:argument by false analogy.They try that one all the time.

Petek you’ve been run out of town by a stranger on a white horse.And the horse was cleverer than you!

On your bike you Ziofascist loon!

Yes, Israel are the only people allowed to slaughter people.

It has something to do with being chosen!

Arsalan I think that’s you impersonating Michael. Please desist. He’s daft enough already.

Freebron

Don’t you know. We are the master race, chosen by God to rule over all you lesser people!

So we can be as fascist as we like!

Craig that is slander of the libelous form. I was in bed at the time!

You will be hearing from Qullam’s solicitor.

Not really because of me sueing.

You are probablying going to say something again that will piss off those bastards sooner or later, and then you will hear from them.

Yes – they have the same solicitors as YouGov, so I hear from them quite often!

“But then I am handicapped by morality.”

Your pomposity is topped only by your Jew-hatred.

Well, Yoni, luckily you aren’t handicapped by morality. Or intelligence.

Good article by Ilan Pappe in today’s Sunday Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/ilan-papp-the-deadly-closing-of-the-israeli-mind-1992471.html

And another, in the same ‘paper, by Robert Fisk:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-truth-behind-the-israeli-propaganda-1991803.html

“To me it is very simple. The ships were in International waters.”

Stupid and irrelevant. There is a state of war between Israel and the ‘democratically eleceted gov. of Gaza.

“They were boarded the same way as pirates board ships. They murdered innocent civilians”

Stupid and wrong on all counts:

1. Pirates are individuals, not states.

2. They didn’t ‘murder’ anyone: they defended themselves against murder.

3. They weren’t ‘innocent civilians’ but heavily-armed, self-declared Jihadists.

“This then makes them murderous pirates”

Utterly stupid.

You breathe like a donkey.

Does this make you a donkey?

Come to think of it, though …

“If N/Korea, or Iran would have done this”

Try to educate yourself on the syntax of conditional clauses.

“America would have nuked them already.”

As dumb as it gets.

Are you aware that there is an international agreement to stop arms reaching Gaza?

“Case Closed.”

Sure is. You are a Jew-hating idiot.

Fisk? ROFLMAOWMP. Why not quote from Goebbels and cut out the middleman?

Whoever wrote yesterday that the Uber-Zionists really had run out of arguments was spot-on. It’s really pathetic. Is that the best they can do? The Big Lie doesn’t work any more, and they know it. But as Professor Ilan Pappe points out, they don’t care.

Great blog. Now it attracts Holocaust deniers, the worst scum of the antisemitic scum we have seen all week. Makes sense, though.

Pappe has been exposed as a fraud by Morris. But of course, the antisemites like him all the better for it.

I think, Yoni, you are the idiot. Perhaps you would like to refer us to this international agreement. There is certainly not one to prohibit jam, paper, paint, children’s toys, wheelchairs and whatever else Netanyahu and his fellow gangsters are terrified of. Nor does Israel have any right to lay siege to Gaza, or control its territorial waters. It is an occupying force and is responsible for the welfare of all the people under occupation, a responsibility it spectacularly fails at. But of course Israel doesn’t believe in international laws or agreements.

Yoni, what on earth is is “ROFLMAOWMP”. Is that the same as, ‘Heffalump”?

Is Ilan Pappe also Joseph Goebbels, then? Is everyone with whom you disagree, ‘Josephs Goebbels’? You know, Old Bean, that makes you sound a little like… Joseph Goebbels.

Yoni, you’ve completely lost it. You need to calm down, I would recommend going to the Arab quarter for some mint tea.

“Saw an Israeli representative on Yvonne Ridley’s show the other day saying that UN Resolutions were mere “recommendations”. ”

They are. Try to read up on a subject before posting – that way you might not expose your ignorance.

The Big Lie is the lie about Israel being the victim, even when its forces are shooting people b/w the eyes and on the crowns of their heads. It’s got nothing to do with Holocaust denial. Your tactics are so transparent, they’re pitiable.

Israel is not occupying Gaza, halfwit. It has a ‘democratically elected government’, the genocidal Hamas.

Sheesh, this blog is full of the stupidest, most ignorant people I have come across in months.

SOME BASTARD’S IMPERSONATING ME ON THIS BLOG.

I DIDN’T POST AT 7:49 PM

Suhayl, my dear little idiot, there is a post above talking about the ‘Holohoax’.

Yoni, before you go to bed at night, check under your bed for Arabs.

They are invading the blog, one after the next. It is the invasion of the body-snatchers! I predicted this! Call Borat, quick! Oh, and Stan Laurel.

Pappe and Fisk are two of the most astute commentators on the Middle East in the world. You are unable to confront their arguments so you try to assassinate their characters. I know you, inside-out and outside-in, my Old Goriot.

NOW SOME F***ER’S IMPERSONATED ME AT 7:51 PM

IF IT’S YOU, ARSLAN, REMEMBER IF YOU KEEP MISBEHAVING LIKE THIS THE JEWS MIGHT COME AND GET YOU AND EAT YOUR CHILDREN.

Oh thank you, Yoni, you are the model of politeness. I am very grateful for your civil manner. Please keep it up. It does me a lot of good. Engage with the argument. Facts, my old bean, my old bean. Facts. Answer Pappe and Fisk’s points, please. Or admit that cannot.

“Pappe and Fisk are two of the most astute commentators on the Middle East in the world.”

About as ignorant and stupid as it gets. Fisk has been caught bending the truth many times. He is devoured by hatred for Israel. And Morris has outed Pappe’s lies, so all you need to do is find Morris’ writing on this topic.

I am really encouraged to see so many stupid antisemites in one place. I’d get worried if I detected much intelligence or basic knowledge among them.

Old Beans, Old Beans, please, guys be calm, mellow, groove. The thread is about mass murder in international waters, not about personal insults. Come on, give us some facts, Sock it to me, Yoni.

I did 7:49!

But some Bastard is impersonating me, because I didn’t write 8:23 PM.

Some bastard who doesn’t know how to switch off caps lock.

Hay bastard, do you see that botton with the light. Press it.

Yes, everyone lies about Israel, except for Benyamin Netan Yahoo.

Well counter each of their assertions, then. Read the articles and demolish them. Be my guest, Yoni. Benny Morris is the de facto official historian of Israel. Shades of grey – he’s astute, too, but I disagree with some aspects of his work. Do you have shades of grey in your thinking, Yoni? But anyway, give me – and everyone – some facts. Don’t just call them liars. No-one will believe you otherwise. Come on, man, imagine I’m a Martian.

The videos are there, Suhayl. They show the ‘peaceful humanitarians’ boasting, before leaving port, that they’ll get through or die martyrs, preferably the latter. They show them screeching ‘Itbakh al Yahud’ and about the massacre of Jews by Mohamed at that oasis whose name I’ve forgotten. They show the arsenal of shabariyehs. They show the ‘peaceful humanitarians’ attacking the commandos.

Try explaining those away, or answering ANY of my points above.

Put up or fuck off.

That is unless Benyamin Netanyahoo says something good about Arabs, in which case he will become another antisemitic Jew hater just like the rest of them!!!!

“The thread is about mass murder in international waters”

Only antisemites conclude – as a starting point! – that there was “mass murder” when there is NIL evidence for this, and masses of evidence against.

Come on, man. Not silence. I can’t bear silence. In the Beginning, and all that. No, I need light and sound. Give me some song, man! Give me some rhythm! Answer Fisk and Pappe’s points. Forget who they are, forget that you’ve been taught to hate them as you hate Goebbels. Come on, man, give me some facts! You know what facts are, don’t you? Like blocking sat signals is a fact. Like shooting a 19 year-old bewteen the eyes and in the back of the head are two facts. Yes?

Michael Petek at June 6, 2010 6:07 PM

“‘Throw the Jew Down the Well’. If there were any charts in Gaza, it would be at the top of them.”

—the song that continues: ‘so my country can be free’ ??

top of charts in Gaza? yes. and with good reason don’t you think?

Your ‘points’ are just a lot of half-baked assertions, and hysterical shouting. Same as Petek. Loons. you have no interest in debate, just the childish urge to shout and scream abuse. all of your ‘points’ are straight from the hasbara handbook, although most of those useful idiots can string a coherent sentence together. Wild exaggerations and accusations are not an argument.

“Arsalan I think that’s you impersonating Michael. Please desist. He’s daft enough already.”

Michael has more nous in his pinky than the absurd Craig has displayed in his entire life.

Who’s an anti-Semite? Not me, man. I am probably a Semite! I am the Semite’s Semite. Give me facts. man. Bullets, between the eyes, bullets in the back of the skull, letting people piss on themselves, tightening their wrists so their hands go blue. Nine dead in the Eastern Med! Ah, there’s a chant: ‘Nine dead in the Eastern Med!’. Like Neil Young’s ‘Four Dead in Ohio’? Remember that, Yoni? What, too young? You mean, you weren’t at Woodtsock? Bah, I thought you were a hippy! Nine Dead in the Eastern Med.: Explain. There will be no negative marking.

Yes sahail Saudi, those people on that ship dared to fight back. Why couldn’t they just die peacefully?

Without fighting back.

They behaved like Palestinians. These Palestinians dared to fight back when we come to take their homes and farms, even though it belongs to us, because we are choosen and they are not.

The same goes for the ship and the aid inside it, it is ours because we are chosen. God gave those ships to us, and the aid. And those turks tried to stop us from taking what is ours.

Suhal Saudi, I am coming to scotland to take your house, and your underpants.

And if you try to stop me, you will face the might of the Israeli army.

And if you try to fight back when we try to take your underpants, we will film you like we did with the turks when we tried to take their ship and call you an antisemite terrorist.

Your underpants belong to me, God gave it to me because I am chosen and you are not!!!

In other words, idiot, when presented with an argument, you run a mile and whine ‘Mummy, mummy, it’s hasbara, which means I can dismiss it as those Joos lying again, can’t I?’.

No surprise, then, that none of my factual arguments in the posts above has even been addressed by the sick antisemites on this board.

“I am probably a Semite”

Another ignorant prat who doesn’t even now what the term ‘antisemite’ means.

Suhail Saudi you are an antisemite, because you do not recognise that I am your superior!!!! That God has chosen me to be your master due to my Nobel birth that I can not prove.

Antisemite means what I say it means. And I say it means you. If you disagree with me, you are an antisemite for disgreeing.

It is only up to me to decide what antisemite means because I am chosen and you are not.

