"Sheer Criminal Aggression" Israel's Attack on Gaza Flotilla Chomsky Says "No Credible Pretext"

Chomsky Exposes Israel's Crimes, Hear Facts the Media isn't making the public aware of. See Hope and Prospects http://tinyurl.com/hopesandprospects PASS VIDEO ON: Tinyurl.com/IsraeliCriminalAggression
Hijacking boats in international waters and killing passengers is, of course, a serious crime.  The editors of the London Guardian are quite right to say that "If an armed group of Somali pirates had yesterday boarded six vessels on the high seas, killing at least 10 passengers and injuring many more, a NATO taskforce would today be heading for the Somali coast." It is worth bearing in mind that the crime is nothing new. For decades, Israel has been hijacking boats in international waters between Cyprus and Lebanon, killing or kidnapping passengers, sometimes bringing them to prisons in Israel including secret prison/torture chambers, sometimes holding them as hostages for many years. Israel assumes that it can carry out such crimes with impunity because the US tolerates them and Europe generally follows the US lead. Much the same is true of Israel's pretext for its latest crime: that the Freedom Flotilla was bringing materials that could be used for bunkers for rockets.  Putting aside the absurdity, if Israel were interested in stopping Hamas rockets it knows exactly how to proceed: accept Hamas offers for a cease-fire.  In June 2008, Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire agreement.  The Israeli government formally acknowledges that until Israel broke the agreeement on November 4, invading Gaza and killing half a dozen Hamas activists, Hamas did not fire a single rocket. Hamas offered to renew the cease-fire.  The Israeli cabinet considered the offer and rejected it, preferring to launch its murderous and destructive Operation Cast Lead on December 27.  Evidently, there is no justification for the use of force "in self-defense" unless peaceful means have been exhausted.  In this case they were not even tried, although — or perhaps because—there was every reason to suppose that they would succeed.  Operation Cast Lead is therefore sheer criminal aggression, with no credible pretext, and the same is true of Israel's current resort to force. The siege of Gaza itself does not have the slightest credible pretext.  It was imposed by the US and Israel in January 2006 to punish Palestinians because they voted "the wrong way" in a free election, and it was sharply intensified in July 2007 when Hamas blocked a US-Israeli attempt to overthrow the elected government in a military coup, installing Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan.  The siege is savage and cruel, designed to keep the caged animals barely alive so as to fend off international protest, but hardly more than that.  It is the latest stage of long-standing Israeli plans, backed by the US, to separate Gaza from the West Bank. These are only the bare outlines of very ugly policies, in which Egypt is complicit as well.

BTW, the preceding statement was part of a longer interview for an Egyptian weekly which you can read online (see link below) BUT, the Egyptian weekly edited this out, Chomsky's mention of Egypt's complicity in Israel's crimes.
And largely the press in the US really isn't better than this. Along with the other topics he deals with, Chomsky writes about the press's poor performance in his latest book Hopes and Prospects. See the link in the video info.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565847032/ref=nosim/representativ-20
Link to the Egyptian weekly's Chomsky interview:
http://bit.ly/cN5v41
"One of the world's major intellectual voices and a leading critic of Israel, Noam Chomsky has sided with the powerless throughout his career, while at the same time reminding the powerful of the inconvenient truths they would rather forget. He spoke to David Tresilian in Paris."
http://tinyurl.com/hopesandprospects
PASS IT ON: http://tinyurl.com/IsraeliCriminalAggression

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[zeeshan55]

WTF is wrong is the US?! This is one of the many reasons everyelse h8 this country!

[Strefanasha]

well said, and i am glad to see this.

[MagicKirin]

@colincurwood

It was never the invented Palestinians. The Arab states lost a war of agression against tiny Israel.

You lose a war you lose something.

The Nazis are Chomsky and the Palestinians.

[bordereye]

@MagicKirin What a bunch of bollocks.

[Wassouf10]

@MommyPatriot fuck off then

[MagicKirin]

Chomsky is a disgrace to humanitry and a supporter of terrorism.

He is a liar and would have supported the Nazis during the Holocaust!

[colincurwood]

Zionists are no different to the Nazi Party Brown Shirts. No wonder they preach about the Nazi's so much, it's how they learnt their policies so very well. Zionists are only Facists by another name. They've already have the East Jerusalem Ghetto & steal their Muslim countrymen's homes & possessions. How long before they open the Concentration Camps? What's it going to take before the world leaders open their eyes to Zionist crimes against humanity & put an end to their vile filth?

[howiewillie]

Putting religion aside for a miute, After the horrific things done to the jewish people in ww2, How can you justify the crimes you are now commiting againsed the people living in the so called Gaza strip. Surely you must believe in some notion of "do onto others etc" . Wake up.

P.S i dont believe force will create change, In fact your actions are probably fuelling the fires you are trying to stop. SHAME ON YOU.

[MommyPatriot]

well, i WAS a subscriber...now i'm not...