Culpeper Star-Exponent · 15 June 2010

CP-2010-026

Discerning what occurred May 31 onboard the Mavi Marmara

J. Michael Sharman

Scan 860 × 421 pixels

Transcribed from the clipping

Sometimes at night, when the sea is still, you can hear voices coming across the water from a long way off. But when clouds block out the starlight, one can only guess at what is actually occurring by piecing together bits of overheard conversations.

Perhaps that is how we can discern what happened May 31, when nine people were killed after the Israeli Defense Force boarded the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was attempting to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

Al-Jazeera TV filmed onboard the Mavi Marmara May 29, before the Gaza flotilla confronted the Israeli IDF: Passengers shouting: “[Remember] Khaibar, Khaibar, oh Jews!” (Khaibar is the name of the last Jewish village defeated by Muhammad’s army, and it marked the end of the Jewish presence in Arabia in 628.)

Female passenger: “Right now we face one of two happy endings: either Martyrdom or reaching Gaza.” Another report done before the confrontation was posted on the Al-Jazeera website May 29: “The flotilla includes hundreds of Arab and foreign solidarity activists from more than 40 countries. ...

They have announced their determination to use Mukawama to any attempt at piracy by the Israeli occupation.” Mukawama is the Arabic term used by Palestinians to refer to all violent resistance against Israel, including suicide terror.

The voices of the Israeli IDF commandos as they were boarding the Mavi Marmara can be heard in a released IDF video clip : “I need reinforcements here with me” “He wants to pass underneath” “Wait, one is in front of me” “It’s coming from all directions” “We need to be evacuated, now!” “Tell him that he’s close already” “Real weapons, real weapons!” “They have real weapons?”

“Yes, yes, real weapons” “They are firing on us” “There is live fire below” “Live fire below” “Live fire here” “Shoot him where is he?” “Negative” One of the soldiers told the Israeli media outlet Ynetnews, “After every person came down [from the helicopter] three or four guys grabbed a hold of him and simply beat him senseless. They lynched us.

They were equipped with metal bats, knives, slingshots and glass bottles. At some point we faced live fire by two guys. They simply came for war. We came to talk to them, convince them to come down, yet with every person who came down, they simply charged.” Another IDF commando told journalists, “I was armed with a paint gun and had no other weapons.

It was a civilian paintball gun that any 12-year-old can play with.” After the shootings, one passenger/activist told a news videographer with Press TV he had been on a previous attempt to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza; he was on the Mavi Marmara flotilla, and he planned to be on another attempt. “When I went on the first convoy, I wanted to be a Shahid (a martyr).

I wasn’t that lucky. Second time, I wanted to be a Shahid. Didn’t work. Third time lucky, with the help of Allah, I will be a Shahid.”

How this transcription was made

Read from the scan by a machine looking at the image of the page, not by optical character recognition and not by a person. The clipping carries no masthead and no dated folio line, so the date recorded here could not be checked against anything printed on the page. Nothing on the page contradicts it.

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