MFS - The Other News

                       Afternoon  Posting.

• Syria Live Blog - May 20. Here .(Al-Jazeera).

• Libya Live Blog - May 20. Here (Al-Jazeera).

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity in Japan  today 5.3  lots of activity In Turkey More than 20 quakes today! More info here.

• Japan - Latest official Situation Update No. 114.Source : Here .

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Obama had invited the president of a co-conspirator funding Hamas to come applaud his speech!(BigPeace).Texas district 1 Congressman Louie Gohmert has a serious problem with one of the guests who attended the President’s big Middle East speech at the State Department yesterday. He also has a lot to say about why.“They are named in the pleadings in the Holyland Foundation trial. Frank, Imam Magid, the president of the Islamic Society of North America, the group from which we’ve got deposit slips, we’ve got plenty of evidence with the Judge in the Holyland Foundation case… Magid was at the speech! Obama had invited the president of a co-conspirator funding Hamas to come applaud his speech!Catch Rep. Gohmert’s entire interview with Frank Gaffney on today’s Secure Freedom Radio where he goes into great detail about why Hamas shouldn’t have this kind of access at the White House.Hmmmm.....The most Anti Jewish President evah! Read the full story here.

• Bibi to Obama: Peace based on illusions will crash on rocks of reality.(RightScoop).Netanyahu gave Obama a schooling in his remarks today, some of which people never thought he would need to utter. He talked about how they cannot, will not go back to the 1967 borders because those borders would be indefensible.He also talked about how the Palestinian refugee problem must be solved in the context of a Palestinian state, but not within the borders of Israel. He made it clear that’s not going to happen. But here’s my favorite quote:

We’ve been around for almost four thousand years. We’ve experienced struggle and suffering like no other people. We’ve gone through expulsions, pogroms and massacres and the murder of millions. But I can say that even at the dearth, even at the nadir of the valley of death, we never lost hope and we never lost our dream of reestablishing a sovereign state in our ancient homeland, the land of Israel. And now it falls on my shoulders as the Prime Minister of Israel, at a time of extraordinary instability and uncertainty in the middle east to work with you and fashion a peace that will ensure Israel’s security and will not jeopardize it’s survival.Hmmmmm.......Show that community organiser what real men are made of!Read the full story here.

• Netanyahu Urges U.S. Return to 1845 Borders.(BigPeace).Israeli PM calls for “just solution” to end the conflict.Aboard Air Force Aleph (Reuters) – Speaking to reporters accompanying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his long flight to the United States tonight, Netanyahu spoke of the injustice and hardship Mexicans have endured since American forces annexed Texas in 1845. “Tens of thousands of ordinary Mexicans were driven out of their homes – the only homes they had known for centuries – and forced to live in poverty and squalor south of the border imposed by American aggression,” Netanyahu said. “The Israeli and Mexican people agree on this: This festering wound will never heal until America takes bold steps to return to the internationally accepted lines of 1845. Clearly the settlement activity that’s taken place in occupied Mexico since then is illegal. When I meet the President tomorrow I will tell him to halt all building activity in Texas immediately. Two lands for two peoples, yes, but not on land taken by force from Mexico,” the Prime Minister said.Asked if his hard-line stance could hurt the U.S.-Israel relationship, Netanyahu reiterated Israel’s commitment to America’s security and the unshakeable friendship shared by the two countries, then added, “But who was it who said, part of friendship is being able to tell your friend the truth. The ball is now in Obama’s court.”Hmmmm.....Remember Massada?Read the full story here.

• Ouch! Netanyahu Rejects Obama’s Misguided Radical Mideast Plan Right to His Face.(GatewayPundit).Obama was not too pleased that Netanyahu rejected his radical plan right to his face.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Barack Obama’s pro-Hamas Mideast plan today right to his face.Reuters reported:Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday he was prepared to make compromises to peace but he rejected President Barack Obama’s proposal that Israel return to its 1967 borders.Obama and Netanyahu met at the White House a day after the U.S. president endorsed a longstanding Palestinian demand on the borders for their future state.In remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama said he had reiterated the principles he had laid out on Thursday.Both men acknowledged differences between their positions.Obama could care less about the Israelis.After all, they’re an ally.Read and see the full story here.

