By now we’ve probably all seen the footage that Israel released, showing their soldiers being “attacked” on the Gaza Flotilla. What we haven’t seen is the massive amount of audio, video and pictures that must have been recorded by people onboard the ship. Israel is deliberately controlling the media and attempting to manipulate the public view to make them appear to be the victim. Israel’s PR machine managed to control what was covered in the mainstream media for those first crucial 48 hours, but more recently we have been finding out more details about what really happened. They were able to create the defining image of the event and burn it into the average viewers mind, forming opinion and letting the majority of the public move on to the next days news.
Snapshot from Video release by the IDF
Eye witness accounts contradict Israel’s “official” story of what happened. Israel kidnapped nearly 700 activists from 42 different countries, from international waters, brought them to Israel and detained them until Israel’s “official” story could saturate the mainstream media. Israel robbed the activists of an estimated $3.5 million dollars in cash and equipment, including about 600 mobile phones, 400 video cameras and 350 laptops that remain in the possession of the Israeli military. That means there was a massive amount of video that was seized by Israel and intentionally suppressed. We live in an information age where portable recording technology is widespread but we only get to see what Israel wants us to see.
Luckily a journalist working on a documentary called Cultures of Resistance was able to smuggle out about an hours worth of footage. There is a 15 minute video and also the full 1 hour of raw footage available online. The journalist, Lara Lee, was interviewed on Democracy Now and tells her side of the story. We can’t forget that there were activists from 42 different countries onboard the ship. What we had was the word of 42 countries up against 1. What we have now is documented evidence that Israel lied and tried to cover up the truth. There have also been some photos smuggled out but Israel is still in possession of almost all of the documented evidence, which they choose to release when they want, heavily edited in their favor.
The Gaza Blockade isn’t really about security, it’s about demoralization and oppression. What the Gaza Blockade does is weaken the people and make it impossible for them to recover and rebuild. The living conditions in Gaza are saddening. Israel does not have a steady list of items that they block from entering Gaza, instead they evaluate goods on a case by case basis. That means that Israel can change its mind at anytime and seize any goods going to Gaza. The pressure is definitely building in the international community for Israel to lift the Gaza blockade or in the very least, make it more reasonable. I think we can all understand that Israel does not want weapons or explosives entering Gaza, but Israel also restricts humanitarian aid, medical supplies, technology, construction materials, spices, a variety of foods, fishing supplies, fabric for clothing, newspapers and musical instruments. Not only is this economic warfare, it is a direct attack on the souls of the people.
I hope more raw footage of this disaster is leaked and available to those who are interested in knowing. The only way to evaluate a perpetual problem like the Israel-Palestine conflict is transparency. We need to know what is really going on and what the majority population on both sides actually want. I strongly believe that those who continually feed fuel into this conflict are in the minority, but sometimes it only takes a couple of people to screw over everyone else. My heart goes out to the people on both sides of the conflict who just want to live their lives, have a family, get an education, have access to technology and have some job security. And for God’s sake Israel, let them have some musical instruments.
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