Why does the second peace flotilla set Israel's nerves on edge?

The Israeli right wing government of 'Bibi' Netenyahu is getting 'jelly in the belly' as the day draws near for the second peace flotilla to set sail for Gaza.
GuamDiary has already signaled threats from the military, the banning of journalists, for example. Now to spice up its readiness to attack the peace flotilla, an IDF spokeswoman is dabbling is the black art of disinformation: says she, some of the peace activists are sheep in wolf's clothing: translation, they are armed with bottles of sulfuric acid to main, blind, or deeply scar any Israel special force who tries to stop the 10 ship flotilla.
Furthermore, a ship carrying the Swedish contingent and some Turkish participants, has been sabotaged, by having its propellors cut. It or another ship was discovered to have a pipe bomb which would have exploded and sunk the ship hours after it had left Greek ports. No one has claimed responsibility for these acts, but past behaviour by Israeli's Mossad cannot rule them out.
Additionally, a pro Israel 'Shurat ha-din Israel Law Centre has seized Greek government questioning the ships' permits and assurance, but the more immediate target is to stop the flotilla from ever leaving port, and if that fails delaying its departure as long as possible, tying organisers up in courts and draining coffers; not only the immediate target, it seems, is the American ship dubbed 'Audacity of hope' [an Obama book title] since Obama himself has warned the American peace activists to not participate in trying to run the 'illegal' Israel blockade of Gaza.
Are this handful of ships and peace activists from 10 countries so powerful as to rattle the pillars of the Zionist state? Surely Israel is no Samson shorn of his locks by a Daliah: in fact, it is the most armed state in the Middle East with a cache of 200 nuclear weapons, a military industry which earns it big shekels, protected by an even more powerful US. So why should a group of 'peaceniks' send it into a panic? And so unsettle an Israel who thinks nothing of smashing weak neighbours; steal Palestinian land, and occupy that land with its own settlers, to fulfill the programme of a Revisionist Zionist dream of a 'Greater Israel' from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River.
The short, simple answer is that the ground has shifted in the Arab world, and since 'Cast Lead' and the publication of the UN Human Rights Commission 'Goldstone Report', the imagine of Israel has greatly suffered, even though the Zionist state continues to strut around like the bully on the street.
The UN General Assembly will more likely than not vote to recognise Palestine in its upcoming session thereby upsetting Israel's plans of mice and men. And that may very well example why Israel is running scared!

Netenyahu reverses ban on journalists nabbed on peace flottila, whilst his military prepare for confrontation by blaming the peace activists

Bowing to the international clamour raised by Israel's threat to ban for 10 years any journalist caught on the 10 ship second peace flotilla setting sail for Gaza, Israeli premier Netenyahu hid behind 'oh I didn't know what lower level subordinates were doing'. [Wink, wink, wink!]
Israel says that it does not fear the power of the international press, but the right wing, revisionist Zionist leader's action belies his country's prickliness and bad behaviour. Israel doesn't need bad press as it ramps up its own military threats and propaganda smearing the second wave of peace activists from 10 or more countries braving its allegedly legal blockade of Gaza. At the same time, the Zionist state's military has warned these activists that any harm suffered by Israeli forces transgressing international law of the seas and engaging in piracy in the open Mediterranean have only themselves to blame.
Israel feels that it has given fair warning to its threats of aggression and won't hesitate to attack this flotilla like it did the one last year where it killed nine people bringing medical supplies, food, and much needed building materials to Israel 'Cast Led' ravaged Gaza and the collectively punished Palestinians living there.
Already the US president Obama has signaled that he won't do anything to stop Israel's plans which certainly may entail American casualties. So Israel's protector pro consul America has given Netenyahu the green light if he thought he needed any!

Trying to put a pretty face on an ugly reality in Gaza

Ethan Bronner's 'Building boom in Gaza's ruins belies misery that remains', which appeared in the Saturday 25 June 2011 online edition is the latest in an exercise to hide the ugly reality in Gaza two and a half years after Israel's 'Cast Led'. Although some rebuilding is going on: Bronner spotlights two new hotels with Israeli made escalators and some homes and schools to erase the thousands of homes not built, the ravaged infrastructures, the bombed out hospitals and mosques, the absence of medical supplies which the Israeli blockade denies, the high unemployment, the 'no exit' sign in education when Palestinian students cannot go abroad to study, the stacking of the 1.3 million Palestinians in 'stalag' conditions reminiscent Nazi prisoner of war camps--data found in the body of Bronner's 'belies misery' big lie reporting.
The article's second paragraph gives away this exercise in Israeli propaganda: the fear the specter of the 10 ship Peace Flotilla soon heading to brave the Israeli imposed blockade of the Gaza Strip since its people democratically elected Hamas to govern them three years ago. Bronner's thrust is to highlight the falsity of the peace activists' claims that Israel is denying aid and the free flow of material to come into Gaza to rebuild the Strip after the Zionist's illegal blitzkrieg called 'Cast Lead' in a 22 day war 30 months ago.
Reality trumps Bronner's misinformation, the snail pacing of Gaza's emerging out of the ruins of a war that Israel used to rain down collective punishment on the People of Gaza for exercising their democratic rights in electing a government of their own choice!

