Forewarned is forearmed.

In spite of which some will most probably be making their last will and testament, just in case…..

Some Ground Rules before Setting Out

As the situation heats up, in my view there is an element of premeditation in the intention to set sail fully knowing the kind of obstacle to be encountered. And the alternative to confrontation is compliance & non-violent cooperation/obedience on the high seas.

SECRETARY CLINTON: “Well, we do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza. Just this week, the Israeli Government approved a significant commitment to housing in Gaza. There will be construction materials entering Gaza and we think that it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.”

By now, everybody has spoken and our Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has said the last word that can be said:

1.“it goes without saying that Sweden cannot give any guarantees for security for a trip of this kind.”

2.“Israel has the right to inspect whether the ships are bringing in prohibited goods.”

To all intents and purposes it looks like “same procedure as last year”.

The saying is, “once bitten, twice shy” and so of course, Israel is not taking any chances – and nor would you if you were in Israel’s shoes.

What anticipations of the future are harboured in a sailor’s breast as once more dear friends Flotilla 2 sets sail into the unknown uncharted waters but with the sure knowledge that they could be heading for more trouble even if Mankell the brave could be hymning from the book of praise or keeping his fingers quietly crossed with que sera sera and pray that it doesn’t rain too much, manly manky, the swashbuckling pirate captain…

“Aiming to Provoke a Confrontation” is the main fear. But it could turn out that all the fear about confrontation in holy territorial waters was just a storm in a teacup as the flotilla goods & crew are peacefully escorted to a safe harbour at Ashdod….

In any case, we should be certain that the Israeli navy has every reason to be more determined than those who could be hell bent on breaking the law and breaching the peace

Beautyful news

Should the unforeseen happen, you’ll find it here in Breaking News

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A little bit of background to the understanding …

The Truth About Israel Transferring Aid to Gaza

Up till June 1, 2011: Palestinian ceasefire violations since the end of Operation Cast Lead

This little news item which has not been widely reported in the Swedish media:

“The Foreign Ministry has established a task force to coordinate efforts, and that task force is continuing its operations, the official said. These efforts include persuading certain countries – such as Greece and Cyprus – to close their ports to ships taking part in the flotilla, and trying to get foreign governments to dissuade their nationals from taking part in the flotilla.

Some of these efforts seem to be paying dividends, as Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt was reported to have told his parliament on Thursday that “it goes without saying that Sweden cannot give any guarantees for security for a trip of this kind.”

Bildt, who in the past has been outspoken in his criticism of Israel, was quoted as saying  that according to international humanitarian law, “Israel has the right to inspect whether the ships are bringing in prohibited goods.”

The rest of the story:

http://www.jpost.com/Defense/Article.aspx?id=225682

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The last Flotilla to Gaza occupied so much space in the Swedish media, understandably, because of the presence of a few Swedish citizens on board….

Given all the background information that everybody has, it’s safe to conclude that Flotilla 2 is nothing less than this: The Continuing War Against the Jews

Just in case you didn’t know, please read on : The Floating Theatre of the Jihad

Is the purpose of challenging and breaking the blockade to give all ships bound for Gaza free passage, without having to go through Israeli checkpoints, so that should they succeed, henceforth weapons can enjoy free passage and be freely transported directly to Gaza  and to

Hamas

Terrorist Hamas

by sea?

Sounds crazy and irresponsible to me.

Whereas this is both prudent, responsible and necessary:

Israel Navy Trains to Stop Planned Gaza Flotilla

The point of interest is the Swedish component in the total composition of Flotilla 2. It’s part of the “ska vara med” peripheral Swedish mentality – ska vara med – not leading and when it comes to “att vara med” rightfully or wrong-fully, even sanctimoniously or in the name of “civil courage” it’s always a matter of following the lead. Certainly so in this case.

Hopefully Turkey – the undisputed leader of the enterprise and to date the most aggrieved (with the martyrdom of nine) is having second thoughts about setting sail to lead another confrontation. They have to get their priorities right. The well-meaning Turks have more than their hands full at the moment, receiving, accommodating – mostly in make shift tents, and taking care of all the refugees pouring in through their borders, fleeing from the Syrian military’s state of emergency and all that’s going on with their next door neighbour, with the genetically transmitted presidency of Assad’s totalitarian Syria. Praiseworthy compassionate action by the Turks.

