For several days, Israel has been able to contain some of the fallout from the flotilla massacre by withholding information about the dead and injured. The object of this exercise has clearly been to slow the flow of information in the hope that by the time the most damning facts become known, the international media’s attention will have turned elsewhere.
But the dead now have names and faces and one turns out to be a nineteen-year-old American: Furkan Dogan.
Dogan is alleged to have been shot with five bullets, four in the head.
Does the Obama administration intend to investigate the circumstances in which one of its citizens was killed? Protecting the lives of Americans is after all the most fundamental responsibility of our government.
Dogan’s death was presumably instant, but according to Al Jazeera‘s Jamal Elshayyal there were others on board the Mavi Marmara who died because Israeli soldiers refused to treat their injuries.
“After the shooting and the first deaths, people put up white flags and signs in English and Hebrew. An Isreali [on the ship] asked the soldiers to take away the injured, but they did not and the injured died on the ship.”
Crimes have been committed and since the suspects all acted under the direction of the Israeli government and its defense forces and took place on international waters outside Israel’s area of legal jurisdiction, “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards” — a demand made by the UN Security Council with the support of the Obama administration — cannot be conducted by the Israeli government or a commission appointed by them. An investigation conforming to international standards must also be an international inquiry.
Today, Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak, praising the Shayetet 13 commandos who slaughtered at least nine humanitarian activists on board the Mavi Marmara, said:
Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’s founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It’s a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end.
But if the violence is being committed by Israelis then it is all too evident that this particular world leader lacks the courage and moral conviction to speak out.
When the slaves of Zionism are called on to break out of their chains, instead, their own fear of political and financial retribution guarantees that they will maintain their silence.
Obama is not only incapable of condemning Israeli violence; he cannot even acknowledge its existence!
When unarmed and non-violent Americans are the victims — whether killed, maimed or abused by Israeli soldiers — the government of the nation that proudly describes itself as the most powerful nation on earth has nothing to say in defense of its own citizens.
If it wasn’t being used to justify murder, this headline in the Washington Post would be laughably absurd:
Israel says Free Gaza Movement poses threat to Jewish state
Once viewed only as a political nuisance by Israel’s government, the group behind the Gaza aid flotilla has grown since its inception four years ago into a broad international movement that now includes Islamist organizations that Israeli intelligence agencies say pose a security threat to the Jewish state.
The Free Gaza Movement’s evolution is among Israel’s chief reasons for conducting Monday morning’s raid on a ship carrying medicine, construction materials, school paper and parts for Gaza’s defunct water treatment plant. The movement once drew its support almost entirely from activists and donors in Australia, Britain and the United States. But the ship that Israeli forces stormed Monday morning was operated by a Turkish charity that Israeli intelligence agencies and others contend has connections to radical Islamist groups.
Radical Islamist groups — the hobgoblins of the Israeli psyche have also enfeebled the judgement of most Americans. Raise the specter of such a threat and the rational mind freezes.
This is the psychology of cowardice, where fear becomes omnipresent.
Those thus enslaved, cloak their own weakness with fables about the demons they hope to destroy. But their deceit is transparent. This is heroism merely self-declared, visible to no one else.
Arrogance and cowardice are the two faces of the fear of fear. Israel’s might is the mask behind which it conceals its own lack of courage — its terror of looking weak.
Hours after Israeli commandos were out slaying sea monsters, an Israeli soldier in the West Bank faced the threat of an unarmed American 21-year old.
Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas canister fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during a demonstration at the Qalandiya checkpoint. She is a talented young artist who will now only be able to follow her passion with one eye — the other was removed in surgery yesterday.
Does the soldier who shot her believe Israel is now safer?
When a state blinds or even kills individuals whose “crime” is their willingness to stand up in defense of justice, what is it that national security is securing?
[I]t is a fact that it is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events. Our politicians are too spineless, too cowardly, to take decisions to save lives. Why is this? Why didn’t we hear courageous words from [Britain’s prime minister and deputy prime minister] Messrs Cameron and Clegg yesterday [after the flotilla massacre]?
