The Israeli army published a Youtube video on Saturday that includes a radio conversation Israel says it happened between the Marmara passengers and the Israeli navy prior to the attack on the boat.The following is a transcript of the alleged audio:
ISRAELI SHIP ‘This is the Israeli Navy, you are approaching an area which is under a naval blockade’
MAN’S VOICE 1 ‘Shut up, go back to Auschwitz.’
WOMAN’S VOICE ‘We have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter.’
MAN’S VOICE 2 ‘We’re helping Arabs go against the US, don’t forget 9/11 guy’
The Free Gaza Movement issued a press release in which they challenged the claimed video to be fabricated and is aimed at painting the flotilla passengers as anti-Semites.
Adam Shapiro, identified one of the voices on that video to be the voice of his wife, Huwaida Arraf, chairperson of the Free Gaza Movemenet. Shapiro confirmed that Arraf was on another boat of the flotilla named Challenger 1 and not on Marmara boat.
The Israeli military has published an earlier video, showing the same navy officer in a conversation with the Marmara boat, the video shows that only one response was received from the Marmara boat “Negative Negative, our destination is Gaza.” In this youtube video, the picture was moving, while in the later video that has the “go back to Auschwitz” the picture is still.
The Israeli army issued a clarification saying that the radio conversation is edited, but authentic and added that the voice could have been from any other boat of the flotilla and was picked up because of the open channel.
The press release includes testimony from the captain of one of the fleet ships, denying that comments mentioned in the Israel Army’s alleged video has been heard.
“According to our Captain of Challenger 1, Denis Healey, a man with 25 years of experience on the sea, there would be no way that anyone could communicate with each other without the entire fleet hearing the exchange. “There was no exchange like this by anyone on any boat during the entire
time I was piloting the boat,” said Denis.”
Apparently, Israel is trying to justify in various means, the deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla, as it has triggered a world-wide unprecedented criticism of Israel.
The Israeli government is trying also to prove that they were forced to use violence. The Israeli army has boarded the boat Rachel Corrie on Saturday and towed it to Ashdod port. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the quite take-over of the boat by the Israeli navy, although it was captured in International waters, in direct violation of the Maritime law.
‘We saw today the difference between a ship of peace activists, with whom we don’t agree but respect their right to a different opinion from ours, and between a ship of hate organised by violent Turkish terror extremists,’ Netanyahu said in his speech.
The Free Gaza Movement responded in another press release issued Sunday in which they insisted that violence on board of Marmara started by Israeli soldiers.
“So we’d like to remind Mr. Netanyahu that the only hate evidenced on board all six boats on Monday morning came from the Israeli attackers. Israeli soldiers violently boarded the entire flotilla, beating, shooting and hooding passengers as though they were in Abu Ghraib,” the press release said.
‘People had been shot in the arms, legs, in the head – everywhere. We had so many injured. It was a bloodbath,’ said Laura Stuart on board the Marmara, a British housewife and rescue worker.
