URGENT: Mike Treen kidnapped by Israel

By
Mike Treen
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65
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AN URGENT SOS MESSAGE FROM MIKE TREEN.

*Please add the subtitled text by clicking on ‘Subtitles/closed captions’ icon [cc] in the bottom righthand corner of the video.

Mike Treen is the National Director of the Unite Union, and a veteran human rights defender. and our New Zealand representative on the international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

He pre-recorded this urgent SOS message (above) in the advent of the Freedom Flotilla boat, the Al Awda, being hijacked by Israeli forces.

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Please also see the earlier post – ‘Freedom Flotilla boat hijacked by Israeli forces’ – regarding this unlawful and unwarranted attack which began late last night (NZ time).

Subsequent news items indicate that the boat has been forced to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod.

Please view Mike’s important message and urgently contact the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rt Hon Winston Peters, asking him to demand the Israeli government immediately release all flotilla participants and ensure the cargo of medical aid is promptly delivered to Gaza. His email address: w.peters@ministers.govt.nz

65 COMMENTS

  1. I have emailed Winston the pro-Israeli minister.

    I have also requested that he call in the Israeli ambassador and give him a talking too.

    • ‘Talking to” is too weak. The Israelis will take that to mean that NZ couldn’t care less.

  2. This is an outrage. The Israeli navy is now a pirate force!!!

    I’ll be adding my voice in a letter to Peters.

  3. Only in Israel

    The violent IDF thugs who invaded and occupied the Al Asqa Mosque last week, used as an excuse for the their actions, accounts of Palestinian youths throwing rocks at the estimated one thousand fundamentalist Jewish settlers who had tried to force their way into the Al Asqa compound.

    What if the events were reversed?

    What if Jewish youths threw stones at Palestinian fundamentalists encroaching on their property?

    What if heavily armed Islamist forces used this as an excuse to invade the Synagogue and violently attack the worshipers?

    They would be condemned around the world as terrorists and fascists, no matter what their alleged motive was.

    …..Earlier, more than 1,000 Israeli settlers forced their way into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound under heavy protection of Israeli police.

  4. Piracy on the open seas! Only a rogue state supported by a rogue US president could permit this!
    Letter sent to Peters!

  6. International waters hijack – wonder what the international community as well as NZ government have to say about it and what are they going to do about it? Turn a blind eye?

  8. Pre-recorded message…the post is authored but the bloke has been “kidnapped”. It smacks of attention seeking and game playing politics.

    I suspect this foreign flagged ship entered the 12 mile limit and attempted to land without permission. Sounds reasonable as long as the force used was reasonable.

  10. Silence is consent

    An Urgent open letter to Minister of Foreign Affairs
    Kia Ora Gaza – July 30, 2018

    Dear Mr Peters,

    Open letter re: Safe and unhindered passage for the 2018 international Freedom Flotilla to Gaza. Urgent.

    In reply to our emails to you on this matter (dated 5 July 2018 and 23 July 2018) we received an email acknowledgement from your office on 13 July 2018 and again on 24 July 2018, that indicated that we would receive a response ‘in due course’. However we have yet to receive a response from you.

    Our emails requested you to demand that the Israeli authorities to end their illegal blockade of Gaza, and allow safe and unhindered passage for the 2018 international Freedom Flotilla heading for Gaza.

    We have shared our request as an ‘open letter’ as this is an important issue of public concern.

    Last night (NZ time) one of the 2018 international Freedom Flotilla boats, the Al Awda, was unlawfully boarded and apprehended by Israeli forces in international waters.

    On board was our New Zealand representative, union leader Mike Treen, along with a number of other prominent human rights advocates and crew from around the world.

    In any other circumstances if any New Zealand citizen was illegally detained in International Waters. It would be all over the News cycle. And the Foreign Affairs Minister and Acting PM both, would be expected to make a statement.

    So much for the open and level playing field that the defenders of the right to Hate Speech are always twittering on about.

  11. Doubt you’ll publish the following ..

    I’ve spoke against Marama Davidson participating in the last flotilla, she was detained. Mike Treen decision has not been kidnapped in my opinion .. he has tried messing with Israel and delivered himself up to their Navy.

    I have zero sympathy for him – this was very predictable. Obviously Mr Treen has this political convictions, however this foolish flotilla has been warned many times. Perhaps Mr Treen will be made an example of.

  12. I guess we’ll now see just how close our nearest and dearest “mates” across the ditch are eh?
    Beat me Beat me Beat me! I’m unexceptional

  13. Oh, and watch just how hard our MSM try to avoid any reporting, and when they do (bearing in mind the legalities of it all), just how they frame it

  14. Of course Mike’s message was ‘pre-recorded’ . He and others were well aware of Israel’s piracy actions re other attempts to break the siege. The last contact the Al Awda was able to make as Israeli ships approached was at 49 nautical miles from the port in Gaza City. Yes Mike and the others were kidnapped, taken to Ashdod when they were heading for Gaza. The participants on the Al Awda were from 16 different countries,having in common a commitment to justice, a sense of humanity. In so many countries, people support the Palestinian cause even when governments don’t…and even when the media chose to look the other way.
    We should all be proud that Mike Treen represented New Zealand.

