Israellycool

From the Free Gaza mailing list:

Dear friends,
Israeli journalist, Amira Hass has been arrested as she attempted to cross back into Israel from Gaza, after spending three weeks there (coming into Gaza on one of the Free Gaza Movement boats).  Over the past few weeks, Hass has been filing on the ground reports from Gaza about life under the siege.

Hass, the child of Holocaust survivors, became the first and only Israeli journalist to be ever based in Gaza, moving there in 1993 to live and work.  Today, she is still the only Israeli journalist to based in the Occupied Palestinian Territories moving to Ramallah in 1997.  Three weeks ago, she once again became the only Israeli journalist to enter Gaza since the current illegal Israeli siege began, as not only has the Israeli military have prevented Israeli journalists for some time and recently also began preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza.

Please find below the brief article on her arrest which appeared in the Haaretz, the paper she writes for.

In solidarity,
Kim
www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com
www.directaction.org.au

Last update - 16:44 02/12/2008

Haaretz journalist Amira Hass arrested for illegal stay in Gaza

By Tomer Zarchin, Haaretz Correspondent
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1042654.html

Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass was detained by Sderot police last night for having entered the Gaza Strip without a permit.

By order of the army, Israeli journalists have been barred from entering Gaza since the abduction of soldier Gilad Shalit in June 2006.

Hass was stopped by soldiers at the Erez Checkpoint, on the Gaza-Israel border, as she was returning to Israel from the Strip. Upon discovering that she had no permit to be in Gaza, the soldiers transferred her to the Sderot police.

When questioned, Hass pointed out that no one had stopped her from entering the Strip, which she did for work purposes.

Chief Superintendent Shimon Nahmani, commander of the Sderot police station, said Hass had entered Gaza by sea three weeks ago.

Hass was released under restriction, and Nahmani said her case will be sent to court in the coming week.

Israel Press Council chairwoman Dalia Dorner, a former Supreme Court justice, commented that even journalists are subject to the law and the council cannot defend a reporter who breaks the law. Instead, she said, local journalists ought to petition the High Court of Justice against the army’s order.

After previously claiming that the Mumbai Chabad House massacre was “a theatrical statement of hate” whose intended audience was India, with the attackers “cynically exploiting anti-Semitism in order to further inflame world opinion and curry favor with the Muslim jihadi set,” clueless blogger Richard Silverstein admits he may have been wrong.

Well, kind of:

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2008/12/01/did-mumbai-terrorists-torture-jews/

Thanks to reader Alex Stein for forcing me to write a post I hate to write with every fiber of my being. An Indian news report claims that many of the Mumbai hostages were tortured before being killed and that the Chabad hostages were tortured most brutally of all. IF (and I stress “if” because stories like this must be confirmed and reconfirmed before they are accepted as truth) this story is true, it could set back Jewish-Muslim relations years if not decades. Not to mention, that it will further alienate Israeli Jews from believing it is possible to live in peace with the region’s Muslims.

Ya think?

Interestingly enough, Silverstein has a hard time understanding how the constant terrorist attacks on Israeli soil led many of us to this conclusion a long time ago. In fact, according to his worldview, anyone who has formed this conclusion is a bigot.

Further, if it is true, then I will have to withdraw my earlier claims that anti-Semitism was an ancillary part of the strategy involved in this attack. If the Jewish victims were tortured savagely, then it will lead me to believe that there are much stronger links to Al Qaeda than I previously believed. Until now, I’d never thought that Pakistani militants hated the west and Jews specifically as Al Qaeda does. I’d thought their cause was more locally-determined. If the news is correct, then I think Pakistan, India and the entire region have a much bigger problem on their hands then previously thought.

Notice how it is the possibility of torture that has led Silverstein to rethink things. Had the terrorists merely murdered the Jews without torturing them, he would not have revised his conclusion.

Finally, I would urge that when and if they find the mastermind of this attack that he should be tried before an international tribunal. The horror of these acts needs to be addressed not by the justice system of a single country, but by international justice. The world needs to universally condemn such brutalism.

Curiously, Silverstein has never shown such indignation towards the palestinian masterminds of terrorist attacks against Israelis.

I don’t wish to offer unsolicited advice to my Muslim readers, friends and others, but the Mumbai attack appears to have been done in the name of Kashmir, Palestine and Muslim suffering in general.

