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The ship Marianne of Gothenburg set sail Monday night on its journey to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. It's journey will mark five years since the Israeli navy forcibly boarded the first Freedom Flotilla's ship Mavi Marmara, killing nine Turkish activists. Israel has announced it will not permit unauthorised ships to enter its territorial waters. Marianne will join additional ships to form the Freedom Flotilla III to perform a peaceful, nonviolent action to break the illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip. In passing, Marianne will call at European ports for demonstrations and actions against Israel's blockade of Gaza. The ship is bringing a limited cargo of solar panels and medical equipment for the people of Gaza. The group Ship to Gaza stated that “In the blockaded Gaza Strip, where the infrastructure has been demolished, solar cells will thus provide an opportunity to independent local production of clean energy. The sun can not be blockaded.”

In addition to a crew of five people, Marianne will have up to eight delegates as passengers in each section of the route. The Freedom Flotilla’s first attempt to break the blockade ended in the deaths of nine Turkish activists after Israeli Navy commandos on May 31, 2010 boarded the Mavi Marmara. The United Nations declared that Israel used excessive force in stopping the ship, and a diplomatic crisis opened between Turkey and Israel which has yet to fully subside. A second attempt was turned back in October 2012. Without relating specifically to the Marianne of Gothenburg, Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon told the Jerusalem Post that “if the so-called helpful Gaza flotillas were really interested in the welfare of the population in Gaza, they would send their aid via Israel. The fact that they insist on a flotilla demonstrates this is an unnecessary provocation.” Israel is clearly concerned about the possible ramifications of Freedom Flotilla III, however; the Foreign Ministry has appointed a point-person to coordinate policy on the matter between the foreign ministry, the prime minister’s office, and the defense ministry.

Islands Brygge, an idyllic harbor park that stretches along the east bank of Copenhagen, was alive with a celebratory crowd on Monday as three ships were about to steam towards Gaza. The 2018 Freedom Flotilla—two ships from Sweden and one from Norway — will call at ports in Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy before traveling through the Mediterranean Sea to its final destination: Gaza harbor. Volunteer boat guides explained the history and mission of the Gaza Flotilla movement, which has organized a number of journeys to demonstrate solidarity with the people of Gaza and break the illegal economic siege.

Reaching the harbor of Gaza (which means “jewel” in Arabic) should be as simple and straightforward as entering any harbor in Germany, France or Spain. But instead, Israel has denied Gazans use of their own harbor for commerce, trade and travel, and has bombed it on numerous occasions, along with their electric power plants and sewage systems, making life miserable for the local population and rendering 97 percent of the drinking water toxic.

The Turkish pro-Palestinian organization IHH announced that its second Gaza flotilla will be launched soon - and will be afforded protection by the Turkish Navy, Israel's NRG reported on Sunday. The group's chairman told local Turkish media that the mission, titled 'Freedom Flotilla II,' was in the process of finalizing the legal paperwork needed to commence on the trip, and would embark as soon as it got the necessary permissions. This fleet, as opposed to the group's previous one that was intercepted by the Israeli navy in 2010, would be protected by the Turkish Navy, he said. Ankara, has so far not officially confirmed the report, according to Israel Radio.

In May of 2010, a six-ship flotilla organized by the IHH (The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief) sailed toward the Gaza coast with the stated intention of breaking through the Israeli naval blockade and bringing humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza. There were over 600 Palestinian supporters, from several different countries, on board, one Israeli MK among them. The fleet did not reach the Gaza shore; thirteen IDF soldiers were helicoptered onto the fleet's main vessel, the Mavi Marmara, and in the ensuing fight nine members of the flotilla were killed.

Four people, including three Americans, have filed a civil suit against the state of Israel, seeking compensatory damages for injuries suffered during an attack aboard a U.S. ship in international waters during the year 2010. At a Washington press conference, Tuesday, the plaintiffs said they wanted compensation for “the harm and distress, injuries and losses caused by the attack”. Israel has refused to acknowledge responsibility and liability for the attack and is yet to pay compensation to victims aboard the Challenger I, which was part of a Freedom Flotilla set to deliver humanitarian aid and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip, which was and still remains under an Israeli blockade. According to the complaint, the U.S. ship has never been returned by Israel and is still being held there. Israeli special forces stormed the ships and killed nine civilians aboard another ship in the flotilla, the Turkish Mavi Marmara. That event has since frozen relations between Israel and Turkey. That case was referred to the International Criminal Court by the Union of the Comoros because the Turkish vessel was sailing under its flag.

The family of a 19-year old American-Turkish national, Furkan Dogan, who was killed in the Mavi Marmara raid, last October, sued former Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on war crimes charges. The latest lawsuit filed Monday is the first U.S. case brought against Israel relating to the Freedom Flotilla. The plaintiffs and their attorneys spoke to Anadolu Agency, following a press conference that announced the suit: “States are generally immune from suit in United States courts. But that immunity is waived in a number of circumstances. When agents of foreign governments commit wrongful acts in the United States that cause personal injury, and egregious acts against U.S. nationals anywhere in the world, they are not entitled to immunity,” said lawyer Steven Schneebaum. He noted that both exceptions apply to the facts of Challenger I case because a U.S. flagged ship falls under U.S. jurisdiction. The case is ground-breaking as it relies on an exception in American law that allows lawsuits to be brought against foreign states, in limited cases.

