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The Great Thread of HATE
It's very entertaining.
I am sure you would not find it very entertaining if you were on the receiving side of it. Sitting in the lap of luxury, everything looks entertaining.
LOOK AT THE TAG OF THE THREAD.
Deserve a reporting
That woman is totally the bravest person alive. I had held my breath for I totally though those soldiers will shoot her down.Isreal reasling there own video and saying. They were terrorist who attacked us. They were rented soldiers. Al qaida members blabla. We acted in self defence. MUST WATCH
YouTube - Israel Soldier _Palestine Girl
---------- Post added at 07:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:55 PM ----------
sorry forget to tell Isrelies used paintball guns lol.
That woman is totally the bravest person alive. I had held my breath for I totally though those soldiers will shoot her down.
"Stop can't you see you're shooting at kids?"
Must find out the name of that woman. She deserves to be told what a hero she is.
Via Juan Cole comes this video of a Palestinian women from the U.S. putting her life on the line by standing up to the Israeli army firing (what are likely but not necessarily rubber bullets) at demonstrating Palestinian adolescents.
The woman is being identified as peace activist Huwaida Arraf. As BFP notes, it’s unclear when this video was taken — during the current attack on Gaza, or earlier last year — but I agree with her that it speaks volumes, as do her repeated statements of the obvious: “you’re shooting at kids.”
I think that one comment at Juan Cole’s summed up my reaction well:
What strikes me in this is how casual the soldiers are as the aim and prepare to fire. Clearly they are in no imminent danger — as they are being confronted by the brave girl, they are not taking cover behind rocks or barriers. They are standing in the open, up straight, on top of a rock in one case, and carefully taking aim to fire at the demonstrators. Their body language is clear — they are not afraid for their own well-being. And yet, absent this girl’s intervention, they seem to have no reservation about casually firing into a crowd that poses no threat to them.
Another commenter asks how she was just allowed to get away with pushing down a soldier’s gun and standing in front of it (and whether she actually did once the camera went away): the camera, her sex, her accent/nationality, her English?
It’s a good question, and the answer is unclear. But I’m still moved and astounded by her bravery, and I just had to share.
Huwaida Arraf (born 1976 in Detroit, Michigan) is a Palestinian-rights activist and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led organization focused on assisting the Palestinian side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict using nonviolent protests. Arraf is married to Adam Shapiro, another ISM co-founder, whom she met while both were working at the Jerusalem center of Seeds of Peace, an organization that seeks to foster dialogue between Jewish and Palestinian youth.
Arraf, who is Christian, is the daughter of a Palestinian mother and father. Her father has Israeli citizenship. Her parents moved from the West Bank to be able to raise Arraf away from the violence there. She and her parents were able to visit Palestine every few years until Arraf was ten years old.[1] Arraf majored in Arabic and Judaic studies and political science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She also spent a year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and studied Hebrew on a kibbutz.[2] Arraf later earned a J.D. at American University's Washington College of Law. Her focus was on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, with a particular interest in war crimes prosecution.
She currently chairs the Free Gaza Movement,[3] the organization behind the Gaza Freedom Flotilla - a caravan of ships carrying Pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid that was organized to break Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. The flotilla was raided by Israeli commandos on May 31, 2010.[4]
At the time of the raid, Arraf was aboard the Challenger 1, the largest ship of the flotilla.[4] On Thursday, 3 June 2010, she provided her version of the events on Challenger 1 in an interview on Democracy Now.[5]
Huwaida Arraf, a leader of the Free Gaza Movement, which organized the flotilla, denounced Netanyahu's claims as "another pack of lies."
Arraf, who was on board the Marmara, said that all passengers had been screened for weapons, and that partners in the mission, including the Turkish aid group IHH, had agreed not to bring weapons on board.
"No one was allowed to board the ship with any weapons. Every ship has one or two knives for the captains' use. So on a big ship that holds 1,060 people, certainly knives are not out of the ordinary," she said. She said it was possible that Israel had doctored the videos it has released.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
What happened? That's the big question today after yesterday's violence in the Eastern Mediterranean when a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip attempted to defy an Israeli blockade. While the six ships were in international waters, Israeli commandos repelled from helicopters onto their decks.
On one ship, the Marmara, fighting broke out. Nine passengers were killed and several dozen people injured. Huwaida Arraf is an American activist with the Free Gaza movement and she helped organize the flotilla. She was on one of the boats, the Challenger One, and described for us what she saw.
Ms. HUWAIDA ARRAF (Activist, Free Gaza Movement): Midway, about a hundred miles (technical difficulties) of Gaza, the Israeli Navy started radioing us and threatening us, (technical difficulties) that we turn back. And we kept letting them know, we let them know the name of our vessel, whos captaining it and that we are unarmed, we constitute no threat. I could see them first descend upon the Turkish ship that was carrying about 570 passengers from 40 different countries.
And they were firing something. We just heard explosions. And I saw people from that ship using water hoses to try to keep the soldiers away. We kept going until finally they overtook us and they fired concussion grenades onto our ship. They used tasers to subdue people and then they hopped on.
We tried to use our bodies to keep them off, urging them, telling them, we're on an American flagship, we carry no weapons, we are unarmed, don't use violence. But one girl ended up with a bloody face. They smashed my head against the ground, then tied me up and put a mask over my head. (technical difficulties) and took it to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
SIEGEL: I want to ask you to respond to what Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said. He said, unfortunately these people - he means you and the others who were on the ships, wanted a confrontation and they charged our blockade. Is that a different but a reasonable interpretation of what happened or not?
Ms. ARRAF: We did not want a confrontation. The thing that we wanted was to make it safely to the Gaza (technical difficulties). We reiterated over and over again that we are unarmed and urging Israel (technical difficulties). However, we knew that that was a possibility.
SIEGEL: You described how the people on the ship you were aboard, the Challenger One, you tried to use your bodies to keep the Israeli commandos off the ship. On the Turkish flag vessel, it appears that there were people aboard who were armed at least with sticks and knives. Is that a misrepresentation or are you surprised by the, let's say, less than passive resistance, less than civil disobedience that was exhibited elsewhere in the flotilla?
Ms. ARRAF: I, what I know, we had agreed with the coalition that we are not going to use any violence. However, I can't guarantee or say that some people didn't try to fight back. But we didn't have any guns. And I know that's because even when I myself at one point had to transfer to the Turkish ship because our ship was having mechanical problems. As soon as we entered, they took us to the side, checked us to make sure that we were not carrying weapons.
SIEGEL: Will the Free Gaza movement repeat this? That is, will you have more ships loaded with more supplies intended for Gaza, attempt to do the same thing and run the risk of a similar interception by the Israelis?
Ms. ARRAF: Well, that is not out of the question. We had one ship that was delayed. And this is the motor vessel, Rachel Corrie, which is a cargo ship that was prepared by the people of Ireland. And that is still making its way. We are assessing now in the wake of, you know, Israel's violent attack and the loss of life, what we can do.
But we at the Free Gaza movement don't believe that we can back down to this kind of violence because the violence perpetrated against the Palestinian people is a thousand times worse. And if we don't do something about it, we would be turning our backs on modern day crimes against humanity.
SIEGEL: Huwaida Arraf, thank you very much for talking with us today.
Ms. ARRAF: Thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: Huwaida Arraf is an organizer of the flotilla that attempted to deliver aid to Gaza.