Now, much like after 9/11, it is critical that the world hear from sane Muslims that this is a way they reject utterly and absolutely. To do so does not mean that Muslims must renounce their criticism of, or grievances against conditions they face.  It means they must ostracize those who kill in the name of Islam or Muslim suffering.

Like Hamas for example?

I have been dedicated to Muslim-Jewish dialogue for many, many years.  This horrific story will not deter me from my commitment.  But it will set back all of our good work by so very much.  I simply cannot understand the bestial savagery that lurks in the human mind (and note I said “human” mind and not “Muslim” mind–since the beast lurks in all of us).

Finally, I want to again emphasize that Alex provided only a single Indian source to confirm the torture claim.  The Times of India, one of the nation’s most respected papers doesn’t mention this story [see UPDATE below].  Further, that news source does not name any of the doctors it quotes.  Unnamed sources in this situation should not be considered reliable.  Other previous elements of the Mumbai terror story were shown to be false on further investigation. It’s entirely possible that this claim too will prove false, though I fear it may not.  If anyone can confirm that this report is false, please let me know ASAP.

UPDATE: Thanks again to Alex for pointing me to this Times of India story that acknowledges the possibility of torture, but in a very preliminary and tentative way, unlike the Rediff story.

Notice how Silverstein is exacting such high standards of proof before he will accept as fact the torture story. Yet bring him the most flimsy hint of IDF or Jewish misdeed, and he’s all over it like a rash.

Trust it to Richard Silverstein to get everything wrong about the Mumbai Chabad House massacre (note: I am providing the link to his post because it is blog etiquette. But I discourage you from clicking on it since the extra traffic will only embolden him).

It is without question deeply disturbing that terrorists based in the Indian Muslim community (given the uncertainty regarding the origin of the terrorists - different reports suggest they were Pakistani or British Muslims - how Silverstein can confidently reach this conclusion is beyond me - ed.) would adopt a new strategy of targeting Jews and Israelis for attack (what is ‘new’ about this strategy? - ed.) whereas before their targets were purely Indian.  It is surely a ratcheting up of the conflict between India and Pakistan, since it appears that all or some of the militants were motivated by the Kashmir conflict between those two countries.

The militants clearly wanted to make a theatrical statement of hate and succeeded “admirably” in just the way that the PLO did when they first began hijacking and blowing up airliners in the 1970s.

Who was the intended audience?  Of course, India. The terrorists were reminding the Indians of the continued cost of stalemate in Kashmir.  The message too was to Pakistan saying that the group behind the attack was not willing to give up on the Kashmir struggle. That it wouldn’t give up on the “brothers” living under Indian occupation there.  Of course, there was a message to the U.S. which, as the Times pointed out in a story yesterday, has been cajoling the Pakistani military to “pivot” away from India as its major foe and turn instead to the Taliban in the NW Provinces.  If Pakistani elements were involved in the Mumbai attack, as India’s prime minister has alluded, then this would be a message from either the Pakistani ISI or the Pakistani Taliban that they refuse to allow such a change in Pakistani interests.

The Times quotes Tzipi Livni saying:

“We know that the targets there that were sought out by the terrorists were Jewish and Israeli targets as well as targets that are perceived as Western targets — American and British.”

She added: “We need to understand that there’s a world here, our world, that has been attacked. And it doesn’t matter if it’s happened in India or somewhere else. We have here radical Islamic elements who do not accept either our existence or the values of the Western world. And only when incidents of this sort occur is it suddenly understood from conversations with leaders from around the entire world that we are actually party to the same battle.”

Actually, this is completely the WRONG lesson to learn.  Despite the fact that Jews were attacked, the fundamental conflict appears to involve Kashmir, and by extension Indian and Pakistan.  In other words, this is a regional conflict.  Not an Armageddon conflict between the forces of evil and good represented by the “western world” and “radical Islam.” This is precisely how the extremists on both sides, both Jewish and Muslim, would like the world to see the conflict since it confirms their apocalyptic, blood-soaked world-view.  But if we are to maintain any semblance of balance and reason in viewing incidents like this one, we must understand where the real cause of conflict lies.

At worst, the attackers are cynically exploiting anti-Semitism in order to further inflame world opinion and curry favor with the Muslim jihadi set.

As for Livini’s bogus rhetoric in which she insinuates the Israeli-Arab conflict into a world death struggle between Islam and the west, it’s cheap and misleading.  Israel’s ultimate conflict has nothing to do with radical Islam and everything to do with its Occupation and oppression of the Palestinians.  The solution to this conflict has nothing to do with eliminating radical Islam, jihad or Muslim terror.  It has everything to do with resolving a political and national conflict.

