Mick Hartley

Here's Yasser Qashlaq, organiser of the latest proposed "aid flotilla" from Lebanon to Gaza – see here for more details – and chairman of the Lebanese "Free Palestine Movement", on Al-Manar TV last Friday:

Whenever that criminal gang of Israeli pirates seizes a ship, I become more optimistic that the day will come when these ships will carry these dregs of European garbage back to their own countries. Let Gilad Shalit return to Paris. Let those murderers return to Poland. Once they are back there, we will hunt them down to the end of the world, and prosecute them for their massacres, from Deir Yassin to this day. […]

I would like to say something to the Israeli people….to that gang of criminal murderers. Board the ship we are sending you, and return to your countries. Don’t be misled by the Arab leaders or the moderate camp. You will never be able to make peace with us. Our children will return [to Palestine]. There is no reason for coexistence. Even if some of our leaders or regimes sign [peace] with you – we will never sign. Do not be misled by these regimes. Return to your countries.

It's interesting how much this echoes Helen Thomas' remarks a couple of weeks back that Israelis should get back to Germany and Poland – for which she became a heroine who dared to speak the truth for certain sections of the Left.

He doesn't seem very keen on the two-state solution, either, this Yasser Qashlaq. I don't know – just a hunch.