Thanks, Yoni (8:38), it’s about time someone told me what I already knew.

By the way, it really is me this time.

Just a thought.

Within the three years preceding the establishment of the State of Israel, 15 million ethnic Germans – including my mother, her sister and two brothers – fled, or were displaced or expelled from lands they had lived in for 700 years in Eastern Europe.

The number who died as a result of the conditions they suffered during displacement was larger than the number of Palestinian Arabs then alive.

If we’d bellyached and moaned and bombed and shot everything in sight for decades afterwards, we’d have had World War 3, World War 4 and World War 5 by now.

There’s some perspective for you.

I usually enjoy reading these discussions (maybe discussion is pushing it at the minute) even though I haven’t contributed before but this has got insane! There seems to be little point with some people here engaging with others – you’re talking past each other. Why not try to be constructive?

“The number who died as a result of the conditions they suffered during displacement was larger than the number of Palestinian Arabs then alive.”

So the Palestinians should be grateful that Israel has only killed and displaced a lesser number than Jews under the Nazis? Really? Yes, that’s some perspective.

“I could churn this stuff out easily and be on Fox, Sky and BBC as often as I like. I could pick up a fat salary like Nick Cohen for a weekly column of this stuff, and pocket the Rupert Murdoch TV fees as an extra. I could sit in a think tank. I would certainly be a great deal more qualified, and a great deal more convincing, than Niles pisspoor Gardiner. I write a lot better too.

But then I am handicapped by morality.”

Dear me, such arrogance. Would anyone pay for it though, Craig?

By the way, you honestly don’t think the majority of posters on this site are as hackneyed and predictable a bunch of Guardianistas and Respectables as Gardiner is a Foxite?

“I could churn this stuff out easily and be on Fox, Sky and BBC as often as I like. I could pick up a fat salary like Nick Cohen for a weekly column of this stuff, and pocket the Rupert Murdoch TV fees as an extra. I could sit in a think tank. I would certainly be a great deal more qualified, and a great deal more convincing, than Niles pisspoor Gardiner. I write a lot better too.

But then I am handicapped by morality.”

Dear me, such arrogance. Would anyone pay for it though, Craig?

By the way, you honestly don’t think the majority of posters on this site are as hackneyed and predictable a bunch of Guardianistas and Respectables as Gardiner is a Foxite?

Yoni, I’m sure you are a highly intelligent guy. Please engage with Fisk’s and Pappe’s arguments. Since you already know that you’re 100% correct on everything, why, then, do you appear so angry? You should be gnomic, man. Gnomic, like a Buddhist monk. Or a tzaddik.

Nine Dead in the Eastern Med.

Suhayl,

hello! There’s a lot of crazyness about at present, isn’t there?

Michael Petek is the craziest person I’ve encountered in a long time, a genuine religious nutter. Larry from St Louis has not mentioned this so far, which could seem odd, as religious nuttery is usually one of his themes. Michael calls people “June”, apparently not noticing that this is the month, not the poster’s name!

Yoni seems to have chosen the Sanskrit word for female genitalia, the source of all life, as his handle, and rants with obvious hatred about, er, what he sees as other people’s hatred. Projecting in a big way, methinks.

Strange times…

Arty, I am trying to talk with Yoni, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. I can’t think why. I am a very affable Englishman/ Scotsman.

You know the legend of the golem, don;t you? It had everything except speech? Because only God can give speech. Gustav Meyrinck, Prague, 1920s, a contemporary of Kafka, but a very different type of writer.

Let us not be golems, my friends, let us be people.

No, anonymous at 8:57, the point is that there comes a time when the cost in blood and in treasure and in the danger to international peace is so great that recovery of land isn’t worth it.

The ethnic Germans suffered vastly more than the Palestinians in 1948, but they had the good sense to recognise when to stop.

I see a new troll, named Yoni, has appeared. Welcome, Yoni the Troll.

I was thinking Michael Petek likely was not a troll, just a fanatic right-winger, because his posts were long, and the paid trolls are into volume, like Yoni.

Yoni probably is not really thirteen years old. He just acts that way. But Yoni is still reading from last year’s playbook. Hint Yoni–the “anti-semitic” shriek doesn’t work any more. Call home to get the updated list of trolling phrases.

I know, Clark, I didn’t want to point out the ‘Lingam-Yoni’ thing because I thought Yoni might be his real name – as in Yonatan – and he might feel insulted. I don’t want to cause offence, and nor, I’m sure, do you. It is strange times. One might even postulate that Thomas de Quincy was back and was dosing the bloggeristi with liberal doses of the flower. Which brings us back neatly to yoni.

The ethnic Germans knew when to stop? What? For perverted and bizarre logic this really takes the biscuit. Still, I see your point. Everyone suffered more than the Palestinians, so they should just shut up and be grateful they are locked up, under seige, and dispossessed of their own homes and land. so ungrateful those Palestinians.

clark are you saying that

Yoni by another name is still a pussy?

Have you noticed the number of trols that have flooded this board since the murders?

bloody hell,

Oh well, while they are posting here, they are not killing Palestinian children. So it has to be a good thing?

At the risk of incurring the ire of multiple golems, here is another piece, again from the Sunday Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/kidnapped-by-israel-and-abandoned-by-britain-1992518.html

And please, everyone, don’t try to call Jamal Elshyyal, ‘Josephs Goebbels’, otherwise you’ll sound like something out of ‘The Simpsons’. Come to think of it…

The other night I wrote: “Oh look! I’m up to my knees in Zionist trolls”! Well, the flood has expanded, it seems, and yet somehow becomes no deeper.

Woah, Clark, what are you smokin’, man?

Clark,

I think you are being a bit unfair to Larry, because he did object to Micheal’s religous nuttiness on another thread.

Yoni, let’s go one at a time. What have I ever said that makes you think I hate Jews? I don’t, in the least. Back up your accusation, please.

Or could. ‘Yoni’ be a reference to Yonatan Netanyahu, elder brother of the incumbent PM of Israel and (along with multiple murderer, Doctor Baruch Goldstein) iconic Israeli shaheed (martyr)? In which case, where’s Bibi? Incidentally, in Urdu, ‘bibi’ or ‘bivi’ means ‘madam’ or even ‘wife’. Hmn, this is getting freaky. Linguistics is a fascinating subject, no? As Noam Chomsky might say. Oh, I forgot. Noam must be another ‘Joseph Goebbels’.

If this trolling is organised, I feel sort of sorry for the organisers. The call center or wherever all those Firefox 3.6 machines set to Yahoo Search are must be an absolutely horrible place. Ear defenders should be standard issue to the staff who try to keep order, and psychologists made available at shift change, when the support groups convene.

Thanks, Craig, I missed that. Sorry Larry.

Suhayl, I know you’re trying to engage. I just wonder does there come a point when it is better not to bother? I know it is probably more noble to expose lies and propaganda everywhere one finds it, but I seriously would doubt that anyone reading this blog out of genuine interest is taken in by the lunacy that is filling it up. Its a shame because I’ve found the quality of commentary to be of a much higher standard than elsewhere on the net.

Yeah, you have a good point, Arty. It’s always a balance, isn’t it, b/w ignoring an engaging and we’re all human. Thanks for your insight.

Still I suppose its a bit of sport to pass a Sunday night!

I am watching Justin Rose in the lead in the Memorial myself.

Yes there is a point when people shouldn’t bother. And that is why I shouldn’t be bothering.

I have a life that I should be getting on with.

Bye everyone, have fun with the Zionist trols.

Being accused of anti-semitism doesn’t have the sting it used to

And if the trolls and their like insist on devaluing the slur by repeatedly using it inappropriately, in lieu of an actual reasoned argument, that will work against their cause sooner rather than later

because, after that, they really haven’t got much left up their sleeves

The ethnic Germans knew it was time to stop, because the alternative would have been to drown Europe in blood in an endless war on top of the one that had just finished.

But not the Levantine Arabs, oh no! They just have to be the Klingons of the Mediterranean. Just like Ishmael in Genesis 16:11-12.

The tendency to describe everyone who disagrees with you as a Zionist troll is very lazy. It also has the scary effect of de-humanising opposition. They are just trolls, they can be exterminated. Dear social engineers, perhaps it’s time for you to consider these trolls might actually have strongly-held beliefs like yourself?

This is better than The Simpsons. Better than Borat. And that’s saying something.

And on that note, goodnight, good morning and good afternoon! Happy watching, Craig. Arty, good to meet you. Clark, don’t smoke too much of whatever-it-is.

A nightcap, for everyone:

http://vodpod.com/watch/3516930-the-family-scene-through-the-eyes-of-a-lens

Shalom.

Alan Campbell, my comment wasn’t meant to allude to you, just so you know. Regards.

Michael Petek

“The ethnic Germans knew it was time to stop”. I have no idea what on earth you mean – it sounds like very unpleasant gibberish. Please stop it.

Yuni referred to holocaust denial. I view the holocaust as definite fact – having lived four years in Poland and had occasion to be involved in camp commemorations. That is not an invitation to debate the subject.

In the telegraph article above, I see that Nile (sic) Gardiner hyperlinks the words “no less than 26 [UN] resolutions” to an article written by … himself!

alan campbell at June 6, 2010 9:34 PM

I’ve followed this blog for a while and there is definitely an infestion of organised pro-Israel trolling.

Craig did a post recently on his ftp stats – they don’t lie.

Best way to treat a troll, is to ignore it. It feeds on being acknowledged.

For this Petek shill to shed crocodile tears re-Turkish oppression of Kurds and Armenians depends on an entirely ahistorical suspension of disbelief on our part.

The Young Turks who ousted the sultan, secularized the state and then encouraged the same kind of paranoid nationalism under “Red Sultan”,Talaat Bey, we see today in Netanyahu’s Israel, that led to the mass killing of Armenians during WW1-were Rothschild-sponsored Zionist/B’nai B’rith proxies.

Kurds were enthusiastic participants in the long marches and atrocities committed against the Armenians.

The “Young Turk” op was the dress- rehearsal for the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that employed the same destabilization template to unseat and exterminate the Romanovs, later the kulaks and despatch other enemies of the revolution to the gulag.

The same forces employed identical tactics to make Russia amenable to Illuminati Wall St/City banking interests keen to invest and help develop Russia’s vast oil and mineral wealth.

Read the piece at Real Zionist News by Nathaniel Kampner and then follow this link to an incredible piece from The Times reporting the Armenian massacres in 1915.