You perhaps feel some empathy with the Islamic sentiments expressed here ?

What else is there to feel?

Where They Really Need a Freedom Flotilla : Syria

What you may have observed is that it is not the Syrians, the Egyptians or any of the North African Coastal countries, the Saudis or any of the Arab Brotherhoods or even the Iranian Navy or the Swedish Navy that is organising the Flotilla trip to Gaza, by sea.

The deterrence to  the breaking of the Israeli blockade by air is fuelled by the same considerate logic.

The same kind of logic that would deter the same players from wanting to defy the no-fly zone that NATO & Co have established over Libya or their wanting (with their little Flotilla) to challenge the boarding of vessels bound for Libya – a move that the mighty Håkan Juholt, Urban Ahlin and the Alliance approve of and are giving their support whole-heartedly

After this eye-opener Turkish Flotilla Passengers Joined Nakba Protest in Jordan

the good news is that Mavi Marmara Nixed From “Freedom Flotilla 2“

and French Flotilla Ship Won’t Sail

This time around with Flotilla number 2 we are only hearing about Captain Mankell. OK, so silence usually means consent. Nonetheless, a legit question is, what’s happened to his Flotilla buddies, why is the usually eloquent when not vociferous Gardell & his other Swedish Flotilla buddies, so silent?

Video: Naval Commando Boats Equipped with Water Cannon

Shabbat Shalom , everyone

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Mankell to set sail?

Not bloody likely perhaps, considering that the main sponsor is probably pulling out, according to the latest reports coming in : Turkish IHH Signals U-Turn on Gaza Plan

Could be a disappointment to Mankell’s sense of first hand adventure, that Hemingway feeling of actually being there, facing danger live and direct. No bullet proof vest, no condom.

I imagine that he must have been looking forward to the trip – the next round, since last year when he had so much too say, mostly in a very disapproving sort of way – the last straw being when he found himself collecting some lady’s clothes in lieu of the manuscripts that he had been expecting….

But the wily Swede with a shock of grey hair on his head which looks like the marble bust of Socrates and perhaps with as much good sense under his hat he is no doubt a tenacious breed of Swede and not likely to give up lightly on fulfilling his heart’s desires or reneging on the trip which he has been planning for some time now.

And there ’s hope yet : Gaza Flotilla Set to Sail, With or Without Turkish IHH

“If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour. “

To set sail or not to set sail for Gaza – that is the question – and it’s not as if all Sweden will be there at the quay to say “bon Voyage Manky” and we hope to see a better day!

Or perhaps they would like to change their destination and set sail for Egypt and via  the Rafah Crossing dispatch humanitarian goods to  Gaza & Damascus where things are much worse….

Some incredible news

More incredible news….

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Tomorrow’s Sweden’s National Day. No Nakba.

Last night I had a nightmare about a shoot-out : Christopher Columbus and Henning Mankell arrived in New York on the New Freedom Now Flotilla to liberate the Amerindians and Tibetans who have been living there since 7,000 years before Christ.

Then this

It’s always Daily Alert – and now, have just read about the tragic border incident on the Golan …

Twenty years ago, Mohammed my Sufi friend from Morocco (chubby, generous, fine funny fellow) used to ask me whether it’s true that I was born in Israeleone…

Good question. There’s also the Mankell Flotilla and the lines from the Great Bard which go

“Distant ships sailing into the mist
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do? “

Before I get started let me just say that the title “ Thunder in the Mountain” doesn’t have anything to do with the fact that I was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone at 12.15 midday on a very hot day in July, in the middle of the rainy season when there’s fireworks in the sky, “as majestic bells of bolts” accompanied by the clash of golden cymbals and peals of thunder roll like there’s a war going on between Shango and Thor up there in the heavens even as lightning strikes down trees, roots up telegraph poles and throws away electric cables and more thunder like lion roar so loud, you believe that the world is coming to an end and weaklings hide under their mothers’ beds and guilty ones have heart attacks having been told by Obeah Woman or legit Witch Doctor or Pa Joe the occult Medicine Man that there’s a spell they’ve put on them for the wrong they’ve done, whilst yet others having taken oaths like “and if I’m lying, may the lightning strike me down!” think that their time hath come and “die before you die” -  just as “cowards die many trimes before their deaths”,  some are struck down when all they see is “bells of lightning and its thunder.”

