Lest you doubt the guy’s bona fides, he’s a former IDF chief of staff and current minister for strategic affairs. His statement of course was meant to toot his ministry’s horn since he was claiming credit for the role he played in the sabotage.

Apparently the foreign ministry didn’t get the memo and took a totally contradictory tack in attacking the credibility of the Flotilla activists who claimed sabotage. Yigal Palmor, clearly in his uber-mendacious mode said this:

Paranoids, cry-babies. The Flotilla organizers haven’t even done the minimum to prove there was sabotage. They live in a James Bond movie.

You mean an admission by the deputy prime minister of his own government doesn’t suffice? As for James Bond, whenever an Israeli journalist wishes to praise the work of the Mossad in assassinating Iranian scientists or implanting computer worms in Iranian nuclear facilities, he uses the James Bond example meant as a compliment. What I think Palmor really means to say is “We’re James Bond and we’re proud of it.” That’s what Ronen Bergman said of Meir Dagan’s Mossad a few months ago before the chief spook retired.

Back in the 60s, we used to hear a great song by the Mamas and the Papas: “And the beat goes on.” In the Israeli government’s case, it’s “the lies go on.” Yesterday, the NY Times dutifully reported more rubbish from the IDF:

…The Israeli Army told journalists that Tarek Hamud, 32, a son-in-law of Khaled Meshal, the Damascus-based head of Hamas, was with the flotilla in Athens, playing a leading role in its organization. Mr. Hamud leads the Palestinian Association of Hamas, according to Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, a military spokeswoman.

Flotilla activists denied any links to radical or terrorist organizations and said they had never even heard of Mr. Hamud. Izzat al-Risheq, a spokesman for Hamas in Damascus, said Mr. Hamud “has nothing to do with the flotilla in any way. He is in his house right now in Damascus.

Given the mounting pile of steaming bulls(^t being served by the Israelis to the world on this subject, why in God’s name would anyone believe Yigal Palmor’s protestations? And note that in his statement he didn’t deny the charge of sabotage, which he could’ve done. He merely stated that the Flotilla hasn’t proven the charge. By which I presume he means he’d like to see an underwater video of a diver in an IDF wetsuit sawing off the propeller shaft of one of the boats. Maybe there could be a little snappy Hebrew dialogue to go along with it. Yeah, in that case, they don’t have a smoking gun. But in Israel’s case you don’t need one. If you believe the opposite of what they tell you in most cases you can’t go far wrong.

Isn’t it ironic that if the Israeli Navy was involved in this sabotage operation it might’ve been the same unit Shayetet 13, the one which murdered nine Turkish activists on the Marmara last year, which provided the personnel for the underwater sabotage.

The Greeks have struck another blow against the Audacity of Hope by arresting its captain for allegedly endangering the passengers (presumably by sailing without explicit permission of the port authorities).

I propose that we begin a boycott of Greek tourism and Greek goods until Greece gets a bit of spine and stops being Bibi’s enforcer. If the Greeks are weak enough that Bibi’s blandishments enticed them to stop the boats, perhaps they’ll understand the import of a boycott against them by supporters of peace and justice around the world. What’s really ironic is that the current prime minister’s father, Andreas Papandreou, was a devout socialist and supporter of Palestinian rights. He would be rolling in his grave at the spinelessness of his son, George, the current Greek prime minister.

Papandreou is assisted in pandering to Israeli interests by the fact that the Greek public is so distracted by the economic crisis threatening their country, that they likely have little patience or energy to be enraged, as many of us are, by the government’s poodling for Israel.

H/t Dena Shunra.