Stratfor's Reva Bhalla on Yesterday's Mumbai Bombings

Reva Bhalla is interviewed at the Dylan Ratigan show. She's Director of Analysis at Stratfor. It's good:

RELATED: At Los Angeles Times, "Relief and worry after slaying of Hamid Karzai's half brother."

Women in Israel's Military

From the IDF, a follow-up from yesterday:

Family of Rachel Corrie Accuses Israel of Withholding Video Evidence During Civil Lawsuit

At Biased BBC, "Myths and Facts Part 1":

The initial lurid sensationalism is the part of a story that will always stick, never mind what emerges thereafter. Cindy Corrie’s piece in the Guardian’s ‘Comment is Free’ (H/T Too True) reminded me how unfortunate that can be, especially if the story appears to confirm any of the commonly-held negative preconceptions about Israel.
Just as people still repeat the Al Dura lies unchallenged on the BBC, the myth of Rachel Corrie’s noble martyrdom remains untarnished despite the facts that have come to light following the regrettable incident in 2003.

The notorious legend of Rachel Corrie’s adventures in Gaza concerns her passage from youthful but misguided idealist, through useful idiocy, to her final, inevitable destination - being bulldozed to death.

Posthumously exalted, deified and immortalised by Israel-hating dramatists and propagandists, and further elevated by having the good ship Rachel Corrie named in her honour, (and seized by the Israelis during last year’s propaganda-stunt-flotilla) her media-fuelled journey from zero to hero bears out the adage that a little knowledge is truly a dangerous thing.

It is understandable that Corrie’s family should take up her cause and exploit the unassailable position their bereavement affords them. To face the stark truth about her death would be to accept the futility of it and to rub salt into a painful wound.

More at the link.

The Cindie Corrie article is here: "US collusion in the Gaza blockade is an affront to human rights: My daughter's death shows the cruelty of an America that won't protect its own and is complicit in harming Palestinian civilians." And at the Guardian, "Rachel Corrie's family claim Israeli military withheld vital video evidence" (via Memeorandum).

Obama Administration Seeks Warm Relations with Islamists

The Wall Street Journal reports, "U.S. Reaches Out to Islamist Parties":

The Obama administration is reaching out to Islamist movements whose political power is on the rise in the wake of Arab Spring uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa.

The tentative outreach effort to key religious political groups—the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Ennahdha in Tunisia—reflects the administration's realization that the spread of democracy in the region requires it to deal more directly with Islamist movements the U.S. had long kept at arm's length.

Speaking to reporters during a visit Thursday to Budapest, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration is now seeking "limited contacts" with Muslim Brotherhood members ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections slated for later this year.

"It is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful and committed to nonviolence," Mrs. Clinton said. "We welcome, therefore, dialogue with those Muslim Brotherhood members who wish to talk with us."

Seems to me some folks were rejecting the Muslim Brotherhood as a governing party in Egypt just a few months ago. I'll check for a link. Meanwhile, here's this from Frank Gaffney, "The Tipping Point: Embracing the Muslim Brotherhood":

The Obama administration chose the eve of the holiday marking our Nation's birth to acknowledge publicly behavior in which it has long been stealthily engaged to the United States' extreme detriment: Its officials now admit that they are embracing the Muslim Brotherhood (MB or Ikhwan in Arabic). That would be the same international Islamist organization that has the destruction of the United States, Israel and all other parts of the Free World as its explicit objective.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tried to downplay the momentousness of this major policy shift by portraying it during a stopover in Budapest as follows:

"The Obama administration is continuing the approach of limited contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood that have existed on and off for about five or six years." In fact, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy points out in a characteristically brilliant, and scathing, dissection of this announcement, Team Obama's official, open legitimation of the Brotherhood marks a dramatic break from the U.S. government's historical refusal to deal formally with the Ikhwan.

Read it all at the link above. And see also, Andrew McCarthy, "The Obama Administration Opens Formal Contacts With the Muslim Brotherhood." And Big Peace, "No Evidence Muslim Brotherhood Is Committed To Democracy."

IDF Delivers Goods to Gaza

Great video, via Theo Spark:

IDF Spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich on Securing Defensible Borders

A great clip from the IDF news desk:

Israel's Settlements Are Not the Problem

An awesome essay at the July/August Foreign Affairs, by Elliott Abrams, "The Settlement Obsession: Both Israel and the United States Miss the Obstacles to Peace." It's a review essay, in fact. Abrams covers Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldiers' Testimonies 2000-2010, a collection of interviews from Breaking the Silence, available online. And also Gadi Taub's, The Settlers: And the Struggle over the Meaning of Zionism, at Amazon.com.

