Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said yesterday that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to any other ships trying to break Israel’s “blockade” of Gaza.
“Iran’s Revolutionary Guards naval forces are fully prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys to Gaza with all their powers and capabilities,” Ali Shirazi, Khamenei’s representative inside the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.
Can anyone say Declaration of War with me?
And speaking of Iran, there are those who argue the flotilla was a decoy for providing more Iranian missiles to Hizbullah in southern Lebanon.
But the more ominous development this flotilla is camouflaging is a real land fleet bringing missiles and advanced weapons to Hezbollah from Syria to the Bekaa Valley.
Over the past weeks reports have abounded about Iranian long-range missiles shipped via Syria to Hezbollah and satellite images have shown terror bases in the vicinity of Damascus growing under Baathist protection. As soon as the attention of the international community began to focus on the flow of strategic weapons to Hezbollah, the “brotherhood of regimes” unleashed the Gaza flotilla across the Mediterranean. Seasoned geopolitical experts would rationally link the move to create an incident off the coasts of Gaza with the move to equipping Hezbollah with lethal missiles.
In the end we’re looking at two flotillas, the maritime one in the south being only a decoy for the land fleet to achieve its goal of war preparations in the north.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)?
10:50PM:I wonder what mad Mahmoud would say:
I have put a note of my own in the Wall, begging that Argentina doesn’t win the World Cup.
10:22PM: Thousands attended a pro-Israel rally in Los Angeles yesterday, including Hollywood legends Jon Voight and Arnold Schwartznegger.
9:30PM: Quote of the day:
“Turkey has embraced the leaders of Iran and Hamas, all of whom called for Israel’s destruction,”
– Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren
8:15PM: Comparative photos of Gaza and the rest of the Muslim world.
Posted by a Syrian! (hat tip: LGF reader Joo-Liz and Israel Matzav)
7:00PM: The funniest thing you will see all day (honest).
6:12PM: Reuters have re-released the previously cropped photos (see 5:50AM and 9:50AM updates) to include the incriminating parts, as if nothing had happened.
No doubt after all of the complaints about their underhanded tactics came to light.
4:18PM: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has accused Turkish Republican People’s Party leader Kemal K?l?çdaro?lu of supporting Israel (I would only accuse him of having a bitch of a name to spell and pronounce).
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdo?an accused the main opposition leader Sunday of “advocating on behalf of Tel Aviv.”
Although Erdo?an did not give any names, arguing that he did not want to “promote them,” his remarks in the northwestern province of Bursa were clearly directed at Republican People’s Party, or CHP, leader Kemal K?l?çdaro?lu.
“Some people speak in the name of Tel Aviv, advocate for Tel Aviv,” Erdo?an said. “They question our way of diplomacy. The way you did things put us in this dire situation. As I said earlier, we do not work as the ‘mon cher’ diplomats do.”
Erdo?an said Turkey could not step aside since it has historical ties with the region and Jerusalem is a holy city for all three of the world’s largest monotheistic religions.
K?l?çdaro?lu had said Turkey should have made more diplomatic efforts for the Gaza aid flotilla, which was the target of a deadly attack by Israeli soldiers last week.
The CHP chief had also criticized Erdo?an for making a reference to the Torah and telling the Jewish people that their religion forbids murders. “Erdo?an uses the Ten Commandments as a tool,” he said. “But the eighth commandment says, ‘Thou shall not steal,’ what about that?” asked K?l?çdaro?lu, accusing the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, government of corruption.
Erdo?an was harsh in his response. “Thank God, I have read both the Torah and the Bible,” Erdo?an said Sunday. “I have read the Quran various times, he should read them. He should then talk to the people around him before making such comments.”
(hat tip: juvanaya)
4:06PM: British press marvels at Israel’s PR. I kid you not.
So either our PR has gotten better, or the British press is about as good as their dental care.
(I think it is a combination of the two).
1:50PM: From the Anti-Zionist-Not-Anti-Semitic-Yeah-Right Department:
Notice how this is a modern-looking woman and not someone who looks like this.
1:46PM: Hot on the heels of the report that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have expressed readiness to escort flotillas to Gaza, the Iranian Red Crescent has now decided to send two aid ships to Gaza this week.
9:50AM: Charles Johnson of LGF has found even more photo cropping, further suggesting deliberate media bias on the part of Reuters.
8:32AM: The Jerusalem Post adds:
According to IDF brass, the size of the unit and equipment it was carrying, indicate an intention of carrying out a large scale attack. Only the commandos’ quick, effective response prevented a disaster.
8:30AM: The Israeli navy has thwarted a terror attack, killing 4 terrorists in the process.
The Israeli Navy opened fire on an armed Palestinians wearing diving suits and apparently on their way to attack Israel targets, the IDF said on Monday morning.
An army source told Haaretz that at about 4:30 A.M., naval commandos identified and fired on a boat carrying five armed Palestinians heading north from waters off the Nuseirath refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Of course, the palestinians can always claim the palestinians were mere peace activists on a humanitarian mission, with the diving suits and weapons necessary to catch really big fish to feed the poor starving people of Gaza. Or something.
Gaza sources reported that four Palestinians were killed in what appears to have been a rare attempt at a seaborne attack on Israel. Hamas later confirmed the deaths and said a fifth Palestinian was missing.
Four bodies were retrieved and taken to a hospital in central Gaza, said Moawiya Hassanain, a Palestinian health official. Two of the dead had suffered multiple gunshots to the head, Hassanain said.
The IDF said there were no Israeli casualties.
An unnamed military official told Army Radio that the operation had been a success for the Navy’s elite commando unit, Shayetet 13, which has come under international scrutiny since killing nine pro-Palestinian activists in a raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla a week ago.
