66 thoughts on “Mavi Marmara: Video as Ammunition in the Battle for World’s Hearts and Minds – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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  1. If you enhance the picture a little bit, you can see IDF commandos murdering an American, executing hundreds of
    Palestinian children, thousands of Palestinian women, exercising genocide, and sinking the Liberty. If you can’t see this, it’s only because you’re on the Hasbara payroll.

  2. The post says:

    “Some may note that the Turkish autopsies revealed that most of the dead were killed by 9mm bullets. This does not mean that others were not shot with .22 caliber ammunition, nor that a victim may not’ve died of such bullets.”

    It’s true; it does not mean that others were not shot with .22 caliber. However, telling the truth is not the equivalent of telling the whole truth. Here is the whole truth, as given by the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul:

    “all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds.” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-flotilla-activists-autopsy-results)

    Now, what was that implication that the shotgun fired 4-5 times? Yes, telling half of the truth is sometimes worse that telling a lie.

    1. I never said that the person shot in this video died. I said he could have died. But he verly likely was shot and wounded. And there are still six individuals whose whereabouts are unaccounted for who may be dead.

      1. I never claimed you said anything specifically. Only that it is implied from your posts.

        R. Silverstein said:

        “In my earlier posts about the killings aboard the Mavi Marmara, I used terms like “kill shot” and “execution-style” to describe these events. I based my judgment on the narratives told by eyewitnesses and the Turkish autopsy reports. Some readers were taken aback and accused me of overstatement, exaggeration and worse. But this video vividly confirms my strong suspicions.”

        Later, R. Silverstein quoted Prof. MacEachern:

        “He works it four times at least, maybe five, while the weapon is pointing at the area they were kicking at before.”

        Now, just work out the implication.

        Anyway, if you ask me, these are policemen (did you know that policemen came on board once the navy seals took control over some area? they belong to a so-called elite squad called Coral, trained to deal with riots) who operate some kind of riot shotguns. Most likely you see them loading the shotguns. I say that because: first, that’s what it looks like; second, I personally do not see any recoil or flash, and certainly not both (though I understand that others do see for some reason at least one of the two). Of course, you can take one of the two explanations provided by Prof. MacEachern. However, another explanation is that the shotgun didn’t fire.

        As for the type of shotgun. It is most certainly not the type of Ruger that was banned in Israel. That type of Ruger is much shorter than the shotgun visible on the video. (Please don’t compare the length of that Ruger to the video screen capture given at one of your posts; the perspective of the capture isn’t the best, and a suspicious mind would think that this perspective was chosen on purpose.) What is it then? Who knows. I hope the Israeli army will eventually be forced to let everybody know the type of the shotgun, and much more importantly, what we see in the video.

  3. Professor Frank Barnes once published a paper on speckle-pattern analysis, to determine, from a victim’s clothing, what weapon, ammunition and range had been involved in the shooting. This could distinguish between two different bands of 9mm ammunition, let alone between 9mm centrefire and .22″ LR rimfire ammunition. There would be almost no speckle pattern at all from a .22″ LR fired from a carbine barrel with a silencer on. There would be quite a lot from a conventional 9mm carbine at point blank ranges, quite a lot more from an actual rifle, up to a longer range.

    But the patterns change according to the burning curve of the powder used, which is why it’s different for different brands and batches of ammunition, as well as for different barrel lengths etc. It’s almost impossible to get a similar speckle pattern from two different shots if any ONE of the relevant parameters changes.

    The De Lisle carbine, mentioned above, was a .45″ calibre weapon: a fully moderated bolt-action carbine (made from a Lee-Enfield action) that took the same 7-shot clips as the Colt 1911 Government Pistol. It replaced a handmade .22″ LR rifle with subsonic ammunition (no actual silencer in that case) which was issued to Auxiliary Reserve units in Southern England to assassinate Nazi VIPs with in the event of an invasion. Rules of engagement were that this would be done only as a punishment for crimes against civilians, but it would be done every time there was a crime against civilians.

    The silenced, .22″ and .32″ pistols in British SOE service were Welrods. There is a Danish Resistance webpage somewhere that describes them in detail.

