Defending their illegal blockade of Gaza against what they see as infiltrators rather than activists bringing aid and making a point, Israeli soldiers physically assaulted a number of delegates and arrested them, including a USS Liberty survivor.
By Ann Wright
U.S. Navy Signalman Joe Meadors was standing watch on deck of the USS Liberty off the coast of Gaza on June 8, 1967 when a 90-minute aerial and sea attack by Israel against the ship killed 34 U.S. sailors and wounded 174 . Meadors watched as the Israeli military almost sank the Liberty and began machine-gunning the lifeboats. A 2003 U.S. commission led by Admiral Thomas Moorer found Israel guilty of the attack. But the motive is still shrouded in mystery.
Fifty-one years later, on July 29, Meadors was again on board a ship in international waters, again off the coast of Gaza. And once again Israel brutally attacked his ve. But this time Israel’s motive was clear. Meadors was aboard an unarmed civilian boat named Al Awda that was trying to break Israel’s seven-year old illegal blockade of Gaza.
Meadors in Palermo, Sicily before boarding Al Awda. (Photo by Ann Wright)
Meadors said six large patrol craft and four zodiac boats appeared when the Al Awda was 49 nautical miles off Gaza. While one group of crew and passengers protected the pilot house, Meadors said the Israeli forces who stormed the boat then beat the captain, hitting him and knocking his head against the sides of the ship. The captain was threatened with being brought down below to be killed, according to a Facebook post in Hebrew by Yonatan Shapira, one of two Israeli citizen delegates onboard. Both were arrested with everyone on board but were the first to be released. Shapira’s Facebook message was translated by Ofer Neiman for Mondoweiss.
Four crew members and delegates were tasered by Israeli forces. One crew member was repeatedly tasered on the head and neck and another also received multiple taser shocks, said Shapira. Both were in serious medical condition and were semi-conscious during the seven hour trip to Givon prison in Ashdod, Israel. An IDF Spokesperson said: “The overtaking of the Al-Awda ship was carried out without violence and without exceptional events.” Mondoweiss reported that the IDF Attorney unit said there’s no need for an investigation of what happened onboard the Al Awda.
Meadors Arrested
Meadors was held in Israeli detention until he was deported back to the U.S. on July 31, arriving in Corpus Christi, Texas on Aug. 4. Activists from Dallas and Houston traveled to Corpus Christi to greet him the following day. No newspaper or TV station in Corpus Christi or Houston called Meadors despite being sent copious materials and updates.
Dr. Swee Ang (Photo by Freedom Flotilla Coalition)
Meadors survived the Israeli attack on his U.S. Navy ship, has been outspoken about the incident for years causing embarrassment to Israel, and was now under arrest in an Israeli jail. His alleged crime was being aboard a boat trying to break an illegal blockade in international waters and bring medical supplies to Gazans.
Meadors says he was not mistreated while in detention. He said neither he nor the Israeli authorities brought up the USS Liberty during his questioning.
Other passengers on the Al Awda were not so well treated.
Renown orthopedic surgeon from the United Kingdom, Dr. Swee Ang, who is about 4 feet, 8 inches and weighs about 80 pounds was hit on the head and body and ended up with two broken ribs. Dr. Swee wrote:
“After a while the boat engine started. I was told later by Gerd who was able to hear Captain Herman tell the story to the Norwegian Consul in prison that the Israelis wanted Herman to start the engine, and threatened to kill him if he would not do so. But what they did not understand was that with this boat, once the engine stopped it can only be restarted manually in the engine room in the cabin level below. Arne the engineer refused to restart the engine, so the Israelis brought Herman down and hit him in front of Arne making it clear that they will continue to hit Herman if Arne would not start the engine. Arne is 70 years old, and when he saw Herman’s face went ash color, he gave in and started the engine manually. Gerd broke into tears when she was narrating this part of the story. The Israelis then took charge of the boat and drove it to Ashdod.
