The USA's absolute dumbest of all...thinking they are actually contributing to some "humanitarian" venture involving Gaza...
YNET: American activists set sail from Greece on Friday aboard a boat set to take part in a pro-Palestinian flotilla to Gaza, defying calls from Israel to cancel it and a ban by Athens.
The vessel was stopped by the Greek Coast Guard some 25 minutes after its unauthorized departure. It was not immediately clear whether the boat will be taken back to port.
The vessel, dubbed "The Audacity of Hope", left Perama port for the open seas, a Reuters witness said. Greek authorities said earlier on Friday that ships destined to Gaza were prohibited from leaving Greek ports.
Yesterday, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi testified before the Turkel commission investigating the Gaza flotilla incident. Judge Turkel asked him why the IDF was so completely unprepared for the murderous attacks against our soldiers by members of the IHH, the Turkish radical Islamist group that organized the flotilla. (The soldiers, who were "armed" with paintball guns, were obviously not told to expect any serious opposition.) Here is Ashkenazi's answer:
"The level of knowledge we had on the [IHH] was not like the level of information we have on Hamas. We did not investigate the organization. It was not on our list of our priorities, because it was not listed as a terrorist organization and was located in Turkey, which is not an enemy state -- and I hope it never will be." [Sources: JPost, Haaretz]
Incredibly, even after hearing all the rabid, extremist diatribes against Israel spewed forth on an almost daily basis by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and even after watching Turkey openly forge alliances with Iran, Syria, and Hizbullah, Ashkenazi -- and the Israeli government -- still have not grasped the simple and obvious fact that Turkey has become our enemy.
As for the IHH, if the folks at IDF Intelligence had bothered to do even a couple minutes of googling, they would have quicky discovered ample material clearly showing the organization's fanatical jihadist nature, such as this 2009 speech in Gaza by the head of the IHH, in which he called for martyrdom through attacks on Israel:
Regarding Turkey's imagined status as a "non-enemy" of Israel: News reports appearing on the very same day as Ashkenazi's testimony revealed that Turkey has arranged, in close cooperation with Iran and Syria, to provide Hizbullah with advanced weaponry, including rockets:
Poor PM Erdogan must be extremely perplexed and frustrated: He has done just about everything feasible within his power to demonstate clearly that he is a bona fide, full-fledged, fierce enemy of Israel: He has viciously denounced Israel as a criminal, terrorist state on every possible occasion, he has sent a ship filled with armed men who attempted to murder Israeli soldiers, and now he is supplying Hizbullah with guns and rockets. Yet with all this, Israel still stubbornly refuses to recognize him as an enemy. Erdogan must be banging his head against the wall, wondering what else he can possibly do to get the message across to those incredibly dense Israelis.
(photo credit: Rotter.net)