    None of these weapons was intended for, or suitable for, crowd control of the kind described.

    Your expert was thinking of the De Lisle’s predecessor (too secret to be called anything) rather than the De Lisle with its fairly massive .45″ round.

    1. “None of these weapons was intended for, or suitable for, crowd control of the kind described.”
      No kidding. When I first read that some lunatic had actually considered them suitable for ‘riot control’, I thought he was maybe referring to some different cartridge and had the names mixed up. But no, they actually seemed to think that the .22LR – which, make no mistake about it, is a regular, lethal type of ammunition and only ‘less lethal’ compared to more powerful handgun rounds such as 9mm Parabellum – was some kind of toy.

      Then again, these people seemed to cling to the idea that it could be used to kill dogs, and would magically become nonlethal as soon as the bullet realized it was hitting human, and not canine skin.

      If the weapon in question actually turns out to be a .22LR chambered, suppressed rifle, than the intend to kill, or at the very least, severely wound, is obvious.

      1. The IOF routinely shoots protesters and stone-throwers with live ammunition, so what would preclude them from doing the same on the Mavi Marmara?

  4. I think I see the same kicking sequence twice in this same video, which makes me quite uncomfortable in terms of the acceptability of this clip.

    The “Furkan Dogan killing video” we received yesterday was purportedly released by Iara Lee, as was told to me when I received it, but there was no verification from her as to its veracity. Richard, you may want to contact her directly. Of note is that the video we saw yesterday was circulating with both Turkish and English subtitles, which leads me to think it may have come from a Turkish source and not from Iara or her organization, culturesofresistance.org.

    It seems that more and more questions are being raised, along with the obvious ones, i.e., why 9 people ended up dead and 6 missing. It is certainly not helping that so many viral videos are circulating around on the internet, duplications, fakes, etc. (I actually did see one that was rather intriguing – it asserted that the ship in the IOF’s video clip allegedly showing a soldier being thrown overboard was not the Mavi Marmara, but was a fake.) Armchair sleuthing has its moments, but it’s very frustrating when we are thwarted by so many red herrings.

    The fact remains that there was lethal force used on the ship, there were many dead and injured, and some remain missing. This is unacceptable on its face. Soldiers engaging in hand-to-hand combat with activists wielding clubs and knives is highly suspicious as to the fact that it even happened, and the fact that it was responded to with lethal force is even more alarming. Shots of soldiers kicking people on the ground raise deep suspicion, as does the fact that Iara’s full video (which I saw yesterday) shows two persons alive at the beginning, and dead at the end.

    We can’t afford to stop asking questions at this point.

    1. Mary,

      I’ve looked into the origin of this footage – it was also broadcast on May 31, 2010 as part of the Mavi Marmara’s live video feed transmitted during the attack. The footage appears in numerous news broadcasts about the incident that were broadcast that day.

      Here’s one of those news broadcasts from May 31st. The apparent shooting segment appears at 30 seconds into the segment :

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RL_VoGuS6Go&feature=related

      So there’s no little question about the veracity of the footage which, as it happens, was rebroadcast around the world on May 31 by Al Jazeera, Turkish TV, Russian TV, and other news outlets

          1. The interesting thing is that I didn’t spot it, yet it is purported to be from her. I am guessing that it was actually spliced together from live feed coming thru Turkish TV.

          2. My sense of this is that the Marmara was putting out quite a lot of live-feed footage, perhaps several different channels, and various news services on May 31, 2010 grabbed what they wanted to grab. Now there are various pieces of the Marmara video feed footage in the pseudo-public video domain on Youtube and elsewhere. It’s probably possible to splice them together, but the work is painstaking.

          3. Bruce, I watched the live feed all afternoon and throughout the night, and there were times where the Israelis presumably blocked the signals, and so the live feed stopped. During the times the feed stopped, it is conceivable that the cameras still recorded what was happening.

            I remember seeing what I thought was shooting on the deck, soldiers aiming and firing downward. There was so much chaos, shouting, a Turkish female journalist in the studio whose voice was so loud that it drowned out any audio being transmitted from the ship. I was also constantly checking twitter. The best video is not from the live feed, unfortunately; we couldn’t see belowdecks.