I read Abrams' review in hard copy on the road out to Pechanga, and I'd envisioned writing some big analysis with lots of block quotes, etc. But I'm not in the mood now. Mostly, it's a piece of scholarship and it requires shifting back into a more neutral, analytical frame of mind while reading. It's tempting to look at any analysis of the Middle East through current events, such as the Gaza flotilla. But Abrams avoids that, which is impressive, since Occupation of the Territories is about Jew-bashing propaganda more than close empirical and historical analysis. Indeed, Abrams notes:

Some of the testimonies are deeply affecting, and there is no doubt that occupation duty brings out the worst in some soldiers: violence, bullying, vandalism, and theft. Official accounts of the U.S. occupation of Germany after World War II, for example, make clear that there is no such thing as an immaculate occupation. But in this book, Breaking the Silence appears less interested in the current impact of the settlements and the backdrop to the IDF's actions in the West Bank than in advancing particular ideological and political points. For one thing, why produce a volume in 2010 that has so many testimonies about Gaza, from which all Israeli forces withdrew in the summer of 2005? Why include so many interviews from 2000-2002, the years when the second intifada was at its height, rather than interviews from more recent years? In the section on the methods the IDF uses to prevent terrorism, for example, there are 67 interviews, but only five are from 2008 or later; similarly, a section on how the IDF carries out a "policy of control, dispossession, and annexation of territory" contains 44 interviews, of which just six are from 2007 or later.

A logical inference from this data would be that the IDF's conduct is improving, but Breaking the Silence does not discuss this possibility. Nor does it discuss what the IDF was attempting between 2000 and 2002, namely, trying to stop terrorist acts that were maiming and killing thousands of Israelis. There is just one sentence about terrorism in this entire volume, acknowledging that "it is true that the Israeli security apparatus has had to deal with concrete threats in the past decade, including terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens."

That sounds like blogging rather than research, but Abrams gives the work a fair shake.

As for The Settlers, Abrams' review of that book forms the bulk of the essay, and there's a key thesis that emerges: The future of Israel will play out over the issues of religion and secularism. The Jewish state as originally established was based on sovereign territory as a secure safe haven for any Jew anywhere in the world. Israel was to be a secular democracy with a Jewish majority. It wasn't until 1967, and the beginning of the occupation, whereby the most dramatic assertions of religious Zionism emerged. This might sound strange for those most informed by the blogosphere, but the Taub book sounds like a magisterial accomplishment. I learned a lot just from Abrams' overview. The entire work is no doubt a keeper. In any case, some of Abrams' conclusions indicate that religious Zionism --- which is only a small part of settler activity in the West Bank --- is unsustainable over the long term. Here's an interesting quote, which again, goes against what partisans normally argue:

The conflict between secular Zionism and the settler movement did not appear overnight following Israel's conquests in the 1967 war, for there was an argument that bridged the gap: security. The Israeli right viewed the settlements as critical for Israel's future. The old borders were not defensible, Israel could be attacked again from the east, and settlements on the ridges of Judea and Samaria were part of the state's new system of defense. So the religious settlers and Israeli hawks made common cause, and year after year, settlers by the tens of thousands moved to the West Bank.

For the religious settlers, this was an exciting period, filled with spiritual and also political and psychological satisfaction. Whereas the Orthodox had largely sat out the hard work of building Zionist institutions and founding the state, Taub says, "the act of settlement was a chance to reenact the days of pioneering glory, which religious Zionists felt they had half missed."

The alliance between the religious settlers and secular Israeli hawks held for some years, but before long, the underlying contradiction began to emerge. In 1974, Gush Emunim, or "Bloc of the Faithful," was founded as the main settler organization, and its manifesto spoke of its "obligation toward the Land of Israel." To the actually existing State of Israel, there was apparently no such obligation. Three years later, in 1977, leaders of the Israeli right were forced to confront this uncomfortable fact when Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat came to Jerusalem offering peace in exchange for the Sinai. Menachem Begin, founder of the Herut Party (a predecessor of the right-wing Likud coalition), handed the Sinai back to Egypt in 1982 and in the process evacuated 2,500 Israelis from Yamit, a settlement there. It was apparent, Taub explains, that "in Begin's view the realization of the right of Jews to settle anywhere in the Land of Israel was always subordinate to a higher value: political independence, the sovereignty of the state."

