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Approximately 1,000 boats will gather in Turkey on Wednesday before heading toward Gaza in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade and disrupt maritime trade coming into Israel during the war with Hamas, in an apparent repeat of similar attempts from over a decade ago. In an interview with Turkish news website Haber7, Volkan Okçu, one of the organizers of the protest, indicated the boats will carry 4,500 people from 40 countries, “including anti-Zionist Jews.” Among the 1,000 vessels would be 313 boats filled with Russian activists, and 104 filled with Spanish activists, he said. Only 12 Turkish vessels will...

Terrorist lawyer Huwaida Arraf in campaign launch An anti-Israel activist who helped organize the 2010 flotilla of ships to the Gaza Strip and was the lawyer for a Palestinian terrorist who killed two Jewish college students is running for Congress as a Democrat in Michigan. Huwaida Arraf, who this week launched her campaign based on her record of "fighting injustice" on the world stage, is an activist lawyer who cofounded the International Solidarity Movement, which encourages anti-Israel activists to take "direct action" to force confrontations with Israeli forces. Arraf has used her status as an American citizen to protect Palestinian...

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos intercepted a flotilla of six ships sailing toward Gaza with the stated intention of breaking an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the territory, ruled by the terrorist Hamas organization. Activists aboard five of the six ships passively surrendered their vessels. As a result, nobody was injured. But aboard the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel, events took an ugly turn. As Israeli commandos rappelled from a hovering helicopter onto the top deck of the ship, they were set upon by a band of extremists, who attacked them with axes, metal bars and other makeshift weapons. One or...

Former CIA Director John Brennan said Monday on CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time” that Vice President Mike Pence and Cabinet members should invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump before January 20, 2021. Brennan said, “You can do a lot of damage in 70 days. He’s still the president of the United States. And is he going to carry out these vendettas against other individuals? As you pointed out, Chris Wray or Gina Haspel or others. It is clear Donald Trump is trying to exercise the power because he can. And he is going to settle scores. But I’m...

United States Attorney John Durham’s criminal investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Russia investigation is reportedly taking a close look at former CIA Director John Brennan. Durham has “requested Mr. Brennan’s emails, call logs and other documents from the C.I.A., according to a person briefed on his inquiry,” The New York Times reported. “He wants to learn what Mr. Brennan told other officials, including the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, about his and the C.I.A.’s views of a notorious dossier of assertions about Russia and Trump associates.”

SCATTERED AMONG the loose papers and bound files unearthed last week at the Iraqi Foreign Ministry in Baghdad was "letter no. 140/4/5," labeled "Confidential and Personal" and addressed to "The President's Office--Secretariat." The letter concerns George Galloway, a pro-Saddam member of the British Parliament, who founded a charity known as the Mariam Appeal, ostensibly to aid Iraqi children suffering under U.N. sanctions. The missive, from the Iraqi Intelligence Service, is a request that money be funneled directly to Galloway. It reads in part: His projects and future plans for the benefit of [Iraq] need financial support to become a motive...

Italy orders arrest of CIA agents over Imams abduction 6/24/2005 10:45:00 PM GMT Italian authorities ordered the arrest of 13 CIA agents accused of kidnapping a Muslim leader Italian authorities ordered the arrest of 13 agents of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) accused of kidnapping a Muslim leader in northern Italy, an Italian newspaper reported on Friday. The arrest warrants were issued by Italian Judge Chiara Nobili at the request of the anti-terrorist division of the state prosecutor's office, the Corriere della Sera said. The 13 agents are suspected of kidnapping Osama Mustafa Hassan, also known as Abu Omar,...

Judges at the International Criminal Court have ordered the court’s chief prosecutor to reopen for the third time her probe into the May 2010 flotilla incident, during which Israeli commandos killed 10 Turkish citizens aboard a naval vessel that was aiming to break the Gaza blockade. Israel has reacted scornfully to the pre-trial chambers’s decision last week to require Fatou Bensouda to reconsider a case that she had repeatedly sought to close due to lack of gravity. One official in Jerusalem said that the court was wasting its limited resources on a frivolous suit in a manner that reflected poorly...

A top adviser to President Obama is the contact person within the White House for communications with the Free Gaza Movement over plans to challenge Israel's blockade of the terrorist Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, according to a reputable source close to the Netanyahu government. The source, a career official whose reliability was established through his tips for the book, "Why Israel Can't Wait," identified John O. Brennan, deputy national security adviser for homeland security and counterterrorism, as the contact. The allegation raises the bizarre possibility that the Free Gaza Movement's flotilla action in the Mediterranean was being coordinated with the White...

Update (June 16th, 2010 10:20 am): A press assistant at the Wilson Center confirmed this morning that what I wrote below is correct. The ceremonial dinner, honoring Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, along with a Turkish business tycoon, is scheduled for Thursday evening, at the Four Seasons, in Istanbul. What follows is my post originally written Wednesday night:Turkey’s leaders have made a lot of news lately, and it’s been ugly: holding hands with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, blessing the lead role of the terror-linked Turkish IHH foundation in last month’s Gaza terror flotilla, and voting last week against new sanctions on Iran in...