          4. Mary, Well, we’ll never know the half of it but this video bit in question on this post may be the most telling evidence we’ll ever have. Then there’s the human “evidence” – 57 people confirmed shot, 9 of them killed. But I think this [purported] “execution” footage bears more scrutiny and more publicity. For example, I did a frame-by-frame breakdown and can see what appears to be a shell casing ejecting from the weapon that commando seems to be firing.

          5. Other people have also told me that they can see something that appears to be a shell ejecting from the weapon. In light of the fact that so many passengers suffered gunshot wounds, however, it is also telling that there is hardly any footage of any Israeli soldiers shooting. This leads me to believe that this footage is in the hands of the Israelis and we are not about to see any of it. In fact, it is quite likely that by now, all inculpatory footage which the Israelis confiscated has been destroyed.

          6. Mary, Oh, to be sure – if I were advising the IDF and had checked my moral and ethical scruples at the door I would advise just that, the destruction of all copies of the IDF’s captured Marmara footage… except for one master copy, invested with the highest security clearance.

    1. He has miitary background and comes by his weapons expertise in this manner. Or can you not imagine the possibility that an athropologist might have such service in his background that might offer this expertise??

    2. I think that Richard was a little too kind to me here. I wouldn’t describe myself like that, and in fact asked him to remove that description earlier today. I have a pretty good knowledge of how small arms work and an extremely good memory, and am working off that.

      I also told him that I’m not wedded to that identification of the weapon in use here, and would be quite happy if anyone provides a better alternative. That said, it seems like quite a curious weapon, and is almost certainly not the type of paintball gun being carried by other commandos and shown in other pictures and videos of this episode.

      1. Well, positive weapon identification in this case may never be possible. So, all we can be reasonably sure of is that we can see a projectile weapon that appears to be firing something. So, one way of characterizing this that’s occurred to me is this – the video clip seems to show an IDF commando aiming a rifle, at what we presume is a human on the ground, and firing rounds of an indeterminate type. But, what sort of rounds fired from a rifle at such close range wouldn’t possibly be lethal ?

        1. I agree that positive identification may never be possible, although it may be possible to eliminate certain classes of weapons.

          If this was a paintball gun being fired, it would likely not be lethal, although very dangerous to unprotected eyes and so on. On the other hand, that suggests that the _best_ interpretation of this video is that the individuals shown are brutalising someone on the ground, first by beating them and then by firing a paintball gun at them from a range of a foot or so. That’s hardly an advertisement for the IDF.

          1. I still wish someone would explain to me why commandos would be carrying paintball guns in the first place. It’s utterly ludicrous. Since when do soldiers fire paintballs at civilians? Under any circumstances?

          2. Scott – yes, that seems like a strong interpretation to me – best case=brutalization. Then the worst case, which you haven’t elaborated here, would have to be, I’d guess, execution. That, to me, would be a dismal possibility spectrum.

  5. richard,

    the coroner’s report made no mention of 22 caliber bullets

    it did note that one of the dead had what appeared to be pellets in his brain, which could have come from a crowd control weapon

    1. Again, I didn’t say the victim shot here died. I don’t know what. He could have died. And once again there are six unaccounted for victims who no one has examined except presumably the Israelis.

    2. Well, the dead would care not at all about whether they were killed by bullets, pellets, or “non-lethal” rounds – because even pellets and “non-lethal” rounds can be quite lethal at close range. So the precise type of round/s being fired is probably irrelevant.

      But let’s keep our eye on the ball here – live footage broadcast from the Mavi Marmara and rebroadcast by news services around the world on May 31, 2010 appears to show an IDF commando firing a type of rifle, point blank and perhaps multiple times, at what we must presume to be an activist from the Mavi Marmara.

      It may not be an execution, or it may well be, and we do know that a number of the Marmara dead were killed by multiple rounds, some with several shots to the head.

      It’s rather suggestive to say the least.

  6. The six missing are the most pertinent: assuming they are dead, how did they die and where are their bodies?

    If they are not dead, where are they being kept, on what legal basis and under what safeguards?

    Almost certainly, an answer to this would answer most of the questions about the videos.