A far more significant moment came in 2005, when Sharon evacuated all Israeli settlers from Gaza and also removed four tiny settlements in the West Bank. The settlers, Taub recounts, found that their adoption of the security argument as a means of reaching out to secular Israelis had backfired badly. For in the end, Sharon and his fellow hawks had come to the conclusion that keeping all the territories was a huge mistake and a danger to the Jewish state itself. As Taub writes:

Even staunch secular hawks in Likud understood that extending Israel's sovereignty to the territories, as opposed to maintaining the temporary status of these regions, would spell an end to Zionism; it would force the state into a double-bind where it would have to choose between a non-Jewish democracy and a Jewish apartheid. . . . Likud under Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon, despite repeated declarations that Judea, Samaria, and Gaza would remain forever a part of Israel, never considered such a possibility seriously, and so never moved to annex these territories.

For both the Israeli center and the Israeli right, the failure of the Camp David talks in 2000 and the ensuing intifada taught a lesson: a negotiated settlement was unlikely. Combined with the continuing Palestinian insistence on the right of return of millions of Palestinians to Israel, an outcome that would doom Israel as a Jewish state, the seeming impossibility of a negotiated deal led Sharon to favor unilateral withdrawal. That approach, Taub says, "gradually acquired legitimacy. . . . Leaving the territories no longer looked to many like a concession to the Palestinians. It began to look like an urgent Israeli interest." The alliance between the settlers and the hawks against the Israeli left, or "the peace camp," was now at an end; the right joined the left in believing that separation from the West Bank was desirable.

Anyway, I promised I wouldn't go overboard on this blog post. Read the whole thing. You'll need to, in order to understand Abrams' conclusion:

In the face of this cessation of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation and peace negotiations, the issue of settlement activity will rise again in importance in many capitals, especially in Washington. In an odd way, current U.S. officials have now adopted the mirror image of the religious settlers' obsession. The more extreme settlers believe that settling the land is more important than protecting the interests of the State of Israel. At the same time, according to current U.S. policy, getting them off that land -- indeed, stopping them from placing one more brick on it -- is worth badly damaging Washington's relationship with a longtime ally and putting Israel's security and reputation in jeopardy. The settlements, and the end of the settlements, are a great problem for Zionism, but they are not the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. The sooner the United States realizes that, the sounder and more constructive its Middle East policy will become.

Joshua Treviño on Twitter!

You gotta follow this guy.

He tweets with the frequency of a man on a mission, and boy has he pissed off some of the pro-terror progressives on Twitter. Remember M. Jay Rosenberg from Media Matters, the guy who tweeted that Benjamin Netanyahu is a terrorist? Well, he's all up in a ruffle over Treviño. See, "Former Bush Speechwriter: Shooting People On Gaza Flotilla 'OK' Because Participants Are Like Nazis." And you can see why at the post. I scrolled through Treviño's feed to find some of his other tweets, but there were so many it was taking too long (a sample is here, though). And I'll tell you, if Americans are on board the flotilla ships, I won't weep if they're killed during an engagement. They're deliberately sailing into harm's way. We'll know more, of course, especially if there is a clash at sea. But last year the "human rights activists" on the Mavi Marmara beat Israeli soldiers and turned their own weapons against them. The IDF killed nine and injured dozens in self-defense. That's not the story one hears from the Israel-hating global media, but the truth doesn't matter to progressives and anti-Semites. Lies are their coin.

Israeli Actor Impersonated Activist in Video Attacking Gaza Flotilla

At New York Times, "Israeli Video Blog Exposed as a Hoax."

The funny thing about this is that for progressives to denounce what's apparently a hoax, they also have to reject the message at the video, and the Israel-hating left is all too ready to do that. Indeed, Max Blumenthal, that conspiracy-driven self-hating Jew extraordinaire, was the first to point out the discrepancies. Check the link, in any case. Progressives are eating this up, so you know they're jonesin' for some PR victories.

Aliyah

A timely follow-up to yesterday's Allison Benedikt blogging.

At Jeruslalem Post, "Talking seriously about aliya."

Let’s be honest: English-speaking Jews will not make aliya because you showed them a brochure extolling the financial benefits of immigration.

