Clegg speaks out on Gaza flotilla crisis
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has called on Israel to lift its “unjustifiable and untenable” blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Mr Clegg said that the storming by Israeli commandos of a ship carrying aid to the Palestinian territory underlined the need for the blockade to end.
The United Nations Security Council called for a “prompt, impartial, credible and transparent” investigation into the raid, which left at least nine civilians dead and more than 30 people injured, including one Briton, according to the Foreign Office.
Mr Clegg said the situation in Gaza had become a “humanitarian catastrophe”. He said: “Whilst, of course, Israel has every right to defend itself and its citizens from any attack, it must now move towards lifting the blockade in Gaza as soon as possible.”
Find the full press release here.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1528
Endometriosis and acetylation
Reform makes first gain from Conservatives in this by-election cycle
How Chancellor Reeves torpedoed the economy
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
cim
Iain Donaldson
Jennie
Simon
Geoff Reid
37 Comments
This is a good first step from Nick, but the Party needs to give voice to the public disgust, including from many who would regard themselves as friends of Israel.
At the very least, there needs to be a full, independent and credible inquiry into this act of piracy.
Sanctions to be imposed on the Israeli Government until the blockade is lifted would also now be entirely fair, if still a weak and disproportionate response to actions that constitute state-sponsored terrorism, amid Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of those people of Gaza it has not already murdered.
I agree with Gareth!
the press release says nothing about Clegg just Hague
Jewish based media has been in full operation today. SKY News is more like the Israeli Information office.
Fox News chose to ignore the event for almost the entire day and only mentioned it with a report of a ‘terrorist ship’ being intercepted by israel.
One wonders what would have been the response with 10 Israeli dead instead of ten innocent people.
Why are the UK government not demanding the immediate release of our citizens, who have been kidnapped by a rogue country whilst in International waters and being held in the gaol of a hostile country.
This is a good first step from Nick, b
Which public disgust? There were only a couple of handfuls of the usual suspects last night on protests. The whole of Operation Cast Lead was a good Saturday night in the Congo Basin, but where are the protests for that? Where was the “public disgust” following the abductions of Robert Park and Linda Ling and Euna Lee?
If “public disgust” can ignore that, it should be dismissed as morally bankrupt.
This absolutely is the point – the obsessive interest in a regional conflict at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, in which one side is subject to unassailable levels of proof. Peace protestors do not attack soldiers with knives or pull them off ropes (whilst their guns are holstered) and beat them with metal poles or throw them over 30 foot drops.
If these zealots are to be considered humanitarian activists, then it does not bode well for genuine aid workers against much more brutal militaries.
Israel does not need your or my permission to exist, any more than Bosnia or South Korea does.
I’m going to assume that you didn’t just equate anything Jewish with Israeli, and therefore inherently politically compromised.
Dýou not think Israelis are innocent? As I said above, the crew-members initiated this with violent assaults on the troops. That they were not using firearms [initially at least] does not make them unarmed.
Four of the five ships on the flotilla agreed to dock at Ashdod. This one didn’t.
Whilst they were expressing their intention to enter Gazan waters. The principle of hot-pursuit exists, entitling State forces to pursue targets into international waters.
It should be perfectly possible to consider this operation to have been grossly misjudged (not least because the troops went in with their principal weapons being paint-ball guns), but desist presenting the crew-members are peaceful aid-workers. they weren’t.
The link “Find the full press release here.” no longer goes to the full Clegg press release but to some generic Press Association press release?
Can someone investigate please?
It’s important that the full press release is aired here.
“Jewish based media has been in full operation today….” and has now clearly moved onto libdemvoice in the shape of the ranting kehaar…
And this one really would be hilarious if it wasn’t all so tragically appalling:
“…not least because the troops went in with their principal weapons being paint-ball guns” –
Lol! Are they taking the p*ss?
http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/a-special-place-in-hell/a-special-place-in-hell-the-second-gaza-war-israel-lost-at-sea-1.293246
There’s a good piece from Haaretz which describes the continue enforcement of the Blockade as becoming Israel’s Vietnam. Setting aside the questions of scale, this has legs ‘cos despite the horribleness of the NVC, the USA was not fighting a good war… she retained military superiority, but was loosing the political battle. And, after withdrawing, quickly recovered.