It’s also the time most babies get conceived, especially in the old days when, especially in July and August it can rain cats and dogs for three to five days straight without letup and I’m not talking about some Swedish spring shower or other little spittle from heaven above and when

“the clinging of the church bells blew far into the breeze
Leaving only bells of lightning and its thunder”

and even “as the sky cracked its poems in naked wonder”

young married or unmarried lads and lasses who have no TV to view  & locked – trapped  indoors by the pelting rain, have been known to turn to their opposite numbers for more creative activities and nine months later – voilà – and it can be shown statistically – that nine months after all that lightning, rain and thunder and in between, the rainbows in the sky, there’s been a significant increase in the local population, thanks and praises be to Jah…..

I’m saying all this because I may have given a wrong impression in my previous post when I wrote:” Oz spoke more intimately to his adoring fans in the synagogue, dilated on religious themes about the Almighty’s tolerance and patience with His chosen people and I suspect that many of them are like-minded among the Jewish conservative folk and less so, less Oz-like among the Orthodox faithful of world Jewry.”

The bottom line being, no matter who or what you are, Jew or Muslim, Christian or learned Hindu Brahmin, Sikh, Buddhist or non-violent Jain or what have you, today is the 3^rd of Sivan 5771 and Wednesday the 6^th of Sivan is the First Day of Shavuot and Shavuot is what Thunder on the Mountain is all about:

That the Almighty gave the Torah to the Prophet Moses and the entire nation of Israel that was assembled at the foot of the lowly Mount Sinai, fifty days after the Children of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt and as we all know, the Almighty gave the Holy Land to the Jewish People…….

It was all a journey, a tunnel leading to Yom Hashishi, the sixth day of Sivan, the pinnacle of creation.

The Scriptural verses about Thunder on the Mountain

Much has happened since then and on Wednesday the cycle is repeated as it’s said, all Israel and all the souls of future Israel were there at Mt. Sinai.

So, what legitimacy are we arguing about? Jerusalem? The Golan ? Judea? Samaria?

Egypt? Iran? Iraq? Mecca? Does Israel lay claim to Lebanon? The answer is NO. Morocco? Afghanistan? Of course not…

Breaking news

and then,

Ladies and gentlemen,

May I have the honour of presenting

an article

by the next no-nonsense president of the United States

No nonsense?

Just kidding…

But one thing that anyone from Freetown or any Garveyite does not accept is disrespect or any kind of nigger or uncle tom kind of talk about freedom: Everybody must be free

to live

if they so choose

a life

in dignity.

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A blog gives such leeway.

Now try to imagine Barack Obama at the Kulturhuset and then later on some more preachments (AIPAC style) at the Great Synagogue of Stockholm. Like a rock star! Sure, the synagogue would have been packed to overflowing, like at Yom Kippur. And the Security!

It was Stockholm, Thursday, 26^th May, 2011 / 22 Ijar, 5771. Amoz OZ was sure here in Stockholm and busy making his presence felt, first at the International Writers Stage at Kulturhuset where he tangoed with his equally brilliant dance partner Johanna Koljonen.

At the end of the show, being no rock and roll artist all he got was a bouquet; I can’t remember if he got a hug, perfunctory or not and a peck on both cheeks, but they (Amos & Johanna) got a standing ovation. A quarter of his audience then lined up, book in hand to receive his autograph and to exchange a few pleasantries, some of them no doubt, hoping to hear more kind words from him, hopefully, personally directed at them, you know, so they can say at a later date, “ As Amoz Oz said to me” etc etc.

Just as I can say but have never said, “ As Wole (Wole Soyinka ) said to me”, since I spent a glorious week with him when he was here at the PEN conference (some breakfast at the Grand Hotel, dinners, a party, viewing manuscript sheets of work-in-progress, in the day of the portable Olivetti typewriter) some private conversations, a walk through Kungsträdgården/the King’s Gardens (where someone tried to sell us some shit) – and great dramatist that he is, at some point he was heaping praise on the Drottningholm Theatre – I even saw him off at Vasagatan, on the bus to Arlanda but all that was in 1979 seven years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and I was still up to date with his literary output and political activities, which included directing down-town traffic in congested Lagos where the dog (Ogun’s sacrificial animal) was still being slaughtered in unavoidable car accidents by taxi drivers who have Ogun (Shango’s like the Scandinavian Thor) but  the Yoruba taxi drivers  who adhere to their traditional religion are said to have Ogun, the Yorubas’ universal “god of Iron“ as their patron saint…