That’s not because they are waiting for more money, but because it’s not about money.

Young Diaspora Jews in the West are not seeking comfort, but challenge. They don’t want to blindly follow in the footsteps of their parents, but are nevertheless willing to explore Jewish life and tradition as a source of authentic identity. More than anything else, they want to feel that their lives are a product of their own initiative.

(I should know. In 1999, at the age of 18, I left a beloved community in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and a red 9- seater Chevrolet Suburban, bought for me by my parents when I learned to drive at 16, in order to join the IDF.)

The real challenge of aliya, therefore, is not bureaucratic. It’s not about reducing the paperwork or improving the benefits package. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine anything that could change the mind of an American Jew, especially a young one, on the question of whether or not to remain American. Hard, but not impossible.

Faced with these facts, we must ask ourselves if we actually know how to bring American Jews on aliya. For the first time, we find ourselves competing for their attention in a completely open marketplace, without the pressure of parents or tradition. Are we up to that challenge?

Go read the rest at that link.

I guess there's a crisis in Israel over the issue of aliyah. Check the article above, but the reference is to the essay by Isi Leibler of Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, "The collapse of Zionist leadership."

Gilad Shalit Five Year Anniversary

At Haaretz, "Shalit family members chain themselves together outside Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem."

Also, Noah Pollak at Commmentary, "“Human Rights Community” Agrees: Gilad Shalit Should Remain in Captivity."

We Should Ban Muslims From All Airlines Flying into Western Countries

From Jason Bradley, at The Western Experience, "In the Spirit of Civility and Brotherhood, Let’s Ban Muslims."

Too Hot for Huffington Post: 'The Hamas - Oops, Gaza - Flotilla'

I first read of Huffington Post's censorship of David Harris at Power Line, "Too Hot for HuffPo."

Harris is the Executive Director of the American Jewish Committee, and his essay's posted at AJC's website. An excerpt:

George Orwell, where are you? You could have a field day with this story.

Actually, you anticipated it when you wrote about the Ministry of Truth in your classic book, 1984. What were the ruling party's slogans on the outside of the 1,000-foot-tall building housing the ministry? Weren't they "War is Peace," "Freedom is Slavery," and "Ignorance is Strength"? And didn't the ministry rewrite history at will to ensure it always served the party's interests?

The Gaza flotilla spokesmen are inverting the truth and rewriting history at will to serve their interests. And what are those interests? To prop up the Hamas regime in Gaza and delegitimize Israel.

While they are entitled to their own opinions, however misguided, they are not entitled to their own facts.

They cannot separate Hamas from the equation. Much as they might try, the central fact is that Hamas is key to understanding Gaza today.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. Don't take my word for it. Check with the United States and European Union, both of which have designated Hamas as a terrorist entity.

You can see why that's an "Oops!" Doesn't jibe too well with the neo-communist narrative.

More at Ron Radosh, "The Huffington Post Censors AJC’s David Harris, for Telling the Truth about the New Flotilla."

And linked there, Howard Jacobson, "Why Alice Walker shouldn't sail to Gaza."

The Hate Israel industry

From Kelly McParland, at National Post, "Dog days in the Hate Israel industry":

Things must be getting tougher in the Hate Israel industry these days, what with Arab leaders slaughtering their own people everywhere you look, in order to hold onto their jobs.

People were killed in Egypt, people were killed in Tunisia and Bahrain, people are still being killed in Yemen, Libya and especially Syria. They’re being killed because they’d like to change the government, which you can do in Israel just by turning up to vote. They’re being killed because they’d like to be more like Israel. How can you focus the world’s attention on the despicable state of affairs in apartheid Israel when the people in neighbouring countries insist on giving up their lives in hopes of winning similar rights to those Israel already offers? It’s almost like the protesters in all those places didn’t realize that the source of all their troubles lies in Jerusalem, not in their own countries.

