ReDiscover 9/11

Gordon Duff
Veterans Today
29 June 2010

For those Americans that don’t know, Ken O’Keefe is the United States Marine combat veteran who captured two Israeli’s suspected of the murder of Turkish photojournalist during the battle on the Mavi Marmara. Veterans Today staff writer, O’Keefe was captured, taken to Israel and beaten, tortured for two days before being released. Israeli’s claimed O’Keefe was planning to set up a training school for terrorists inside Gaza while on the ill fated relief mission attacked in international waters by 24 Israeli ships and dozens of American built Blackhawk and Apache helicopters. As many as 6,500 Israelis are believed to have taken part in the operation, deemed a “war crime” by maritime law experts with the British government.

Nine are known to have died, with autopsies showing “execution style ” killings and many more are still missing, fate unknown. Verified witness reports indicate that Israeli soldiers threw four wounded humanitarian workers overboard to their deaths, victims not listed on the official tally. Other victims are unaccounted for, either killed in Israeli custody, dead from lack of medical care for wounds or being held in secret detention facilities. It is believed these names were withheld because the victims had no affiliations with any Islamic organization and one or more may have been American citizens.

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PULSE
6 June 2010

Ken O’Keefe, former US Marine, Gulf War veteran, and now survivor of the Mavi Marmara massacre, has issued a remarkable and searing statement from Istanbul. “While in Israeli custody I, along with everyone else, was subjected to endless abuse and flagrant acts of disrespect. Women and elderly were physically and mentally assaulted. Access to food and water and toilets was denied. Dogs were used against us, we ourselves were treated like dogs. We were exposed to direct sun in stress positions while hand cuffed to the point of losing circulation of blood in our hands. We were lied to incessantly, in fact I am awed at the routineness and comfort in their ability to lie, it is remarkable really. We were abused in just about every way imaginable and I myself was beaten and choked to the point of blacking out… and I was beaten again while in my cell.

In all this what I saw more than anything else were cowards… and yet I also see my brothers. Because no matter how vile and wrong the Israeli agents and government are, they are still my brothers and sisters and for now I only have pity for them. Because they are relinquishing the most precious thing a human being has, their humanity.“

O’Keefe was a human shield in Iraq who formally renounced his US citizenship in protest in 2001; he now has Irish as well as Palestinian citizenship. On the morning of the attack, as he describes it, he was “directly involved in the disarming of two Israeli Commandos. This was a forcible, non-negotiable, separation of weapons from commandos who had already murdered two brothers that I had seen that day.” Subsequently brutalised by the Israeli military, he is defiant: “I challenge any critic of merit, publicly, to debate me on a large stage over our actions that day. I would especially love to debate with any Israeli leader who accuses us of wrongdoing, it would be my tremendous pleasure to face off with you. All I saw in Israel was cowards with guns, so I am ripe to see you in a new context“.

In another context — one that does not involve Israel — O’Keefe’s valor would likely be recognized and rewarded by the country whose military he served and whose citizenship he has relinquished. Yet he will be a hero to millions around the world.

Read O’Keefe’s statement in full below.

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