Once the boat was on course, the Israeli soldiers brought Herman to the medical desk. I looked at Herman and saw that he was in great pain, silent but conscious, breathing spontaneously but shallow breathing. The Israeli Army doctor was trying to persuade Herman to take some medicine for pain. Herman was refusing the medicine. The Israeli doctor explained to me that what he was offering Herman was not army medicine but his personal medicine. He gave me the medicine from his hand so that I could check it. It was a small brown glass bottle and I figured that it was some kind of liquid morphine preparation probably the equivalent of oromorph or fentanyl. I asked Herman to take it and the doctor asked him to take 12 drops after which Herman was carried off and slumped on a mattress at the back of the deck. He was watched over by people around him and fell asleep. From my station I saw he was breathing better.”
‘Most Moral’
Larry Commodore on his arrival at Toronto airport after his medical ordeals while in Israeli prison. (Photo by Audrey Huntley)
An Indigenous leader from Canada, Larry Commodore, was thrown to the deck and injured his foot when he requested to have his passport back as the passengers were being taken from the boat. He told The Real News Network that a few hours after his return to Givon prison, he developed bladder problems resulting from his injuries and had to be re-hospitalized as he could not pass urine. Prison guards did not believe he was injured and forced him to drink more water which resulted in a worsened bladder. Commodore had to wait 10 hours for a doctor to come to the prison for him to be taken to the hospital for a catheter. When he was deported to Canada, he was taken to a Toronto hospital where he received further treatment. His injured foot was also sewn up. He said he passed out several times during the procedure.
Several delegates were not given their prescribed daily medicines.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu describes the Israeli military as the most “moral” military in the world. Crew and delegates on Al Awda found that the Israeli commandos and military administrative staff and prison staff did not act morally.
Six delegates said that cash, credit cards, clothing and personal items were taken from them and never returned. An estimated $4000 in cash and numerous credit cards were stolen. Delegates are cancelling their credit cards upon their return home and will be monitoring whether there are charges from July 29 onward, as happened in 2010 when Israeli soldiers reportedly used credit cards of passengers from the six ships of the 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla.
‘Freedom’ Stopped
Crew and delegates on Freedom.
(Photo by Freedom Flotilla Coalition)
Israeli commandos stopped Freedom, the second ship in the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, 40 miles off Gaza on Aug. 3. Twelve delegates and crew from five countries have been taken to Givon prison. It’s not clear whether the Freedom delegates were also abused. The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition continues to demand that the State of Israel send to the Gazan people the €13,000 worth of medical supplies, primarily gauze and sutures, in 116 boxes onboard Al Awda and Freedom.
Twelve national campaigns organized the 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla to not only bring much needed aid, but also attention to the illegal Israeli blockade and repeated, attacks on Gaza.
As Dr. Swee wrote on 21st Century Wire:
“In the week we were sailing to Gaza, they had shot dead 7 Palestinians and wounded more than 90 with live bullets in Gaza. They had further shut down fuel and food to Gaza. Two million Palestinians in Gaza live without clean water, with only 2-4 hours of electricity, in homes destroyed by Israeli bombs, in a prison blockaded by land, air and sea for 12 years.
The hospitals of Gaza since the 30 March had treated more than 9,071 wounded persons, 4,348 shot by machine guns from a hundred Israeli snipers while they were mounting peaceful demonstrations inside the borders of Gaza on their own land. Most of the gun-shot wounds were to the lower limbs and with depleted treatment facilities the limbs will suffer amputation. In this period more than 165 Palestinians had been shot dead by the same snipers, including medics and journalists, children and women.
Medical supplies being loaded onto Al Awda with boxes painted by Neapolitan artists. (Photo by Ann Wright)
The chronic military blockade of Gaza has depleted the hospitals of all surgical and medical supplies. This massive attack on an unarmed Freedom Flotilla bringing friends and some medical relief is an attempt to crush all hope for Gaza.”
* * *
The Al Awda was part of a four-boat 2018 Gaza Freedom Flotilla that began its voyage in mid-May from Scandinavia and arrived 75 day later off the coast of Gaza. Al Awda arrived on July 29 followed by Freedom on August 3. The two other boats of the flotilla, the Filestine and Mairead Maguire, were unable to complete the voyage due to damages incurred during a storm off Sicily and maintenance problems.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story said Meadors was held for six days by Israel. He was arrested on July 29 and deported on July 31 to Miami and returned home to Texas on Aug. 4. He was held for three days.
