Tag: Freedom flotilla

Who was on the Gaza flotilla? An Israeli Jew and the IHH speak in harmony

Carwil Bjork-JamesLeave a comment

The two most compelling comments on the flotilla tragedy I’ve read came from very different sources. One is an Israeli Jew, Udi Adoni, writing on the Israeli online news service Ynetnews. The other is from IHH, the Turkish aid group that sponsored the MV Mavi Marmara, the ship that saw at least nine of its passengers shot dead. At a time when the Israeli state is eagerly telling the world that flotilla, and especially IHH, is Hamas, Iran, al-Qaeda and terrorists; and that the passengers who fought back were a terrorist ambush, the coincidence of these two voices is striking, and critical to hear. (everything that follows is their words0

Udi Adoni, “A view from the Left”: It is not true that among the participants of the flotilla there are proponents of peace and proponents of war. Its beauty lies in the seemingly impossible coalition of contrasts of men and women, homosexuals and clergymen, Muslims and Jews, Christians and communists, anarchists and Hanin Zoabi and Dror Feiler. They all agreed to unite for an unarmed action. They all decided to act for freedom without a fight.

IHH press conference (I’m fairly sure the speaker is Bülent Yıldırım, its president, but it’s not indicated on the page), June 4: Our group was made up of all sorts of people, including leftists, rightists, liberals, conservatives, atheists, muslims, christians, jews, buddhists…Ours was a civil and pacifist initiative created by conscientious, civilian, unarmed people who carried with them nothing but humanitarian aid.

And we set sail to prove to the people of Gaza, who have been under a siege for years which is not unlike an imprisonment in a castle, that human kindness has not yet died.

Keeping our faith in the spirit of civil power, our Freedom Flotilla did not take any orders or any kind of support from any government during its organization. Our power came solely from the conscience of humanity and the courage of our rightfulness. We wanted to be a source of invigoration for the people of Gaza on whom many states turn a blind eye.

Adoni: But I was afraid to stand on board a ship that carries food and hope to Gaza, and to find myself confronting the men of the corps which I had served loyally 30 years ago. Looking back, it is a pity I did not join. I am asked, “Surely you would not have beaten IDF soldiers?” True. I suppose that I would have tied myself to a post and screamed with fear and faith. However, the question is not at all how I would have behaved but whether one has the right to self-defense against maritime terror applied by a state.

IHH: Ours was self-defense. And self defense is legitimate. It has always been legitimate in all systems of law and throughout history.  I am a lawyer. I should know this better than anyone. However, we did not defend ourselves with firearms against these terrorists that attacked us with firearms, we did not have such means anyway

Adoni: There were no firearms on board the ship. There were no suicide bombers. On the practical level, opposing worlds, united against the occupation and for the people of Gaza, to a struggle which was not supposed to bring death…but life.

IHH: Now some people are asking, “Why did you go there?”

We did, because we are humans. We went out there because we are humans. The conscience of humanity has not yet died, this we wanted to prove to humanity itself. For this, we went out there.

We went and we will go again.

Turkish Journalist Cevdet Kılıçlar apparently murdered on Gaza flotilla

Carwil Bjork-James2 Comments

Update, June 5: The International Federation of Journalists is calling for an inquiry into Cevdet Kılıçlar’s killing and the shooting of Indonesian cameraman Sura Fachrizaz. The investigation would also consider the treatment of all journalists on the flotilla and the confiscation of their pictures, cameras, and computers.

Update: IHH (the German acronym is the circulating one) has posted a photo album of Cevdet Kılıçlar (it appears to be pictures of him, rather than by him, but I don’t read Turkish) to its Facebook page. I’ve included his picture below now.

Original post: Onboard the Mavi Marmara, the largest ship of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, at least nine passengers were killed. Witness reports and forensic evidence now suggest that at least one of those killed was documenting the raid and not participating the clashes between Israeli commandos and passengers that came along with it. Turkish journalist Cevdet Kılıçlar was shot in the forehead at close range, the bullet ripping away the back of his skull. Kevin Ovenden, a British activist onboard and eyewitness, has stated that Kılıçlar was filming at the time and has his camera held to his eye.

Kılıçlar worked for the Taraf, and Selam and Milli newspapers in Turkey. For the flotilla, he was employed by boat organizer, the Human Rights and Freedoms (İHH) Humanitarian Help Foundation, as part of its press staff. He was one of sixty journalists on the flotilla.