I say “incredible” because you will never read anything like this in the paper since it was acquired by Zionists.

You can finally see why people USED to read the “top peoples’ paper!”

I always wondered why anyone with half a brain read it myself!

http://timesonline/co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2641064.ece?token=null&offset=0

Wait for the censor’s scissors…….

“…it feeds on being acknowledged”

The only good troll is a dead troll? Solving the troll-ish question…

Must say that much of the pro-boatnapping drivel chugged up on these threads is giving me plenty of material to work with. That said, I can definitely promise that recent events in the Med will feature in the novel I’m writing at the moment, disguised by space opera trappings, of course. Some wise skiffy writer said that even if our stories are set ten thousand years in the future we still cannot help but write about the present day. So true.

So you are Mike Cobley the author! I thought it was a coincidence of names.

Apostate at June 6, 2010 10:03 PM

Thank you.

At last, someone who knows their non-revised history.

Apostate,

your links have been doing some very funny things for some months now. That last one goes to a ‘Page Not Found’ error which redirects to, and I’m not making this up, the Beaver County Times…

With the focus on Israel’s most recent atrocities, the increased intervention here of Zionist apologists is understandable and, I suppose, validating.

Yet since Craig’s views comes with the imprimatur of both John Pilger and Noam Chomsky, one might have expected a better class of Zionist intervention. Maybe not the Alan Dershowitzs or Joe Bidens, but folks at least capable of mounting an actual argument.

But so far, there have been nothing but spewers of epithets and nonsense who reduce the conversation to inanity, despite Suhayl’s patient efforts to restore civility and rationality.

Perhaps, therefore, Craig should consider barring a few IP’s. I suppose that might include mine, but overall it would improve the signal to noise ratio.

Apostate,

are you typing your links by hand? You’ve put a ‘/’ where you need a ‘.’

An earlier link was like that, too; you’d missed out an ‘s’. Suggest you copy and paste.

Talking of bad links,

Steelback’s link (is Steelback also Apostate) is a dud. It should be:

http://americansjourney.blogspot.com/2010/06/united-states-of-zionist-america-im.html

Yes, that’s the one I said lacked an ‘s’, after ‘american’. I’m sure Steelback is Apostate, though I’ve no proof.

Clark

They arrived the same time and hold very similar views. They are certainly connected, though I am undecided if they are the same person.

Sometimes they worry me quite a bit. Very rational, ordered and well argued, but sometimes come out with stuff that would sit with the far right. Interestingly less often so than when they first arrived.

Suhail, you’re obviously not familiar with the history of eastern Europe, are you?

The whole of what is now western Poland, including the cities of Wroclaw and Szczecin, was once part of Germany and was solidly German-speaking for 700 years before 1945. So was the port of Gdansk (Danzig in German).

To the east of Danzig was East Prussia, again solidly German, where my mother came from. The northern half of it is now the Russian region of city of Kaliningrad, with the city of the same name (formerly Konigsberg).

That entire area comprised a quarter of Germany’s territory within the borders of 1937. After World War 2, it was comprehensively ethnically cleansed and resettled with Poles and Russians.

If, during the Cold War, Germans had crossed into East Berlin and blown themselves up among Russian soldiers or visiting civilians for the sake of recovering Konigsberg, how do you think the Russians would have responded?

If Germans had undertaken ‘martyrdom operations’ across the inner-German border, what then?

Endless, bloody war, that’s what.

Sorry, Suhail, I meant Craig.

Nichael,

I know that extremely well. I lived in Poland for four years. Norman Davies is a friend of mine. I was intimately involved in preparations for Poland’s EU accession, and Polish fears over returning Germans buying up the ex-German areas were a key factor of course.

Why it allows Israelis to shoot unarmed Turkish and US aid deliverers in the back of the head from close range is lost on me however.

Craig,

your assessment of Apostate is very similar to my own. Dreoilin and MJ have both pointed out the lack of a space after commas and full stops in the comments of Apostate, Freeborn, Juniper, Tungsten, and Steelback. You could tell from IP addresses in the logs, unless ‘they’ use multiple connections or a proxy server. I think you can look up proxy IP addresses somewhere.

Craig,

The reason why the hacks are paid such high salaries for nonsense, is to show and validate the ‘worth’ of their nonsense. Surely nobody would pay so much for so little? But they would and do.

They are paid small fortunes for rubbish because they are ‘good’ at it, producing nonsense, that is. It isn’t a mistake, but part of close to across-the-board policy of obsfucation and diversion from truth towards nonsense.

Are the press monolithic? Take Iran as an example. Aren’t all the national dailies, more-or-less, with slight difference in tone, peddling the same line, that Iran is developing nuclear weapons and is a threat to the West?

Second example, the total, absolutely overboard, positive reation to Obama’s election. No discussion of his actual policies but masses of adoration for the man’s personality, just like with Blair, but even more so, until we discovered what he really stood for.

I might say that I have twice in my life lived among communities where I have been taken aback by real anti-semitism, expressed as a heartfelt belief but one whic those expressing it evidently thought quite normal in their usual social circles:

I frequently came across anti-semitism in the Gujerati community of Blackburn and the Catholic community in Poland.

I have always objected to anti-semitism wherever I have found it.

Craig anything that diverts from the subject of shooting unarmed Turks allows Israelis to shoot unarmed turks.

Just as the fact that a bunch of Germans were kicked out of their homes allows Israel to kick a bunch of Palestinians out of their homes.

Michael Petek does not support Israel because of the reasons he has mentioned. Mentions those reasons because he supports Israel.

His support of Israel is unconditional and never ending. This is because he believes supporting Israel will bring the rapture forward, will speed up destiny as he sees it which includes the extermination of all Jews who do not convert to Christianity.

So his statements on Antisemitism, do not mean very much.

“Some wise skiffy writer said that even if our stories are set ten thousand years in the future we still cannot help but write about the present day. So true”

Mike Cobley, that’s true for me, too. I’ve been inspired by another extremely contentious subject which seems to render people incapable of rational thought, but it makes for such rich material, it might run to more than just the one novel. (It’s science fiction, as well.)

Craig, what happened on the Mavi Marmara was but one incident in sixty-two years of continuous war.

My point is that the ethnic Germans who were displaced from their homes suffered and died in vastly greater numbers, and in more gruesome ways, than the Palestinian Arabs did in 1948. For example, about half the women who stayed behind in East Prussia were deported to slave labour in the Soviet Union where approximately half of them died. No one knows how many were raped by their Russian captors, but a good many were found to have contracted sexually-transmitted diseases when repatriated.

My point is that the Germans knew when to accept defeat and to come to terms with the loss of their homes and their land. The Palestinian Arabs never have.

Look at the human cost their struggle has incurred, and speculate on the human cost that would have been incurred if the Germans had been as intransigent as the Arabs.

For goodness sake, Arsalan, my position regarding Israel is that no one – not even the UN Security Council – has the right to conspire with states to wage aggressive war to destroy it politically, which is what Hamas are doing.

It is unjust for anyone to wage jihad for any reason at all, because it is blasphemy to do so.

We non-Muslims refuse to accept the truth claims of Islam, we won’t abide an Islamic state, we don’t want shari’a law imposed on us and we don’t want to be your dhimmis, and if anyone tries to impose it on us by force, we’ll kill them.

I’m off to bed soon. Good night Craig, good night all.

Michael Petek,

seek help. Read the Bible less, it’s full of violence that can seriously disturb. And for goodness’ sake, chill out!

Night night.

Actually, Clark, some of my paternal (Slovenian) ancestors did seek help. They lived at what was in their century the Turkish frontier, so these peasant soldiers had to be streetwise and learn how to defend themselves against the periodic bother.

In 1683 the Turks besieged Vienna, so our lot – actually the Emperor – sought help and King John III Sobieski of Poland came to give it.

His army gave the Turks the mother of all hidings. That was on land.

In 1571 – at Lepanto – they got smacked about at sea.

Michael,

So the blacks in South Africa should also have accepted their defeat and subjugation like the Germans?

You are seriously crazy, you know.

Craig at June 6, 2010 11:35 PM

You haven’t lost your diplomatic touch – lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksvA8iSwdfU

“My point is that the Germans knew when to accept defeat and to come to terms with the loss of their homes and their land. The Palestinian Arabs never have.”

Equating these two situations is really rather bizarre. Germans were displaced as a direct consequence of the atrocities committed by their (i.e. my) own people, namely starting another world war and killing millions of people.

What did the Palestinians do to deserve to be displaced?

Since you seem to be very fond of rather outlandish ideas how about these:

1)They trusted the British to keep their promise. Help the British fight the Ottoman empire and the British would help them establish their own country – Right, well, maybe that kind of naivety needs to be punished in your view?

2)After the British betrayal they refused to accept giving almost half their land, and the most fertile areas to boot, to immigrants they had initially welcomed with friendliness and who now formed a sizeable but still small minority. – I mean seriously, they should have just handed over their lands and be grateful they were allowed to keep some of it.

3)Maybe they deserve to be punished because they stayed in Palestine after their Jewish neighbours left and then eventually converted to Islam after their land was conquered?

I’m sure you’re quite aware of the genetic research which has found that the Palestinians are direct descendants of the people who lived there under Roman rule. But seriously, that’s just being stubborn, isn’t it? Totally boring, never migrating anywhere else…

4)Oh, no, I know, this is a good one: they deserve their fate, because their elite abandoned them to British and Jewish shenanigans – their own fault for being middle and lower class, who cares about them, right?

5)I’ve got it now, they deserve their fate because they were just not powerful enough to blackmail and strongarm small countries into rejecting the UN resolution that decided to establish the state of Israel on their land. It would have been kinda tough, though, to try and beat the US and the UK at their own game, after all, it didn’t do exisiting small countries any good to complain about it, did it?

6)hmm, this one might be what you’re looking for – they deserve their fate because their Arab brothers couldn’t help them, because they needed British and American support for their own schemes…

Take your pick, Michael Patek, or maybe you can suggest some more? I doubt, though, that my reasons are any more ridiculous than yours.

Craig, the blacks in South Africa had other ways of dealing with their situation. And they did it successfully, sixteen years ago, not least through the magnanimity of Nelson Mandela.

They also succeeded because the moral repugnance of institutionalised racial equality based on differences in skin pigmentation is self-evident.

I should have thought that a system of religious apartheid such as that envisaged by Hamas is also self-evidently repugnant based as it is on religious untruth.