Hate Israel people aren’t easy to persuade, though, so they’re persevering despite the headwinds. The folks behind the Canadian boat to Gaza sent their little contingent off on the weekend to join the heroic struggle to break the murderous Israeli blockade of Gaza and bring life-saving supplies to its besieged people. The people of Gaza aren’t really besieged, and it’s not really that hard to send them supplies, if that’s your intention, but admitting as much would spoil all the drama and self-serving bombast of the Hate Israel folks, so they’re pretending otherwise. If they’re really lucky, Israel will try to turn back the boat and they can try to provoke a confrontation, enabling them to get a ton of international publicity for themselves, which is what they live for. It might be a bit more difficult than in the past, though, since Israel may be reluctant to play along, and since the blockade has already been eased. And Turkey, which has been supportive of the flotillas, has its hands full trying to deal with the flood of civilians fleeing Syria to escape the government’s murderous campaign to put down a popular revolt. (Syria is one of those countries that kills people who challenge the government, a state of affairs the Hate Israel people have to studiously ignore.)

Amazingly clear and concise commentary. But the world plays along with the Islamist charade, in a pro-Palestinian campaign of anti-Semitic hatred.

Michele Bachmann: 'I Stand With Israel'

I saw this clip at Power Line yesterday, "BACHMANN ON ISRAEL." And following the links takes us to Atlas Shrugs, "MICHELE BACHMANN ON ISRAEL."

The greatest speech by an American leader on Israel. This is what America needs in the White House. Seriously, this is greatness. What a breath of fresh air and righteousness in Obama's current climate of hatred and jihad-enabling.

Couldn't have said it better myself!

And Blazing Cat Fur links to Caroline Glick, who writes:

I cannot remember EVER hearing a more pro-Israel speech by ANY American presidential candidate in my life.

I cannot remember EVER hearing a more cogent explanation of Israel's importance to the US by ANY American presidential candidate in my life.

And this speech came out of nowhere. She's not pandering for votes. No one asked her to say this. She just decided that she had to make a statement.

What a great woman. What a great leader. What a great American.

God bless you Michele Bachmann!

Republican Party Splitting Over U.S. Role in Libya

I don't think Obama's Libyan war violates the War Powers Act, but unlike my fellow neocons, I'm more reserved in my support for the NATO campaign against Gaddafi. Recall Victor Davis Hanson's essay at the start of the war, "A Middle East Policy in Shambles." Completely ad hoc, and spineless too, it's hard to get excited about this, especially since Afghanistan (and Pakistan) remains the central danger point in U.S. international affairs.

Anyway, I think my concerns are not unfamiliar among the wider conservative establishment. Michele Bachmann, in particular, seemed to impart the sense that America's a bit overextended at the moment. See, LAT, "GOP splitting over U.S. role in Libya and Afghanistan":

Republicans are facing a widening fissure over the U.S. role on the world stage as party leaders decide whether to confront President Obama this week over his policy toward Libya.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other congressional Republican leaders have said that U.S. involvement in NATO's bombing campaign, which hit the 90-day mark Sunday, violates the War Powers Act. The House could seek to cut off money for the war as it takes up the annual Pentagon spending bill this week.

Several of the party's potential presidential candidates have called for the U.S. to quit the fight in Libya and questioned the depth of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

Other Republicans have begun pushing back, criticizing what they see as a growing isolationist agenda within the party. The result is that Republicans, once relatively unified on foreign policy issues, now have a division that parallels the long-standing split in Democratic ranks.

The debate was on public display Sunday as two of the GOP's leading figures on defense and foreign policy, Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, criticized Republican presidential hopefuls and congressional leaders who question the country's military intervention around the world.

"There has always been an isolationist strain in the Republican Party," McCain said on ABC's "This Week," "but now it seems to have moved more center stage.... That is not the Republican Party that has been willing to stand up for freedom for people all over the world."

Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that any debate over cutting funding for the Libya war would encourage resistance by Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi. "Congress should sort of shut up," he said.

McCain and Graham also criticized former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who's leading in the polls for the party's presidential nomination, for referring to the fighting in Afghanistan as a "war for independence" that the U.S. should leave to others.

"I wish that candidate Romney and all the others would sit down" with U.S. commanders "and understand how this counter-insurgency is working and succeeding," McCain said.

Romney was one of several presidential hopefuls who, in last week's Republican candidate debate, focused criticism on U.S. military operations in Libya and Afghanistan. None took the sort of hawkish positions that McCain advocated during his presidential run in 2008.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), for example, questioned what U.S. interest is at stake in Libya. "We were not attacked," Bachmann said. "We were not threatened with attack. There was no vital national interest."

Mavi Marmara Timeline

From the Israeli Defense Forces:

Americans Join Flotilla to Break Gaza Blockade

At Sacramento Bee.

