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Dundee man is traced to Israeli prison
Tuesday 01 June – 20.00
Source: http://www.eveningtelegraph.co.uk/output/2010/06/01/story15154689t0.shtmA Dundee man who had been missing since Israeli commandos intercepted aid ships off the Gaza strip has been transferred to a prison in an Israeli desert, the Evening Telegraph can reveal.
Ali El-Awaisi (21) was on the Mavi Marmara, one of the ships boarded by the troops, and his family had feared he was among those killed or injured during the incident.
However, his brother Khalid (30) said the Foreign Office has confirmed Ali is one of the prisoners and it is understood he is uninjured.Despite his joy at hearing of his brother’s safety and an end to a three-day ordeal of communication blackout, Khalid was still furious that Ali had not been released.
He said, “Ali is a prisoner in the Negev desert, together with all the other British and other passengers.
“They have all been taken to this prison as far as I’m aware and Ali is not injured.
“The woman from the Foreign Office said, ‘Once the Israelis finish with them they will deport them,’ but finished what? They have already interrogated them.”
Khalid added the spokeswoman had said the British prisoners’ safety was the main concern now and dignitaries would be assessing the situation.
Earlier today, Ali’s father, Professor Abd al-Fattah El-Awaisi, demanded answers about the condition of those still unaccounted for.
The Foreign Office has confirmed that no UK nationals are among those killed during the incident, but did reveal one Brit has been injured.
A spokesman said he was unable to confirm the number of Britons onboard the flotilla, but Prof El-Awaisi said there are four Scots among those imprisoned.
Prof El-Awaisi, who is widely recognised for his work to build contact between the Arab world and the West, added he is “angry, feeling numb and watching in a state of shock”.
“I see what is happening to these people and I feel this is not acceptable.
“It is time our politicians acted, because we need to know what is happening,” he said.
Prof El-Awaisi praised the work done by Dundee’s local MPs and MSPs comforting his family and putting pressure on both the Scottish and UK Governments to investigate further.
He is currently based in Syria, where he is trying to establish cultural engagement in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and said the strain of being away from his family is proving difficult.
The United Nations issued a statement this morning condemning the loss of life on board the flotilla and asked for an “immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel”.
It has also called for a full, impartial investigation into the incident.
“Britain, as the state that created Israel, needs to say in an ethical statement ‘enough is enough’,” said Prof El-Awaisi.
He added, “As a man who dedicated the whole of his life to multicultural engagement, particularly through the project at Al-Maktoum Institute in Dundee, and as a British citizen, I find it an absolute disgrace and not acceptable.
“The Foreign Office should at least ensure the freedom of the British citizens.”
The ships, carrying about 10,000 tonnes of aid and up to 700 passengers on six vessels, were warned not to pass an Israeli sea blockade.
The troops then stormed the flotilla while it was reportedly still in international waters, where they claimed they were attacked with knives and steel bars, a version of events strongly denied by campaigners.
They are Killing and Starving the folks of Gaza.. come ON people ! ,, the marxists have money.. god blless Palestine !
Zionist cunts !!
I dont really know the story to much, but wasnt their footage of the troops being attacked by steel bars etc?
BM.. they came from a flotilla .. as ye WELL know. the folks in Gaza are starving. they have no medical supplies etc. a few dundee boys never made it, we are twinned with Nablus.
bless Palestine !
Without Justice…There can be no peace
@rubyred wrote:
They are Killing and Starving the folks of Gaza.. come ON people ! ,, the marxists have money.. god blless Palestine !
Zionist taxi drivers !!
Do you seriously expect any decent response from this sorry lot on here rubyred ? They are far to buzy picking out mistakes of grammar to have time to condemn the slaughter and suppression of innocent men, women and children… Only when those who recognise the torture and turn to acts of outright terror on their doorstep, will they open their eyes……. a cursed lot they are !!! Yes, bless the palestine and the good people within her…. Watch now how the western hypocrits sit on their hands as this unfolds… :x
Just because people don’t join in a message board rant to condemn, doesn’t make them hyprocites and doesn’t mean they have their eyes closed or sit on their hands….there’s a big wide world beyond these message boards, and ranting on here isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to the Isreal/Palestine situation. There are initiatives beyond these boards if you really want to do something other than just rant.