Livni, just like Sharon after 9/11, falsely wishes to hitch Israel’s wagon to a cause everyone in the west understands.

My reference to the Occupation above started me thinking about Pakistani Muslims’ resentment against India regarding the Kashmir conflict.  Here too, Muslims believe that India is occupying land that should be Pakistani.  In effect, the Kashmir conflict may be the last vestige of the 1948 events leading to the independence of India and Pakistan.  Kashmir festers like a 60 year old wound untended and unhealed.

In just the same way that Palestinian terrorists, when they mount their deadly attacks against Israelis, warn Israel that there can never be peace until their greivances are addressed and resolved, so the Indian or Kashmiri terrorists were broadcasting a message that Indian must address this issue or forever face the menace of domestic terror.

I want to make clear that I am not making any judgments about which side in the conflict over this territory is in the right and which in the wrong.  I’m not well-versed enough to do that (it hasn’t stopped him from making judgments about the Middle East conflict, despite his manifest ignorance on this topic - ed.)

Yes, that’s right. The terrorists went out of their way to locate the rather nondescript Jewish Chabad house, which was located on a narrow street in a mixed residential/commercial area, just to send a message to India, Pakistan and the US.

How can one person be so wrong all of the time?

Perhaps Silverstein believes that should things progress to the point where he has Islamic overlords, they will look favorably on him for his previous support.

However, I assume even they don’t have much use for Jewish sycophants.

Last time we heard from Free Gaza tool Lauren Booth, she was snacking on a snickers bar insulting the memory of the six million Jews and millions of other innocents who were slaughtered during WWII.

You may have thought she would have removed her foot from her mouth and shut up. But, alas, I guess she very much enjoys eating anything - even her foot - that is, anything but humble pie.

Here is an interview with her that is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure.

“Gaza is a concentration camp,” she fumes. “Why am I using an inflammatory term? Because underplaying the situation in Gaza and being sensible has done them no good at all.

“That’s not the same as mincing with the truth - it’s that the situation there has been underplayed for too long.

“Gaza isn’t a prison - a prison is somewhere guilty people go, somewhere people are locked up for the good of society.

“Sixty-one per cent of the population there are children. They are not prisoners, they’ve had no due process - it is more like an internment camp.

I would love to know Booth’s source for this statement. Even the pro-palestinian Palestine Media Center has the figure at 56%, and another more objective source has the percentage of children under 14 at around 47%.

“They are being tortured for their race or, the latest excuse, their political opinions. That - under the Oxford English Dictionary definition - is a concentration camp and I want people to be shocked by it, I want them to see the civilian life there.

Actually, they are suffering because a segment of their population is committing heinous terrorist acts against innocent people in Israel, including firing rockets deliberately at civilian areas, and the vast majority of Gazans are either supporting these terrorist acts or certainly not acting or speaking out against them.

“If they cannot escape, they’ve got soldiers around them, people keeping food from them - what else is it?”

It is proof that when the IDF withdraws unilaterally from territory captured in a war of self-defense, terrorism intensifies, and this terrorism is at best ignored, and at worst supported, by people like Booth.

Ok, so up until this point you might conclude that Booth could very well be a kind-hearted person who just happens to be woefully ignorant.

I think the next paragraphs indicate that this woman is not merely ignorant, but willfully ignores the truth.

Likewise, she finds it backs up her argument that Palestinians are a peace-loving people.

She admits: “When I was going to Gaza I had a moment thinking, ‘Well, what about Islamic jihad, is that going to be dangerous?’ I walked around as the sister-in-law of Tony Blair - God as my witness - I walked around Rafah refugee camp at night on my own.

“People knew who I was, I was welcomed and I was safe. The Hamas police force has pledged safety as much as possible for the people living there - that is not to say they are perfect - but the organisation that kidnapped Alan Johnston is all but finished now.”

The fact that Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and company fire rockets at population centers in Israel is of no concern to Booth. As long as they do not harm her and do good for palestinians, they are alright, and the palestinians who support them are “peace-loving.”

This theme of peace among Palestinians is one to which the journalist continually returns.

When stranded in Gaza, she says a woman took her in, offering her daughter’s clothes to her.

“It’s raised time and time again that within Islam there’s an inherent hate for Judaism - it’s a lie,” she says.

I have seen plenty of Quranic verses that would suggest otherwise. But you needn’t go much past the Hamas Charter for proof she is talking out of her arse.