Relatives mourn over Cevdet's coffin Photo:Bulent Kilic/AFP

Cevdet Kılıçlar was 38. He leaves behind a grieving widow, Derya, and two children. He was also a gifted photographer, as you can see from his flickr page from a recent trip to Baku, Azerbaijan.

I draw three things from this sad news. First, the tragedy in Gaza has crossed the “it could have be me” threshhold, and I am sadder and more angry than before because of it. Second, the manner of this death as described by Ovenden, can be nothing other than murder. Third, the complete Israeli seizure of photographic evidence from those onboard is an even more serious than before; the grounds for a complete, independent, international investigation lie in part in what the Israelis have taken and may choose to destroy.

Cevdet Kılıçlar, c. 1972-2010

Sources for this story: Erol Önderoğlu and Tolga Korkut, “Journalists Returned from Israel – İHH Employee Dead.” Mehmet Nedim Aslan, “Israeli commandos killed journalist as he photographed their crime.”

Free Gaza flotilla: Accusation on bulletproof vests a dangerous distortion

Carwil Bjork-JamesLeave a comment

As you probably know, Israel’s May 31 raid on the Free Gaza Movement’s flotilla of aid-bearing ships has occasioned a torrent of justifications, short video clip releases, and arguments. On the Israeli side, this began before the nine to nineteen dead activists bodies were yet cold. The narrative, remarkably, made the unarmed activists aboard the ships into a lynch mob and a terrorist ambush. In short, the Israeli government has been extremely eager to make the story fit a standard narrative in the region, one of treacherous asymmetrical warfare.

Those looking for the other side of the story had to wait out detentions and deportations, but eyewitness accounts are increasingly circulating. Both the anti-blockade activists and third-party journalists have had their ability to tell the story severely crimped by the Israeli seizure of film, memory cards, cameras, computers and other personal effects of those onboard.

The Israeli search has resulted in a remarkable remix of the goods they claim were onboard the ships, most visible in this photoset released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And here is I where I can offer my humble contribution to correcting propaganda. A well-circulated story right now involves this contention:

Israeli officers later displayed slingshots, knives and truncheons they said were found on the ship as evidence of organized resistance. Defense officials also say some activists had military-style gear such as bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles and carried large sums of cash. (AP)

The AP is simply reporting their claim, but is also giving the Israeli government the sole opportunity to create a narrative from various objects onboard. Let’s consider a very serious alternative story. Observe the following Israeli government photo:

Note, by the way, the clean, unruffled, un-shot-at state of the vests. Now read this from the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2002:

No one is more keenly aware of the risks taken by ambulance personnel than Mohammed El Hessi, a 26-year-old Palestine Red Crescent (PRCS) paramedic who was called to the scene of a gunboat attack on a security post north of Gaza City on the night of 7 March. Mohammed, who responded to the call along with three of his colleagues, would be dead today had it not been for the bullet-proof vest he was wearing. Such vests have been supplied to the PRCS by the ICRC, with the knowledge of the Israeli authorities. Mohammed suffered serious shrapnel wounds as his team attempted to retrieve two bodies. A piece of metal was subsequently found embedded in the ceramic back-plate of his vest. A second PRCS ambulance team came to the rescue and managed to evacuate the dead and wounded after more than an hour. Mohammed was rushed to a hospital in Gaza, and his life is now out of danger. During the same rescue operation, a member of an ambulance team from the local medical services was killed.

“Without a doubt, the bullet-proof vest saved his life,” said Dr Fayez Jibril, head of the PRCS’s emergency medical service in Gaza, as he examined Mohammed’s bloodstained vest the following morning. “This is where the shrapnel lodged. If it had pierced his body, it would have gone straight to his heart.”

Who needs bulletproof vests in Gaza? No doubt people like paramedic Mohammed El Hessi. Why should we think that this vest was meant for him? Reading on in the same 2002 story:

Respect for medical personnel, ambulances and medical facilities bearing the protective red cross and red crescent emblems is compulsory under international humanitarian law. Any violation of this rule puts the safety of all medical and humanitarian workers in jeopardy. (Full article from the ICRC)

Oh, you mean these emblems? Compare them to the ones on the vest.

No matter how much the Israeli government might wish it had faced a commando team onboard the Gaza-bound flotilla, it didn’t. But it’s willing to weave a web of lies to make you think that it did. Hopefully, we can be a little less trusting of this kind of propaganda, and a little more concerned for lives like Mohammed El Hessi, the paramedic whose life was saved by a bulletproof vest with a red crescent.