• Ft. Hood shooting: Death penalty option opposed.(CBS).Attorney for Maj. Nidal Hasan asks commanding general to eliminate prospect of capital punishment from case.(AP) FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Attorneys for the Army psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shooting rampage on Thursday urged a commander to remove the death penalty as a punishment option.Fort Hood's commanding general, Lt. Gen. Donald Campbell, will decide whether Maj. Nidal Hasan is court-martialed and also whether he faces the death penalty. The timing of that decision is unclear.During a one-hour closed meeting Thursday, Hasan's lead attorney, John Galligan, urged Campbell not to authorize seeking the death penalty, saying such cases are more costly, time-consuming and restrictive. Prosecutors were there but did not speak, and Campbell was receptive to the defense team's presentation, Galligan said."I think the decision by prosecutors, with the Army behind them, to seek the death penalty has already been made, but they can't do it until Campbell authorizes it," Galligan told The Associated Press from his Fort Hood-area office, about 125 miles south of Fort Worth. "But it just takes one person to stand up and do the right thing, and in this case I think the right thing is not going forward with the death penalty. It's not necessary or required to serve the interest of justice in any criminal case."Hasan is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder in the November 2009 shootings on the Texas Army post.If Campbell decides that Hasan will be tried without the death penalty being a punishment option to military jurors, a conviction would bring life imprisonment without parole.Two Army colonels have recommended that Hasan be court-martialed and face the death penalty. If Campbell's decision echoes those recommendations, then Hasan will no longer have the option of pleading guilty and must have a jury trial rather than opt for a judge to decide the case - which, Galligan said, could pose problems if an impartial jury cannot be found at Fort Hood.Galligan has declined to say if he has discussed a plea deal with prosecutors or if he is considering an insanity defense for Hasan, 40, who was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by police the day of the rampage and remains jailed.Galligan has refused to disclose Hasan's mental evaluation but has said the findings will not prevent the military from pursuing a court-martial. Last year a military mental health panel assessed Hasan to determine whether he is competent to stand trial and his mental state during the shootings. It also determined if he had a severe mental illness that day, and if so, whether such a condition prevented him from knowing at the time that his alleged actions were wrong.Hmmmmm......More "Outreach to Muslims"?Read the full story here.

• Obama regime does not need Congress to wage war!Breaking news: War Powers Act first to be Raptured.(HotAir).Today marks 60 days since President Obama began combat operations in Libya. The significance of this date is being played down a bit among some members of Congress, but as The Hill notes, not everyone.U.S. operations in Libya hit the 60-day mark Friday, but Congress has grown largely silent on the administration’s unilateral intervention into the war-torn North African nation.

The 1973 War Powers Act (WPA) — the statute President Obama invoked when he launched forces in March — requires presidents to secure congressional approval for military operations within 60 days, or withdraw forces within the next 30.Congress did not authorize the mission — which includes a no-fly zone, bombing raids, a sea blockade and civilian-protection operations — but the deadline has stirred little sense of urgency on Capitol Hill.

Six Republican senators, led by Rand Paul, have sent a letter to the president asking if he plans on taking note of this law, and from the Left, Dennis Kucinich is hatching his own plan aimed at putting the “time limited” back in this Kinetic Military Action. Still no official response from the West Wing as of this writing, though.The War Powers Act was ostensibly put in place to allow the Commander in Chief the flexibility of a nimble response to fast breaking situations overseas, and that is certainly an important feature. But it also serves as the fig leaf congress provided itself long after it gleefully and willingly absconded from the legislative branch’s constitutional power to declare war. After all, once the troops are already in the thick of it, it’s fairly easy to pass on the authority to keep going, versus launching the initial action themselves.Either way, they still have to be involved in the process, and the 30 day clock begins ticking today. It’s just that pesky little thing called the law, and on this matter candidate Obama was fairly clear about his predecessor’s responsibilities when it came to matters of war and peace. So how will he play it now that he’s in the big chair? Maybe the War Powers Act will be the first one to be Raptured after all.Hmmmm.....Dictatorship or Democracy?Read the full story here.