“I have been in homes and I hear and I see people want to live in peace with their neighbours. There is a genuine feeling of welcome.

“The danger for someone visiting is that you’ll get loved to death - force-fed mint tea and biscuits.”

Now this I am inclined to believe.

As for not speaking out against palestinian terror, Booth wants you to know it is not because she denies its existence. It just does not interest her.

No one can deny violent attacks and terrorism have been committed by people living in Palestine. But her real argument is that the Palestinian people are being punished indiscriminately and permanently for it.

“I don’t condone any violence at all,” she says. “Why am I talking about Palestine? Because they are under occupation and I have seen the suffering first-hand.

“I don’t want to talk about anything else - just the human rights abuses.

Clearly, Booth does not consider rockets fired at Jews to constitute a humans right abuse.

And here’s the kicker:

“If Londoners went through what Gazan people go through for one day, we would commit massacres, we would riot. They’ve been going through it for 60 years.

At least she admits the palestinians commit massacres.

And that, my friends, is terror supporter Lauren Booth.

Update: Honest Reporting has discovered that Booth is on Iran’s payroll.

Introducing our latest weapon: Zionist Death Bugs.^TM

An International peace activist said on Saturday that he faces “torture” during his detention in an Israeli custody.

In a letter received today by Ramattan, Vittorio Arrigoni, (33) from Italy, said that the detention he lived “can be considered a real torture more than a punishment.”

The full text of the letter delivered to Ramattan:

Manifestly violating every human and civil right and against every international law, I spent the last six hours with Andrew locked in a piggish toilette full of fleas and parasites and without drinking water. This was the treatment we received because we announced a hunger strike in order to ask for the restitution of the fishing boats stolen to Palestinian fishermen offshore Gazan coasts when we were kidnapped by Israeli soldiers.

They took away the telephones we were given yesterday by our lawyer but, even more shameful and clearly violating international laws, they prevented us from getting in touch with our lawyers and with our consulates even though Andrew and I asked for it tenaciously many times.

In order to report these regrettable events I had to stop my hunger strike so that I could have back my telephone and pass on this reporting. Based on what I could hear before they separated us, Andrew will keep staying in that cell (absolutely non compliant with every standard of every convention about detention and human rights) as long as he will continue his hunger strike.

The detention I lived today and Andrew is still living can be considered a real torture more than a punishment.

It’s more than probable that Darlene, who is continuing her hunger strike, is suffering the same inhuman treatment.

I’m about to report this seriously severe event to the Italian, the Scottish and the American consulates.

It’s important being constantly informed about mental and physical conditions of our friends.

Tomorrow I will have to turn to urgent medical treatments to cure dozens of bites from insects and parasites which attack me every night leaving my body full of sores.

Vittorio Arrigoni, kidnapped in an Israeli prison in Ramle.

21st November 2008, 6 p.m. –end of the letter-

Interestingly enough, these terror supporters are being fed.

Must be to give the Zionist Death Bugs^TM more meat to feast on.

The Germ is back, this time targeting new US First Lady Michelle Obama.

Outspoken feminist Germaine Greer has lined up Michelle Obama as her latest target, criticising the “butcher’s apron” dress the next First Lady wore when her husband won the US presidential election.

Writing her usual column for the Guardian,  Greer slays the outfit choice, calling it, “All black with an eye-burning red panel that splattered itself down the front like a geometrical haemorrhage”.

She goes on to describe the effect as: “A poster in the most disturbing colours known to man, the colours of chaos…Coral snakes and venomous spiders signal their destructive potential by the display of similarly violent contrasts.”

Greer was a powerful voice of feminism in the 1970s, and her books were international best sellers, but over the past decade she has become better known for her contrary and controversial remarks.

When nature lover Steve Irwin was killed, she famously remarked that the animals would be relieved. She also described Princess Di as “slow”.

Greer refers to online critics of Michelle Obama’s dress to back up her argument and remarks that if Michelle had dressed herself and her daughters for defeat, she could not have chose bettter outfits.

“Most newspapers were too high-minded to refer to it, but reaction trickled through the internet and surfaced in USA Today, where a poll revealed that twice as many people hated the gown as thought it irrelevant or OK,” she said.

Say what you want about Michelle Obama’s dress, but it’s not nearly as disturbing as Greer’s fashion statements.*

* Link NSFAE (not safe for anyone eating)

We already knew the Free Gaza tools were in desperate need of money. Just how desperate has been made even clearer.