The institute raising money for an attempt to run the Gaza blockade next year has strong links to a former CIA spy who outed thousands of CIA agents. Throughout this summer and fall, the anti-Israel group “U.S. to Gaza” held many fundraisers around the United States, seeking to raise as much as $370,000 to join a “peace flotilla” to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza. A Pajamas Media investigation has determined that the non-profit organization which accepts the public’s donations and will pay for all of its activities is a shadowy and virulently anti-American group innocuously called the Institute for...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erodogan said Jan. 31 that the Gulenists in the country, which he dubs “the parallel structure,” have joined forces with the Israeli intelligence service. “The sincere people backing this parallel structure should see with whom this structure is cooperating with,” Erdogan said, while addressing a meeting of the All Industrialist and Businessmen’s Association (TUMSİAD) in Istanbul. “Shame on them if they still cannot see that this structure is cooperating with the Mossad,” he said. Erdoğan accuses the followers of the U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen for illegal wiretappings and a “coup attempt,” starting from the revelation...

HAVANA(Reuters)-Philip Agee, a former CIA spy who exposed its undercover operations in Latin America in a 1975 book, died in Havana, the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said on Wednesday.Agee, 72, died on Monday night, the newspaper said, calling him a "loyal friend of Cuba and staunch defender of the people's struggle for a better world.".His widow, German ballet dancer Giselle Roberge, told friends he had been in hospital since December 15 and did not survive surgery for perforated ulcers.Agee worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for 12 years in Washington, Ecuador, Uruguay and Mexico. He resigned in 1968 in...

Organizers of the US boat participating in the flotilla to Gaza said Friday afternoon that their boat, The Audacity of Hope, was stopped by Greek authorities 15 to 20 minutes after leaving a Greek port, while still in the country's territorial waters. Minutes earlier, organizers said that the ship's passengers were preparing to "non-violently resist any efforts to stop the boat," saying moments later that the boat "is about to set sail," followed by a message saying that the ship had departed. Through the boat's twitter feed, organizers said that a Greek Coast Guard vessel approached The Audacity of Hope...

A new twist has appeared in the legal attempts to attack the IDF for defending the maritime blockade of Gaza in the infamous 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, as radical activists sued Israel for "breaching US territory" in the raid. Three Americans and a Belgian who took part in the breach of the naval blockade launched a civil suit to a US federal court on Monday in Washington, reports The New Arab on Wednesday. The blockade is a legal measure according to international law meant to prevent the influx of weapons to Gazan terrorists. Aside from suing the Israeli government for...

An IDF spokesman said Monday morning that after careful deliberation and exhaustive diplomatic efforts, Israeli security forces acted to prevent the flotilla Marianne av Göteborg from breaching the the shores of Gaza, violating Israel's naval blockade of the coastal enclave. According to the IDF, Israeli security forces boarded the vessel without incident after passengers made it clear after numerous attempts that they would not acquiesce to the Army's demands and were subsequently force to proceed towards the port of Ashdod. The vessel is currently being escorted to Ashdod Port and is expected to arrive within 12-24 hours. Participants are protesting...

Last week, TheBlaze reported that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan invited the father of one of the radical Islamist activists killed on the 2010 Gaza flotilla to join the official entourage on his visit to the U.S. last week. And while sources familiar with lat weekÂ’s visit told TheBlaze that the father did not enter the White House or meet President Obama to deliver a personal letter about his son, according to the Turkish foreign ministerÂ’s Twitter account Secretary of State John Kerry did meet with the father and even posed for a photo with him. The Turkish news...

June 07, 2010 SNIPPET: "His appointment to head the MIT immediately preceded the "humanitarian" flotilla organized by terrorist-linked Turkish organization IHH. Prior to being this most recent appointment he was central to moving Turkey into the Iranian camp."

Apparently more than willing to pour gasoline on an already raging fire, an anti-Israeli Turkish relief organization, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, is organizing a “Freedom Flotilla II” to bring “humanitarian” supplies to the Gaza strip. The IHH is the organization responsible for the last attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza in a self-inflicted disaster that saw nine Hamas-affiliated terrorists killed by Israeli commandos, who were attacked when they attempted to board the Mavi Marmara. IHH chairman Bulent Yildrim warns that this time, the flotilla will be accompanied by Turkish Navy vessels to “protect us from any potential...

Turkish anti-terror police on Tuesday raided the offices of an Islamic charity which has been accused of trying to ship arms to neighboring Syria. Police searched the premises of the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) in southern town of Kilis near the Syrian border, the charity’s vice president Huseyin Oruc told AFP. […] The IHH, which is considered close to the Turkish government, organized the flotilla of ships carrying aid to Gaza that was raided by Israeli commandos in 2010. …