• AARP latest to receive Waivercare Obamacare break!(DailyCaller).The Daily Caller has learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rate review rules, which it finalized on Thursday, exempt “Medigap” policy providers, like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), from oversight when such providers increase payment rates for their supplemental insurance plans.Insurance providers who aren’t exempt from Obamacare’s rate review rules are required to publicly release and explain some health care payment rate increases.The AARP is the nation’s biggest seller of Medigap policies, or supplemental healthcare plans that add onto what Medicare won’t cover for seniors. The senior citizens interest group advocated for Obamacare to include an attack on Medigap policies’ biggest competitor, Medicare Advantage.Though the White House and HHS dismiss allegations of political favoritism when it comes to who’s getting exceptions from the new health care regulations – such as in the recent uproar over the disproportionate number of Obamacare waivers that went to companies in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s district — Obamacare critics say the mere appearance of the administration helping friends is disturbing.Hmmmm....Thugocracy in it's natural habitat?Read the full story here.

• Convicted Felon Sets Up Nationwide Shop For Obama. (BigGovernment).Convicted fraudster Robert Creamer, husband of Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), has announced that he is opening a nationwide political consulting firm, Democracy Partners.Democracy Partners already “has offices in eight cities including Washington, D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego, and Portland, Maine”–and, presumably, a budget running into many millions of dollars.Creamer is not alone. His “partners” include Heather Booth, who founded the Midwest Academy, which Stanley Kurtz describes as “the hidden key to Barack Obama’s political career.”Booth also founded Citizen Action, the left-wing organizing body that included Creamer’s Illinois Public Action Council (IPAC), which gave Rahm Emanuel and other Chicago “progressives” their start in politics before collapsing in the 1990s as a result of Creamer’s financial mismanagement and fraud.The client list at Democracy Partners includes many of Creamer’s clients at his DC-based firm, Strategic Consulting Group. One of those clients is his wife, who recently called for BigGovernment.com to be banned and labeled Andrew Breitbart a “sleazebag.”Creamer apparently produced misleading direct-mail ads for Schakowsky and other Illinois Democrats which were designed to scare seniors during the 2010 campaign. Creamer also trained volunteers at “Camp Obama” and headed the DNC’s field-based “rapid response” operations during the 2008 election.Creamer proudly claims to have been “one of the major architects of the successful 2005 campaign to defeat the Bush plan to privatize of Social Security.” He also created the Democrats’ political blueprint for pushing health care reform, drafting the key elements of the plan while he was serving time in federal prison. Today he is leading the “Mediscare” campaign against Republican budget proposals and Medicare reforms.Why would private investors hand millions of dollars to a man who had only served federal time for financial felonies? They wouldn’t–but Creamer’s political patrons would.The purpose of Democracy Partners is to provide field operations and propaganda for Obama and the Democrats in 2012–outside the DNC and below the radar.Creamer’s new scheme is proof that Obama has never really left his radical Chicago past behind.Hmmmm.....Thugocracy or Democracy?Read the full story here.