Israel will attack and fire on the 10 ship Peace Flotilla

Israel's warning that it will ban any journalist caught aboard the 10 ship Peace Flotilla set to sail for Gaza will not only have his or her equipment, notes & the like confiscated but equally banned from the Zionist state for 10 years is the clearest indication that it is preparing to attack militarily and with live fire this year's attempt to brave its blockade of Gaza in the same way it did the 'Mavi Mamara' one year ago, leaving nine dead. And fie on the international laws on the sea and hijacking and piracy!
The US department of state has also 'warned' its citizens sailing on the 'Audacity of Hope', carrying letters to Palestinians, to cease and desist in their efforts. [See GuamDiary's entry on Obama's warning...] In fact, the ship named after president Obama's second book, may not leave Greece, for the debt ridden nation is under severe pressure by the US and Israel to keep this ship and others in port.
There is something unsatisfying in the American and Zionist state's attempt to make the waves of the sea stand still.
Israel thinks of itself as a law unto itself. Its past behaviour shows that it does not care a fig as to what the world thinks of it. It will kill with impunity and know that its allies won't challenge it and that its enemies should it defy it will become victims of black Mossad operations, open war, and much worse. In brief, Israel is a thug nation. Yet, time is running out for its brutality, and the mere presence of 10 ships with peace activists can set its teeth on edge, resulting in outright piracy and perhaps murder, is a strong sign of its craven and cowardly character.
As for the weak kneed Obama, what is he going to do should Israeli commandos wound, maim, or kill American citizens aboard the 'Audacity of Hope'? A man of high principle but little action won't do 'squart', and that is what the mad dog Likud prime minister is counting on, alas.
Yet the tide is turning against Israel no matter what.

Shalit & 7000 Palestinian prisoners

On year five of his capture, the Israeli is churning up its propaganda mills to tar and feather Hamas for refusing to negotiate the release of Gilad Shalit, a 'Tsahal' or IDF staff sargent now 24.
Germany, acting as a go between between the right wing Likud led government and Hamas, reported that there was no progress in trying to gain Shalit's freedom.
Little wonder. Stuck in the Zionist state's caw is Shalit in the hands of his captors. Shalit has become a poster boy fanning the flames of nationalism. You have to wonder how the much touted 'democratic', mini super armed, agressive Israel, renowed for its Shin Bet and Mossad [equivalent to MI-5 and MI-6] could not find Shalit during the short 'mad dog' 22 day war it dubbed 'Cast Led', which left the Gaza strip with a heavy civilian toll, destroying homes, factories, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, not to forget targeting agriculture, a single hair of Shalit's presence.
For all its braggadacio, in this instance the Zionist state looks as though it is a 'hapless, helpless giant'. And Shalit is not the only Israeli to remain a prisoner at the hands of Israel's enemies. In this case, as in the words of the Vietnamese general and hero of Dienbienphu, Israel's behavious can best be summed up as 'elephants trying to stamp out ants'!
Israel has built a case of Hamas' violating international law and Shalit's human rights, but it banishes any thoughts of its own transgressions and defiance of its own and international laws.
Hamas would be willing to release Shalit in exchange of the 7000 Palestinians, the majority of whom the Israeli military have rounded up on the merest pretext, in order for the Zionist state to continue occupying Palestinian lands, dispossessing Palestinians for its own uses and implanting illegal settlers, all contrary to the laws and norms of civilised nations' behaviour.
Israel has hoisted its own racialist petard. And unless it is willing to let go Palestinian prisoners, Shalit will remain in capitivity. In its own calculus one Israeli is worth thousands of Palestinians, but Israel acts as a law unto itself and as such it maintains Shalit as prisoner as an act of racial pride.

Obama warns US peace activists to not join the Peace Flotilla running the Israeli blockade of Gaza

US president Barack Obama has called on the 50 or so US peace activists, sailing on its voyage dubbed 'Audacity of Hope' [the title of Obama's second book] as part of the 10 ship cavalcade of vessels forming the Peace Flotilla to run Israel's blockade of Gaza.
As GuamDiary already commented, the Israeli naval authority had called up the flotilla to cease and desist otherwise the Zionist state would deal with any means necessary, and in violation of international law and freedom of the seas, as it did last year's Peace Flotilla resulting in the killing of 8 Turks and one Turkish American on the 'Mavi Mamara'.
GuamDiary wonders why the US president did not issue a stern verbal warning to Israel to refrain from using weapons against the flotilla? And what's more, why he has not sent a no nonsense, strongly written letter to its prime minister 'Bibi' Netenyahu that should a US activist suffer injury or death, the US would react strongly and with sanctions?
As far as we know, the death of the American citizen of Turkish origins has fallen through the cracks, and the US limply protested it without any threat of or use of penalties.
At this stage of his presidency Obama should know Israel is a loose cannon who fancies itself as a law unto its own. It only understands one thing: force. The US has it in its power to cut off all military and economic aid it so lavishes on the Zionist state as Eisenhower did to Ben Gurion during the Suez crisis. In 1956, the Zionist state was brought to heel?
Has Obama the backbone of an Eisenhower?