Ann Wright served 29 years in the US Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She was also a US diplomat and was in US Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned from the US government in March 2003 in opposition to the lies the Bush administration was stating as the rationale for the invasion, occupation and destruction of Iraq. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”
So why was my comment deleted twice?
It is not politically correct to suggest that Gaza relief vessels have a military escort?
Commenters may not suggest that Russia establish a base in Gaza to protect NGOs?
Is this the zionist “Akismet” comment-moderator or is it CN?
Compare my moderate comments with some of those below.
It is time to dump Akismet and allow comments.
Sorry for your difficulties Sam F. Please persevere and hopefully things will improve. ICH just recently took down their comment section and are looking for a way to restore it without it being a target for trolls. I think Joe Lauria is trying to keep up the quality here at CN, but it is no doubt a daunting task. The quality of the comments here are generally the best I’ve found, and yours are some of the most valuable. Hang in there!
Yes there was the USS Liberty. Now research Operation Susannah
Unfortunately Supremacist doctrine has no place for shame in it’s creed; no matter what percent of the entire world is outrage at Israel’s misdeeds.
Israel is a cancer that has invaded the body of humanity. As with any cancer, there is only one solution if the patient is to survive. Israel must be excised from the body.
They are a menace to civilization.
Machine-gunning the USS Liberty’s lifeboats pretty much tells us all we need to know about the heroic, “most moral”, military in the world. I’m sure these valiant warriors prefer machine-gunning unarmed palestinian civilians where theere’s no chance at all their victims can fight back. For them,carpet bombing Gaza beats sex anyday.. But the most courageous of all are we Americans as we dutifully enable our Saudi bosom buddies to bomb and otherwise blow-up starving and disease- ridden Yemenis.
God’s chosen ones have produced at least two additional generations of such holy warriors since the massacre of the Liberty. I was in my 20’s during the ’67 war and so were those Israeli fighters. Over fifty years later we are now in our 70’s. Their issue has done nothing but evolve into even more ferocious and immoral subhumans.
And, I’m not missing your point about we Americans (though victims on the Liberty) being just as evil. Back in ’67 the finest flower of our youth were massacring innocent women and children in Vietnam (I’m sure that Mi Lai was just one incident that happened to come to the public’s attention), just as we have done across the entire MENA region in the present day.
Before your next flotilla trip begins, find a sponsorship from an international enterprise that is willing to provide funds to buy a few satellite smart phones and hidden camera that can go live stream. None of these tragic incidents and people’s sacrifices should have gone wasted.
Agree here for sure!
They jammed the signals for transmission, and confiscated all the phones. Maybe if they had some really well hidden cameras, and put the transmission on delay until the jammers were shut off they could get their horror stories on to the net.
Better yet.
Hire some heavily armed, blood thirsty mercenaries.
Pretty sure this is called piracy!
Funny how laws don’t apply to Israel…
Funny how the ADL just released an interactive “ Heat Map” https://www.adl.org/heat-map
but it’s only for the USA and only includes hate against certain semites while excluding others
The irony is, there isn’t a corresponding hate map for Israel
Right Smedley! The US Navy and NATO are charged with keeping sea traffic safe. It works well for protecting corporate shipping, . . . not so much for life saving causes.
Funny how they never try to break the much stronger Egyptian blockade.
Since Egypt opened up Gaza back in March there is no blockade to break.
https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/MAGAZINE-as-egypt-opens-gaza-border-a-harsh-reality-is-laid-bare-1.6118258
But, keep trying there Katz…
“if you want to understand the ‘splinter in your mind’—this is the red pill.”
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251180.Against_His_Story_Against_Leviathan_
It is all too common for discussions concerning social injustices, human rights abuses and the ultimate and inevitable tyranny of hierarchical power structures to neglect to consider the full historic context of the events that lead to these discussions. To answer the question of how things have come to be as they are it is critical to look far beyond the “histories” that we are presented with via the Intelligentsia. I trust that most who frequent the comment section of CN will recognize the need to be vigilantly critical of the “historical contexts” that our current situations are back dropped against.