According to professor Ralph Steinhardt, a member of the plaintiffs’ legal team, Israel’s sovereignty does not allow it to attack American flagged civilian ships and attack those on it. “The attack on Challenger I was a patent violation of international law, including the laws of war, human rights, and the law of the sea,” according to the George Washington University international law professor. A UK-based international lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Sir Geoffrey Nice, described the case against Israel as “a real test” for the rule of international law. “This case, alongside the others, the one in the International Criminal Court and the one in California would have the following very clear political outcome: If Israel has enjoyed special privileged status of impunity because of protection by the United State of America, then that impunity is on the way out,” he said.

Judges of the International Criminal Court presented a new challenge to Israel on Thursday, asking the court’s chief prosecutor to review her decision not to investigate a deadly Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla of aid ships in 2010. Israel denounced the move.In their request, posted on the court’s website, the judges of a pretrial chamber said the prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, had committed “errors of fact” and reached “simplistic conclusions” in her assessment of whether a criminal inquiry was warranted into the raid on the flotilla, which left eight Turks and an American of Turkish descent dead on the lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara.The judges asked that Ms. Bensouda “reconsider her decision not to initiate an investigation,” and do so “as soon as possible.”

A lawsuit in the United States has been filed against former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for his role in the 2010 Israeli commando attack upon the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in which 8 Turkish citizens and one American citizen were executed by Israeli forces and over fifty Turkish passengers were wounded.  The trial will be the first time a former Israeli Prime Minister will be put on trial for reasons of international terrorism. The family of Furkan Doğan, the American citizen who was assassinated in the attack, filed the lawsuit in the Central District Court of California and notice of the trial was handed to Barak last night, October 20, in Los Angeles when he spoke in the Distinguished Speaker series of Southern California  (http://speakersla.com/speakers/ehud-barak/).  According to a press release (http://mavi-marmara.ihh.org.tr/en/main/news/0/case-opened-against-former-israeli-pm-ehud-ba/2969) from the Turkish International Humanitarian organization that sponsored the Mavi Marmara ship,  charges against Barak include his planning and leadership in the murder of Furkan Doğan and others in international waters, Willful killing, attempted willful killing, intentionally causing serious injury to body or health, international terrorism, plundering, intentionally causing damage to property, restriction of people's freedom and instigating violent crimes. 

American attorneys Hydee Dijsktal and Dan Stormer, the British law firm, Stoke & White, British Professor Dr. Geoffrey Nice and UK attorney Rodney Dixon are the legal team for the Dogan family. Ehud Barak was almost arrested in France in 2010 when he went to a weapons expo. by hopping off the plane last minute with the trial opened against him by the wives of martyrs in France. Other legal proceedings against Barak and other senior members of the Israeli government are in the works.  In 2010 in France, the widows of Cevdet Kılıçlar and Necdet Yıldırım, two others executed by Israeli commandos, brought a lawsuit against Barak which he evaded when he was informed of the French lawsuit as he was about to deplane in Paris to attend a weapons expo in France. In the case brought in the International Criminal Court (ICC), the ICC prosecutor has ruled that the attack by Israeli commandos upon the Mavi Marmara in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a war crime. Additionally, the 7th High Criminal Court in Istanbul, Turkey has issued a “red notice” for the arrest of four senior Israeli government officials in a lawsuit filed in Turkey http://www.incanews.net/en/turkey/313/turkish-court-orders-arrest-of-4-israeli-officials . The Israeli officials named by the court are Israel's former Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former navy chief Eliezer Marom, former military intelligence head Amos Yadlin and former air force intelligence chief Avishai Levy.

Due to political considerations dealing with the State of Israel, the Ministry of Justice of Turkey has delayed sending to Interpol the “red notice” much to the consternation of those seeking justice.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is appealing a ruling ordering her to reconsider her decision not to investigate Israel’s lethal attack on an aid flotilla to Gaza five years ago. But Geoffrey Nice, lead counsel for victims and families of those killed in the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, told The Electronic Intifada that the arguments Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has put forward are “complete hogwash.” Nice, who worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia from 1998 to 2006, led the prosecution of former Serbian President Slobodan Milošević. Nice and his law firm Stoke and White also represent the government of Comoros, the Indian Ocean archipelago state where the Mavi Marmara is registered. Instead of doing her job and properly investigating the case, Nice said, Bensouda’s appeal is “a last ditch attempt to do what would be expected of her by the US and supporters of Israel.”

A professor of law at London’s Gresham College who has previously represented victims before the ICC, Nice said he doubted that Bensouda even had a right to go to the appeal judges at this stage. He said his first legal response would be to ask them to throw her appeal out on procedural grounds. Serious errors Earlier this month, a panel of ICC judges found in a scathing 2-1 ruling that Bensouda had made serious errors of fact and law in her decision not to pursue the case. They said that the chief prosecutor had underestimated the seriousness and international significance of the crimes and ordered her to review her decision not to proceed with an investigation into the attack. In the early hours of 31 May 2010, Israeli commandos boarded and seized the flotilla boats in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean. Israeli forces carried out a particularly violent armed attack on the largest vessel, Mavi Marmara, killing nine persons. A tenth victim died of his injuries in June 2014. The victims were all Turkish citizens. One of them, 18-year-old Furkan Doğan, was also a US citizen.

