ISRAEL OPENS FIRE ON PEACE FLOTILLA, IN NIGHT ASSAULT AT SEA

Attacking in international waters, under cover of darkness, Israeli commandos boarded and seized the six ships of the Peace Flotilla, that were bound for Gaza. It is being called a massacre on the high seas, as Israel's men came aboard shooting and firing teargas. Ten people are reported dead; but judging by the first reports, the count may go higher, with dozens injured.

Go read Stephen Lendman's Slaughter at Sea:

Video footage on board the Turkish passenger ship Mavi Marmara showed Israeli commandos opened fire during the assault, activists saying it began immediately after storming on board.

Al Zazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, on the ship, said "a white surrender flag was raised (and) there was no live fire coming from the passengers."

The Free Gaza Movement reported that "Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos dropped from a helicopter onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck." No action on board provoked it. It was premeditated, willful slaughter.

This is a barbarous attack. It is also diplomatically self-defeating for Israel, to an extent that's almost beyond calculation. This is going to set off a firestorm of protest all over the world, and is occurring at the same time that Israel's submarines, armed with nukes, are near the shores of Iran.

Israel and Turkey used to be allies; but their souring relationship is likely to come to a stark end, as Turkish citizens were killed in this fiasco at sea. It's also been reported, in the Guardian, that the Greek captain of one of the small ships was shot; and officials in Athens are reported to be angry.

Over a year ago our country was in a transition period; and while Barack Obama celebrated being President-Elect, Israel was invading Gaza in what was certainly a massacre, killing way over 1,400 people. Israel used up, consumed in fact, all of the moral reputation it had left. And in the United States especially, a cone of silence was carefully adjusted over international new reports which, from time to time, detailed the story of torture of non-Jews in Israeli custody.

There is a kind of emotional deadening that surrounds Americans, like a protective layer, when it comes to the crimes of Israel's right-wing government.

Yet the paranoid pathology has become a part of Israel now. Its policy is against its own interests. And the policy of the US follows Israel, wherever Israel goes diplomatically, and will defend Israel (apparently to the death) no matter what Israel does.

Well you don't need a Book of Revelation, or a dowsing rod, or the Farmer's Almanac, to see where that leads. Plant by the full moon and dig deeply into the Earth.

Returning to this latest horror, the Palestinians in Gaza are still living in the rubble, and no relief so far is coming to relieve them. The right-wing Israeli government used its military to turn this place into a desperate ghetto, one that hangs onto life with the trickle of humanitarian goods that Israel allows in by road.