Just as I can say but have never said, “As Ngugi (Ngugi Wa Thiong’o) said to me”, since I hung out with him in Ghana early 1970 when he was writer in residence at Legon, and then still known as James Ngugi…in his shorti trousers, hair like virgin forest growing in a natural state, untouched by comb and unlike me his hedges not trimmed or shaped into an Afro, but watered eternally by quite a lot of beer quaffed internally and externally the same hair, said to be unkempt, weathered by the Harmattan winds and on the skin, all that sunshine….

It’s good to have known such people even if only briefly, before

“Oh, fortune and fame’s such a curious game

Perfect strangers can call you by name “…

OZ says that Chekhov is his man, his role model….

OZ was billed for 17.30 at the Great Synagogue of Stockholm the following day. The security was tight. If it had been in December Stockholm, the fateful month when that lone suicide bomber struck and all Sweden nearly died of fright, the security around OZ would have been tighter, even as the same Swedes like to pontificate about Hamas and Gaza, though they have not seen any action like the Israeli citizens of Sderot who continue to live traumatized lives ( and so would you) to  have barely twenty seconds in which to run for cover hearing the siren that tells them the hooligans are at it again. Unlike Israel, in Sweden where everyone is still shivering with fear, after that lone suicide bomber blew himself up and took no one with him to paradise, they are still discussing questions such as could the big bad wolf strike again?

The big bad wolf

So, I find a young security man outside the Great Stockholm Synagogue asking me whether I am carrying a weapon or not and I ask him why and he tells me “because I’m carrying one.” It must require adherence to the boy scouts motto, “Be Prepared”: private citizen Svensson can you hear? Except it doesn’t help should the big bad wolf strike again, whether you are carrying one or two or even three weapons : the big bad wolf can take you unawares; the big bad wolf believes in his 72 virgins and that all the seven doors of heaven will open for him!

Oz spoke more intimately to his adoring fans in the synagogue, dilated on religious themes about the Almighty’s tolerance and patience with His chosen people and I suspect that many of them are like-minded among the Jewish conservative folk and less so, less Oz-like among the Orthodox faithful of world Jewry. He ( Oz) loves his people all right and he says that he supports Obama ( I heard and understood him to have said that explicitly and in plain English) but the belief in a peaceful and happy future co-existence within pre-67 borders among the Arab neighbours and even far away Iran for all future time, is rather naïve and you don’t have to be a hard-core realist or to live as an activist at the Mea Shearim to believe this.

In speaking more intimately with the audience at the great synagogue of Stockholm, I did appreciate his sense of humour , that the Children of Israel are used to discussing, even arguing matters out with the Almighty – but nevertheless, despite that being so, as things are now, platitudes however comforting, won’t help : the philosophy still has to be real : “ Trust in the Lord but don’t forget to keep your gunpowder dry.”

This is the type of talk that I would expect from a realist – even a fiction writer , in any synagogue:

this article which spells out THE REAL SITUATION and cannot be conceived of even by a cynic as the pleasant kind of things that a would-be Nobel Laureate says in canvassing for the peace prize. Next someone will be asking Israel to turn the other cheek.

I won’t waste your time any further. OZ was asked what he thought about Flotilla 2 and he opined that as long as the ships were only carrying food and medicines, they should be let through.

The truth is that Israel is facing a new Flotilla threat and as reported in this Chinese website, the commandos are being specially trained to meet the emergency that Flotilla 2 poses

He was asked about what he thought was the attitude of other Arab nations, since the Arab Spring has taken wing…..again optimism. In my opinion, about future Arab attitudes to Israel – even if by spring magic the 22 Arab States became totally democratic by tomorrow morning, in relation to Israel, with Arab/ Muslim people power in the ascendant we can only be cautiously optimistic.

Briefly about the Arab in the street these are some of my views

I do not and cannot believe in blind optimism – nor do the Muslims believe in blind Optimism.

Oz believes that it’s right against right.

Rephrasing him in the language of religion it is Bitachon – with all your heart versus Tawakul

The Sabbath is almost here, it’s Parshat NASO.

It’s a great way of counting time! The next Sabbath will also surely be on its way.

Shabbat Shalom everybody!

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