Under shari’a law anyone neither a Christian nor a Jew is to be put to death without mercy or pity if he refuses Islam. Christians and Jews can keep their lives and their worship as long as they accept the humiliating and degrading condition of dhimmis, and if any of them breaks the pact of protection (dhimma), the whole community loses immunity of life and property.

There has never been anything in the ANC’s ideology which claims that Afrikaners are the offspring of apes and pigs and the blood enemies of humanity.

The ANC never disseminated anti-Afrikaner propaganda comparable to the demented anti-Semitism which emanates from parts of the Arab media.

Least of all has the ANC ever accepted as the word of God anything like:

“The hour of judgment shall not happen until the Muslims fight the Jews. The Muslims shall kill the Jews until the Jew shall hide behind a rock or a tree and the rock or tree shall call on the Muslim saying: O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him, except the Gharqad tree which will not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.”

Who is the Palestinian Nelson Mandela? Khaled Mashaal?

Michael,

No idea where that quote is from. nor do I care. Plenty of equally bloodthirsty quotes in the Old Testament. Your argument again comes down to “The Palestinians deserve to be subjugated because they are Muslims”.

Sigh – @Apostate we don’t need any of your “holohoax” stuff here. I am not sure whether you just intend to revise the figures, or you think it didn’t happen at all, but it is creepy, unhelpful, and plain wrong.

Michael P might be a nutter (I think his website justifies Israeli expansionism by looking forward to the Rapture – may he float off in his pyjamas quickly) and is I dare say inclined to call anti-semetism every time you sneeze. But he’s right to object to what sounds dangerously like Holocaust denial – please stop it.

Mae at June 7, 2010 12:00 AM

Nice one.

I might also add that the vast majority of jewish settlers are/were Ashkenazi which according to Koestler, and more recently Shlomo Sand inter alia, are decended from 8th century Khazarian converts to judaism. In other words the Palestians were displaced using a false (zionist) history according to a number of jewish scholars.

Talk about adding insult to injury…

Mae, it is irrelevant that the Germans were expelled as a result of Nazi atrocities. On a human level it doesn’t hurt any less. The sheer scale of the displacement was unprecedented in history, and it was also unnecessary as the whole of Germany was to be subjugated under Allied rule anyway.

What of the displacement of the Palestinians? It’snot a matter of what anyone deserved, it’s that they fought and lost a war with Jews in a land without a state to keep the peace. The Jews established a state and pacified the place, the Arabs didn’t.

Now, as for genetic bloodlines of the Palestinian Arabs, it’s true that the Christian Arabs are descended from the Ghassanids, 12,000 of whom became Muslims after the Battle of Yarmuk in 636. A good many of them migrated from Syria to Palestine during the 20th century.

The rest of the Arabs are not. Their ancestors entered Palestine as invaders and aggressors from Arabia itself.

Michael Petek at June 7, 2010 12:22 AM

It was peaceful under the Ottomans.

Muslims, jews and christians co-existed in harmony.

How do you explain that?

‘Neturei Karta Condemns Israeli Attack on Flotilla’

‘”Authentic Orthodox Jewry worldwide decries unequivocally the cold-blooded slaughter carried out by the Zionist occupational forces against innocent, peaceful and freedom-loving noble activists committed to peace and human rights,” said Rabbi Dovid Feldman of Neturei Karta International. “This brutal attack took place in international waters on ships bearing humanitarian aid for our brethren, the Palestinian residents in the besieged Gaza Strip. It was an explicitly illegal act which breaches, in a serious manner, basic G-dly human rights, justice and law.’

http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Press/20100603Flotilla.cfm

“It was peaceful under the Ottomans.

Muslims, jews and christians co-existed in harmony.”

BWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Craig at 12:16, the quote is from a collection of ahadith called Sahih Muslim Book:41 Number:6985.

Subjugating Palestinians has nothing to do with the bare fact that they are Muslims.

Anyone – and I don’t care whether it’s a Palestinian, a Brazilian or a Lithuanian – who raises a weapon to wage a jihad to impose shari’a law for the purposes of imposing that disgusting system as I described in my previous post ought to be fought and if necessary killed or driven out.

My home town is full of Sudanese and Egyptian Copts who have no shortage of empathy for what I have to say here.

I don’t need any justification from the Old Testament to do so. All I need to know is that the Qur’an isn’t the word of God.

Larry from St. Louis at June 7, 2010 12:30 AM

Did I wake you up, Loony?

Care to refute with sources?

ScouseBilly, the only harmony the Muslims, Christians and Jews existed in under Ottoman rule was the harmony that has Muslims on the top deck, dhimmis underneath. If Christians and Jews agitated, they ended up with things like the Bulgarian atrocities and the Armenian massacres and – for the Assyrians – a cull every other generation.

Michael Petek at June 7, 2010 12:37 AM

Meanwhile back here on planet Earth and specifically Palestine under Ottoman rule, did we not have harmony?

ScouseBilly

He doesn’t explain it.

What he just makes claims on what other people will do when they take power to hide the fact about what is happening now when the Zionists are in power.

If you cut out the Bullshit what he is saying is the Zionists can do what they want because they have the sword, the ability to do it.

Well they have that ability now, and it is our Job to change it.

And change it we shall.

Well I think I’ll turn in and leave you freaks to Google frantically

Arsalan, you are right I wan’t referring to you as a freak I was still posting.

Michael,

I could waffle on about the Crusader sack of Byzantium – or the massacre of Sebrenica. But human rights are universal and not dependent on somebody’s religion. That is the escape from medievalism which seems to have bypassed you.

I think we have given quite enough space to a religous nutcase like you. Plesae leave now. You can post what you like on your own website, where people can read your theories to their heart’s desire:

http://www.crownofdavid.com/

How about the sack of Jerusalem in which the Crusaders killed everyone including their own Christians.

If anything, this thread has demonstrated precisely the religious nutjobs that are running Israel at the moment.

You see them in the settler community and in the recent immigrants from Russia. Israel, and indeed Zionism as a project, is being destroyed from within by some very mentally disturbed people. That’s a commonality in Israel itself at the moment, and for a few years past.

Ben Gurion even predicted such a scenario 40 years ago. And so it’s come to pass.

Religiousity on the level Michael Petek expresses it is one of the prime symptoms of a deep mental illness. You only have to look at his website to see how truly disturbed he is.

These right-wing Israelis and their supporters are psychopaths, pure and simple.

It’s imperative that we ensure that these people don’t drag the whole of humanity down with them into nuclear armageddon. I have this horrible feeling though that that’s precisely what they want.

Israel is a very very sick society.

David,

I totally agree. How can such a psychopathic society be left with nuclear weapons? Israel must be disarmed

immediately.

“Israel must be disarmed

immediately.”

You keep writing that Ruth. That you think that could happen is an indication of your immense ignorance of the situation.

The Italian Mafia were eventually disarmed and neutered.

Other terrorists have been disarmed.

Duuno why Loopy Larry from the Killing Fields thinks that the Israeli terrorist State can’t be disarmed.

Unless he thinks that the miserable psychotic Israeli terrorist state is gonna take on the whole world.

Hmmm. I suspect that’s what Loopy Larry does think. Him and religious fruitcake nutters like that clown seriously disturbed Michael Petek.

This is a wonderful site which provides testimony from Israeli male and female soldiers about what the Zionist psychopaths and their supporters in the USA force them to do to Palestinians, resulting in the human degradation of the soldiers themselves, and ultimately the Israeli society they return to.

“Cases of abuse towards Palestinians, looting, and destruction of property have been the norm for years, but are still excused as military necessities, or explained as extreme and unique cases. Our testimonies portray a different and grim picture of questionable orders in many areas regarding Palestinian civilians. These demonstrate the depth of corruption which is spreading in the Israeli military.

Breaking the Silence voices the experiences of those soldiers, in order to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created.”

http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/index_e.asp

Whilst Loopy Larry and his Zionist mates are stuffing their fat filthy American asses with super sized burgers in St Louis and other places, those he sends out to do his dirty work are telling the truth about the murderous psychopathic Zionist project.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37MFa7ZKQWo

Michael Petek

It’s fine for you that our politicians believe vomit generated by Zionists inside the UK intelligence agencies. Our politicians eyes have started to swivel so fast that they are united in believing that outright war on Iraq and Afghanistan are essential uses for borrowed billions on interest from the banks.

Yet you insult the Qur’an. You fantasise about a world in which truth and faith are abandoned in exchange for irrational fears generated by a cursed, Satanic sect. Well, you are able to live out your fantasies, because the grip of the Zionist lies is going to increase. Don’t worry about the past, you’re going to have lots more eye-swivelling wars and rumours of wars to enjoy while the powers that be are still following the Zionist lies.

Why can’t you just watch horror movies and porn like everybody else? Why do you have to revel in the sufferings of real people, who are being starved and oppressed at the centre of civilisation, the Middle East? The thrill of seeing Zionist lies inside the heart of Western governments being transformed into actual human suffering by weaponry and military activity paid for by borrowing from the Zionist bankers is too much for you.

You come on this blog to experience orgasm after orgasm from the repeating your fantasy that Zionist lies to government intelligence are being transformed into real violence against the believers in God.

“You come on this blog to experience orgasm after orgasm from the repeating your fantasy that Zionist lies to government intelligence are being transformed into real violence against the believers in God.”

This, apparently, is the kind of perspective that Craig Murray doesn’t object to on his blog.

Important information about the Muslim religion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPJP2Q6MqtE

I’m glad to have found this intelligent blog through an Information Clearing House link.

Wow….

“Israeli MP Haneen Zoabi faces being stripped of her citizenship for joining last week’s aid flotilla that ended in a bloody showdown with Israeli commandos.

The move to strip Ms Zoabi of her citizenship is being driven by Interior Minister Eli Yishai”

http://www.theage.com.au/world/israeli-move-to-strip-aid-ship-mp-of-citizenship-20100606-xnag.html?autostart=1

I deny that the Qur’an is the word of God, anno, I beg to differ with Hamas’s religious beliefs and I find their campaign to impose them by the sword to be offensive, insulting and dangerous. If you think that’s an insult, then too bad. I’d do so even if I were a secular humanist.

If you’re not a Muslim, then have the courage of your convictions and become one.

As for you, Craig, the massacre of Srebrenica was an atrocity. On that occasion the Bosnian Muslims were innocent, as they hadn’t done anything wrong and certainly weren’t in jihad. Likewise Kosovo.