For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage.
And what does this say about Israel? Isn’t Turkey a close ally of Israel? Is this what the Turks can expect? Now Israel’s only ally in the Muslim world is saying this is a massacre – and Israel doesn’t seem to care.
But then Israel didn’t care when London and Canberra expelled Israeli diplomats after British and Australian passports were forged and then provided to the assassins of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. It didn’t care when it announced new Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem while Joe Biden, the Vice-President of its erstwhile ally, the United States, was in town. Why should Israel care now?
How did we get to this point? Maybe because we all grew used to seeing the Israelis kill Arabs, maybe the Israelis grew used to killing Arabs. Now they kill Turks. Or Europeans. Something has changed in the Middle East these past 24 hours – and the Israelis (given their extraordinarily stupid political response to the slaughter) don’t seem to have grasped what has happened. The world is tired of these outrages. Only the politicians are silent.
This is a major development. The MV Rachel Corrie cargo ship, whose passage to join the Freedom Flotilla may have been delayed because of sabotage by Israelis, is now heading for Gaza — and it has the full support of the Irish government. This is no longer just a question of how easily Israel can trample on the rights of a humanitarian organization.
The Irish prime minister, Brian Cowen, has warned Israel that it will face “the most serious consequences” in the event that any harm comes to Irish citizens on board the humanitarian relief vessel.
The cargo vessel is ploughing ahead with its attempt to deliver aid to Gaza despite yesterday’s deadly attack by the Israeli navy on a Gaza-bound flotilla.
Mr Cowen called today called for the immediate establishment of “a full, independent international inquiry into yesterday’s events, preferably under UN auspices”.
He called on Israel to release “unconditionally” Irish citizens who he said had been taken to Gaza by the Israeli authorities and asked to sign papers allowing for their deportation.
Speaking in the Dáil [Ireland’s parliament] during Leaders’ Questions, the Taoiseach [prime minister] said the presence of Irish diplomatic personnel in Israel provided “better prospects” that the citizens would be released “sooner rather than later”
“But I will make this point. If any harm comes to any of our citizens, it will have the most serious consequences.”
Mr Cowen said Ireland’s longstanding position was that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was “immoral and counterproductive” and should be ended.
“Israel must listen and respond to the clear concerns of the international community on this issue. To do otherwise will only serve to reinforce the position of the extremists on both sides and jeopardise the hope of achieving some urgently needed political progress in the region, which the current proximity talks represent,” he said.
The Israeli army has warned that it will be stopped if it attempts to enter Israeli waters.
The Rachel Corrie, which has five Irish nationals and five Malaysians aboard, is due to arrive in Gazan waters over the coming days, a spokeswoman for the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign said. It became separated from the main aid flotilla after being delayed for 48 hours in Malta due to logistical reasons, and is currently off the coast of Libya.
Mr Martin, who called Israeli Ambassador Dr Zion Evrony to a meeting yesterday, said the boat should be allowed through peacefully.
Mr Martin said Israel was also obliged to respect its international obligations under the Vienna Convention and ensure Irish citizens have access to full consular support. He also expressed his condolences to the Turkish government and the families of the people killed when Israeli commandos raided the Turkish registered Mavi Marmara aid ship in international waters as it travelled from Cyprus, killing nine people.
Five Irish campaigners – including leading activists Dr Fintan Lane and Fiachra Ó Luain – are being held in the Be’er Sheva detention camp, from where they face deportation. Dr Lane and Mr Ó Luain were on board Free Gaza boat Challenger 1 which was boarded by Israeli forces.
Meanwhile, Haaretz reports that Colonel Itzik Turgeman, a senior Israel Defense Forces officer, speaking before the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, hinted that the IDF had sabotaged the engines of all the ships in the Freedom Flotilla other than the Mavi Marmara, saying that “they took care of them.”
The defense of the Mavi Marmara, which Israeli officials have shamelessly been describing as an “ambush” on its elite commandos, is not without historical precedent. Indeed, as Robert Mackey points out at the New York Times, there is a parallel that some Israelis now find impossible to ignore: the resistance to the British naval assault on the SS Exodus in July 1947, as Jewish refugees used every makeshift weapon they could lay their hands on in their effort to repel British soldiers.