“This will be a shot in the arm for the commandos after the hard week they have been through,” the official said.
Poor choice of words if you ask me.
5:50AM: Charles Johnson of LGF notices something “interesting” about the Reuters version of the Turkish newspaper photo I posted yesterday.
5:48AM: Salafi Jihadi Sheikh Hussein Bin Mahmud, a pseudonymous cleric who is well respected in the online global jihadist community, had this to say about the Gaza flotilla.
“The Jews Have Become Less Rough and Violent than They Used to Be”
“Hundreds of troops from the navy of the Jews, with air support, mounted a coordinated assault on the ships in the flotilla, using bullets and gas, and killing several of the unarmed passengers; the rest they brought to Ashdod port in occupied Palestine…
“What drew my attention is that the Jews have become less rough and violent than they used to be. There was an aspect of softness and calm in their dealings with these ships. Some might express amazement at these words, but they are the truth…
“The Jews betrayed Moses… They killed many of the prophets, and especially Yahya bin Zakariya [i.e. John the Baptist]… They conspired to kill our Prophet Muhammad… They are hard of heart, feeble of mind, and lacking in manners. They are a people of deception, deceit, wickedness, unbelief, heresy, and polytheism.”
Hitler Left Some Jews Alive So the World Could See Why He Killed the Rest“Everyone who has had contact with them and lived alongside them, in the East and in the West, has spurned them, loathed them, and detested them, to the point where Hitler said: I could kill all the Jews in the world, but I left a few alive so that the entire world will know why I killed the Jews…
“Given that these are some of the Jews’ characteristics, what were the members of the Freedom Flotilla expecting from them?…
“Those people who have condemned the mujahideen’s… marytrdom operations, calling them ‘suicide operations,’ would do well to abandon the idea of flotillas like these, which are truly suicide in the full sense of the term.
“The Jews have been laying siege to the Muslims [in Gaza] for the past four years, and the entire world did nothing [about it] – do these [ship passengers] think that their being killed by the Jews will disturb a single fly[?]…
“The oddest thing about this flotilla was the Turkish people’s stance. We would have expected more from the Turkish people than what we saw. We know that most of the Arab peoples are dead, having been buried by their rulers in the coffins of poverty, desperation, humiliation, and oppression… But the Turkish people still has a shred of honor… and it still has some innate savagery.
“We would have expected [the Turks] to storm and burn down the Jewish embassies, chase down and kill all those within them, and kill every Jew in Turkey and threaten the rest of the Jews in the world with Turkish rage, in a manner reminiscent of the awe-inspiring Ottoman state. But none of this happened. Just a few hundred Turks stood in front of the Israeli Embassy chanting slogans and voicing condemnation – as though they were an Arab people, and not a Turkish one!…”
“How Does a Person Put His Life in the Hands of His Jewish Enemy When He Is Unarmed?”
“How does a person put his life in the hands of his Jewish enemy when he is unarmed? Do they expect mercy from the Jews? The Jews didn’t show mercy [even] to the prophets…
“Were the Turkish government serious in its response, the least that would have been incumbent on it would have been to act against the Jews according to the principle of retribution in kind: ordering Turkish fleets to attack the ships on the high seas, kill some of their men, imprison the others, and bring the ships into Turkish territory… [But in fact] the shari’a obligation is to declare jihad for the sake of Allah, in order to liberate Palestine from the hands of the Jews and return it to the hands of the Muslims. This is the shari’a obligation that no country that claims to be Muslim can evade…
“When has freedom ever been attained without fighting? When has honor ever been available for purchase in the market of betrayal and humiliation? When has glory ever been granted [to someone] apart from on the battlefield?…
“Gaza does not need all this media coverage… Gaza needs bombs, bullets, iron, fire, missiles, tanks, mines, and missile launchers held on the shoulders of lions such as [the Arab commanders in Chechnya] Thamir Al-Suweilem (‘Khattab’) and Abu Al-Walid Al-Ghamdi, Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi and Yahya Ayyash… It needs extraordinary leaders such as Osama bin Laden, Mullah Muhammad Omar, Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, and Shamil Basayev…”
“Gaza… Is Thirsty and Wants to Drink the Blood of the Sons of Apes and Pigs”
“Gaza will not agree to a ceasefire with the Jews. On the contrary – it is thirsty and wants to drink the blood of the sons of apes and pigs, and it is hungry and longs to devour the body parts of these cowards. Proud Gaza calls to the Muslims, [saying] that it does not want people to defend it, but rather wants people to set out from it to liberate Palestine and to expel the accursed Jews.
“Gaza does not want ‘freedom ships’ bearing blonde women with Muslim, Christian, Jewish, and atheist men; it wants a naval fleet and a land army [bearing] black Islamic banners that are Khorasani [i.e. Afghan], Syrian, Egyptian, Maghrebi, Yemeni, Turk, and Kurdish, set east of the Jordan River with the Jews to its west, with sparks flying from the eyes of the Muslims…
“Our problem is not Gaza, but [all] Palestine. [Our problem is with] those who protect the Jews from outside its borders, and prevent the mujahideen from entering Palestine to wage jihad for the sake of Allah and to liberate our holy lands. Thus, we say to the mujahideen: Those who want to enter Palestine and fight the Jews must start first [by fighting] the border guards [i.e. the Arab regimes], so as to protect their rear – because a wise man does not leave his rear exposed to his enemy. It is not forbidden to kill the Jewish state’s border guards, even if they pray and fast…”
******************************************************************************************
Want to learn how to shoot with top Israeli anti-terror experts? Click here for more details.
******************************************************************************************