The Serbs were in a jihad of their own, persecuting Catholics to death as well as Muslims, in furtherance of their religous heresy. During the 1990s I was saying similar things about them as I do about Hamas today.

Last of all, Craig, it seems that you picked up the attitude of a dhimmi while you were our man in Uzbekistan. Human rights may be universal, but not where Islamic law is enforced.

I’ll do as you say and leave now leave now. The issue between Israel and her enemies will be resolved by war, not by law, and to the winner will go the spoils.

Larry,

Actually I do object to people prattling on about their religious views, as Anno and Arsalan tend to. But where I draw the line is when people use religion to justify violemce, as Michael Petek was doing from the Christian Zionist perspective. Any Muslim who used Islam to justify violence would eqially get chucked out. Neither Arsalan nor Anno do that.

The “Holocaust” would be far too difficult a topic for a left-gatekeeper site to tackle.

The Frankfurt conditioning/corporate media brain-washing re-”anti-semitism” just runs too deep.

I can certainly understand Craig’s wish not to even dare go there.The Zio-shills and PC Left would lean on him heavily to delete any challenges to the official establishment narrative.

All I was pointing out is that those who over this week became more aware of Zionist propaganda and Big Lies re-eternal Jewish victimhood might now have an inkling that the “Holocaust Industry” is but one of Israel’s many foundational myths.

Given the prominent role played by Zionists in the events that led to the “Holocaust” they are hardly likely to admit to its having been their greatest psychological weapon.One which has proved efficacious in engendering both Jewish and Gentile sympathy for

the “Jewish homeland”.

After every Israeli atrocity many people begin to see how closely the Zionist state resembles the Nazi one.A little bit of research on your part will explain that there a good reasons why this has come about.

They have a lot to do with the lies we have been told the two World Wars including the biggest one of all.

Currently it is only in countries where the Zionist lobby and controlled corporate enjoys unduly disproportionate influence that Holocaust fundamentalism is enforced by law and researchers questioning the official narrative have been prosecuted.

Doubtless this issue would see the PC Left and Zio-shills here united on the need to have the establishment narrative remain sacrosanct and beyond challenge.

Some of us believe this is the most perverted form of human abasement to a state-established religion imaginable.

If, like the PC Left and the Zionists, you are quite enamoured of totalitarianism Holocaust fundamentalism will hold no fears for you.

*backs away slowly from Apostate*

Back in the real world, Israel has “apologised” for ‘We Are the World’ spoof video they circulated to journalists, which included the following line: “”There’s no people dying, so the best that we can do is create the biggest bluff of all.”"

“The Israeli government press office distributed the video link to foreign journalists at the weekend, but within hours emailed them an apology, saying it had been an error. Press office director Danny Seaman said the video did not reflect official state opinion, but in his personal capacity he thought it was “fantastic”.

Government spokesman Mark Regev said the video reflected how Israelis felt about the incident. “I called my kids in to watch it because I thought it was funny,” he said. “It is what Israelis feel. But the government has nothing to do with it.”"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/06/israel-youtube-gaza-flotilla

We’re sorry we sent out this totally awesome video. We didn’t make it but we think our kids should watch it. I don’t think Israel understands what the word apology means.

From the same article:

“Last week, the Israel Defence Force had to issue a retraction over an audio clip it had claimed was a conversation between Israeli naval officials and people on the Mavi Marmara, in which an activist told soldiers to “go back to Auschwitz”. The clip was carried by Israeli and international press, but today the army released a “clarification/correction”, explaining that it had edited the footage and that it was not clear who had made the comment.

The Israeli army also backed down last week from an earlier claim that soldiers were attacked by al-Qaida “mercenaries” aboard the Gaza flotilla. An article appearing on the IDF spokesperson’s website with the headline: “Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be al-Qaida mercenaries”, was later changed to “Attackers of the IDF Soldiers found without identification papers,” with the information about al-Qaida removed from the main article. An army spokesperson told the Guardian there was no evidence proving such a link to the terror organisation.”

And people take Israeli government proclamations seriously…….

What have I missed here, rewriting of history, admonishing of destinguished writers and bending of facts.

Michael peteks is trying desperately to assure us that the suffering of Germans was vastly larger than that of the 800.000 Palestininas who were living peacefully together with Jews in a british protectorate.

next he will be telling us that english officers were not killed in cold blood in Haifa or that they were not swinging from olive trees after being murdered by ‘terrorists’.

Justifying one’s brutish and violent behaviour, setting oneself above the world community for 65 years, unable to deal with the past, never having a peacefull relationship with any of its neighbours and making the other indigenous population in Palestine suffer the same violence that has been metted out to the Jews in Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, is sadly something that should be re considered by the UN.

Israel has not shown itself to be able to deal with multiculturalism, just as the Nazi’s, it has undertaken massacres like Sabra and Shatilla, just to name the bloodiest, just as it happened to them.

I still believe in a one state solution, further the genetic links between two people who lived together for 2000 years are probably intermixed as well, making this farce stupid and pathetic.

Iran is mooted to want to sent two ships now, Turkey is preparing to sent 30 ships past a onesided illegal and wastefull campaign.

bernhard Kouchner has said that the EU would volunteer to open and control goods through Raffah, making sure that no weapons are smuggled in, so Israel has an option, it is not left on its own, howver many times they try and tell us.

Unless the economic pressure on Israel increases, their trade is diminished and their sponsors think again, they feel no shame towards the world community for their brash, uncooperative and downright murderous behaviour.

I see not difference between a rogue state of israel armed with a secret nuclear arsenal and a belligerent quarelling North Korea.

Both are at their wits end and either, forced to negotiate, or smarting to take the flight forward out of the current problem, by creating a bigger one, war.

People who flourish their lack of anti-semitism make me laugh.

Since the “Jews” today,like most other people,are not a race or a pure bloodline at all but an admixture of the various peoples with whom they have come into contact since their time in Canaan three thousand years ago-the notion of “anti-semitism” particularly when applied to Jews in Israel or the diaspora is more than a little absurd!

People who brandish their PC non-anti-semitic credentials have fallen for just another Big Lie.The overwhelming number of Ashkenazi Jews in Israel-descendants of eighth century Turk-Mongol Khazar converts-are not semites at all.Israel has always been an Ashkenazi supremacist state that discriminates against its Christian,muslim and sephardi minorities.

In other words Israel is about as far away from the much propagandized “democracy” as it’s possible to get!

Likewise the first Israeli Mapai establishment politicians and military leaders in the state’s early days were secular or Sabbatean apostates.The Israeli population were and still are by a large majority-Ashkenazi-i.e.they have not one drop of semitic blood in their veins!

The Palestinians are the original semite inhabitants.

“Anti-semitism” was a phenomenon used on the ground in Russia,France and Germany by Rothschild and affilliated banking and industrial cartels who wanted to destabilize and then control them.Thus the conditions in these countries were first made intolerable by pogroms and very public cases of anti-Jewish discrimination instigated by the destabilizing forces then set in motion. (Go to Cliff Shack’s site for details on the Rothschild plan to accelerate and control the flow of migrants to Palestine).

“Anti-semitism” also worked effectively as a psychological weapon to instill a guilt complex among non-Jews.The feeling that only a Jewish state in Palestine would redress centuries of Gentile persecution would come to be shared by Gentile and Jew alike.

The fact that people think being “anti-semitic” is worthy and sanctifies them because it means they’re not anti-Jewish is quite risible.

Check out Koestler’s Thirteenth Tribe to find out who the people who like you to think they’re “Jews” really are.

His account of how the Khazar empire was converted to Talmudism rather than Christianity or Islam includes the suggestion that what was passed on by the wandering priesthood to the Khazar Emperor was the gift of a political plan for World Dominion wrapped up neatly in a cloak of religion.

This knowledge gives added poignancy to Moses Mendelsohnn’s infamous reference to Judaism’s being not so much a religion as “a law religionized”.

Down the centuries the Ruling Elect have willingly sacrificed the “lesser brethren” as a burnt offering to forward this plan for World Domininion.

The longer it takes those who have been so effectively brain-washed to wake up the closer the plan comes to fruition.

Oh sorry-I forgot plans in history are taboo here.Koestler who many Jews regard as a reliable source would himself have been deleted from the comment board.

Koestler’s 13th Tribe still upsets Zionists today.

There are conspiracy theories around his death as there are around that of his one-time mentor the Zionist militia leader previously involved with the Young Turks,Vladimir Jabotinsky.

Whether you believe these conspiracy theories or not it seems inadvisable to become a whistle-blower on the Zionist scam against humanity!

http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2010/02/mysterious-arthur-koestler.html

Craig, I justify State violence from a moral, legal and political perspective, not a religious one.

I use religion to evaluate Hamas’ use of religious justification for jihad to impose Islam as a public religion, and I say it is unjust because their religion is false.

Since you evidently have no religious beliefs yourself, I don’t see what standing you have to moralise about anything. The Muslims act according to their morality, the Jews according to theirs. It’s all part of the beautiful tapestry of human diversity.

Respec!

Are any media outlets covering this ?

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-navy-reserves-officers-allow-external-gaza-flotilla-probe-1.294536

“Since you evidently have no religious beliefs yourself, I don’t see what standing you have to moralise about anything”.

This is an error common among religious zealots. They often assume that those without religious faith cannot have morals. Poppycock.

Many atheists have a moral code that is not dissimilar to Christianity. It’s called humanism. That they hold it because they feel personally and intuitively that it is right – rather than because of a spurious reference to a mythical authority – is considered by many to be a strength, not a weakness.

“Many atheists do indeed have a moral code called humanism. They hold it because they feel personally and intuitively that it’s right.”

Agreed.

But, as atheists, they are free to change it according to convenience. If they are about to do an act which for them is unconscionable, they can change their morality so that it is conscionable.

Alternatively, they can do what is unconscionable while it is unconscionable, confident that there is neither God nor anyone else to punish them.

By the way, on the ICRC website there is the Declaration concerning the Laws of Naval War, London, 26 February 1909.

There’s also a database showing which country is bound by which treaty.

Israel isn’t a party to any treaty which could have determined its action last week as illegal.

Expect some Harry’s Place trolls;

“If anyone here can stomach more antisemitic mob mentality, try the threads on Craig Murray’s blog (now there’s an unexpected place to find it).”

http://hurryupharry.org/2010/06/04/conflicting-impressions-of-eye-witness-accounts/

“But, as atheists, they are free to change it according to convenience. If they are about to do an act which for them is unconscionable, they can change their morality so that it is conscionable”.