And at Jerusalem Post, "US flotilla ship: We intend to break Gaza blockade":

NEW YORK – Passengers on a US-flagged vessel, The Audacity of Hope, spoke at a press conference on Monday to discuss their plans and reasons for joining the “International Freedom Flotilla II – Stay Human,” a flotilla intended to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

It is estimated that people from more than 20 countries will participate in the eight to 10-ship flotilla, which will set sail in the last week of June, in part from Greece. One quarter of the participants on the US vessel, which will have 36 passengers, are to be American Jews.

According to a letter that The Audacity of Hope group sent to President Barack Obama, in addition to the 36 passengers, 4 crew members, and 10 members of the press, the ship “will carry thousands of letters of support and friendship from people throughout the US to the women, children and men of Gaza. There will be no weapons of any sort on board.

“We will carry no goods of any kind for delivery in Gaza,” the group’s letter read. “Our mission is from American civil society to the civil society of Gaza. We do not serve the agenda of any political leadership, government or group. We are engaged solely in nonviolent action in support of the Palestinian people and their human rights.”

Passenger Ann Wright said: “Citizen activists are coming to the Mediterranean from all over the world to confront the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza and US government protection of Israeli criminal acts.

It's not about human rights for Gaza. It's about the delegitimation and destruction of Israel. And I don't believe all of these people are peaceful.

Saudi Women Defy Ban on Driving

At Los Angeles Times, "Saudi women get in the driver's seat to defy ban."

It's gender apartheid, but of course, the global progressive left seeks Israel's delegitimization and destruction. The world is upside down.

Also at The Lede, "Saudi Women Defy Driving Ban." And Sydney Morning Herald, "At the wheel of progress."

Mavi Marmara Will Not Sail in Second Gaza Flotilla

At Haaretz, "Gaza flotilla organizers disappointed by Turkish group's decision to cancel ship" (via Blazing Cat Fur).

Organizers of the flotilla that is set to sail for the Gaza Strip later this month expressed disappointment over the weekend that the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) will not take an active role in the convoy.

The IHH announced on Friday that the Mavi Marmara ship, on which nine Turkish activists were killed last May when it was intercepted by Israeli commandos on its way to Gaza, will not take part in the upcoming convoy.

RELATED: At Jerusalem Post, "US man seeks to seize flotilla ships using anti-piracy law":

Dr. Alan Bauer, an American- Israeli victim of a Palestinian terrorist attack, on Thursday filed a first of its kind lawsuit in an effort to seize ships to be used by Islamic and anti-Israel organizations to try to breach the blockade of the Gaza Strip later this month.

The suit, Bauer v. The Mavi Marmara, was filed in Manhattan federal court, seeking to confiscate 14 ships, which are scheduled to participate in the upcoming flotilla and which were outfitted with funds Bauer says were unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israel groups, including The Free Gaza Movement. Over the weekend, however, the Turkish IHH organization said the Mavi Marmara was still too damaged to sail for Gaza.

The plaintiff, a biologist from the Chicago area, and his son Jonathan, then aged seven, were seriously wounded when Palestinian suicide bomber detonated a bomb, packed with metal spikes and nails, in the center of a crowd of shoppers on King George Street in Jerusalem on March 21, 2002.

Three people were killed and 85 other people were also wounded.

Bauer alleges that The Free Gaza Movement and other American-based anti-Israel organizations have raised funds in the United States to outfit the Gaza flotilla ships. The lawsuit contends that furnishing and outfitting the ships, which are being used for hostilities against a US ally, violates American law.

The plaintiff rests his claim upon the rarely used 18th-century “informant” statute (18 USC Section 962) that allows a plaintiff (called an “informer”) to privately seize ships outfitted in the United States for use against a US ally.

The stature states: “Whoever, within the United States, furnishes, fits out, arms, or attempts to furnish, fit out or arm, any vessel, with intent that such vessel shall be employed in the service of any foreign prince, or state, or of any colony, district, or people, to cruise, or commit hostilities against the subjects, citizens, or property of any foreign prince or state, or of any colony, district, or people with whom the United States is at peace; or Whoever issues or delivers a commission within the United State for any vessel, to the intent that she may be so employed – Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.

“Every such vessel, her tackle, apparel, and furniture, together with all materials, arms, ammunition, and stores which may have been procured for the building and equipment thereof, shall be forfeited, one half to the use of the informer and the other half to the use of the United States.”

Still more at the link above.