This book presents a wallop of a historical context to be digested. It will likely help shed light on and clarify how it is that Isreal can openly engage in piracy without so much as a glance of acknowledgement given to the American people by the US government/MSM, while at the same time the US government announces sanctions against Russia for “violation of international law”, as State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert explained this morning, for the “Skripal poisoning” of all things ludicrous.
It’s time to get a serious movement together in order to boycott Israel
I already personally do it- no hothouse tomatos no soda stream no shit- always check labels people. My list includes China(don’t need their crap), Israel (apartheid state and abomination of human rights and Turkey (Genocide perpertrator in complete denial with support of Israeli lobby)
I wonder why Israelis don’t realize how their evil actions make them a despised people all over the world. History has not taught them that actions have consequences. Those actions will be remembered and they will have to account for them. People will have had enough.
Yes, usually Israel or USA top the garden variety of ‘world’s most hated countries’ lists you can google online..or better yet Duckduckgo..or searx.me…or even https://www.ecosia.org
Fredd-
The same could be said of our country’s citizenry here in the good ‘ol USA.
Fredd,
The Israelis should note that they once had the reputation of being innocent people with a history of ugliness poured out upon them, without provocation. They were considered the “moral conscience” of the World. But that was then; this is now.
I was too young to know anything first-hand about the Holocaust, but what is happening now in Palestine sure as hell looks like it what I’ve been told. Those who keep their mouths shut when evil occurs, need to realize that they share in this evil.
Thank God for Joe Meadows! Courage, integrity, persistence, and witness. The nation needs to hear his story, his message, and the attempts by hypocritical “ally” Israel to first murder him and his Liberty shipmates and then imprison and torture him for returning to aid Gaza. This nation can no longer continue to lie and deny what Israel is doing to Palestinians with U.S. weapons, ordnance, and financial backing ($Billions?) Are we completely devoid of a national moral compass? We should be ashamed; millions of us are!
The US has a moral compass: $$$$$$$$$$$$$
Our zionized Congress is not interested in the wellbeing of patriotic American servicemen. The zionized US congresspeople are busy with dancing the “Russia did” it gigue, even if Israel has been the most intrusive meddler in the US politics. Nothing will change until the Israel-firsters are removed from the positions of power and the US media is liberated from the zionists’ grip.
The most immoral army in the world chose not to treat these brave souls like untermenschen who need to be exterminated. The Zionists could have done so without provoking a whisper of protest from the US government or news media. The fact that they committed no major atrocities may be a hopeful sign that it won’t require a regional or global bloodbath to consign the apartheid regime to the darkest annals of human history, together with slavery.
These flotillas will be useless without a military escort. The blockade is illegal but I’ll bet no resolution in the UNSC will ever be allowed to pass to condemn it.
A vast improvement over the summary executions in the Mavi Marmaris raid.
You are correct but still an Israeli example of sheer fascism against people bringing aid to Palestinians.
The “aid” is insignificant. The politics is twisted. Hamas could give their people everything but they choose to spend a great deal on arms and supporting killers.
Palestinian right to fight occupation not only moral, but legal as well | +972 Magazine
https://972mag.com/on-the-palestinians-legal-right-to-fight-the-occupation/30855/
Do ‘oppressed people’ have a right to resist in an armed fashion according to international law? – Quora
https://www.quora.com/Do-oppressed-people-have-a-right-to-resist-in-an-armed-fashion-according-to-international-law
leyla,
Let’s just grant that everything you said above is true. That does not excuse the treatment of these civilians by the IDF.
Once the IDF boarded the boat and took control of it, they had prisoners. No one, including the IDF is legally allowed to abuse prisoners.
I grant that the US abuses prisoners here everyday. This abuse is heinous. A prisoner is under the control of the jailer. What is described here is sadism. It is also heinous. Finally, it is not legal.
You must reckon with the reality that IDF engaged in and routinely engages in human rights abuses. It’s not wrong to show examples of Hamas doing that same thing. It’s simply not relevant to erasing IDF crimes. If a member of Hamas engages in a war crime or human rights violation, they should go before a court of law and face punishment.
