In the early hours of Monday May 31 Israeli forces attacked a flotilla of ships carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza strip. Dubbed the Freedom Flotilla, the ships were aiming to break Israel’s illegal 3-year blockade of Gaza.

At least 15 people were killed and dozens injured when Israeli troops attacked the lead ship in the convoy–the Turkish “Mavi Marmara”. The attack happened in international waters, 75 miles off the coast of Israel and Gaza.

The media were quick to depict the atrocity as one that was of the activists making by repeating various official Israeli government statements suggesting that the Israeli military – the IDF – after having descended on the lead ship, reacted in self-defence to the violent actions of those on board. The media aligned these official pronouncements with Israeli edited video footage that purported to show activists repeatedly striking members of the IDF with rods and batons.

But as the dust has begun to settle, a different reality has slowly started to emerge. Witnesses on board have stated that it was the IDF who initiated the violence firing live bullets prior to embarking the vessel and then continuing with what is described as “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” acts of violence against unarmed activists.

“The ship turned into a lake of blood,” Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin told reporters in Istanbul. She had been seized after the attack on the convoy, held in Israel and then returned to Turkey because she had a child with her. She said Israelis attacked at around 4am on Monday, using “smoke bombs followed by gas canisters. They started to descend onto the ship with helicopters” (http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=21412).

More detailed eye-witness accounts can be accessed here: (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/conte…0/s2916676.htm) and here:(http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106193546785656.html).

The supposed cache of weapons – grenades, pistols and rifles which the Israeli’s accused the activists of hiding – did not in fact exist. The Turkish authorities confirmed as much prior to the ship setting sail after they undertook routine checks (http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=who-the-hell-does-israel-think-she-is-2010-06-01).

Needless to say, the ludicrous Israeli claims and the related accusations of guilt by association went unchallenged by the media.

More importantly, journalists failed to mention the ‘elephant in the room’ – the significant question as to why it was that a ship containing humanitarian supplies intended for starving and impoverished people, was attacked in international waters.

Israel justified this illegal attack by claiming that “terrorists” were aboard the vessel. But if this was indeed the case, why was it that the Israeli’s had in the past given permission for similar vessels to dock in Gaza unhindered? And why if the Israeli’s believed “terrorists” were aboard as they claimed, did they not wait until the time the boat either reached Israeli territorial waters or alternatively wait until it arrived at its destination before apprehending it?

In addition, the Israeli government has rejected requests for an international investigation of its conduct (www.focus.de/politik/ausland/…id_515363.html) and its army has been criticised by the Foreign Press Association for what it called “a selective use of videos confiscated from journalists on the ships to justify its deadly raid at sea” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100603/…tleWhvbm9ycw–).

All this strongly points to Israel’s guilt, and suggests that the official Israeli line is a smokescreen.

So what were the real reasons for the attack? And why, given the near universal international condemnation of Israel, did US president, Barack Obama, remain silent – particularly as the rest of the permanent members of the Security Council not only condemned the attack, but explicitly called for Israel’s three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip to be lifted?

For the answers we need to examine what is widely considered to be a “special relationship” between the two countries. It is a relationship that can be characterized as one in which Israel acts as a “bulldog” and proxy for the US as a means to cement the latters geopolitical and economic strategic interests throughout the middle east. This is a situation, in other words, where the US dog wags the Israeli tail as a method of divide and control (http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/War/Why%20Politicians.htm).

The current situation—not only but especially in the Middle East—is defined by the imperialist offensive mounted by the United States and its closest allies (notably Israel and Britain) since 11 September 2001. Carried out under the slogan of the “war on terrorism”, the real aim of this offensive is to perpetuate the global domination of US capitalism (hence the title of the neocon ‘Project for the New American Century’) (http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=241).

Domination in this way requires the control of the world’s land, air, maritime and space – a military concept known as “Full-Spectrum dominance” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-spectrum_dominance). In return, Israel by virtue of its strategic importance, receives favoured nation status by way of preferential “aid” amounting to 3 billion dollars annually, effectively allowing Washington de facto control.

