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People and Politics by Patrick Roberts

David Trimble to be Israel observer on Gaza flotilla inquiry

Posted on Monday, June 14, 2010 at 04:00 AM

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David Trimble will be one of the two foreign observers on the Israeli government investigative committee which will examine Israeli Defence Forces actions against the Gaza flotilla ships.

That is a little like putting the fox in charge of the hen house.

Trimble has a Nobel Prize for helping bring about the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland but his bona fides on Israeli issues are suspect to say the least.

He is known to be close to Dore Gold, a close associate of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Indeed, Trimble recently joined the "Friends of Israel" initiative which was launched in Paris some weeks ago.
He is about as unbiased on Israel as he is on Ulster unionism.

With his Nobel Prize he offers some clever camouflage for the Israeli inquiry into what went on when the troops landed on board a Turkish boat and nine Turks were killed

But he is utterly biased.

Unionists in Northern Ireland overwhelmingly associate with Israel while nationalists associate with the Palestinians.

You will see Israeli flags in many Loyalist neighborhoods, as the sense of a siege mentality, and surrounded by enemies runs deep in both the Israeli and Unionist mindsets.

The fact that there is an Irish dimension to the flotilla, involving another Nobel Prize winner Mairead Maguire and activists who have ties to Northern nationalism, further weakens Trimble's stance as an unbiased observer.

His instinctive sense will be to side with Israeli authorities.

In that respect his detractors will see him playing the role of a useful idiot to an inquiry that seems highly unlikely to find the Israeli forces at fault.

Maybe Trimble will surprise but I doubt it.

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Paradigm | Aug 09, 2010, 04:50 AM EDT

So - if philosophical, academic and courageous political realist David Trimble is "utterly biased" Mr Patrick Roberts, what, I have to ponder, does that make you? Surely it's time to get the monkey off your shoulder. Southtyrone.

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shuvonn | Jun 24, 2010, 05:02 PM EDT

Trimble didn't win a nobel prize, he shared one with John Hume :-)

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Fatherpat | Jun 24, 2010, 09:01 AM EDT

All ready now lads for the whitewash. Where's the bucketz and the sack o lime? Jolson O Bama, the White house janitor swabbed the decks of the Mavi Marmara free of all those terrorists' blood, now comes the apartheid Nobel winner from the Six Counties to get on with the paint job. Maybe Tony Blair the "peace" envoy to ghetto Palestine can earn another million bucks for services to xion by putting his stained thumbprint on whatever worthless document this pack of clowns comes up with. Either way the world knows murder and pillage when IOF pirates strike in international waters. Trimble will rue the day he was suckered into this Goebells project. And as for peace prizes and the upside down values of a world gone totally wrong..why not give Blair one too and Pegleg Net N Yahoo while we're on the farcical topic.

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Monsoonman | Jun 18, 2010, 09:38 PM EDT

I see you tremble at the mention of trimble. Is this a bit over the top? The guy just said he is going for a boatride(not Sicilian style) and you have spun yourselves into a fever....Let the drama play out first.

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moygannon | Jun 18, 2010, 12:47 AM EDT

It's amazing what politicans will do to get recognized, even going into harms way. He will achieve nothing except what israel wants.

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citizen69 | Jun 16, 2010, 12:04 PM EDT

Will he be impartial? I doubt it. It would be like if Hamas asked Gerry Adams to hold an impartial inquiry on the incident, of course they're going to be biased as they don't have a neutral stance on the subject.

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shuvonn | Jun 16, 2010, 07:21 AM EDT

David Trimble was a member of the Ulster Vanguard which had close ties with loyalist paramilitary groups.

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WoundedKnee | Jun 16, 2010, 06:24 AM EDT

Realist: How many times do you need to be told? Trimble is not impartial. He is even a member of a group called "Freinds of Israel". The community he used to represent--the Loyalists of Northern Ireland-- is perhaps the only group of people outside the US which gives kneejerk support to everything Israel does. You'll even see the Israeli flag flying in Loyalist areas. Incidentally, acording to today's Irish Times, two weeks now after the Israelis stole the goods on the aid flotilla and promised to pass them on to Gaza, not one thing has been given to Gaza. Thieves!

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shuvonn | Jun 16, 2010, 05:40 AM EDT

Sure ya might as well be talking to a 4X2

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Realist | Jun 16, 2010, 04:59 AM EDT

shuvonn: Lol....what has any of that got to do with Trimble? Therefore, I will ask again....would someone please explain what Trimble has done that merits this vitriol?

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CullenAbroad | Jun 15, 2010, 09:13 PM EDT

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing…" Albert Einstein

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shuvonn | Jun 15, 2010, 11:28 AM EDT

DO you have any basic understanding of the word *IMPARTIAL* MEANS? And what this supposed *INQUIRY* represents? It's bad enough that Israel denied the worlds, the U.N. etc calls for that inquiry at first, and now to add insult to injury they have appointed someone with an OBVIOUS bias and someone who will NEVER be impartial, his unionist roots make him biased to begin with, he was BORN and BRED that way... N.I. Breeds their kids that way and that's on BOTH sides. I will never forget arrest of the PROTESTANT LUNATIC who was arrested for the Trick or Treat murders in Greysteel, as he was being brought in I witnessed RABIDLY hateful remarks from protestant MOTHERS with children in their arms screaming that it was a pity that HE did not KILL more Catholics, they were too stupid to know he had also shot protestants in his rampage, and I will never forget, how shocked I was and how that really showed me that it is INBRED on BOTH sides up the North...

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Realist | Jun 15, 2010, 11:09 AM EDT

Would someone please explain what Trimble has done that merits this vitriol? I, for one, am at a loss.

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maryosullivan | Jun 15, 2010, 09:40 AM EDT

Just when you think Israel has reached the bottom of the swamp they go one step lower and choose Trimble Israel will bring the wrath of the world down on itself and they time Israel will have earned it.

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shuvonn | Jun 15, 2010, 07:38 AM EDT

So hard for some to actually see and accept truth. They did not want this inquiry. It will not achieve anything, the *observers* have no power. Being critical of the article because it does point to obvious bias, is only a bait and switch. Like I said, its like appointing Judas to oversee an inquiry into the last supper...

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