• Islamist Candidate for Egyptian Presidency: Israel's End Is Near.(Memri).In an article titled "Israel's End Is Near," Dr. Muhammad Moro, an Islamist candidate for the Egyptian presidency, claimed that the path to world freedom was the destruction of Israel, as it was the spearhead of global imperialism. He said it was the national and religious duty of Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and freedom seekers the world over to march peacefully in their millions to Israel's borders in order to liberate Palestine.Moro represents the National Union for Preserving the Revolution party, which is still in the process of formation, and which bills him as an Islamist alternative to the other candidates, such as former Arab League secretary-general 'Amr Moussa and Al-Ghad party leader Dr. Ayman Nour. He is considered close to the Muslim Brotherhood, his father having been a member of the organization. Moro was arrested a number of times under the Sadat and Mubarak regimes, and in the past maintained friendly relations with Fathi Shaqaqi, founder of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization."I was the first to call for the liberation of Palestine through peaceful marches of millions to the borders of occupied Palestine – from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon – bringing together millions of Palestinian refugees, tens of millions of Arabs, and hundreds of millions of Muslims, in addition to those freedom seekers the world over who believe that the path to world freedom is the destruction of Israel, as it is the spearhead of the international imperialism headed by the U.S."It is the duty of the Palestinian refugees [to participate in these marches] and their right to fight for them. Vis-à-vis the Arabs, too, this is a national and religious duty, and it is a religious duty vis-à-vis [all] Muslims. I have already called [for such marches] in a number of articles titled 'Formula for the Liberation of Palestine,' which were published on a [particular] website at least two years ago and broadly cited on dozens of [other] websites..."[These marches] are in line with the implication of the honorable verses: 'And We had made known to the children of Israel in the Book: Most certainly you will make mischief in the land twice, and most certainly you will behave with great insolence. So when the promise for the first of the two came, We sent over you Our servants, of mighty prowess, so they ravaged the houses, and it was a promise to be accomplished... [Koran 17:4-5]' "I still believe that we are at the stage of the first promise, as Israel has yet [to demonstrate] mischief and insolence. Israel was insolent during the days of our master Suleiman [King Solomon], may he rest in peace, but this [insolence] was not accompanied by mischief. Therefore, [Israel's current] mischief and insolence are the first of their kind in the history of the children of Israel."The verses speak of the end of this mischief and insolence through ravaging, which is to say the marching of millions in demonstrations and processions, something that has been [thus far] prevented by the tyrannical Arab governments, who stopped the masses from approaching [Israel's borders]. "Now that the popular Arab revolutions have succeeded through peaceful protests by millions, [such marches] are very possible. If millions proceed peacefully toward Palestine, it will send a message to the children of Israel in Palestine that they have no future. This will result in [the Jews'] emigration from Palestine, and the more marches of millions there are, the closer [we will be] to entering Palestine peacefully, liberating it, and realizing the honorable Koranic prophecy."I am absolutely sure that Allah's promise is real; that the honorable Koran will remain an eternal example until Judgment Day; and that Palestine will soon be liberated, Allah willing. On this occasion, I call upon all the Islamic movements fighting against the corrupt governments or the governments that serve as [foreign] agents to relinquish violence, except against foreign invaders, and to take up the path that has proven just, the path of peaceful struggle by means of marches of millions. Moreover, I call on the leaders of Al-Qaeda as well as its members not to carry out any violent actions against the Arab or Muslim peoples, or even against the European or American peoples, but to bear what the Americans did to the hero and martyr Osama bin Laden – as the path of peaceful struggle has gained international and popular legitimacy, and we must not harm it but follow this same path which has proven just..."Hmmmm....Any American President Supporting this Egyptian Government should be impeached for treason on the spot!Read the full story here.

• WHCA VP “concerned” over WH press access policies.(HotAir).The dustup between the White House and the Boston Herald has the media opening up more about their frustrations with the lack of access given the media by the Obama administration. The Herald’s Jessica Heslam follows up today with remarks from the White House Correspondents Association, noting that the paucity of open press conferences has the press corps “concerned”:

A frustrated White House Press Corps chief says her members are “constantly fighting” for more access to the media-elusive President Obama — who hasn’t fielded questions from reporters since early April, despite an onslaught of major events, from the “birther” controversy and spiking gas prices to the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.Heavy-handed dealings with the press, limited access and strong efforts at message control are emerging as patterns in the Obama White House, journalists and media watchers say.

“We’re constantly reminding the White House that we would like to see more press conferences and more opportunities for reporters to ask questions of the president,” said Caren Bohan, vice president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. “That’s a big concern for us.”The Obama White House wouldn’t be the first to freeze a media outlet over some perceived slight. They are, however, terribly inept at it, as media analyst Jay Rosen from PressThink told the Herald, calling it “amateur hour” at the White House and calling the Briefing Room situation “increasingly absurd.” Nor is it the first time that Obama’s team has declared war on a media outlet. They did the same thing to Fox News in an attempt to pander to their base, which backfired when other media outlets defended Fox and criticized the White House for attempting to manipulate their press coverage.Rosen also wondered why this administration seems so “indifferent” to explaining itself to the public. I’m not sure if it’s indifference or arrogance, but functionally it’s six of one, half-dozen of the other.Hmmmm.....Dictators don't explain themselves get used to it?Read the full story here.