What began with Ben-Gurion’s Plan D – the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian’s – is now in its final stages, termed “Operation Cast Lead”. The F-16 jet fighters, the 250-pound “smart” GBU-39 bombs supplied on the eve of the attack on Gaza during December 2008, which killed 1,4oo Palestinian’s, is part of the wider grand US imperial control of countries’ resources in the region.

Lord Curzon, viceroy of India in 1898 likened this imperial coming together as “pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world” (http://revcom.us/a/089/iran-en.html).

Brzezinski, adviser to several presidents, has written virtually those same words. In his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives, he writes that the key to dominating the world is central Asia, with its strategic position between competing powers and immense oil and gas wealth (http://sandiego.indymedia.org/media/2006/10/119973.pdf).

In 2001, the authoratitive Janes Weekly revealed that Israel needed a “trigger” of a suicide bombing to attack the West Bank with the aim of adhering to this strategic game (http://www.iags.org/n0124051.htm). On 23 November, 2001, Israeli agents assassinated the Hamas leader, Mahmud Abu Hunud, and got their “trigger”; the suicide attacks resumed in response to his killing.

Something uncannily similar happened seven years later on 5 November 2008 when Israeli special forces attacked Gaza, killing six people. Once again, they got their propaganda “trigger”. A ceasefire initiated and sustained by the Hamas government – which had imprisoned its violators – was shattered by the Israeli attack and home-made rockets were fired into what used to be Palestine before its Arab occupants were “cleansed”.

On 23 December, Hamas offered to renew the ceasefire, but Israel’s charade was such that its all-out assault on Gaza had been planned six months earlier (http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article1146).

The seven years to 2008 have resulted in the deaths of 14 Israeli’s by mostly homemade rockets fired from Gaza as against 5,000 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks (www.guardian.co.uk/ commentisfree/2008/dec/30/israel-and-the-palestinians-middle-east).

Washington was fully aware of the nature, as well as the likely consequences of the IDF naval operation in international waters, including the killings of civilians (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19447).

There are indications that the decision was taken in consultation with Washington. Indeed the Obama administration had given the green light to the deadly raids in international waters (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=19447).

As with the previous examples highlighted above, this current Israeli atrocity will likely provide the catalyst for the “trigger” for further Israeli incursions into Gaza.

The killing of unarmed civilians was part of the mandate of the Israeli naval commando. It was an integral part of the logic of  Dagan’s “Operation Justified Vengeance”, which presents Israel as the victim rather than the perpetrator and uses civilian deaths “on both sides” to justify a process of military escalation.

Operation “Cast Lead” was part of a broader military-intelligence operation initiated at the outset of the Ariel Sharon government in 2001. But it was under Sharon’s “Operation Justified Vengeance” that F-16 fighter planes were initially used to bomb Palestinian cities.

The strike on the Freedom Flotilla is part of the logic of transforming Gaza into an urban concentration camp. “Operation Justified Vengeance” was also referred to as the “Dagan Plan”, named after General (ret.) Meir Dagan, who currently heads Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1868).

It should be understood that the raid on the Flotilla also coincided with NATO-Israel war games directed against Iran. According to the Sunday Times “three German-built Israeli submarines equipped with nuclear cruise missiles are to be deployed in the Gulf near the Iranian coastline” (http://www.zerohedge.com/article/israel-deploys-three-nuclear-cruise-missile-armed-subs-along-iranian-coastline).

Meir Dagan, in coordination with his US counterparts, had been put in charge of various military-intelligence operations. It is worth noting that Meir Dagan as a young Colonel had worked closely with then defense minister Ariel Sharon in the raids on Palestinian settlements in Beirut in 1982.

The 2009 ground invasion of Gaza, in many regards, bear a canny resemblance to the 1982 military operation led by Sharon and Dagan.

Dagan as head of Israeli intelligence, no doubt also took part in the decision to launch the strike on the Freedom Flotilla. Moreover, it seems inconceivable that Obama did not personally authorize the strike also(http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1868).

Copyright: Daniel Margrain