The overcrowded passenger ship carried Jewish refugees fleeing from war-decimated Europe who hoped to become settlers in Palestine — then under British control — but the British were intent on blocking their entry.
In international waters off Palestine the British Royal Navy intercepted the Exodus and British troops attempted to board.
Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship’s passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, The Times reported at the time. Soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously. The ship was towed to Haifa, and from there its passengers were deported, first to France and eventually to Germany, where they were placed in camps near Lübeck.
International outrage at the treatment of the passengers of the Exodus was instrumental in turning the tide of opinion in favor of the creation of a Jewish state. Who on board that ship would have anticipated that decades later it would be Jews themselves who became as callous as the British in their rejection of a humanitarian cause?
After the flotilla massacre committed by Israeli forces, Turkey’s call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council yesterday was to be expected. Turks are assumed to be among the dead — whose names and nationalities have still not been released. There are now hundreds of Turks being held in detention in Israel and Turkish ships were captured illegally in international waters in an action Turkey’s foreign minister described as “tantamount to banditry and piracy.”
What was equally predictable was that the Obama administration would only offer its support if action from the UN was so weak as to be worthless.
Had events of the last two days not disrupted their agendas, President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu would today have been servicing their individual political needs with smiles and handshakes on the steps of the White House. Absent that much-anticipated saccharine event, Obama was not about to turn around and support a stern rebuke to Israel.
The key Turkish demand presented to the Security Council was that the “blockade of Gaza must be ended immediately and all humanitarian assistance must be allowed in.”
Turkey was not alone. Britain’s new foreign secretary, William Hague, was equally unequivocal:
There can be no better response from the international community to this tragedy than to achieve urgently a durable resolution to the Gaza crisis.
I call on the Government of Israel to open the crossings to allow unfettered access for aid to Gaza, and address the serious concerns about the deterioration in the humanitarian and economic situation and about the effect on a generation of young Palestinians.
Universally there were calls for an inquiry. But the key to whether such an inquiry would be of any real value would be, minimally, its independence, and ideally that it would be international.
The statement finally issued by the Security Council is riddled with language surely crafted in the White House. It “calls for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards.” Impartial, but not independent. International standards, but not international.
It does not call for an end to the siege but says “the situation in Gaza is not sustainable.” And there’s Obama’s lie.
Whether the siege of Gaza is lifted or sustained is up to Washington. If, when Netanyahu finally meets Obama, the US president was to say the embargo must end, Israel would have no choice. The siege of Gaza can only continue with US support and thus far, Obama refuses to withdraw that support. He says the situation is not sustainable, but through his actions Obama has a direct hand in perpetuating the suffering in Gaza.
“Unsustainable” is the signature of Obama’s self-declared impotence. It’s change over which he would like everyone else to believe he has no control. It’s the deceit through which he tells Americans and the world, I would if I could but I can’t.
Before the Security Council issued its statement and before it became clear that Obama was yet again going to throw away an opportunity to demonstrate his commitment to upholding international law, Stephen Walt wrote:
President Obama likes to talk a lot about our wonderful American values, and his shiny new National Security Strategy says “we must always seek to uphold these values not just when it is easy, but when it is hard.” The same document also talks about a “rule-based international order,” and says “America’s commitment to the rule of law is fundamental to our efforts to build an international order that is capable of confronting the emerging challenges of the 21st century.”
Well if that is true, here is an excellent opportunity for Obama to prove that he means what he says. Attacking a humanitarian aid mission certainly isn’t consistent with American values — even when that aid mission is engaged in the provocative act of challenging a blockade — and doing so in international waters is a direct violation of international law. Of course, it would be politically difficult for the administration to take a principled stand with midterm elections looming, but our values and commitment to the rule of law aren’t worth much if a president will sacrifice them just to win votes.