• Obama’s abandonment of America.(IsraPundit).By Caroline Glick.I was out sick yesterday so I was unable to write today’s column for the Jerusalem Post. I did manage to watch President Obama’s speech on the Middle East yesterday evening. And I didn’t want to wait until next week to discuss it. After all, who knows what he’ll do by Tuesday?Before we get into what the speech means for Israel, it is important to consider what it means for America.Quite simply, Obama’s speech represents the effective renunciation of the US’s right to have and to pursue national interests. Consequently, his speech imperils the real interests that the US has in the region – first and foremost, the US’s interest in securing its national security.Obama’s renunciation of the US national interests unfolded as follows:First, Obama mentioned a number of core US interests in the region. In his view these are: “Countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce, and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel’s security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.”Then he said, “Yet we must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind.”While this is true enough, Obama went on to say that the Arabs have good reason to hate the US and that it is up to the US to put its national interests aside in the interest of making them like America. As he put it, “a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities.”And you know what that means. If the US doesn’t end the “spiral of division,” (sounds sort of like “spiral of violence” doesn’t it?), then the Muslims will come after America. So the US better straighten up and fly right.And how does it do that? Well, by courting the Muslim Brotherhood which spawned Al Qaeda, Hamas, Jamma Islamiya and a number of other terror groups and is allies with Hezbollah.How do we know this is Obama’s plan? Because right after he said that the US needs to end the “spiral of division,” he recalled his speech in Egypt in June 2009 when he spoke at the Brotherhood controlled Al Azhar University and made sure that Brotherhood members were in the audience in a direct diplomatic assault on US ally Hosni Mubarak.And of course, intimations of Obama’s plan to woo and appease the jihadists appear throughout the speech. For instance:“There will be times when our short term interests do not align perfectly with our long term vision of the region.”So US short term interests, like for instance preventing terrorist attacks against itself or its interests, will have to be sacrificed for the greater good of bringing the Muslim Brotherhood to power in democratic elections.And he also said that the US will “support the governments that will be elected later this year” in Egypt and Tunisia. But why would the US support governments controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood? They are poised to control the elected government in Egypt and are the ticket to beat in Tunisia as well.Then there is the way Obama abandoned US allies Yemen and Bahrain in order to show the US’s lack of hypocrisy. As he presented it, the US will not demand from its enemies Syria and Iran that which it doesn’t demand from its friends.While this sounds fair, it is anything but fair. The fact is that if you don’t distinguish between your allies and your enemies then you betray your allies and side with your enemies. Bahrain and Yemen need US support to survive. Iran and Syria do not. So when he removes US support from the former, his action redounds to the direct benefit of the latter.I hope the US Navy’s 5th Fleet has found alternate digs because Obama just opened the door for Iran to take over Bahrain. He also invited al Qaeda – which he falsely claimed is a spent force – to take over Yemen.Beyond his abandonment of Bahrain and Yemen, in claiming that the US mustn’t distinguish between its allies and its foes, Obama made clear that he has renounced the US’s right to have and pursue national interests. If you can’t favor your allies against your enemies then you cannot defend your national interests. And if you cannot defend your national interests then you renounce your right to have them.As for Iran, in his speech, Obama effectively abandoned the pursuit of the US’s core interest of preventing nuclear proliferation. All he had to say about Iran’s openly genocidal nuclear program is, “Our opposition to Iran’s intolerance – as well as its illicit nuclear program, and its sponsorship of terror – is well known.”Well so is my opposition to all of that, and so is yours. But unlike us, Obama is supposed to do something about it. And by putting the gravest threat the US presently faces from the Middle East in the passive voice, he made clear that actually, the US isn’t going to do anything about it.In short, every American who is concerned about the security of the United States should be livid. The US President just abandoned his responsibility to defend the country and its interests in the interest of coddling the US’s worst enemies.AS FOR ISRAEL, in a way, Obama did Israel a favor by giving this speech. By abandoning even a semblance of friendliness, he has told us that we have nothing whatsoever to gain by trying to make him like us. Obama didn’t even say that he would oppose the Palestinians’ plan to get the UN Security Council to pass a resolution in support for Palestinian independence. All he said was that it is a dumb idea.Obama sided with Hamas against Israel by acting as though its partnership with Fatah is just a little problem that has to be sorted out to reassure the paranoid Jews. Or as he put it, “the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel.”Hamas is a jihadist movement dedicated to the annihilation of the Jewish people, and the establishment of a global caliphate. It’s in their charter. And all Obama said of the movement that has now taken over the Palestinian Authority was, “Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection..Irrelevant and untrue. It is irrelevant because obviously the Palestinians don’t want peace. That’s why they just formed a government dedicated to Israel’s destruction.As for being untrue, Obama’s speech makes clear that they have no reason to fear a loss of prosperity. After all, by failing to mention that US law bars the US government from funding an entity which includes Hamas, he made clear that the US will continue to bankroll the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Authority. So too, the EU will continue to join the US in giving them billions for bombs and patronage jobs. The Palestinians have nothing to worry about. They will continue to be rewarded regardless of what they do.Hmmmm.....Impeachment sounds like a real smart thing to do right now.Read the full story here.