Just before arriving in the waters of Gaza, an Israeli naval gunboat approached, cutting across the bow of the boat, then falling back and tracking it for about an hour. Finally, the gunboat radioed the DIGNITY and asked who they were and where they were going.

After Huwaida Arraf responded, the gunboat asked for the passenger list. “Our passengers are listed on our Free Gaza website for everyone to see,” replied Ms. Arraf, “You’re welcome to visit it any time. And… while you’re there, feel free to make a donation.”

After a pause, then a laugh, the voice on the other end said, “Have a nice day” and left the DIGNITY to glide into the port of Gaza to cheering crowds and a packed agenda for the Parliamentarians.

The sad thing is, she probably wasn’t joking.

Incidentally, the Free Gaza mailing list put out a mail with a different version of the exchange.

At 8:000 am Gaza time, an Israeli patrol boat made contact with the DIGNITY. They had been following the boat for about an hour prior to contacting them

They requested a list of passengers on board.

DIGNITY answered “You’re welcome to go to our website, freegaza.org. We have the entire list and biographies of the passengers there.” Huwaida then added, “Once you are at our website, please make a donation.”

The answer from the the warship was “ha, ha, ha, ha.”

Not that we should be surprised by Free Gaza tools being loose with the facts.

Like a dog with a bone - rather than a group of morally bankrupt individuals with a huge debt - the Free Gaza tools are coming back for thirds, with a new bunch of terror-supporting friends.

Per their latest press release:

For Immediate Release
November 6, 2008

Larnaca: Tomorrow afternoon at 5:00 pm, the DIGNITY leaves for the third time for the shores of Gaza. This time, eleven past and current members of the European Parliament are on board, along with journalists from Al Jazeera English and The Independent.

These dignitaries were among the 53 Parliamentarians denied entrance by Egypt at the Rafah checkpoint.
“Egypt did not allow us to enter Gaza via the Rafah terminal, but this will not stop us from visiting the area,” Lord Nazir Ahmad, head of the European delegates stated, “We will sail to Gaza, we are determined to break the siege”.

Ms Clare Short MP emphasized, “The Egyptian refusal to grant us access through Rafah Crossing is insulting to all of us, and Egypt should open the crossing now.”

They will be on a three-day fact finding tour organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the European Campaign to End the Siege as well as several of the organizations in Gaza who have worked with the Free Gaza Movement on the past two voyages.

On the past two trips, Israel has threatened to stop the DIGNITY, arrest its passengers and tow the boat to Israel. The government has been silent on its plans this time, perhaps out of respect for the dignitaries on the voyage. Members of the two organizations stress that the DIGNITY has no intention of going anywhere near Israeli waters but will enter Gaza through its own coastal waters.

The port authorities have asked the media to come between 3:30 and 5:00 pm Friday at Larnaca Port to see the boat leave and to conduct interviews.

The passenger list is posted on the Free Gaza website, www.freegaza.org.

Yes, good old Clare Short, one of the most vehemently anti-Israel European MPs there is. Notice how when Israel limits access to Gaza (as a consequence of terrorism) it is a siege. When Egypt limits access, it is an insult.

The real insult here is the one suffered by our intelligence when this movement tells us their goal is to break the siege of Gaza.

As if this is a siege.

As if this is their real end goal.

The inclusion of the likes of Clare Short should make even clearer the fact that these people do not want a “free” Gaza as much as no Israel.

We already knew that the Free Gaza tools have a soft spot for fellow Israel-hater Richard Silverstein.

The question is was that him on their last voyage?

The Free Gaza freaks are so far in debt, they apparently charged their idiot passengers about $1000 for this latest trip!

Look at this graphic on their site (they apparently had a typo which I correct):

The FGMers have so far spent $740,000 and have raised $325,000 - but $300,000 came from “donations” and $25,000 from “passenger fees”.

There was no mention of “passenger fees” on their website when we previously looked at their bizarre thermometer graphic.

Since their latest trip to Gaza, where they were greeted by their Hamas terrorist pals and a tiny crowd, included 27 people, it appears that they are so broke that they are charging their “humanitarian” passengers about $1000 to get their publicity.

Comparing their numbers, they’ve spent $190,000 since September - and only raised $75,000, even including their passenger fees. And this was after the massive amount of publicity they received from their first trip.

Clearly their leftist pals aren’t willing to pony up the bucks for them to continue these public relations stunts, and nobody is buying the boats they are trying to sell (for quite inflated prices.)