    The poster who suggested that using Glaser safety slugs was a good thing, doesn’t answer: why just one of them and dozens of standard FMJ bullets?

    If the circumstances warranted the use of Glasers, then the other rounds were inappropriate. Or vice versa.

    As in Argentina, it is the missing who raise the most troubling questions.

    1. I agree. Who were they, and why has this entire aspect of the scenario apparently been swept away somewhere?

      I have a huge, huge problem with the following:

      1. Of course, the six missing passengers, their identities, nationalities, and why their countries of origin do not appear to be overly disturbed by their disappearance (nor do their families);

      2. That the Mavi Marmara was boarded under cover of darkness by armed commandoes ostensibly to take control of a ship manned by unarmed peace activists;

      3. That despite being armed only with slingshots, blunt objects and possibly kitchen knives, nine people ended up being shot to death, supposedly by commandos “defending themselves;”

      4. That in “defending themselves,” said commandos found it necessary to shoot most of the dead passengers in the back of the head at close to point-blank range;

      5. That a cameraman was apparently shot and killed deliberately, with a bullet to his forehead, as he filmed the events;

      6. That the Israelis confiscated all electronic equipment from the passengers and that it hasn’t been returned;

      7. That the paintball gun myth still persists despite no evidence that any paintballs were fired anywhere (and no explanation why such a nonsensical thing as paintball guns would be carried by elite navy commandos in the first place);

      8. And that we have not been given a list of the wounded or the nature of their injuries.

  7. I have looked at the two videos several times, and as I see it, the first one seems to be a cut (22 sec) from the second one. Or it is from a second camera quite close.
    In the “long version” I see two soldiers kicking at least one victim; they turn around and then turn back again to aim at and fire at the vicitim; they then start kicking again – this time more fiercely. This might suggest that they at first forced the vicitm down by kicking him; the victim then tried to get up at which point they turned around to “finish” whatever they intended to do.
    I don’t have the equipment or the knowledge to run the two videos simultaneously; my amateurish attempts at freezing the videos second by second are not very successful, but I would like to see this done by someone, perhaps the 22 seconds fit somewhere in the longer version? I may of course be very wrong, but perhaps the two videos are compatible after all?

  8. Interesting – but I’m just going to take the activists stories for the truth.

    There’s nothing for them to lie about and they certainly don’t have a history of lying and covering up violence.

    But somebody else does…

    1. I also saw something similar yesterday, Robin, but the blogger wasn’t clear as to his sources – the blog site itself was just terrible in its design and I had a hard time even navigating to a place where I could find all the info on a single page.

      When I saw Israeli footage of the passengers allegedly throwing a soldier overboard, it had crossed my mind that the video wasn’t genuine, mainly because in terms of quality and lighting, it didn’t match the other IDF videos shot during the same time frame and supposedly from the same location.

  9. ‘Scott MacEachern, a Bowdoin anthropologist and weapons expert’

    I clicked on the link you provided and there’s not the slightest indication of him being a weapons expert

    1. He’s a professor of anthropology. I never claimed he was a professor specializing in munitions or weapons. He happens to be a weapons expert. All you’d need to do to know that is read what he wrote to me.

        1. Thanks for the photos. In both of these cases, the paintball guns you’re referring don’t have the hoppers attached (as did the ones visible in video and pictures during the boarding), nor does the T68 have a magazine. (I get the feeling paintball gun marketing photos often look like that, to make the markers look as much like real firearms as possible.) If either of these was in a configuration where it actually could be fired, that is not what it would look like.

          And a question in response… do you have any other suggestions about what that weapon is? If so, I’d be happy to hear it.

        2. I looked at that last night, and compared the model shown on the website to the soldier’s gun in the video, and they’re not the same.

          1. Thank you, Scott. My next question is, how potentially lethal are they, especially when they’re carrying peppershot?

            Is it true that a cartridge filled with pellets was removed from the brain of one of the dead?

  10. I sent this today to Paul Woodward of War in Context

    My apologies; the published video film clearly has a sound disconnect between Bulent Yildirim’s broadcast statement and Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal’s later broadcast.

    However, I don’t consider this proves the whole video is a fake. I was puzzled by a later extract (during Elshayyal’s broadcast) showing more kicking and the departure of the two Israeli commandos. This seems to have been inserted into the original to pad it out a bit – a mistake.”