Equally so, when any member of the IDF engages in a war crime or commits a human rights violation, they should go before a court of law and fact punishment.
Leyla, Those of us who read Consortium are highly educated and we know Israel’s history. None of us are going to buy your propaganda.
Leyla, get your compatriots to recognize the Armenian Genocide in their Knesset and not as a discraceful bargaining chip to try and bend Turkey to it’s will. Then you have a right to moral outrage, someone may listen and who knows you may find a proselyte like Ivanka.
Do you realize that the convention on genocide by the UN Resolution 260 was written to specifically to ensure that the Ottoman Empire would be classified as a genocide while the US genocide of the American Indian is precluded? Essentially, the US had better lawyers.
While I agree that there was a genocide, since you are lecturing Leyla on principles, I thought this would interest you.
I wonder, dear General, are you as a vociferous about the Genocide of the American Indian as you are of the Armenian, not to mention, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iraq, Libya, N. Korea, Algeria, etc. If not, why not?
In fact, I have been reading CN for years and found many commenters expressing outrage over US and Israel atrocities in the Middle East. Yet somehow, I must have missed reading from the good General despite the distinctive moniker.
I call the Israeli troops cowards. It seems that they can only fight unarmed civilians, but when their country wants us to invade others in the Middle East the Israeli cowards don’t have to go into them. I’d love to see a headline that calls them that. If any website has the guts to do it.
Thank you Ann Wright for this article. Well done. I am sickened to learn that medical supplies for emergency trauma surgeries did not get through. As a result, many of the peacefully protesting Palestinians wounded by Israeli snipers, will now have to have their limbs amputated! Is there no depth to which Israel will sink in its appalling and inhumane treatment of the people of Gaza?
What bastards those captors were to the man with the blocked urethra, denying him medical treatment for half a day and forcing him to drink more water exacerbating his pain and suffering. His bladder could have ruptured and his kidneys been severely damaged. Breaking the ribs of the lady octogenarian was also barbaric. Okay, piracy is par for the course with the Israelis, but do they have to include torture in the package?
The world will be a better place when the criminal regime in Israel is deposed and vanishes from the pages of history. Hopefully this will not involve a civilian bloodbath.
Netanyahu lives in an alternative reality — of evil. The IDF soldiers are forced to serve their state masters and brainwashed to be thugs such as their overlords. Time will tell whether enough of the world is awakened to the truth of Zionist Israel, but if so there is a debt of gratitude owed to the courageous members of the Al-Awda who endured this thuggery.
Do you really think that the Israeli soldiers are brainwashed? I don’t. I think that they enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on the Palestinians because it’s not just the troops that do. During the Israeli bombardment of Gaza in 2014 many Israeli civilians went up to a hill so that they could watch it happen. There were lots of cheering when the bombs hit buildings.
It’s a psychological state that surely deserves much scientific study which, in my opinion, will never be allowed to happen. Several generations of Israelis have uninterruptedly channeled the cut-throat animus of their “founding fathers” who were given part of Palestine after WWII by UN mandate, later stole most of the rest and have slaughtered relentlessly ever since, claiming all their neighbors hate and victimize them (even “neighbors” in rather distant lands).
The disconnect is, it was Christian European Nazis who last systematically victimized Jews not the Islamic Palestinians, and the actual victims were of three and four generations ago, not these living people. Yet they attack neighboring Arabs with the ferocity and persistence of Jihadists (who are themselves worthy of study for hyper-belligerent behavior, as is the American leadership of the past several generations).
The reason no study of this mind set will ever be allowed is that the Western states who enable the Jewish aggressors in the Middle East are the ones who have been brainwashed, using long-term generational guilt. If any such psychological studies have in fact been done (not my area of science), I would expect they have not been received as objective or reputable. Does someone here know from fact?
I think all soldiers are brainwashed. It’s called basic training. They teach you to unquestioningly do the bidding of your “superior officer”. They remove the concept of individual responsibility for your actions. You can face court marshal for failure to obey orders, but “accidentally” targeting innocent civilians is just “collateral damage” unless your the chosen enemy, then it’s called “terrorism”. For the IDF it’s “mowing the grass”. Any person exhibiting this kind of behavior outside the military would be considered criminally insane. PTSD is the usual result.