A lost war, a lost book, a lost writer...Richard E. Kim

Penguin Classics has recently brought back to the public eye Richard Kim first and highly acclaimed novel 'The Martyred'.
After being rejected by a dozen or so publishers. George Braziller picked it up for publication in 1964.
And then the fireworks of celebration began: the novel was an instant success and stayed on the 'New York Times Best Sellers List' for almost a half year. Nominated for a National Book Award, it was quickly translated into 14 languages.
Kim dedicated his first born literary effort to Albert Camus. The French Nobel prize winner for literature's spirit is discernible in 'The Martyred', but the genius of the tale of the whys and wherefores of the killing of 13 Christian ministers in North Korea before the US UN led troops hasty withdrawal to the 38 parallel when Chinese volunteers entered the fray, is 'sui generis' Kim. The narrative goes beyond war and examines with shining brilliance the human condition of loyalty and betrayal and the grey shadows of existence.
Critics of the day, and even now, hailed Kim as a Korean Camus and some as a Korean Dostoyevsky. Among those praising Kim was the British writer Graham Greene.
In 1968 followed his second novel 'The Innocent', and in 1970 'Lost names: scenes from a Korean boyhood', which University of California press put out a 40 anniversary issue. And then silence.

On 23 June 2011 at its Thursday evening book chat, the New York Korean Society invited the Korean American writer Susan Choi to discuss the re released 'The Martyred', as part of its year long commemoration of the 60 anniversary of the Korean War, which remains until now without a final resolution, but frozen in place by a 1953 armistice agreement. Among the attendees were Kim's widow Penelope, his sister, brother in law, and niece and his son David.
The choice of Choi as speaker was both a fortunate and unfortunate choice. Penguin classics had invited her to write forward to 'The Martyred'. She [born in 1969] spoke of how her generation's complete ignorance of Kim as a writer, the especially since the rise of feminism and ethnic studies cut the cloth of the day according to gender and the micro examination of one's ethnic navel. The day went to, say, a Maxime Hong Kingston and an Amy Tan than to a male writer and to writing of the suffering and the marginalisation of the Asian in America. And her late discovery of Kim stressed the void of a generation's neglect of one of its great writers and a missing part of a literary heritage.
Choi spoke rapturously of Kim as a writer but owing to her own admitted ignorance of the man had little else to say.
And then the spotlight during the question & answer time shone of Mme. Penelope Kim: she lifted with a generosity the veil on her husband's silence and his life and the debt Korean let alone American literature owes this gifted man.
Not only did he teach but had turned literary agent, he was able to get the South Korean government to honour copyright and royalties on books translated into Korea; he recorded hours and hours of talks on Korean television and radio; and what's more he followed the lives of the Korean diaspora in the former Soviet Central Asia. In fact, two novels of his, written in Korean, remain untranslated: one relates the story of Koreans in Siberia.
Born into a Christian family of some means in Hamheung in today's North Korea, Kim's family fled South, losing land and moderate wealth, but never the stark memories of exile. For Kim, it was a double forced removal, one by the Japanese colonizer and second by the Communists. Until his death, he remained anti Communist and although he could as an American citizen never returned to where he was born.
And yet, his own 'silence' may also contributed to his reputation's falling through the cracks. Many university libraries have withdrawn his books from their collections, save possibly 'Lost Names'. That book is more widely read in secondary schools, it seems. Public libraries have no loanable copies.
The re release by Penguin Classics of 'The Martyred' should refurbish Kim's neglected reputation as a significant but minor 20 century writer. Its publication should go beyond US borders, thereby permitting a newer and younger public worldwide the opportunity and the pleasure of getting to know Kim. Will his second novel 'The Innocent' which deals with the Colonels coup in 1960 which brought Park Chung Hee to power be re released? There is a market for it: the sudden interest among scholars and the US Korean clerisy's nostalgia for dusting off and rescuing the dictator's reputation should be a factor in its republication.
Again the Korea Society has done a good deed. However, the evening would have been more lively had it tried to have Choi interview Mme Kim, and thus broader our horizons and our understanding of Kim the writer, the husband, the father, and the man.
Saying this, Kim wrote of the Korean War. In the US, it is called 'the forgotten war' and for the plain and simple reason, it is a war that has never ended. It, too, has fallen from the US imagination and experience and lack of political will to ending it with a peace treaty. It is a deep and open wound for the US, South and North Korea, a psychological scar which runs perhaps to the heart of Kim's 'The Martyred'.
['The Martyred' is available in e book format and in hard copy. GuamDiary strongly recommends it.]