    None of this disproves the fact that Israeli goons invaded, occupied and kidnapped an unarmed ship in international waters.

    What weapon was used seems to be irrelevant; especially as no evidence of paint-gun use has turned up anywhere.

  11. mary: “My next question is, how potentially lethal are they, especially when they’re carrying peppershot?”

    The general answer is, I’m afraid, “It depends”. So-called ‘less-lethal’ ammunition has certainly killed people before at short range (and this would be extremely short range): for that matter, people have been killed by the wads from blank cartridges before at such ranges. The issue is, how likely that would be, and the role that chance would play in such cases. That would probably be unknowable without a full-up investigation.

  12. When it comes to expertise:
    Nobody in the know would doubt that Frank Barnes was a firearms expert of the very highest standing, but he was a professor of community law and gained his first doctorate in Geology.
    Elmer Keith, who designed the .44 Magnum, didn’t have a degree at all so far as Medawar knows, having worked at outdoor jobs from his mid teens, but was also a firearms expert of the highest standing. Both men spent many years working in very isolated places where shooting was the only available pastime, other than counting rocks and trees.

    There wasn’t, until Frank Barnes and others of his generation invented it, an academic field of forensic ballistics to be a professor in.

    The level of understanding required for this debate may exceed that of a typical journalist or cabinet minister (it usually does) but is a small fraction of what someone like Frank Barnes knew, and Richard’s anthropologist will probably suffice. Medawar’s observation about the De Lisle carbine was meant to expand rather than contradict. The point being, that silenced military firearms are primarily designed to kill. And that even a military arm whose sole purpose was to resist a genocidal military invasion of the United Kingdom, was trained to observe rules of engagement, because the consequences of random resistance could have been dire.

    H&K make a very accurate baton gun, which would seem a saner riot control weapon than paintball guns loaded with odd recipes, or silenced .22″ carbines.

    But the IDF’s objective does not seem to be to CONTROL a riot, so much as to exploit any riot as cover for deterrent executions, for which purpose a silenced carbine might indeed be ideal.

  13. I seriously doubt that Israel would endanger its soldiers by allowing them to board a ship Israel suspected might be carrying armed terrorists, with only paintball guns.

    I’ve blogged about those 9mm paintball guns here:

    http://blogs.alternet.org/folkie/2010/06/06/those-9mm-paintball-guns/

    But I’m going to post a link to this discussion there, because until now I didn’t realize how ridiculously easy it would be for Israel, a leading arms manufacturer, to take some of the 9mm weapons that top-of-the-line paintball guns have been designed to resemble, and add hoppers or baskets or whatever is necessary to make the real weapons resemble paintball guns.

    1. Thank you for that input. Your logic has some merit to it. I’m having an enormous problem with the paintball thing myself. No paint anywhere or on anyone, so what were they shooting? What types of weapons fire 9mm bullets?

    2. There’s no need to speculate. The navy seals had paintball guns in their hands (and on their backs when they came down from the helicopters), and small 9mm guns (that were to be used as last resort) strapped to their legs. I really thought it was common knowledge.

      You should know that there are videos that show the navy seals fire with the paintball guns at the activists (who throw stuff at the navy seals) on board. The activists don’t run away for cover. You’d think that had these paintball guns were real guns in disguise, the activists will run away. I know I would.

      1. It is common knowledge, Alice W, that the commandos were firing those “paintball guns” and that nobody got hit with a paintball. There were no paint marks on the clothing of the dead or of the survivors, and none on the ship. Since the commandos are expert marksmen and the ship is broader than the side of a barn, had they been firing paintballs, there would have been obvious paint spatters all over.

        It is NOW common knowledge that the commandos also had real weapons, but it was not common knowledge when Haaretz, the New York Times, and other media outlets reported the Israeli government’s claim that the commandos had boarded the ship armed “only” with paintball guns. Most people, including me, thought that “only” meant that they didn’t have both paintball guns and 9mm Glocks.

