"Israel cannot get away with it...", asserts Kuldip Nayar

America is the only nation which can put pressure on Israel. But every US president assesses how much he can do without annoying the powerful Jewish lobby in America. President Barack Obama appears to be different but his reaction is lukewarm. He may not prove to be a Bill Clinton who got Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat to shake hands and come to an understanding which had the makings of a settlement.

Obama has to start all over again and emphasise to Israel that peace or security in the region can be achieved through conciliation, not by force. The Security Council’s resolution was too tepid to be taken seriously.

The attack on the flotilla indicates how power has become the arbiter in the world. Countries in a region have to come together to withstand pressure from outside. This is yet another reminder to South Asia that unless it puts its act together, it may expose itself to outside interference. The manner in which the US is enhancing its presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan is ominous. The region must wake up to the danger.

Israel has reintroduced gunboat diplomacy. Colonisation belongs to an age when there was no UN, no forum to discuss aggression and no lobby to seek peace. What has happened recently cannot be taken lightly.

The entire international community has to sit up and take note. Israel cannot get away with it as it has so far by reducing the people of Palestine to a commodity that Tel Aviv can use in the manner it likes.

Israel is not the face of the Jews who are generally known as a peace-loving community. It should not be allowed to blacken their faces.

From Kuldip Nayar's article in Dawn. More Here.

Furqan Dogan and me

Who is Furkan Dogan you may ask?

He was the lone US citizen of the nine activists killed by the Israelis during the Flotilla Massacre. I was horrified to read about his execution-style killing and the even more horrifying, but not surprising, silence by the US on one of its citizens being murdered abroad.

What does this 19-yr old martyr have to do with me?

Well, besides his obviously extraordinary act of courage and sacrifice, I didn’t give any extra thought to him over the others who died at the hands of the IDF.

But when I read that he was born in a small town located in upstate New York named Troy, I immediately sat up.

You see, Troy, NY is known for nothing - absolutely nothing. The weather is dreary, the social life is non-existent, and the locals are aloof. Those living in this ex-industrial town are infamously known as Troilets.

The only thing of real value located in Troy is my Alma mater, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). Yes, that makes me the only human being in the world who has the ignominy of being both a Troilet as well as a Baltimoron (being from Baltimore). Yay for me!

Anyways, so when I read that he was born in Troy 19 years ago, the story became a bit more personal. I was there in Troy from 1990 to 1994, the exact time of his birth.

And since I know that the only Turkish residents of Troy are RPI postgrads, I immediately started racking my brain for any Turkish brother with the last name Dogan, in the off chance that I actually may have known Furkan’s father. Seeing that it was almost 20 years ago, many names and faces have begun to blur, so I wasn't having much luck there.

And then when I finally found a picture of the good brother whose son was killed in the Flotilla Massacre, my heart dropped.

His name is Ahmet Dogan and I knew him from the local masjid at RPI. While he was pursuing his PhD, I was an undergrad youngling. I remember him for two things, his extremely quiet demeanor and his sweet jump shot. Our paths regularly crossed in many places during my four years there – at the masjid, at social gatherings, at Juma’a, on campus.

And it is not beyond the realm of possibility that I actually held little Furkan in my arms, during one of the countless encounters with dear Ahmet.


And for the mere possibility of having met modern-day martyr Furkan Dogan, I am humbled and honored.

From Naeem's Blog. More here.

Thomas Friedman on the Flotilla attack : It was definitely a "setup"

No question! No question, at all, that this flotilla was a setup, designed to trick the Israeli commandos into boarding it, from a helicopter. That is why those "humanitarian" activists were so well-armed with... poles and chairs and sticks and things one would find on a boat. They had set a trap, for Israel, to trick Israel into killing between 9 and 20 people. (But because Friedman is very balanced he admits that it was very stupid of Israel to fall for this trap and kill those people.)

You must always remember that while reasonable people consider Thomas Friedman to be a joke -- a barely literate cartoon mustache of oversimplification whose understanding of global politics is slightly less comprehensive than a USA Today infographic and who possesses about as much insight into world events as a lightly vandalized Wikipedia stub entry -- the sort of people who ineptly manage and run the nation take him very seriously and look to him to form their opinions about important subjects outside (and sometimes relating to) their immediate expertise, be that foreclosing on families or running the Defense Department for the Bush Administration.

From Alex Parene's article in Salon. More here.

After Rachel Corrie, Furkan Dogan is the second US citizen murdered by Israel

Furkan Dogan was struck by five bullets shortly before dawn on Monday while aboard the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara ship. His US citizenship was highlighted at the funeral of eight of the nine Turks who died during the incident.

"Furkan was my friend," said Ali Yunusoalu, who had accompanied his friend during pre-dawn prayers on the top deck of the Mavi Marmar on Monday.

Dogan's father told how his son had been shot in the forehead, but he also mentioned how the family took comfort in believing that Furkan had died in an honourable manner. "I feel my son has been blessed with heaven," he said. "I am hoping to be a father — worthy of my son."

American activist Rachel Corrie was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer, as she tried to stop it from destroying a Palestinian home in Gaza.

From a report in Gulf News. More here.

Attack on Freedom Flotilla- Come on Obama, earn your Nobel!

There are moments in history which demand change in our perceptions and attitudes to what looks routine. We have become immune to the siege and violence of Gaza. We have become deaf to the cries of mothers and lamenting of daughters. The complex power equations of the Middle East have muddled the cost of human suffering which is an inevitable part of the package. With each day the darkness around Gaza deepens. Peace talks, war crimes and peace talks again. The cycle goes on with a status quo which suites the perpetrators more than the victims.

The attack on Freedom Flotilla is one such moment which has thrown a chance not towards Barak Obama, the President of the most powerful country in the world, but towards Barak Obama, the Nobel Laureate for Peace 2009. There is no paucity of options on Barak Obama’s platter. Israeli economic blockage, redefining biased territorial divisions, UN sanctions, maybe use of force or even freedom for the people of Palestine in general and Gaza in particular. President Obama was criticized by many for being given the Nobel Prize prematurely. This is the opportunity to justify the award and to reaffirm the faith of people in hope and humanity.

We know the cost of standing up against Israel and the Zionist agenda can be exorbitant and pure dangerous, but then the cost to maintain status quo is already deadly. We hope Barack Obama, the first black President of the United States of America stands up to what he writes and thinks. We hope that his actions, not rhetoric, will manufacture global consent against any further Israeli oppression. We hope that he frees the prisoners of Gaza not only from their brutal masters but from their fates as well. President Barak Obama, we will wait to see if you are just one of them or are you a rare breed.

From Shah Alam Khan's blog

To read the full article click here.

Shah Alam Khan is a Orthopaedic Surgeon working at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India