Last Words Of The "American" Killed Aboard The Gaza #Flotilla

In Best of the Web yesterday, James Taranto noted the truth about Furkan Dogan, who was killed aboard the Mavi Marmara:

Israel-haters are making much of the fact that one of the Turkish "humanitarians" killed last week while attempting to break Israel's naval blockade of Hamas was a U.S. citizen. This, however, was by accident of birth: Furkan Dogan was born in Troy, N.Y., but his parents were Turkish and he grew up in Turkey.

"His brother, Mustafa, told the Turkish news media that he was 'clean-hearted with a happy face,' " the New York Times reported Friday. But a report from the Middle East Research Institute says he was far from the all-American boy the Israel-haters are making him out to be. Memri quotes Hussein Orish of IHH, the Turkish outfit that instigated the flotilla:

"One of the martyrs was 19 years old. We've just found his last diary in his suitcase. The last lines he wrote before the attack were: 'Only a short time left before martyrdom. This is the most important stage of my life. Nothing is more beautiful than martyrdom, except for one's love for one's mother. But I don't know what is sweeter--my mother or martyrdom.' This was the last thing that the martyr Furkan wrote, and the last thing said by our brothers. . . ."

"Clean-hearted" indeed!

Memri has more from the IHH's Orish:

"All the passengers on board the ship were ready for this outcome. Everybody wanted and was ready to become a martyr. [...]

"Our goal was to reach Gaza or to die trying. All the ship's passengers were ready for this. IHH was ready for this too."

Of course, it is one thing for Orish to speak on behalf of IHH--whose terrorist ties are well documented. It is not so clear that he either knows or cares about what the others aboard may have had in mind.

Technorati Tag: Furkan Dogan and Gaza Flotilla and IHH and Mavi Marmara.