        Since Israel confiscated all cameras, film, the ships, and most of the clothing of the passengers, I’m sure they’re working hard now putting paint spatters over everything, but there were no paint spatters in the video they released. If those expert marksmen had been trying to ward off attackers with paintball guns, somebody should have gotten hit with a paintball.

        1. Mark E. Smith said:

          “It is NOW common knowledge that the commandos also had real weapons, but it was not common knowledge when Haaretz, the New York Times, and other media outlets […]”

          Reuters, on Tue Jun 1, 2010 4:14pm EDT:

          “What was meant as a swift seizure by commandos armed with riot gear and paintball guns turns, according to the Israelis, into a hostage crisis, with disarmed troops wrestled to the ground and fearing for their lives. Some leap overboard. Others pull out pistols they had brought, strapped to their legs, for emergencies. Soon, 9 activists, mostly Turks, are dead.” (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65044N20100601)

          Mark E. Smith said:

          “[…] and other media outlets reported the Israeli government’s claim that the commandos had boarded the ship armed “only” with paintball guns. Most people, including me, thought that “only” meant that they didn’t have both paintball guns and 9mm Glocks.”

          Haaretz, on 31/05/10:

          “An Israeli military spokesman said some of the commandos were equipped with paintball guns but the non-lethal weapons were not enough against activists who charged in with batons. “They had pistols with live ammunition as back-up, to defend themselves,” he said.” (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-navy-commandos-gaza-flotilla-activists-tried-to-lynch-us-1.293089)

          Do you want me to continue?

          I agree though. Nothing is common knowledge unless Mark E. Smith has heard about it.

          I also agree that an inquiry should be conducted.

          1. There was a time frame, Alice W.

            The first reports came from the Israeli government because they had jammed communications from the flotilla ships and the passengers were held incommunicado.

            It was those first reports that said that while the Israeli commandos boarded with only paintball guns (the “back-up” guns weren’t mentioned until much later), they had found 9mm bullet casings, a caliber they didn’t use, so they knew that the passengers were armed.

            That led many people to think that the Israelis had only non-lethal weapons and that the passengers had been shooting people.

            Unfortunately for Israel, each time one of its claims has been disproved, it comes out with another easily disproven lie.

            Nothing was common knowledge unless it was released by the Israeli government immediately after their illegal raid on the flotilla and their massacre of nine unarmed passengers execution style with several 9mm bullets from the commando’s Glocks to their heads, chests, and backs.

            Because of the communications blackout by Israel, many people like myself tend to think the worst, because if Israel’s story was true, they’d have allowed full communications and released all the film in order to prove that things had happened the way they claimed.

            Among those spreading Hasbara, there is “common knowledge” because they are given their talking points. These people apparently have such a low level of intelligence that when they are first told that the Israelis found 9mm bullet casings, a caliber the Israelis didn’t use, they repeated it endlessly to throw blame on the passengers, and when the commando claimed credit for killing 6 of the passengers with his 9mm Glock, they didn’t see any contradiction and said, “Oh, they had back-up guns–everybody knows that.”

            Sure they had back-up guns. That has nothing to do with their original claim that they didn’t have and didn’t use 9mm bullets.

            The more the defenders of the massacre try to ignore and cover up their previous lies with more lies, the more they discredit both Israel and themselves.

            There are people who believe anything they read in the papers or see on TV, there are people who believe everything they read in books that are thousands of years old, and there are people who are capable of critical thinking and logical analysis who aren’t that gullible.

          2. Mark E. Smith said:

            “The first reports came from the Israeli government because they had jammed communications from the flotilla ships and the passengers were held incommunicado. It was those first reports that said that while the Israeli commandos boarded with only paintball guns (the “back-up” guns weren’t mentioned until much later)”.

            I think I understand what you’re saying. You say that a few hours after the raid, the Israeli government claimed that only paintball guns were used. With an emphasis on “the Israeli government” and on the word “only”. Only later (20 hours at most after the raid, as the Haaretz link I gave above shows) did the Israeli government claimed that there were also lethal weapons on board. Am I correct?

            Can you give a link to this initial Israeli government report, that mentions specifically that they used only (only) paintball guns? It seems like you’ve implied that this report appeared on the NYTimes and on Haaretz. It’s quite possible with the government in question, and I’d be interested in seeing a link to the relevant news piece.