Yet, it should also be remembered that Israel made a full withdrawal from Gaza, only to be attacked again and again. The howls of indignation coming now are not coming from “pro-Palestinian activists” but from anti-Israel actists who latch onto the most violent group which, in itself, the bigger oppressor of Palestinian Arabs.
When, for instance, Hamas stole UN aid supplies, their rationale was to ensure it passed to their supporters and not their Fat’h opponents. They couldn’t quite grasp the concept that it was for all.
Thankfully, the Daily Mash understands.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/israel-just-making-it-easier-for-guardian-readers-to-look-good.-201006012778/
I’m not Jewish (not that I’d have any objection to being mistaken as such).
Not the sort you’d get on a weekend trip in Hereford, but less lethal even than rubber bullets. The Navy command clearly was not expecting violent resistence, so sent the Commandos as if for crowd control (but Commandos were needed for a helicopter drop): it took half an hour before they were given permission to use their firearms.
Observe the video footage. Commandos immediately engaged in unarmed combat. If they were prepared to use firearms, why would they have done that?
Oh, I get you now Kehaar – it’s all your, er, somewhat marginal sense of humour…
Kehaar, allow me to let you into a secret … The Daily Mash, excellent though it undoubtedly is, is a spoof … it’s meant to be a joke … bit like the two Johns on Bremner, Bird and Fortune – geddit?
I promise not to tell anyone that you didn’t realise that – it would make you look every inch the saddo you undoubtedly are.
Nick Clegg’s comments appear to have been wiped from every source I can find – except this one.
I think I was right when I suggested our media and perhaps our government is being run from Tel Aviv !
Kirsten, spoofs and parodies have – in theory, at least – germs of truth in them. There’s no point in responding to your attempt to present me as a credulous fool who thinks the Daily Mash is serious.
Now, d’you want to continue the discussion about what the men of Shayatet-13 were carrying?
Quick, emergency procedures! A little girl has lost faith in democracy… no, sorry… that’s The Simpsons.
It was a coffee-up-nostril moment when I saw Seth Freedman mitigating the IDF.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/01/israel-no-choice-gaza-flotilla
Oh no! Not the Jewish Conspiracy again! We’ll be getting the Elders of Zion next!
it is too late to issue any thing now,,,all European were released today apart of the British, it seems the British government is involved with the Israeli somehow, I feel disgusted by the british government response to barbaric act of Israel but i feel even more disgusted to have voted for the Lib dems
C4 News has just confirmed my comments about paint-ball guns.
Your motivations for voting LibDem should have concerned the economic and social welfare of *this* country. If your support is on such shaky ground that it vanishes on one minor foreign event, it wasn’t much in the first place.
Mods, I really can’t see the point in allowing every Internet kook the chance to air their anti-Israel or anti-Palestine grievances and/or conspiracy theories here. It doesn’t promote rational discussion at all. Frankly the useful contributions have been drowned out by the usual hysterical cobblers served up by some notable usual suspects. And it probably doesn’t do Lib Dems any favours if someone passed by looking to find out what Lib Dem thinking is, only to be confronted by this sort of tosh.
I concur Kehaar. Channel Four News had an expert on reviewing the Israeli footage of the landings on the principal vessel and the Israeli marines were obviously carrying large paint ball guns. The suggestion was that when they were attacked the Israeli marines replied with their pistols. Hence the deaths. It appears that the other ships were escorted peacefully into an Israeli port.
>Sanctions to be imposed on the Israeli Government until the blockade is lifted
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is appalling. But the only trouble is, it’s not just food and cuddly toys that would flood in if the blockade was lifted. Hamas would see it as a victory and bring in even more weapons than they do now.
If a neighbouring country was firing rockets at me, I’d want a blockade. But if a neighbouring country was stopping vital supplies reaching me, I might be in favour of those rockets.
