Evidence continues to emerge that the violence initiated by IHH activists on board the Mavi Marmara ship as part of a flotilla trying to break the blockade on Gaza was planned in advance. This time, the information was provided by a former U.S. marine who was involved in the fight with the Israelis.

"I knew before we set out that the Turks are not like the other Westerns, that there would be no passive resistance in this case," Kenneth O'Keefe, an Irish citizen who lives in the UK, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in an interview published on Friday.

When asked whether he observed the IHH operatives saw off beams on the ship in preparation for attacking the Israelis, O'Keefe replied, "I knew we would defend that ship. That was stated publicly a great many times. You have to be an idiot to board that ship and think it will be a ship of passive resistance."

O'Keefe also refrained from condemning Hamas during the same interview:

"I am against such [suicide] attacks in the same measure that I am against state terror. Hamas has not perpetrated suicide attacks for years now, and when they won the 2006 elections everyone who prevented them from taking part in the political process is as much to blame as they are for the violence that followed. You hate them because they are violent, but what do you do when they take part in the elections? You kick them out and push them into a corner."

O'Keefe believes that 9/11 was an "inside job" conducted by the U.S. government with the help of Israel. In January, 2004 he took pride in burning his American passport while in Amsterdam, stating:

"I charge the United States with being the number one terrorist on the face of the planet."

O'Keefe is currently in the United States on a speaking tour.