            (P.S., I hope this comment will appear on the correct spot in this thread. I couldn’t find a proper way to reply to you, so I’m replying myself.)

          3. LOL @ Alice W.

            Here’s a link to a discussion of the Israeli lies where another pro-Israel activist like yourself pleads that they don’t know how to google:

            http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/29412/israeli-lies-exposed-smuggled-clip-shows-idf-executing-injured-activist-possibly-the-american-furkan-

            I think that before you start posting to public forums, you should learn how to do your own googling.

            Just as we’ve all gotten sick and tired of being called self-hating Jews or anti-Semites for criticizing Israel, we’re tired of doing your googling for you.

            Is that one of the talking points in the Hasbara memos? If confronted with the obvious lies of the Israeli government, criticize the sources that published the lies of the Israeli government, or pretend that you can’t google the sources?

          4. Mark E. Smith said:

            “It is NOW common knowledge that the commandos also had real weapons, but it was not common knowledge when Haaretz, the New York Times, and other media outlets reported the Israeli government’s claim that the commandos had boarded the ship armed “only” with paintball guns. Most people, including me, thought that “only” meant that they didn’t have both paintball guns and 9mm Glocks.”

            Mark E. Smith also said:

            “The first reports came from the Israeli government because they had jammed communications from the flotilla ships and the passengers were held incommunicado. It was those first reports that said that while the Israeli commandos boarded with only paintball guns (the “back-up” guns weren’t mentioned until much later)”.

            So, Mark E. Smith promised me that there are NYTimes and Haaretz articles, where the Israeli government said that they only (only) used paintball guns. I then asked Mark E. Smith for links to the articles. For some reason, Mark E. Smith failed to provide these links. I am very disappointed. Very. And yes, you’re naive if you think I didn’t try googling for the Haaretz and the NYTimes articles. Otherwise, why would I ask you for links to these articles? It makes no sense.

            Despite all of the above, I am willing to keep an open mind. I’ll entertain the possibility that the links you refer to actually do exist. I’ll give you another chance. I WANT TO BELIEVE.

            P.S. I appreciate your logical fallacies at the last paragraph. However, it would be much more constructive for the discussion if you didn’t use them. Also, although I’m somewhat curious about a site called smirkingchimp, you should know that I won’t follow links to unidentified sites/blogs. Please provide links to credible news sources. I reckon the site/blog has them?

  14. There are no paint splashes in any footage, but Medawar did see footage of a woman carrying a bloodstained stretcher.

    NATO forces don’t all even see paintball as a training aid, because it teaches soldiers to hide behind things that won’t stop real bullets.

    9mm bullets (9x19mm “Parabellum” or “NATO” depending on your age) are fired by mid-sized self-loading handguns, many sub-machine guns, some machine pistols (most of these fire something with less recoil) and a few “carbines” which in this context usually means a sub-machine gun with some degree of inherent accuracy, such as the MP5 used by many police forces and special forces in hostage-rescue situations.

    There are in fact about eighteen quite different 9mm handgun and carbine cartridges that Medawar knows about, but it’s the 9x19mm that people are talking about here. There is a 9mm short (also known as .380 ACP), which is less powerful and can be used in simpler and smaller handguns, such as the Walther PPK, and there was a 9mm Mauser, meant for a very large pistol, which is as powerful as a .357″ Magnum revolver. Most of the others come from the early 20th century (as does the 9x19mm in fact) and are not now made. The Russian army’s 9mm Makarov is somewhere between the 9x19mm and the 9mm short in size and power, and appears to be a copy of an experimental cartridge developed for the Luftwaffe during WW2, but never actually introduced into Nazi service.

    See:
    http://medawarscornflakes.blogspot.com/2010/02/guns-that-didnt-bark.html

    if you are interested in Israel and the 9mm short, aka .380 ACP.

  15. I think that these media manipulations bring another reason to serioulsly discuss Helen Thomas’ proposal. Can someone tell me why it cant be discussed

  16. Of course it can be discussed, Aji X–the only problem is that discussing it can cost you your reputation, your career, or even your life. We have freedom of speech, but sometimes it carries a very high price.

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