There aren’t any easy answers here and taking sides or resorting to tired-old insults about ‘Jewish-based media’ (while elsewhere, anyone criticising Israel is deemed ‘anti-semitic) doesn’t help anything.
@ Paul McKeown
I completely agree.
@ Cassie
I completely agree.
I do find it rather weird that Clegg’s comments and picture have disappeared from that PA piece – he didn’t say anything that was out of line with what for example Hague said yesterday!
Kehaar what are you talking about!!! what foreign event….i am talking about 42 British citizen are detained one of them is hurt by Israeli army in international water….is this foreign event????? most hostages have been released,, where are the British!!!
@Ronnie, a situation they elected to enter. If I went to Bombay, I would drink bottled water. If I went to St Petersburg, I would watch my wallet. If trekking in the Andes, I would take out travel insurance. That anyone would expect to sally forth into an active conflict zone unhindered indicates how little they care about both sides… this is not a computer game which can be reset when something goes wrong.
@Cassie, although I agree in principle, staples are not an issue in Gaza. Here are shops in a down-at-heel but functioning metropolis. Children’s toys are, being frank, not basic items and if the Gazans are to get unhindered access, their Government should find a permanent peace with Israel and drop all the religiously-mandated genocidal stuff in its Charter (if Hamas is the democratically elected Government of Gaza, then the legal issue of tort applies with regards to Israel’s response).
@MacK Although Jon Snow didn’t acquit himself by trying to lead the security expert on questions about attacks in “international waters”. If we’re being picky about legality, the flotilla had announced its intention to enter Gazan waters (and was evading ISN ships): the principle of hot pursuit allows state forces to enter the high seas.
It is a total lie that Israel commandos met armed resistance (which included knives, slingshots, etc), bare in mind that when this news was circulated (by Israeli PR) no witnesses had spoken to the media or at least had not got over the shock of this pirate like attack on their convoy in International waters (which happens to be illegal).
Now, witnesses have come forward and spoken about their experience and boy do they tell a different story. The following quote I took from BBC website (and a link to this is provided at the end) from Norman Paech a German pro-Palestinian activist, he was on board one of the ships, he said:
“German pro-Palestinian activist Norman Paech said he had only seen wooden sticks being brandished as troops abseiled on to the deck of the ship. Personally I saw two-and-a-half wooden batons that were used… There was really nothing else. We never saw any knives. This was an attack in international waters on a peaceful mission… This was a clear act of piracy,” he added.
To me its very clear, Israel has a habit of confusing reality with ‘information over-flow’ where many different versions of the same story are talked about by many different people from one side, this then conflicts with the real story and leaves the view totally confused hence less attention is given to the story over all. This is exactly what Israel PR and spokes-people have been saying. I could swear when I was monitoring this story as it happened (and monitored it for another six hours or so) I could have wrote down 6 to 8 different stories which was told by Israel spokes-person.
The fact of the matter is this – Israel has committed a crime on many fronts not to mention the choking of the entire Palestinian population, the information black-out, the killing of innocent Palestinians – activists and many more, Israel has conducting crime on a mass scale and now it needs to answer to the world. Israel cannot handle responsibility and has no justice but a state ruled with mobs, murderers and terrorists.
You should tell that to the Turkish camera crews which filmed just that!
Are you using a computer with an Intel chip? I hope not, considering it comes from the Israeli side of research.
Isn’t it extraordinary how short term our discussions have become? I wonder if the defenders of Israel’s actions in this discussion ever think of the bigger, longer term picture?
We’re talking here about a country who’s been engaged in wholesale bullying for half a century – I am, of course, talking about the UsofA and specifically their 51st state – Israel. And, like father like son, Israel is just as accomplished at bullying.
The carving up of the Palestinian territory in the first place was hardly ‘consensual’ – I doubt that many Palestinians thought it a great idea. Then came the ever expanding occupied territories, hundreds of illegal settlements, land grabs, routine intimidation and discrimination, grotesque wall building, wholesale bombing, killing and destruction. And when the Gazans democratically elected the ‘wrong’ party, Israel put a noose around their collective necks by blockading the miserable strip of land they had left – and then, for good measure, dished out some more of all of the above…
And still the Palestinians stay put. They just don’t get it. All Israel is trying to do is to help the Palestinians understand that they’d be much better off packing up their [by now] meagre belongings and moving off to some other country, leaving the entire place to the Israelis so everyone can live happily ever after.