What will they try next?

Note: I am trying to get this message to the Israeli government, as an important way to counter the Free Gaza movement’s war against Israel. If any of you have contacts with the Israeli government, please pass this on.

And if you are a blogger, feel free to help publicize this.

Irish Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead McGuire, who arrived in Gaza on the “Free Gaza” boat, left, holds a gift from Gaza’s Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, right, at his office in Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008. The boat carrying international protesters sailed into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to bring attention to Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled territory. The 27 passengers include McGuire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland.

If this doesn’t already speak volumes, allow me to make things clearer for you.

Hamas Charter:

Preamble

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

Article Six

The Islamic Resistance Movement is a distinguished Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam. It strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine..

Article Seven

…”The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

Article Eleven

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up…..

Article Thirteen

Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement…There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.

Free Gaza mission statement:

May 2008 marks the 60-year anniversary of the Nakba, “the catastrophe”, when the overwhelming majority of Palestinians were forcibly evicted from their ancestral homeland to create the state of Israel. In contravention of International law, human rights, and basic principles of morality, Israel continues to deny these refugees and their descendants their right to return home. Israel has neither acknowledged nor attempted to amend this historic injustice that gave birth to the Jewish state. Instead, more than 5 million Palestinian refugees languish in refugee camps, while their homes, farms, and properties are inhabited by Jewish immigrants who arrived in Palestine from around the globe.

The historic illegal appropriation of Palestinian land, home and heritage is at the heart of the Middle East conflict. It has given rise to the largest ongoing refugee population in the world. It paved the way for subsequent land theft in 1967, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing that has squeezed Palestinians in the West Bank into ghettos and bantustans surrounded by 27-foot walls, sniper towers, and military guards. It has created the open-air prison of Gaza with an impoverished and overcrowded population of 1.4 million inhabitants.

McGuire and her fellow Free Gaza tools are not peace activists. They are supporters of Hamas and their goals. They do not want a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict, but rather a one state solution - a palestinian state.

Update: Here’s a similar photo from two months ago.

A British activist gestures as she receives a Palestinian passport from senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (2nd R) in Gaza August 28, 2008. Two boats carrying foreign peace activists who had defied an Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip left the Hamas-ruled territory on Thursday for Cyprus, taking with them seven Palestinians.

The gesture is a “V for Victory” sign, something arch terrorist Yasser Arafat was particularly prone to flashing.

In other words, not quite a symbol of peace.

Contrary to the Free Gaza tools’ claims that Israel backed down from threats to deny them entry to Gaza only after we realized we could not operate outside of Israel’s territorial waters, the real reason has emerged.

And in another flying pig moment, it looks like soon-not-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made a correct decision.

A boat carrying 27 far-left protesters docked in Gaza Wednesday morning, after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reversed course and decided against barring the vessel’s entrance.

This was the third small boat chartered by the US-based Free Gaza movement that has sailed from Cyprus to Gaza to draw attention to the Israeli blockade of the Strip.

Two other boats that set sail together in August were also let in by the Israeli authorities, who wanted to deny the protesters publicity.

Government officials said that a decision was taken “at the highest governmental levels” a number of days ago to stop this new boat and arrest the protesters.

But Olmert - after consultations with Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi - changed the decision at the last moment, apparently concerned about the negative publicity.

Representatives of the National Information Directorate, as well as the media specialists at the Foreign Ministry, who were preparing for the boat to be intercepted at sea, were not involved in the consultations.

One senior government official said Israel’s decision to let the boat pass was made after it became clear exactly who and what were on the boat.

He also said Israel “wants to keep these agitators guessing, and not play into their hands.”

The official said that the decision to let the boat in Wednesday was made on a one-time basis, and did not represent a blanket policy. He added that no decision has been made whether Israel would allow the boat to sail back, as it did in August.

Now if the government would only take my advice. Which they don’t seem to be doing at this stage.

Olmert’s spokesman Mark Regev, meanwhile, said that the protesters and organizers of the boat were not the only ones who wanted a “free Gaza.”

“We are also interested in freeing Gaza,” Regev said. “We want to free the civilian population of the Gaza Strip from the authoritative, totalitarian, Taliban-type regime that is oppressing it.”

Acknowledging that the protesters and organizers of the boat want a “free Gaza” makes it sound like this is really all they want. We should be mentioning that really what they want is a”free palestine”, meaning the end of the state of Israel.