The initial request for the ICC to investigate the killings was submitted in 2013 by Comoros. Bensouda decided not to proceed with a full investigation in November 2014. Ignoring evidence In a notice of appeal filed Monday, Chief Prosecutor Bensouda says that the judges overstepped their mandate and trampled on her prosecutorial discretion by ordering her to review the case. She also claims that the ruling gives her no clear explanation of how to review her decision. But Nice said that her claims are “absolute rubbish” and the judges’ ruling is very clear about what matters and evidence should be looked at again. The judges’ 16 July ruling lists a long litany of errors by the prosecutor.

Israel and Turkey reportedly held secret talks in Switzerland, aimed at reaching an understanding about normalizing relations which have been tense since the 2010 raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla vessel Mavi Marmara. The “tense relations” about the incident have, however, already been “normalized” weeks after the incident that involved cooperation between Turkish and Israeli intelligence services. 

Raid on Mavi Marmara a Joint Israeli – Turkish / NATO Intelligence Hit in Preparation of the War on Syria. nsnbc international previously reported that the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara was a joint Israeli – Turkish / NATO intelligence hit. The Mavi Marmara is owned by the Turkish Charity IHH which according to reliable source with insight into Turkish intelligence services is deeply infiltrated by and often acts as cover for Turkey’s National Security Service (MIT), in 2010 led by Hakan Fidan.

Almost all of the nine Turkish citizens on board of the Mavi Marmara who were killed during the Israeli raid in international waters were linked to Turkey’s Muslim Brotherhood and opposed to Turkey’s AKP government’s plans to launch a war against neighboring Syria the following year. It is noteworthy that the second in command of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Mahdi Al-Harati was on board the Mavi Marmara. The dual Irish – Libyan citizen is a long-standing asset of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6. Al-Harati’s function on board the ship was to provide information to Israel where on board the individuals that were to be targeted while the raid was in progress. Mahdi Al-Harati would, in 2012, lead the about 23,000 strong Libyan Brigade via the Jordanian border town Al-Mafraq into Syria. Two campaigns to conquer the city of Homs in June and July 2012, led by Al-Harati failed. LIFG first in command, Abdelhakim Belhadj, would after the ouster of the Libyan government in 2011 become the head of the Turkish and NATO-backed Tripoli Military Council.

The Neutrality Act, 18 U.S.C. 962, passed in 1794, is generally recognized as the first instance of municipal legislation in support of the obligations of neutrality. The Act makes it unlawful to furnish, fit out, or arm a vessel within the U.S. with the intent of having the vessel used in the service of a foreign state or people to commit hostilities against another foreign state or people with whom the U.S. is at peace. Vessels covered by the Act are subject to forfeiture, and persons who give information leading to the seizure of such vessels may recover a bounty. Bauer sought to pursue a claim under the Act, claiming to have informed the government of vessels that had been funded, furnished, and fitted by anti-Israel organizations in the U.S., together with violent and militant anti-Israel organizations from other countries. The complaint alleged that the vessels were to be employed in the service of Hamas, a terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip, to commit hostilities against Israel. The district court dismissed, holding that the statute lacks an express private cause of action. The D.C. Circuit affirmed, holding that informers lack standing to sue on their own.

More than six months after the US government finally dropped all charges against Dr. Sami Al-Arian, the stateless Palestinian academic and activist was deported yesterday to Turkey. During his appearance on Democracy Now! today, Dr. Al-Arian expressed relief that his twelve-year-long persecution in the US, where he lived for forty years, had finally come to an end. “It feels like I’m free, finally really feeling freedom for the first time in twelve years,” Dr. Al-Arian said.

During the half-hour segment, Dr. Al-Arian revealed how he campaigned for George W. Bush, helping him win crucial votes from the Muslim community that would clinch his 2000 presidential election victory in the decisive state of Florida. Dr. Al-Arian was very active politically, and had visited the White House several times during both the Bush and Clinton administrations. Regarding his role in Bush’s election, Dr. Al-Arian said that he received a call “from someone who was very close to [Bush advisor] Karl Rove” asking how the campaign could win the endorsement of the Muslim American community. Dr. Al-Arian told this contact that Bush needed to declare his support for proposed legislation against secret evidence being used against Arab and Muslim Americans. During the second presidential candidate debate, Dr. Al-Arian told Democracy Now!, Bush did just that, securing the support of Muslim and Arab American leaders.

His administration had invited these leaders to the White House after Bush took office for a big announcement of good news regarding the legislation. “Unfortunately, it was on 9/11,” Dr. Al-Arian said, referring to the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US. “So that meeting never happened.” Instead, the country went in a very different direction. “At the time, we were protesting secret evidence,” Dr. Al-Arian added. “What happened after 9/11 is that they were arresting people with no evidence.”