You’re describing what religious zealots do. They do what they want and what is expedient, then plough through scripture to find some obscure, out-of-context reference that appears to offer support. I suspect you spend all your waking hours doing this.

“Though shalt not kill” seems clear enough. Nevertheless you have a whole web site dedicated to making the unconscionable conscionable.

I suspect Michael Petek has spent time studying the ‘Torat ha-Melekh’

It is a book published in Israel that says when it is OK to kill a non Jew.

Gilad Atzmon copies a review of it at

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-complete-guide-to-killing-non-jews.html

Apparently it is forbidden to kill a non Jew unless you really want to and then it is OK. It is even OK to kill babies if there is a danger they might grow up hating you.

Is the review accurate Michael? Please do tell.

Indeed derek, there is a history of the IDF killing children and of decimating a population by thousands by dehumanising them, taking their Heitmat, their villages and best wells land anything they held dearly and let them suffer hardship and poverty for decades for a despicable pseudo religious reasoning.

I think its time to give a word to an ex Israeli PM.

Try and read this dear Michael, it will open you eyes, it is is to be understood and read with Avi Shlaims excellent history books, ‘the iron wall’ is a good start for anybody, it explains the basics and gives you a good grounding on what happened, really.

enjoy believer, and be baffled for all I care.

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/essays/rokach.html

I’d have thought the non-religious moral code is mirrored by the biblical “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. This is not subject to whim or convenience, as far as I can tell. It is pretty clear.

And if all sides were to abide by it, it would render the Israeli position, by extension, as it being OK for Palestinians to shoot and murder a flotilla of Israeli aid-workers for sailing towards a Gazan port.

Michael, you clearly are unhappy about Islamic religious extremism, which in the main I agree with, although people fall prey to crazy religious notions generally only under times of severe mental and emotional trauma. I contend that the occupation of Palestine is such a trauma, and that rocket attacks are a symbol of collective desperation and futility.

Perhaps you don’t care when a pregnant Palestinian women dies at a checkpoint, because the Israelis won’t rush her through to a hospital. Perhaps you don’t care that some of the predictable resentment turns to terrorism, or – given your nuclear war taunts elsewhere – perhaps that’s what you want?

But you don’t appear to see your blind spot, which is that you are using your mystical notions of a sky spook to justify senseless aggression against a suffering people. I am not a fan of religion in any form, and on both sides it is making matters worse. You appear to want to wipe out Muslims, because they don’t follow your Christ (“they should just change their religion”). Furthermore, you use the bible to “prove” what should happen politically in the region. To moderates who support peace for both sides, it surely looks like you have fallen prey to the religious extremism that you claim to abhor.

Do onto others as you’d have them do onto you.

A very simple phrase, and yet sums up all the moral values you need. Before taking any action, compare it to the rule.

I don’t need a “God” to impose his rules. All the Abrahamic religions have these “Laws” they are to follow because “God” said so, and if you don’t follow these rules, then God will fry your ass in hell. But really he loves you. They are all peaceful religions. Strange how history is replete with atrocities in the name of God.

Funny how the stupid talking monkeys came out of the trees and invented Religion as a means of community, of togetherness, only to turn it into a weapon to divide and justify murder and chaos.

Apparently there be a Jewish organization in Germany that is now planning to send a boat to Gaza as well. They must be all self hating Jews, how dare they!

lol Jon .. I was reacting to Michael as well

Furious demonstrations in Israel: “rise up, people!”

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/06/453026.html

I have seen Niles Gardiner pop up on the BBC from time to time. He is based in some pro-Israel think tank in DC which just about says it all. His experience of the Middle East is probably limited to being cc-d list for Israeli press briefings. Another useful idiot for Netanyahu.

Contrary to Michael Patek’s assertions that Israel is not party to any law under which last Monday’s actions were illegal, Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (a UK based organisations of lawyers) states there are two:

“International law does provide that warships may interfere with the passage on the high seas of ships flying the flag of another State in limited circumstances. Article 22(1) of the 1958 Geneva High Seas Convention (which sets out customary international law, and to which Israel is a party):

“Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters a foreign merchant ship on the high seas is not justified in boarding her unless there is a reasonable ground for suspecting:

a. that the ship is engaged in piracy; or

b. that the ship is engaged in the slave trade; or

c. that, though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.”

This Article is repeated in Article 110(1) of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, to which Israel is not a party.

These exceptions were not relevant in this incident in that none of these grounds existed and there was no reasonable basis on which any of these grounds could be suspected.

In addition, the 1988 IMO Convention on the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (to which Israel is a party) likely makes the actions of the Israeli navy unlawful. Article 3 provides:

1. Any person commits an offence if that person unlawfully and intentionally:

a. seizes or exercises control over a ship by force or threat thereof or any other form of intimidation; or

b. performs an act of violence against a person on board a ship if that act is likely to endanger the safe navigation of that ship;

…

g. injures or kills any person, in connection with the commission or attempted commission of any of the offences set forth in subparagraphs (a) to (f).

Article 13 further provides:

1. States Parties shall co-operate in the prevention of the offences set forth in Article 3, particularly by:

a. Taking all practicable measures to prevent preparations in their respective territories for the commission of those offences within or outside their territories;.”

http://www.lphr.org.uk/FlotilliaIL_QA/LPHR_FlotilliaIL_QA.pdf

@Michael Petek

Quoting Petek: “Look the dead were only Turks, killing them is not much different from killing Arabs!

Are you going to attack Israel foor killing Arabs next you antisemites?”

This has to be the most racist comment I’ve ever seen posted in response to one of Craig’s articles.

Can I just clarify your true position on the grounds that, if it is what I think it is, I’m dumb-struck by your bigotry and racism? Are you claiming it’s okay for Israel to kill Arabs (or Turks) because they are ‘only Turks’ (or Arabs)?

Quoting Petek: “If Israel isn’t allowed to kill Arabs why don’t you attack the UK and America for killing them?”

If by ‘attack’, you mean get extremely angry and want to do what we can to stop them then who do you mean by ‘you’ exactly? Craig’s latest post on the drone killings 35 deaths of women and children in Yemen makes his position quite clear I think. 1,000,000 Britain’s all made their position on the killing of Arabs in Iraq by the US/UK governments quite clear too (I was there, in Trafalgar Square).

Quoting Petek: “You people are acting like the dead were white.”

No. I think you’ll find that we’re acting like they were people.

I suspect that you’ll find many of Craig’s readers object to many or most of the following (subject to the vagaries of different peoples knowledge):

- US/UK crimes against the civilian populations of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan and Yemen. Also kidnapping, detention without trial, and denial of due process and basic human rights by both countries.

- Britain’s crime against humanity in the force repatriation of the inhabitant’s of the Chagos Islands so the US could turn their main island (Diego Garcia) into an airbase.

- Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, including the occupation of the their lands, expropriate of land and property and the denial of the right of return.

- Iraq’s crimes, under Saddam, against the Kurds and marsh Arabs.

- Iran’s human rights violations against women and homosexuals.

- China’s crimes against the Tibetans and Uyghurs.

- Indonesia’s crimes against the people of Timor and West Papua.

- Turkey’s denial of the Armenian genocide and criminalizing of free speech in this context.

- Australia’s continuing treatment of its first people as second class citizens.

- Russian’s war crimes in Chechnya.

- Japanese racism against, and oppression of, the native Ainu inhabitant’s of the north of Japan.

- Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara and the expulsion of its people.

- Nigeria’s treatment of the Ogoni and other delta peoples.

- The treatment of Roma as second class citizens in parts of eastern Europe.

- The expulsion of the Gana and Gwi (i.e. Bushmen) from their ancestral hunting lands in Botswana.

- Human rights violations and suppression of all dissent in Saudi Arabia.

- Uzbekistan’s awful human rights record (including the Andijan massacre).

This list is only a sample.

If I am anti-Israeli (or even, as you claim, anti-semitic) for objecting to Israeli actions, they I must be, by your logic and the list above: anti-American (so therefore also anti-Christian?); anti-British (I am British); anti-Iranian (therefore anti-Shia?); anti-Nigerian (therefore anti-Muslim and, I suppose, anti-Animist?); anti-Japanese (so, by your logic, anti-Buddhist and anti-Shinto?), anti-Botswanan, etc, etc. Looks like I don’t have many friends left, in fact.

The truth is, of course, that most people who are against Israel actions are simply *for* justice and human rights. They are pro-people.

By the way, it is not accidental that I primarily list states and governments as being in the wrong above. They have the greater responsibility to uphold justice and human rights than their opponents – in same way that a police officer has greater responsibility not to abuse the power granted to him then does a normal citizen. It is also objectively historically true that states have been and are responsible for more and greater crimes than are all the world’s terrorists put together.

Paul -

I don’t think the post you quote was Micheal Petek – it was I believe someone impersonating him. But I am afraid that it is not an unfair parody of his position.

thanks for that link technicolour, that should be spread round a little, because our media does not elucidate on it at all.

Craig,

I did wonder about that very briefly. The fact that it was very briefly tells says something about what I take to be the implications of his other posts.

A suggestion: how about moving the ‘Posted By’ line, per each post, to the top of the post? That way it would be easier to skip posts that aren’t worth reading (whether it’s Petek’s bigotry, or tony opmoc’s general irrelevance to the subject in question). Just a thought.

Craig,

I’ve emailed my PM with a strongly worded statement of my objection to Israeli actions. I’ve clearly stated that it is my understanding that, given the known facts at the moment, the Israeli forces acted illegally. (For example, that it was essentially an attack on a sovereign state, Turkey; or the Comoros as it may now be.)

He responded by referring me to the Hansard record of the debate of the 2nd of June. I read all of the part relevant to the Mavi Marmara and Gaza.

It seems the position of the coalition government is merely to request an impartial, but not an independent, investigation into the events that led to the ‘tragedy’. And further, to ask Israeli to lift the blockade – not on the grounds that it is an illegal crime of collective punishment – but based on the argument that it doesn’t actually aid Israel’s security. (Aside: the implications of what this would mean if the government *did* believe the blockade added to Israel’s security will not be lost on anyone, I think.) I suspect our government’s own experts already know the actions were illegal; so the position that we should wait for all the facts from an investigation seems disingenuous.

I now want to respond to him pointing out both now pathetic and irresponsible the government’s current position on this is. I know from prior correspondence that he doesn’t do EDMs. However, he has offered to write to the Foreign Office.

