June 16, 2010

Israeli lies

The full extent of the atrocities carried out by Israeli on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla are beginning to emerge as the survivors return home with their powerful eye witness accounts.

Now would be the time, you might think, for some humility or even an apology from the Zionist State, but not content with the hole it is already in, Israel keeps on digging.

And the latest piece of propaganda coming out of Tel Aviv is probably more revealing than anything else that has happened in the last week.

I am talking about an audio tape which purports to relay a conversation between the Israeli naval vessels and the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara.

It allegedly occurred prior to the brutal Israeli assault in which nine people were martyred and scores more injured during the early hours of 31 May in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean.

Here is the audio clip, which the Israelis titled "Radio Transmission from Mavi Marmara to Israeli Navy"

ISRAELI SHIP "This is the Israeli Navy, you are approaching an area which is under a naval blockade"

MAN'S VOICE 1 "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz."

WOMAN'S VOICE "We have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter."

MAN'S VOICE 2 "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11 guy".

If you want to listen for yourself, here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxY7Q7CvQPQ

I immediately recognized the voice of the woman, it is that of Huwaida Arraf, a heroic Palestinian who co-founded the ISM and is chair of the Free Gaza Movement.

We sailed together on the first FGM boat into Gaza in 2008 and her voice is very distinctive.

So yes, I can confirm that is Huwaida’s voice, but I can also confirm that Huwaida was on board Challenger 1, a much smaller passenger ship in the six-boat flotilla. She was NOT on board the Mavi Marmara.

And so, there you have it – a botched tape on a bungled operation which reveals Israel’s desperation to try and redeem itself by any means possible.

But let’s examine the transcript more closely.

What it also exposes is just how far Israel is prepared to go in its bid to deceive the world and justify its actions … even if it is at the cost of the memory of those blameless Jewish souls who perished in the Holocaust.

By invoking the Holocaust – a favourite trick of the Zionist State – we were all expected to recoil in horror and disgust and accept blindly the evidence put before us by these masters of mass deception. To even question would have exposed us to accusations of being anti-semitic.

It is a trump card often played by Israel as it conveniently flips from tyrant to victim in the blink of an eye.

The fact that they have been exposed, hoisted by their own stinking petard, also reveals the extent to which Israel is losing its reputation as a leader in the field of intelligence.

This careless slip up is one in a long line of blunders carried out by Israeli Intelligence in the last year. The Zionist State used to be a world leader in the black art of propaganda, psychological warfare and political deception, but now it has all the panache of a one-legged man in an ass-kicking competition.

I notice that they also attempted to invoke the memories of 9/11 – a trick employed so ruthlessly by former US President George W Bush whenever he needed to get the support of the American people.

Not content with insulting the memory of the Holocaust victims, Tel Aviv has shown it is prepared to exploit the deaths of those who perished in 9/11 … clearly nothing or no one is sacred.

Today Israel stands exposed for what it is – a failed Zionist project, a rogue state which sets itself above the law and one which is now living on borrow time.

It is headed on a course of self-destruction.

Journalist Yvonne Ridley is the European President of the International Muslim Women’s Union, a member of the Free Gaza Movement, Viva Palestina and the Respect Party.