More importantly, this latest act of misguided belligerence poses a broader threat to U.S. national interests. Because the United States provides Israel with so much material aid and diplomatic protection, and because American politicians from the president on down repeatedly refer to the “unbreakable bonds” between the United States and Israel, people all over the world naturally associate us with most, if not all, of Israel’s actions. Thus, Israel doesn’t just tarnish its own image when it does something outlandish like this; it makes the United States look bad, too. This incident will harm our relations with other Middle Eastern countries, lend additional credence to jihadi narratives about the “Zionist-Crusader alliance,” and complicate efforts to deal with Iran. It will also cost us some moral standing with other friends around the world, especially if we downplay it. This is just more evidence, as if we needed any, that the special relationship with Israel has become a net liability.
In short, unless the Obama administration demonstrates just how angry and appalled it is by this foolish act, and unless the U.S. reaction has some real teeth in it, other states will rightly see Washington as irretrievably weak and hypocritical. And Obama’s Cairo speech — which was entitled “A New Beginning” — will be guaranteed a prominent place in the Hall of Fame of Empty Rhetoric.
Irretrievably weak and hypocritical — unfortunately the evidence was there even before Obama took office. His character, commitments, calculations and cynicism were all on open display as he watched in silence Israel’s war on Gaza.
Depending on ones view of Israel, the deaths that occurred on the decks of the Mavi Marmara early today are either reprehensible, tragic, regrettable, or — a cause for celebration.
Someone just wrote to me: “Too bad you weren’t on that ship with the rest of the terror supporters. Anyone touching an IDF soldier deserves what they got.”
I know people in J Street who would find such sentiments deeply offensive; who would assure me that when they say they are pro-Israel it does not in any sense mean that they condone the actions of this Israeli government or the kind of red-blooded xenophobic Zionism that believes the IDF can do no wrong.
Yet the question I would pose to anyone who says they are pro-Israel is this: is the Israel you support the one that exists in 2010, or does it have a firmer foothold somewhere inside your imagination?
Which is the real Israel? The Israel cherished and trumpeted at an AIPAC convention? The Israel struggling to be defined at a J Street gathering? Or the Israel triumphantly being celebrated from the hilltops above Ashdod today?
This is how The Guardian describes the scene there and however representative these particular flag-clad Israelis might actually be, their claim to be pro-Israel has a distinction that many of their American counterparts lack: they are Israelis, they live in Israel and they are not on the political fringe.
If one was to describe a constellation that linked the IDF soldiers to either their flag-waving brethren or their more conflicted American cousins, the closest ties would surely coincide with geographical proximity.
[Above the Israeli port of Ashdod as the ships of the Freedom Flotilla were towed in] Jonah’s Hill itself was heaving. Shirtless Israeli men draped in their national flag waved placards declaring “Well done IDF” in both Hebrew and English, chanting, singing and applauding their support for the military operation.
Thick cables snaked across the ground from thrumming generators, delivering power to dozens of international TV crews, broadcasting across the globe against the backdrop of the shimmering Mediterranean.
Amid the crowd, a sophisticated public relations operation was underway. Spinners and spokesmen from the Israeli military and government departments politely answered questions and offered their own narrative of the day’s events. A barrage of emails and text message alerts firing into inboxes provided a background of electronic muzak.
Shahar Arieli, deputy spokesman for the ministry of foreign affairs, wearing a smart tie despite the heat, said two of the flotilla’s boats had been brought into port.
All activists would be offered the chance of immediate deportation at Israel’s expense “with their passports”, he said. “We want them to leave as soon as possible,” he added.
Those who declined would – “as long as they weren’t involved in attacks on our troops” – be processed through Israel’s justice system.
His patient courtesy was not matched by all those gathered on the hill. Chaim Cohen, a 52-year-old economic consultant from Givatayim, was dripping with both sweat and bile. “We have come to support our soldiers. It is obvious it [the Mavi Marmara] is a terrorist ship. We saw it on TV – they took out knives and put them in the stomachs of the IDF.”
There was nothing to challenge the Israeli version of events. Repeated attempts to reach the cell and satellite phones of activists on board the flotilla were rebuffed; it was unclear whether their phones had been confiscated, jammed or if they were simply out of range.