So your eyes are open…what are you going to do about it?
:lol:
@jen_jen wrote:
Just because people don’t join in a message board rant to condemn, doesn’t make them hyprocites and doesn’t mean they have their eyes closed or sit on their hands….there’s a big wide world beyond these message boards, and ranting on here isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to the Isreal/Palestine situation. There are initiatives beyond these boards if you really want to do something other than just rant.
So your eyes are open…what are you going to do about it?
What on this earth are you shoveling here fgs ? The ” decent response ” i mention is in relation to the capture of UK citizens by the zionist demons…. As far as the suppression and apartheid of the palestinian people are concerned, what on earth could i expect a handfull of little dumplings like you and the others to do? The ” sitting on their hands ” comment is directed at the double standard, gutless hypocrites that we know as the UN
Fancy restaurants and Olympic-size pools: What the media won’t report about Gaza
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2010/05/25/fancy-restaurants-and-olympic-size-pools-what-the-media-won%E2%80%99t-report-about-gaza/By Special to the National Post May 25, 2010 – 9:44 am
By Tom Gross
In recent days, the international media, particularly in Europe and the Mideast, has been full of stories about “activist boats sailing to Gaza carrying desperately-needed humanitarian aid and building materials.”
The BBC World Service even led its world news broadcasts with this story at one point over the weekend. (The BBC yesterday boasted that its global news audience has now risen to 220 million persons a week, making it by far the biggest news broadcaster in the world.)
Indeed the BBC and other prominent Western media regularly lead their viewers and readers astray with accounts of a non-existent “mass humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
What they won’t tell you about are the fancy new restaurants and swimming pools of Gaza, or about the wind surfing competitions on Gaza beaches, or the Strip’s crowded shops and markets. Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza live a middle class (and in some cases an upper class) lifestyle that western journalists refuse to report on because it doesn’t fit with the simplistic story they were sent to write.
Here, courtesy of the Palestinian Ma’an news agency, is a report on Gaza’s new Olympic-sized swimming pool . (Most Israeli towns don’t have Olympic-size swimming pools. One wonders how an area that claims to be starved of water and building materials and depends on humanitarian aid builds an Olympic size swimming pool and creates a luxury lifestyle for some while others are forced to live in abject poverty as political pawn refugees?)
If you pop into the Roots Club in Gaza, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, you can “dine on steak au poivre and chicken cordon bleu”.
The restaurant’s website in Arabic gives a window into middle class dining and the lifestyle of Hamas officials in Gaza. And here it is in English, for all the journalists, UN types and NGO staff who regularly frequent this and other nice Gaza restaurants (but don’t tell their readers about them).
And here is a promotional video of the club restaurant . In case anyone doubts the authenticity of this video, I just called the club in Gaza City and had a nice chat with the manager who proudly confirmed business is booming and many Palestinians and international guests are dining there.
In a piece for The Wall Street Journal last year, I documented the “after effects” of a previous “emergency Gaza boat flotilla,” when the arrivals were seen afterwards purchasing souvenirs in well-stocked shops. (You can also scroll down here for more pictures of Gaza’s “impoverished” shops.)
But the mainstream liberal international media won’t report on any of this. Playing the manipulative game of the BBC is easy: if we had their vast taxpayer funded resources, we too could produce reports about parts of London, Manchester and Glasgow and make it look as though there is a humanitarian catastrophe throughout the UK. We could produce the same effect by selectively filming seedy parts of Paris and Rome and New York and Los Angeles too.
Of course there is poverty in Gaza. There is poverty in parts of Israel too. (When was the last time a foreign journalist based in Israel left the pampered lounge bars and restaurants of the King David and American Colony hotels in Jerusalem and went to check out the slum-like areas of southern Tel Aviv? Or the hard-hit Negev towns of Netivot or Rahat?)
But the way that many prominent Western news media are deliberately misleading global audiences and systematically creating the false impression that people are somehow starving in Gaza, and that it is all Israel’s fault, can only serve to increase hatred for the Jewish state – which one suspects was the goal of many of the editors and reporters involved in the first place.
National Post
Tom Gross is a former Middle East correspondent for the London Sunday Telegraph and the New York Daily News.
So starving hard done Palestinians my a*es
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