Snap back to the real world and to the first sentence in this little tale “The carving up of the Palestinian territory in the first place was hardly ‘consensual’ “…
That kind of puts the reason for the aid flotilla and the very big mistake of storming the ships into some sort of context.
Bullying always ends in tears – the bully’s tears. One day the worm turns and, in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that just happened.
Spoken as if Jews and/or Israelis never have been ‘bullied’. Over one thousand Israeli civilians (30% women, and 40% children) were killed during the Second Intifada by suicide-terrorism; true war-crimes (some involving shrapnel laced with rat-poison, or bombers with blood-born diseases such as hepatitis). Thousands were injured and tens of thousands were traumatized.
If you wished to demonstrate an awareness of the misery on *both* sides, you could also think of that. You could think of the amputees, or of children in Northern Israel who wet their beds every night in memory of being holed up in air-raid shelters in July 2006. Or you could think of Sderot on the Gazan boundary in which children on the school-run at 0755 hrs regularly had to flee as mortars were launched specifically to target them.
You could offer advice on how to deal with the hatred which drove a Gazan burns-victim receiving treatment in an Israeli hospital to return with explosives in an attempt to kill her carers.
Ah, right. Ten people from a group which you claim to care for are dead, and instead of crying “oh my God, make this madness stop!”, you whoop in satisfaction “there’s more to come!”. Hamas already has ‘retaliated, and the IDF responded.
Attacks on Israeli civilians will occur, and the IDF will respond in which Palestinian civilians may very well die (partly because of Hamas’ tendency to operated out of uniform in civilian areas), and another attack on Israeli civilians will follow. Followed by yet another IDF attack and so on.
To the last Israeli tear and drop of Palestinian blood.
The easiest solution would be for the UN to take control of and organise these aid convoys, thoroughly search the ships to ensure that no arms are being smuggled then there would be no reason for Israel to stop and search. Other countries navies regularly stop and search vessels all over the world to sieze contraband and ensure weapons, drugs etc are not smuggled, why should Israel not have that option.
@ Geoff
I totally agree.
Israel does have that option Geoff, but not using elite commandos commandeering vessels in international waters.
The generally accepted method is to use customs officials… once the vessel enters territorial waters.
Kristen, I have explained to you that these may have been Commandos, but they were on a Police-style operation (you responded with scorn when I stated that paint-ball guns were used… I was right). The armed combatants on board didn’t know their insignia when they attacked them with chairs, clubs, broken bottles and knives. This was an attempting lynching, and they would have done similar to the Coastguard.
I have also explained to you that the principle of hot-pursuit exists. Any investigation should show whether Israel was justified to act outside territorial waters, but your failure to acknowledge this precis suggests you’re simply using the question of international convention as a battering-ram against Israel.
i think this kehaar dude comes from this website.
http://giyus.org/
Israeli propaganda is organised in this level, by downloading this program, you get assigned debates on this issue with some kind of search. After that you get loads of pro Israeli propaganda and lies.
also take a look at this
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/06/israeli_murders.html#comments
The blockade should be lifted asap and totally agree with MP Nick Clegg. Gaza became the 21 century concentration camp. States and leaders around the world should think twice before they break international law, specially leaders in the third world countries who kill innocent people and opposition figures should know there is no one above the law and it is only a matter of time. The people of the free world have awakened and the world movement should continue to apprehend international criminals regardless of nationality, religion, gender, race etc.
Thumbs up to Nick Clegg, Israiel has history of activities like these.
Not just fox news even you tube have removed Nick video from their website saying its removed due to violation…
what violation??? Having guts to say that that its wrong??? <a href="http://www.mpacuk.org/story/310510/action-alert-justice-murdered-peace-activists.html" title="Nick Clegg on youtube about Gaza Flotilla murders"
OR
its tricky firstly these people need humain held secondily terroists should be keept out.
Then help is much eaiser.