Israel/Palestine a de facto unitary state

The above letters, the first one by myself, were published in the Manawatu Standard on June 25, 2010. In the second letter, a typical example of hasbara, there is an embroidered version of the testimony of the commando identified in reports as “Captain R” — the commander of the first team of marines to rappel down to the deck of the Mavi Marmara on May 31.

This is what Captain R said, as reported by the New York Post on June 2 (http://tinyurl.com/35kum26):

“I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs. I cocked my weapon when I saw one of them coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me and threw me down to the deck below.

“Then I felt a stabbing in the stomach. It was a knife. I got the knife out, then somehow got down to the lower deck. There was another mob of people.

“Another soldier and I managed to get out of there and jump into the water.”

Where, in the above, does Captain R claim that he was disembowelled?

Two final points: Captain R was the second man to rappel down to the deck — not the first, as Eileen Zinsli claims; and the boarded ship was the Mavi Marmara, not the Mari Marmara.