I want to point out to him some of the basic legal truths involved. For example, I understand that there *are* a very few circumstances under which boarding a vessel in international waters would be justified, but that these don’t apply in this case. Likewise the San Remo is not relevant. I’m no expert though so this is a bit tricky. I’ll request that he follows up these assertions himself to check their veracity.

Is there any chance that you could blog a summary of the legal position to date, in so much as you understand it?

I know the news coverage has been awful; I’ve seen no comment by any real maritime experts. Do you know of any? Or have any references to any that would be worth referring to?

Regards.

Craig,

Should also have said: references to relevant agreements or treaties would be helpful.

It could also be worth forwarding any summary you could provide to 38 Degrees. They are running a campaign relating to the Mavi Marmara and Gaza.

http://www.38degrees.org.uk/

Some imposter has indeed been impersonating me again.

Now, I’ve vaguely heard of the ‘Torat ha-Melekh’, and, yes, I’m vaguely aware of what it says about when it’s OK to kill a Gentile and when it isn’t.

There’s only two ways to proceed from here.

Either you chill out and let everyone define his own morality, and let Muslims wage jihad and Jews live by the Torat ha-Melekh and kill anyone they like according to the bag they’re into. It’s called moral relativism.

Alternatively, you can judge according to some absolute moral standard which you impose on everyone else. If you do, you’re a religous nutjob.

By the way, this discussion about customary international law is interesting.

The 1958 High Seas Convention codifies customary law, which includes the following:

The Plenipotentiaries who signed the Treaty of Paris of the thirtieth of March, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six, assembled in Conference, –

Considering:

That maritime law, in time of war, has long been the subject of deplorable disputes;

That the uncertainty of the law and of the duties in such a matter, gives rise to differences of opinion between neutrals and belligerents which may occasion serious difficulties, and even conflicts;

That it is consequently advantageous to establish a uniform doctrine on so important a point;

That the Plenipotentiaries assembled in Congress at Paris cannot better respond to the intentions by which their Governments are animated, than by seeking to introduce into international relations fixed principles in this respect;

The above-mentioned Plenipotentiaries, being duly authorized, resolved to concert among themselves as to the means of attaining this object; and, having come to an agreement, have adopted the following solemn Declaration:

1. Privateering is, and remains, abolished;

2. The neutral flag covers enemy’s goods, with the exception of contraband of war;

3. Neutral goods, with the exception of contraband of war, are not liable to capture under enemy’s flag;

4. Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.

The Governments of the undersigned Plenipotentiaries engage to bring the present Declaration to the knowledge of the States which have not taken part in the Congress of Paris, and to invite them to accede to it.

Convinced that the maxims which they now proclaim cannot but be received with gratitude by the whole world, the undersigned Plenipotentiaries doubt not that the efforts of their Governments to obtain the general adoption thereof, will be crowned with full success.

The present Declaration is not and shall not be binding, except between those Powers who have acceded, or shall accede, to it.

Done at Paris, the sixteenth of April, one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.

Custom consists of what states actually do, and it has always been accepted practice to impose blockades as acts of war.

In other words might is right, and might is right to create facts on the ground. If a democracy is the rule of the demos, then what is the rule of the mighty?

Ultimately, Mr P, I dont give a rancid donkey dropping for your historical exigeses – you’re an antidemocrat and thus an enemy of critical rationalism. Without criticism or reason, there is only the whim of the mighty. God help us when the mighty are mad.

@Michael – unsurprisingly, you fail to answer my points.

You appear to be unaware that many people in the Israeli regime do not want to recognise the current situation as a formally declared war. If they were to do so, the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails would have to receive PoW status, which the Israeli govt has long been opposed to.

As previously stated, it is possible to have an absolute moral standard which is not religious – you appear only to have lawlessness or religious extremism as options available. To posit religious belief as justification for killing aid workers, blockade or none, does indeed make the speaker a “religious nutjob”.

@Michael Petek

So you’ve reduced the world to a binary choice, the bankruptcy of moral relativism or, alternatively, morality by (presumably religious) prescription?

That’s odd, since you don’t seem to be a moral relativist and your use of the term ‘religious nutjob’ suggests you don’t include yourself in the second category either.

Have you not considered the possibility of morality derived from rationale thought supported by objective facts and reasoned skepticism? It has the great advantage that it permits you – even encourages you – to change you mind when you are wrong.

The term ‘religious nutjob’ is an epithet which has been applied to me more than once on this blog. I’ve also been called a bigot.

In doing so, I’m no more than riposting to the outrageous and violent religious bigotry of Hamas and its vision of a divinely-sanctioned apartheid regime, first in the eastern Med, and ultimately throughout the world.

I don’t know whether members of the Israeli government do not want to recognise the current situation as a formally declared war.

The fact is that Israel has done so, in which case Hamas prisoners could claim PoW status only if captured in uniform.

If not, they don’t have immunity and can be prosecuted.

Whether lawful or unlawful combatants, they can be lawfully be killed in the heat of battle.

The only customary law about bloackades would seem to be point 4 above:

‘Blockades, in order to be binding, must be effective, that is to say, maintained by a force sufficient really to prevent access to the coast of the enemy.’

But Paul@6.12, why should MP change his mind? He’s got a hotline to righteousness as conferred upon the Royal House of David. That’s some solid, heavy truth, man, the kind of certainty that can be used as a sword and a shield. But from time to time, even the humble guardian of an illustrious and timeless truth needs a little, hmm, ego-boosting. And where better to get some than right here, among the pustulent gibberings of the damned. Every thread holds evidence confirming his moral stance. Bet Mickey P gets an all-over glow whenever he logs on to Craig’s site.

Craig – what do you make of this news report:

“Egypt: Gaza blockade a failure, border stays open”

http://www.wdam.com/Global/story.asp?S=12604717

-how long can Egypt go against its paymasters

-what are the chances of this really happening?

-how would this impact on the situation regarding the effectiveness of the blockade in terms of the law (as we’ve heard so much about it)

Michael,

in the hope that a grain of rationality can be found under your rather spikey exterior… Please remember that ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’ leads to only one thing…

and that’s a world of blind people groping around for soup. If that’s your vision of the future then please leave the rest of us out of it. Try and see some of the beauty around you. There’s plenty. I know this because I’m familiar with Israel and there are wonderful people there – on both sides of the fence. The trouble is, too many of you believe the horse shit you’re fed by your leaders.

Chris, consider this:

Prosecutor: ‘Hamas, you stand accused of common plan and conspiracy in the crime of aggression, in that you do conspire and plan with Iran, further or alternatively Syria, to wage war against the political independence of Israel, contrary to peremptory norms of international law. How do you plead?’

Hamas: ‘Not guilty, M’Lud, you see Allah told us in the Holy Qur’an and the Ahadith that Palestine is Dar ul-Islam and belongs only to the Muslims, and then all these kikes, yids and hymies came here and overthrew Allah’s government and won’t submit to the Muslims and to shari’a, which says they can keep their lives and property if they agree to live as dhimmis, and they’re dirty and immoral coz they won’t just sit there and let the Muslims beat them, and the Last Judgement won’t come until the Muslims fight and kill them, and look at all those bloody gharqad trees they’re planting . . . ‘

Prosecutor: ‘M’lud, in the absence of any proof whatsoever that the Defendant’s assertion about divine revelation has any scrap of truth in it, I respectfully move that the pleadings for the defence be struck out.’

A very evocative, honest piece in today’s ‘The Herald’ (Scottish newspaper).

German shepherds… the dog of choice of Hitler and the Nazis and of the Belgians in the Congo – they used to set these dogs on black people in the Congo.

So, the Israeli armed forces also prefer German shepherd dogs – the dog of the concentration camp, the dog of mass death. How deeply, deeply ironic. How unutterably tragic.

This clearly was a pre-planned operation, calculated to inflict maximum terror as a deterrent to future convoys. They chose the Turkish ship because they thought they would be able to get away with it, since to Israel, Muslims are like the blacks of the Congo were to the Belgians.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/dunblane-atrocity-led-scot-to-gaza-fight-1.1033229

German shepherds … the dog of choice of James Belushi for his 1989 action comedy movie K-9.

One of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen.

Just after World War 2 my dad was in Austria, where he got to know a man who’d been a dog trainer in the German Army.

He had a German shepherd dog he’d taught to weed the garden without damaging the flowers. Cried like a kid when the dog died, he did.

Maybe the Israelis use Yiddishe Shepherds. They weed the garden and plant gharqad trees.

Hey, wait a moment!

In Islam dogs of any kind are unclean. It wouldn’t matter if they were Cocker Spaniels.

I like dogs, Michael. I think they’re great pals. It’s not the dogs, it’s the humans. But the Nazis and Belgian colonists used German Shepherds to terrorise their subject populations. The Israeli armed forces use them for the same reason. Why are so defensive of Israel’s every action, Michael? I have nothing against Israeli’s, Michael, I know some. It is the actions of the state of Israel which I think are unacceptable. So, the Americans has dogs and stress positions in Iraq – remember the S and M pictures, Michael? – and the Israelis have them in Gaza and on the West Bank.

Another uncomfortable parallel, then. You know, it’s much easier to admit the truth when it’s staring you in the face. Denial of the obvious just becomes increasingly untenable.

Michael Petek take a look at the clip and tell me how a christian and support these people?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX9Tk2TMA6Q&feature=related

Michael Petek is not a Christian in any sense of the word. A Christian finds a way through prayer to God to understand and forgive his/her enemies. A Christian renders what is Caesar’s, unto Caesar, by conceding that state power, such as Israel wields over Palestine with the help of the US and the UK and the EU, is a different issue to religious obligation.

When I was a Christian it was inconcievable to me to mix faith with politics as MP does by calling the Israeli occupation of Palestine an unimpeachable right. When I was a Christian it was inconcievable to me to insult victims of injustice, who had done injustice to me, without finding an excuse for their behaviour to me.

What we have in Michael Petek is an apostate Muslim. His technique is to apply the dogmatic certainty of a faith derived from true knowledge of a true book from Allah, to swivel-eyed opinions that are derived from swizzle-eyed Zionists, or anyone else he can find who expresses his hatred of Islam more virulently than himself. His tenacity at swiping at Islam on this blog is like a swine swistle pork sword in full screw.