By late afternoon on Monday, activists with lesser injuries were being brought to hospitals in coastal towns and cities from the smaller passenger ships. At the Barzilai medical centre in Ashkelon, just north of the Gaza Strip, a Greek man in a neck brace told reporters: “They hit me.” Who? “Pirates,” he answered.
A dazed man with a striking black eye was unloaded from an ambulance. There had been “some brutality” on board, he said, but the activists were non-violent. “We are all Palestinian now,” he said as the doors of the ER closed behind him.
When a civilian passenger ship comes under military attack in international waters, should we be surprised — or even critical — when some of the passengers mount a defense?
According to CNN, which has made itself into a mouthpiece for the Israeli Defense Forces, the flotilla massacre was a “skirmish”, which the dictionary defines as a “minor battle in war, as one between small forces.”
CNN/the IDF would have the world believe that Israel’s elite commandos unexpectedly met an armed force on the decks of the Mavi Marmara. Some of the Israeli soldiers were so afraid they jumped into the sea to save themselves from Arabic-speaking assailants, Israeli officials claimed.
Turkish officials have denied claims leveled by Israeli authorities that weapons were onboard one of the six aid ships attacked by Israel on Monday.
Officials from the Customs Undersecretariat said every passenger was searched before getting on the ship with the help of X-ray machines and metal detectors. Senior officials from the undersecretariat said Israel’s allegations were tantamount to “complete nonsense.”
Israel and its lackeys in the US media might try to characterize what happened in the Mediterranean today as an “incident,” or “skirmish,” or an “ambush.”
But if the IDF met “unexpected resistance,” what exactly did they expect? A reception committee with tea and breakfast? Didn’t they see the resistance the Viva Palestina convoy put up last year when challenged by Egyptian security forces?
The live video feed coming from the Mavi Marmara during its voyage from Turkey would have provided invaluable intelligence for the IDF and I have little doubt that they watched it carefully. A number of observations the Israelis must have made may have significantly influenced their calculations and miscalculations.
One of the striking demographic features of the group of passengers was the average age — having watched many hours of the feed, I’d put the average age at about 35-40 with a significant number of “retirees” — this was not a bunch of young hotheads.
Also, the group was overwhelmingly Middle Eastern and Turkish and male. The risk that Israeli violence would result in the death of another Rachel Corrie was relatively low.
Put together these two factors — the expectation that the age of the passengers might make them somewhat less volatile and the fact that they largely came from countries that Israel has less concern about offending — and you get the perfect cocktail for Israeli hubris.
As for the fact that elite Israeli soldiers can in one instant be portrayed as invincible and yet the next as hapless victims — that is a paradox that can be resolved only in the minds of Israelis.
In the eyes of much of the world, this was a massacre, the dead will be seen as martyrs, and the moral bankruptcy of the Jewish state revealed in sharper clarity than ever before.
Reports in the Arabic-language press on Monday that Raed Salah, head of the northern branch of the Israeli-Arab Islamic Movement, had been seriously wounded sparked widespread anger among the country’s Arab minority – some 20 per cent of the population.
IDF officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Haaretz that Salah was alive – but offered no other details on his condition.
Salah’s deputy, Kamel Khatib, said in a radio interview that there was still no clear indication of Salah’s state. Khatib said that if emerged Salah had been killed, Israel would be directly responsible.
Local authorities in Arab-populated areas in Israel on Monday declared a general strike for the following day.
Israeli-Arab leaders condemned Israel’s handling of the interception.
Knesset member Mohammed Barakeh offered sardonic praise for the government, congratulating Defense Minister Ehud Barak on his “decisive victory of the army of pirates over the flotilla of civil liberty”.
Barakeh added: “Any government that puts itself outside international and humanitarian law will consign itself to the garbage can of history.
MK Taleb al-Sana said the operation had “exposed the ugly face of Zionism, the violence and aggression of the government of Israel”. Sana described the interception as an act of state terror against a humanitarian mission and called for Israel’s leaders to be tried for war crimes.