  16. Even if Peters wanted to call out Israel, which I am sure neither he nor Ardern he has no intention of doing, they would have to then endure the wrath of certain sections of the media and some pretty powerful lobby groups…just look at relentless attacks on Corbyn, one of the few politician’s with the balls to stand up to the rogue state of Israel.

  17. I must congratulate the mods for their even-handed approach to this thread. You are truly living “freedom of speech”.

    In my opinion, yes of course what happened was always going to happen. But isn’t that the point sometimes? What would this world look like if activists, passionate advocates, freedom-fighters etc. looked at insurmountable odds and thought “nah, that looks too hard” and turned around and headed home for a cup of conflict-free dandelion tea? Sometimes a struggle for the right thing takes many fruitless fights, countless battles where the odds were virtually impossible to overcome….but slowly (sometimes agonizingly slowly) you will chip away just the right amount, when the struggle’s time has come….and you’ll suddenly have a fight for justice that seems not only winnable, but inevitable.

  18. Am I surprised? NOPE!

    Those who think that such ‘freedom flotillas’ or ‘break the Gaza siege and boycott’ measures will achieve much are dreamers.

    Israel has the power, uses it as it sees fit, and will deal to people accordingly, using any bizarre ‘reasoning’.

    Perhaps they consider Mike Treen a ‘terrorist’ now, same as the young woman that was released yesterday, the protester who dared slap two Israeli soldiers in the face, when they came to deal to her.

    So what do you expect Winston Peters, an outspoken sympathiser of Israel, to do?

    Do you really think he will do much, and say much, during his last days as Acting PM, before his trip to Singapore to meet the US Secretary of State?

    NZ First is part of this government, as as Winston will not speak overly critical about Israel, deemed a ‘friendly’ nation, and Labour and Greens cannot do much either.

    Keep on dreaming about change for Palestine and Gaza as part of it, the ghetto will remain to be a ghetto and Israel has the superior military and security intelligence power, basta.

    Treen and others will be banned from Israel for ten or more years.

    • “Treen and others will be banned from Israel for ten or more years.”
      They are not visiting Israel. They’re visiting Palestine.

      • They will be banned from the part of ‘Palestine’ that is presently occupied and dominated by the State of Israel, created by the Zionists before, in and after 1948, gradually being expanded to one day become a form of Greater Israel.

  19. I really have no sympathy. A few years ago a similar flotilla attempted to reach the Gaza Strip. It was intercepted and, if I remember right, 9 people were killed, some shot face down, by the Israeli forces. The nations of the world looked away. The flotilla failed to reach its destinastion. Is Mike Treen unaware of all this? He will be lucky to get out alive. What did he really think he could achieve? Who will take on Israel while the US looks over its shoulder?

    • Giving in to a bully will not change things.

      I support Mike or any other who has the courage to call on international law and fight for justice without spilling a drop of blood.

      Israel are the blood letters.

  20. Our government, including Mr Peters, they want GROWTH in the economy, also in productivity and trade. He favours trade deals that include Russia, and he will as a friend of Israel get shiny eyes when he sees the potential for trade with that country, no matter it discriminates against Palestinians and has driven many off their properties.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Israel

    Compare that with the ‘beggars’ they made the Palestinian population in the remnants they control in the West Bank and in Gaza, and mammon will tell Winston and Jacinda et al, who to be friends with, certainly NOT the paupers.

    Principles and that includes human rights and international law are used only very conveniently, selectively and sparingly on the international stage, Peters is an expert in this.

  21. What would have been the point of the flotilla if Israel had just politely waved them through? No headlines , no outrage , no point.
    The whole event has gone according to plan and expectations. Good on them for making the protest though. But it’s a bit silly to express surprise .
    D J S

  24. Surely he knew this would happen. It’s no surprise at all I find it difficult to have any sympathy for him.

  25. To some believers 911 was meant to happen, within the Empire of the Devil, of Mammon and modern day Babylon, and whatever was behind it, at least some understand this was FATE and perhaps God’s Will.

    The US is an Empire that has exploited and ravaged much of the earth, and continues to do, so, the voices of ‘democracy’, human rights and so ring hollow to many in many countries. But these are the lies we constantly get served.

    USA is the Imperialist Empire of Evil, so whatever happened in 9-11 may have been terrorism and unjust, but it did not move many to feel all that sympathetic to the US imperialist regime and people who sold their souls to live and obey to that evil power.

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