Meeting in Worcester tonight, at which Ebrahim Musaji will be speaking. Ebrahim was on board the Gaza aid flotilla. [1] Also on board was the Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell (I must admit that I’d never heard of him until recently), who called a spade a spade: “I think the Israeli military went out to commit murder”. [2] The Guardian pathetically referred to an ‘alleged attack’ despite also quoting Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns and operations at Palestine Solidarity Campaign: “There were bullets flying all over the place. We asked for the Israelis to stop the attacks…It was terrifying…If you talked they pointed a gun at you.” [3]
Not content with implying that the flotilla activists were to blame for being attacked, the BBC – or should I say Jonathan Marcus – wrote that “the deaths threaten to make what was always going to be a potential public relations disaster for Israel into a fully-fledged calamity”. [4] John Pilger wrote soon afterwards that “The BBC was so intimidated that it reported the atrocity primarily as a “potential public relations disaster for Israel”, the perspective of the killers, and a disgrace for journalism.” [5] I wrote to Jonathan Marcus about his ‘bad PR’ report and he replied that he has ‘a responsibility to be as fair as I possibly can in what I write’. If I had a pound for every time I’d read that line from a BBC journalist I’d have enough to pay for a 10,000 tonne flotilla myself.
Last word goes to Sarah Colborne:
“We are hoping that the horrific deaths of the people will not be in vain. We are hoping this will act as a wake up call internationally…We can’t sit by and watch Israel violate international law every day. We want the British government to take action, ensure there is no future attacks on humanitarian aid convoys, to ensure there is a search carried out for those that remain missing, to ensure that those people who have been detained illegally will be released and most importantly to end the siege of Gaza.”
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/8715373.stm
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/gaza-flotilla-attack-henning-mankell
[3] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/british-survivor-gaza-flotilla
[4] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10198737.stm