“This event proves you don’t have to be a German to be a Nazi,” he said.
By lunchtime, police were preparing for disturbances in Arab-majority districts in the north of the country, as well as around the Al-Aqsa Mosque atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the harbor at Ashdod and hospitals across the country where casualties are being treated.
“At this moment we have to act with restraint and complete control, so as not to inflame the situation needlessly,’ said police commander David Cohen.
The internal security minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, also held emergency planning meetings with police, saying that while he hope to maintain calm, law enforcement agencies were prepared for any eventually.
The Arab Higher Monitoring Committee, which represents Israel Arab minority, called on Israeli forces to stay out of Arab areas so as not to provoke violence.
“The government of Israel and the police carry responsibility for the safety of Arab citizens that will demand the right to protest against the police of the government and defense ministry that was carrying a message of peace to Gaza.”
The official Arab role in this campaign is missing but that of the Arab people is not. We have campaigners coming from Kuwait, Jordan and Mauritania, Yemen and Algeria and that is a message we sent to the leaders. How beautiful it would be if you would reconcile with the stance of your people in their support of the cause of the Palestinians.
Watch this video and pay attention to the victims — one an old man with a long gray beard. Are we supposed to believe that these men “ambushed” Israel’s elite navy commandos?
The narrative here is a familiar one: the plight of a people whose self-image as victims is so deeply internalized that they have lost the capacity to recognize their ability to do harm.
When evil is something that can only be seen as other, human conscience becomes silent and atrophies.
When violence has become the only language one knows how to speak, one has stepped outside the human family.
Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak had the audacity to blame the casualties who died or were injured by Israeli commandos during an armed assault on the Freedom Flotilla in the early hours of Monday morning as it attempted to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza. Even though the Israeli Defense Forces have spent a week engaged in meticulous preparations for the assault, Israeli leaders are now portraying its elite military force as hapless victims of an “ambush”!
Benjamin Netanyahu is now considering the cancellation of his imminent trip to the United States. After receiving recent sycophantic overtures from the Obama administration in its effort to mend rifts with Tel Aviv, Israel’s prime minister may now decide that it is in both his and President Obama’s interests to avoid mutual embarrassment by not showing up in Washington. This particular decision will be affected by the extent to which the Israel-friendly US media attempts to minimize the flotilla massacre story.
But after the Israeli government treated the flotilla’s mission as a PR challenge — in which regard Israel’s actions have been a stupendous failure — the worst fallout for the Jewish state may occur inside Israel itself if, as is rumored, the Israeli Arab leader, Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch, is among the casualties.
If Salah is indeed among the casualties, the result could be a wave of riots led by Islamic Movement activists. Targeted provocations by Islamists and left-wing activists will now take on strategic significance. Under certain circumstances, and if both sides fail to take steps to calm the situation, this could even end in a third intifada, or Palestinian uprising.
The Challenger 1, is a Free Gaza passenger boat among the Freedom Flotilla that has members of the European parliament on board. While holding for the other boats to join, close to Cyprus waters, the boat has been contacted via radio by a Cipriot Police Helicopter. This video is recording the converstation, May 28th, 2010.
Shane Dillon (Mate on Challenger 1 commented: “It is rather shocking that an EU Country refused to let members of another EU Country’s Parliament into its port on a humanitarian mission.”
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This is a major development. The MV Rachel Corrie cargo ship, whose passage to join the Freedom Flotilla may have been delayed because of sabotage by Israelis, is now heading for Gaza — and it has the full support of the Irish government. This is no longer just a question of how easily Israel can trample on the rights of a humanitarian organization.
Reports in the Arabic-language press on Monday that Raed Salah, head of the northern branch of the Israeli-Arab Islamic Movement, had been seriously wounded sparked widespread anger among the country’s Arab minority – some 20 per cent of the population.
But after the Israeli government treated the flotilla’s mission as a PR challenge — in which regard Israel’s actions have been a stupendous failure — the worst fallout for the Jewish state may occur inside Israel itself if, as is rumored, the Israeli Arab leader, Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement’s northern branch, is among the casualties.