World sympathy at the plight of the beleaguered Palestinians is more than he can bear. Don’t worry, when the 19 million quid over five years from this government doesn’t materialise, like the twenty billion promised by Gordon Brown didn’t materialise, he will calm down and bask in the mud of business as usual international refusal to condemn aggression against Islam and Muslims. He is only angry that a few seconds of sympathy for Muslims is being shared by the world community because of the Israeli murders.

I’ve seen the video clip, and I say that I don’t care whether they are Jews or not, they are blasphemers and traitors.

Anno, a Christian is someone who believes that the Christian religion is true, and that all others are false and sinful to practise except in the points in which they agree with Christianity.

A Christian finds his way to God by receiving baptism and living a life of repentance from sins.

Forgiveness for enemies is the normal disposition of the Christian in a private capacity, within wide limits which Hamas have exceeded.

Hamas can have forgiveness once they stop persecuting Christians and believe as Christians do.

Your problem, anno, is that you don’t identify the greater injustice: the conspiracy of aggressive war, the supreme international crime, by states such as Iran, to destroy Israel totally with Hamas aiding and abetting.

A Christian is also someone who insists that it is an evil of the most extreme kind to take up arms for the purpose of imposing Islamic rule and shari’a law: (a) because Islam is a false religion; and (b) because it is a misuse of war, the nature of which is political and not religious.

Michael,

you really think that religious war is acceptable?

You’re worse than those you rail against.

Find me the bit where Jesus (you know – that peacenik hippie from Palestine) talks about war jusified in his name. I always got the impression that turning the other cheek and trying to maintain some moral high ground was the way forward.

love thy neighbour, Michael.

I don’t believe that war is for religious purposes, but only for limited and temporal ones. The reason is that non-submission to the true religion is not a belligerable injustice, and non-submission to a false religion is not an injustice at all.

If only one of the belligerents decides that it is, and that he must therefore wage war to enforce religious conformity, then there is a religious war whether his enemy likes it or not.

So the enemy must respond in kind, meeting crescent with cross. The jihad always provokes the crusade.

I’m not in favour of starting religious wars. But if one is upon me nevertheless, then I am in favour of finishing it.

And if Hamas want to fight from behind the women and children they take as human shields, then let them first remove their own genitals, put them in the custody of the Red Crescent, and then come back and fight like women.

Thou hast heard that it was said:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, and the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Muslim, O servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the gharqad tree will not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.” (Article 7, Hamas Charter).

But verily, I say unto thee:

“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Jews fight the men of Hamas and kill them, and the men of Hamas will hide behind human shields. These women and children will say O Jew, O soldier of David, there is a daughter of Isma’il behind me, come and kill her.”

Michael, re my points [June 7, 2010 2:11 PM], you post more religious rubbish, and fail to answer them again.

And, digging yourself into a hole so effectively, I don’t need to lend you my JCB! Hamas need to “believe as Christians do” by believe “all others [religions] are false”. Oh dear, oh dear. Don’t the Muslims think the same of you, with each of you reaching into history to prove that your religion is truer than the other?

How about each set of followers believing that each person finds their right religion, and that in general each person finds a religion that is most culturally relevent? A moderate Muslim then may lead a good life, and get to his heaven by following the word of Muhammed, and a Christian by reading the teachings of Jesus, and so forth.

It is not a good idea to stoke a religious war that kills real people, Michael, people like your mother, or your father, or your brother, or your uncle.

Michael,

you do realise that your religion was – most likely – conferred upon you only by virtue of where you were born, don’t you?

If, by a twist of fate, you had been born in – let’s say – Iran or Syria or Pakistan then you would be shouting the same rubbish from the other side. That should be a sobering thought for you although I doubt you possess the self awareness to acknowledge it.

You are, most certainly, not part of the solution here and until you recognise that then peace of any kind is distant dream.

See my previous post, Jon. Muslims have their religion, I have mine (mine being the true one), but I don’t get noisy about it until they do it first.

And I won’t advocate smashing the skull of anyone who doesn’t draw a hostile sword first. Today it’s Hamas. Last decade it was the Serbs.

See the website http://voiceofthecopts.org for something really refreshing.

Chris, the reason I’m a Christian today and not a Muslim is that my ancestors in Slovenia missed by a whisker being conquered by the Turks.

If they had been, they’d have become either Muslims or slaughtered.

So, Michael, – as they say – ‘There but for the grace of God’ etc…

Your post surely proves my point.

As religion seems to be as much of an accident of birth as ethnicity then claims to have the ‘true’ faith seems a hollow boast. Various peoples fall into various religions – usually not out of choice but by genetic accident. This is surely not a valid reason to wage war on each other.

Which God do you actually hold to be the representative of this ‘true’ religion of yours. I only ask because your attitudes seem to be rooted in the Old Testament whereas Jesus was quite explicit about his god being one of Love that superceded the hateful, vengeful God of Hebrew scripture.

The problem always seems to arise from selective reading of texts that appear mainly to be political and social documents suited to specific moments in history otherwise you will be anti-capitalist (usury), all for stoning adulterers to death and deeply suspicious of seafood and milk.

If you do adhere to all the supposed rules then you must be seriously confused as to whether you should Love your neighbour or beat him to death. As a Christian one would have to hope that Love would come first but you seem to forget those particular (and crucial) teachings of Jesus.

I wish you well but I fear for the road you are on and fervently wish you wouldn’t try and drag the rest of the world to hell with you.

‘It is an evil of the most extreme kind to take up arms..’

Well I’ve got better things to do with my life than grieve at George Bush and Tony Blair harnessing the entire world’s resources to destroy Islam. Why don’t you put your case to them?

You are talking out of your posterior, anno. My statement was:

“A Christian is also someone who insists that it is an evil of the most extreme kind to take up arms for the purpose of imposing Islamic rule and shari’a law:

(a) because Islam is a false religion; and;

(b) because it is a misuse of war, the nature of which is political and not religious.”

That is why Hamas are doing what they are doing.

Not to expel Israel from Gaza.

Not to lift the siege.

Not to change the regime.

But to destroy the state itself, and in common plan or conspiracy with at least Iran.

Iran is to be the principal offender in the crime of aggression.

Anyone who aids and abets Iran is an accessorial participant.

In answer to your question, Chris, the true God is the God who has identified Himself as the Father of Jesus Christ.

The problem is, Hamas have decided that they don’t want His message nor His mercy. That’s why they are His enemies and that’s why the Divine Mercy stops for them until they see the error of their ways. This of course will be their undoing and their destruction.

He who takes the sword shall die by the sword.

An interesting statement, Michael. He who lives by the sword…

You seem to have failed to answer any of the questions – although I find no great surprise in that.

I was enquiring more about how you define your God as better, or more real, than ‘their’ God. You see, if I was having this conversation with any member of any religion whose convictions were similar to yours I would get exactly the same reply with a different Prophet inserted. And that’s the problem. I doubt that you could genuinely convince yourself (let alone me or others here) that had you been born in Iran / Syria / Pakistan / etc, you would not be screaming about Christian / Zionist aggression and oppression whilst strapping explosives to yourself and setting off in the name of your ‘God’ to slaughter innocents from the other side.

It’s very sad really. Having spent time in the Middle East and Israel in particular it’s fascinating to note how each side views the other. The man in the street – be it in Gaza or Tel Aviv – is a lovely human being that fervently believes the other to be a monster. Neither of course are right but both are badly served by religious and political leaders who see no benefit in peace.

Your role seems to be as cheer-leader for destruction. You might want to rethink and recast your ideas of the other as something less than human. I’ve met them and they are certainly at least as human as you or me. Sowing the nasty little seeds of suspicion and destruction is neither Christian or Muslim and cannot sustain a satisfying life. Think before you spread hatred and please, please show a little of that Christianity you claim to espouse.

Chris, would you please stop extending my remarks about Hamas to cover all Muslims generally.

I’ve lived and studied with all manner of people in my lifetime, including Muslims, and I’ve got on with them fine because I never met one who is a bloodthirsty savage like Hamas and other jihadist headbangers.

But Hamas activists are such demented fanatics that I’m not optimistic that you can pacify them any time soon except by killing a third, expelling a third and converting a third. I wouldn’t be surprised if a good many Muslims agreed with me on this.

@Michael – Hamas activists are a mix of fanatics and moderates, just as is the case with the Israeli establishment. Case in point: someone recently stood up in the Knesset to threaten a “shoah” (Holocaust) against the Palestinians. But, Michael, I expect you will defend that as well. Jesus’ good work, and all that.

You have a faith, Muslims have a faith, and “proving” that one is truer than the other is impossible. And whilst you support and cheer all manner of Israeli violence, you regard the other side as “bloodthirsty savages”. May I blaspheme at your hypocrisy?

Your religion, which in scientific terms stands a non-zero chance of being complete hogwash, is your blindspot. You are part of the problem, not part of the solution, just as the extremist parts of Hamas are. Get the log out of thine eye!

Incidentally, I think I am done on this topic – you don’t appear to be listening.

This from Voice of the Copts, Jon:

“Contrary to earlier reports, it has now been confirmed that the Muslim who murdered a Vatican official in Turkey last week did so for religious reasons.

“Luigi Padovese, who represented the Vatican as Vicar Apostolic of Anatolia, Turkey, was murdered last week by his long-time driver, a Muslim extremist. It was originally reported that the murderer was insane, but it is now known that the murder was carried out for religious reasons.”

Now do you believe they’re bloodthirsty savages?

“Now do you believe they’re bloodthirsty savages?”

No.

The aim of all these fixated posts on multiple threads, I sense, is to divert the subject from a critique of the Israeli attack, and murder on the ships and that state’s actions more generally in relation to the Occupied territories, to a fruitless and rotatory discussion on religion and specifically, on Islam(ism).

It’s really very obvious, as I sense Jon has pointed-out.

One wonders whether similar dynamics have been extant across the political blogosphere. The information war.

“Now do you believe they’re bloodthirsty savages?”

No, I don’t: the errors in your logic are appalling. It moves from “I have an example of a Muslim being a bloodthirsty savage” and becomes “All Muslims are bloodthirsty savages”, with no supporting evidence.

I am sure there is such a thing as a selfish Jewish money lender, but you would rightly call me anti-semitic if I called all Jewish people selfish money-lenders, wouldn’t you?

I'm normally on the side of Israel but you do have a good point.
The terrorists were using stuff like iron bars not guns.
They were stopping the israelis doing something to them which was illegal.
I reluctantly concede you do have a good point. The bit I like is the way he uses the 26 UN resolutions as a way of proving the UN are bad and a vindication of Israel. I think most people would just accept that point as sane.