A very affecting and detailed story of what it is like to be close-up to Israel’s authorities when you are doing something they don’t like.
Clearly the West’s politicians and mainline press should speak out against this, but they don’t say a word.
And behind all of this is Israel’s having turned the giant refugee camp called Gaza literally into a concentration camp.
Of course, they don’t say a word, either, about gangs of Israel snipers shooting unarmed people from behind a fence, including women and children and medics.
Perhaps, the most outrageous atrocity we’ve seen staged in public.
Thousands shot, hundreds seriously wounded or crippled, and over a 150 murdered.
It resembled some big game hunt in Africa from about 1897.
And no one who counts or has some power says anything.
Well, all actions have consequences, and the West’s treatment of Israel’s many terrible crimes will too.
What kind of a truly hellish society is Israel working towards?
John Chuckman – I quite agree with your observations John. I would add that we are at 500+ years and counting of the “West” (Europe and her former colonies) raping, pillaging, and genociding their way across planet earth – with no indication there is any plan to stop. There will be no intervention from the “West” when it comes to calling out Israel for it’s horrific inhuman treatment of Palestinians – just more “military aid,” just more weapons, and just more Western propaganda and dissembling – including labeling any critique of Israeli policy as a new form of – “anti-semitism.”
Western societies are as amoral and mired in self-deception today as they were when we enslaved Africans and slaughtered indigenous peoples around the globe (bravely shouldering our “white man’s burden” and valiantly “saving souls” along the way) as we systematically plundered the planet century after century. Now we attack, bomb, invade Libya and Syria because of our “humanitarian” – “duty to protect.” If a half a million dead Iraqi children – deemed “worth it” by our valiant leaders – weren’t enough to stir the conscience of Westerners, I doubt there are enough potential dead children in Syria or Yemen to make a dent in our well defended psyches.
The levels of self-deception it takes to both be a citizen in the West and to somehow fail to perceive this is of course quite staggering. This massive engagement in “self-deception” is required for one to be considered “normal” and “well adjusted” by Western standards or morality. Unfortunately, by these criteria most of our fellow Western citizens in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Western Europe, etc. are indeed quite “normal” and quite “well adjusted.” The plight of Palestinians is as invisible to most Westerners as the plight of those dying in Yemen – both funded with U.S. military aid and protected by our propaganda cover – both existing as part of the quite “normal” levels of ongoing Western neocolonial violence that has never ceased since it’s beginnings over 500 years ago.
Great comment Gary.
I might add that today 43 Yemeni children lie dead from a Saudi bombing of a bus filled with young children with over 60 wounded.
The complicity of the industrialized world’s “leaders” and their minions in msm for these crimes for profit is beyond criminal. No one with any vestige of sanity could abet such immorality yet our collective silence does precisely that.
…and latte-sippers like Rachel Madcow say not a word about the Yemeni children, or the horrors of Gaza, but scream “Russia, Russia, Russia!”
I’m reminded of John Lennon’s wise lyrics …last night the wife said oh boy when you’re dead you don’t take nothing with you but your soul, think!
What good are Rachel’s millions going to do for her when she’s 6 feet under?
Rachel Maddow (guess, she a distant relative of Madeoff) does not find the death of children in Yemen worthy any attention because she has one thing on her presstituting mind: how to please ziocons that pay her so well.
She is just another American cannibal.
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/08/us-fine-tuning-of-saudi-airstrike-target-list-creates-results.html#comments
http://www.moonofalabama.org/images6/yschoolbus.jpg
Where are the European governments? Where is the official protest on all these violations of codified international laws, not to mention the rape of human rights that is committed by Israel and its “most moral” armed forces on a daily basis? The silence is deafening.
But after having been willing accomplices in the endless series of criminal wars of aggression in the past 30 years, among them the total destruction of Libya, the most developed and prosperous nation on the African continent, after things like taking on the role of Godfathers to the child-murdering monsters with the white helmets, what conscience, what shame could possibly be left in these “elites” that have traded all sense of decency, all personal or national honour for cold hard cash.