Turkish Funds Helped Group Test Blockade

[frigidmagi]

NYTimes

[quote]Since 2007, a small group of hard-core activists has repeatedly tried to sail cargo-laden ships into Gaza in an effort to thwart Israel’s blockade. But when the Free Gaza Movement teamed up with a much wealthier Turkish organization to assemble a flotilla, it became more than a nuisance, supercharged by the group’s money, manpower and symbolic resonance into what Israel sees as a serious and growing threat.

After a botched raid that killed nine activists, an international uproar is intensifying pressure on Israel’s blockade. And the movement has hit on a strategy that, even when it fails in its aims, succeeds in tactical terms: The world sees Israel use military force against civilians.

On Tuesday in a bustling neighborhood in Istanbul, the Turkish organization was celebrating a strange success. “We became famous,â€

[Charon]

The first half of this article smells of two groups pointing at each other and screaming how the other is a fundamentalist nutjob that only wants to kill people. Neither with all that much hard evidence. That being said, the Israelis are coming out with more stink here because the Turkish fleet was independent and tied to various very peacenik organizations.

[frigidmagi]

For myself, when someone declares they are against all national boundaries I know I'm opposed to them. Frankly it also makes me suspect that person of communist sympathies.

[General Havoc]

Leaving aside the question of communist sympathies (dude, seriously?). People defining themselves as "transnational" equates in my mind to "above the law and reality". I dislike NGOs more than I do most governments.

[frigidmagi]

Leaving aside the question of communist sympathies (dude, seriously?).

Yes. Seriously. Quiet a few of those organizations got their start via soviet funding and most of the younger communists folded themselves into them once the USSR fell. Communism as a ideology may no longer be a serious threat but that doesn't mean communists themselves can't cause trouble.

[Charon]

For myself, when someone declares they are against all national boundaries I know I'm opposed to them. Frankly it also makes me suspect that person of communist sympathies.

I hadn't even gotten to the crazy peacenik. She's obviously insane and obviously a hardcore communist, but personally I don't see her as much of a threat. Just a whacky out of touch person who's read too much manifesto and doesn't have enough common sense.