Chamblee54

There is a video floating around now, which shows Israeli soldiers unloading weapons from a container. There is a lot of text in Hebrew, which this blog does not read. The story is that the container was on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish boat that was involved in an incident recently.
Perhaps the video is legitimate. There has been a lot of you said/I said about the raid on the Mavi Marmara. By this point, all videos must be assumed to be edited to show advantage to one side or another. Maybe there were weapons on the Mavi Marmara.
PG is not a forensic video watcher. All he can do is look at the video, and make observations. PG is sympathetic to those who seek to have the blockade of Gaza lifted, and with those who seek better treatment of the people of Gaza. He would want to thing that the video is faked.
Here are a few observations. Once again, PG is not a pro, just a tax paying American with internet access. The pictures included are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
-The flotilla was designed to bring attention to the blockade of Gaza. ( In this, it has succeeded spectacularly.) They knew there was a chance they would not make it to Gaza, and that the cargo would be inspected by Israel. Why would they try to include weapons in this cargo, knowing it would probably be caught? If you are looking for moral high ground, you do not bring in grenades.
– There is no visual link of the container to the Mavi Marmara. It is a container on a dock. There is no evidence to link this container to the flotilla.
-The first shot of the video shows a forklift backing up, with a pallet of white sacks. The second shot shows soldiers unloading the white sacks by hand, and loading them onto a pallet.
-At 0:14, you see white sacks stacked on the floor, on the sides of the container. There are olive colored boxes in the middle.
-At 0:17, you see soldiers, in uniform, pulling white sacks off the container. They are in the middle of the container, at the end. This space that was empty in the 0:14 shot. This shot indicates that the video is not seen in the order in which it was shot.
-At 0:22, the white sacks are stacked on a pallet away from the container. They are not stacked in a neat, efficient fashion, as though they were going to be shipped on that pallet.
-At 0:27, there are six people seen, two of whom are standing in the back of the container. The olive colored boxes are seen behind them, with stacks of white sacks on both sides.
-At 0:28, there is a box of hand grenades. The box is dated 2000, and the text is in English.
-At 0:30, there is a fork lift, with a pallet of brown boxes in front. A soldier places a brown box on top of the pallet.
-At 0:34, a crate is opened with weapons inside. There is no evidence linking these weapons to either the container with the white sacks, or to the Mavi Marmara.
-At 0:36, a soldier is shown holding what appears to be a weapon, similar to the weapons in the box of the previous shot. Behind him we see a container. There are three rows of white sacks in the front of the container.
-At 0:42, a group of soldiers pulls a shell out of a casing. If this was a confiscation of contraband, and not a media show, would these soldiers be doing this?
-At 1:03, you see the text on the side of a box. The text is in English. The date is 2008. The stack of olive colored boxes on the pallet appears to have been unloaded using a forklift.
-At 1:09, green boxes are taken off the container by hand.
-At 1:36, a pallet of green boxes is moved by a fork lift. Three pallets of green boxes are in a row in front of it. There is no apparent connection to the container with the white sacks or to the Mavi Marmara.
-At 1:52, you see a close up of some weapons. The text is in English. The date is 2007. There is paperwork, which is illegible.
Watching the video is not conclusive. It may be real. It may be a fake. Most people are going to see what they want to see.

UPDATE: The first screen on the video has the date 04.11.09. Apparently, in Israel this would mean November 11, 2009. The incident with the Mavi Marmara took place May 31, 2010.
This site was found through a google search. They claim to have found this video through the ” Burlington County (NJ) 912 group”.
This is not a discussion about the right or wrong of the blockade or the flotilla. This is about sending out false information.
The people who are spreading these videos should consider the story of the boy who cried wolf. They should also consider the concept that two wrongs do not make a right. When you are caught in a lie, that is not a good time to denounce your enemy in the boldest terms.
To his credit, the person who recommended this video (via facebook) has said “Then I stand corrected. I figured that if my cousin sent this to me that it was accurate.”