• Black Leaders Support Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Rejection of Obama Plan.(ChristianNewsWire).ISRAEL, May 20, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- "A man does not say to his friend: 'I will protect you from your enemy, but you must chop off your hand and give it to him first.'" Said Dr. Alveda King, pro-life activist. "The people of Israel and the land are one. Bless the people and the land will yield blessings to the world. Cut off the Israeli people from the land and the land will not prosper.""The very idea that Barack Obama would endorse the Palestinian position by saying the border lines should be rolled back to where they were in 1967 is almost laughable," said Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union."Apparently, our great country is saddled with a milk-toast president who with all his degrees, and accomplishments doesn't understand the very basics of the importance of ensuring Israel is able to protect herself," said Gardner. "For decades, Americans have taken comfort in knowing that we are Israel's ally," said Dr. King. "How can we pray for the peace of Jerusalem if we move to deny them and the world the rights to weep at the Wailing Wall and be freely refreshed in River Jordan?" She said. "The Palestinians don't want peace, they want to destroy Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu has every right to reject this proposal from the Obama Administration. Consider how we as US Citizens would react if it were proposed that our borders should be redrawn with us surrendering our entire eastern seaboard to a country such as Iran," said Gardner. Day Gardner is President of the National Black Pro-Life Union, an organization founded to serve as a clearing house to coordinate the flow of communications among all African American pro-life organizations and individuals in order to better network and combine resources. Dr. King currently serves as a Pastoral Associate and Director of African-American Outreach for Priests for Life and is Founder of King for America.Hmmmm....Thank God for honest Godfearing America loving people!Read the full story here.

• IHH calls for UN escort of Upcoming Flotilla.(HurriyetDaily).Organizers of the Turkish branch of the aid flotilla set to leave for Gaza at the end of June have said they are willing to have their cargo inspected and their ships escorted by international observers.
  Israel, however, has dismissed the move as a “publicity stunt,” while supporters of the flotilla in the European Union have questioned the legal necessity of such an escort.“We are ready to talk with everybody. Already we have started these kinds of visits for the European Parliament, for the United Nations to make some solution,” Hüseyin Oruç, an administrative board member of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or İHH, told the Hürriyet Daily News in an interview Tuesday.“All these boats can be checked by the U.N., or the European Parliament’s commissions. We are ready to show all the details of our preparation,” he said. “They can check [the boats] in the ports, they can check on international waters, they can guide us, they can guide the distribution of all items in Gaza. It’s open to all international mediators.”
  An Israeli official dismissed the proposal as a “publicity stunt,” saying that Israel is always willing to accept, process and transmit Gaza-bound aid.
  “That obviously won’t happen,” an Israeli official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Daily News. “All the international players, [U.N. chief] Ban Ki-moon, [EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs] Catherine Ashton have all called the move provocative.”
  The İHH is organizing the Mavi Marmara and an additional cargo ship as the Turkish part of what will be a 15-boat aid flotilla. On its voyage to Gaza last year, the Mavi Marmara was attacked by Israeli forces who boarded the ship and killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American onboard.
  Last week, a group of American congressional representatives sent a letter to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan asking him to discourage the flotilla from “provoking a confrontation” with Israel in a bid to “save lives.” The Turkish government’s response so far has been that the letter was incorrectly directed to them, as the flotilla is being organized by civilian, nongovernmental organizations that the government does not control.The İHH, responding to the letter, echoed the Turkish government response, saying that the group had no contact with the Turkish government, but added that Israel was in fact the party that the U.S. Congress needed to address to avoid another crisis."Also we are asking all these congresspeople, if you are looking for the solution, don’t ask the prime minister of Turkey. Why are you not asking the Prime Minister of Israel? They need to talk with [Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Oruç said.Regarding the possibility of an EU parliamentary commission escorting the flotilla, a spokesman for the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats, the party with the second largest representation in the EU Parliament, said the party has been supportive of the flotilla, but had not seen any proposal regarding a European escort.
  “I question the necessity” of an international escort for the ship, said Tony Robinson, head of press and communications for the alliance.”Hmmmm.....Did Erdogan and Obama came up with this during their weekly phonecall?Read the full story here.