Freedom Flotilla hijacked

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Oh threatened little Israel!

I think it is time to put that myth to rest. A reality check from Stratfor.

That reality that Israel is unchallenged in the region militarily is an important thing to keep in mind when treated with the usual trope that everyone there is out to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. Be that as it may, the point is that these threats are not credible because even in the long run nobody there possesses the ability to make good on his talk. So it is just that - talk.

Israel does what she does in her neighbourhood because she can. Successive Israeli governments have tried to shape their environment in their favour with overwhelming force, and kept failing. The absence of any existential or even credible threat capable of inflicting real pain on Israel allows them to use their military might with impunity. That's also what allows them to shoot first and think later. Now, if you have a militarily so vastly superior to your enemies as Israel's, well, how did then Secretary of State Madeleine Albright put it so well to Colin Powell: "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?" Israel is living proof that the temptation is overwhelming. Negotiations would inevitably lead to Israel having to cede territory. In contrast imagined solutions imposed by force of arms without the messiness of having to make concessions must appear far more attractive. Have your cake and eat it too!

It would be a whole lot easier to believe in Israeli assertions to only be interested in their security if they weren't so awfully expansive. So Netanyahu promised to slow down settlement expansion in the West bank? How eminently generous, considering that the land isn't even part of Israel's in the first place.

My personal impression is that Israel is on a trajectory on the issue of settlement that they are politically unwilling to change. Netanyahu's right wing government relies on settlers - expansion for him pays off politically, never mind that this continues to poison relations with the Palestinians. But then, considering Israel's superior military strength - what will they do about it? Fire some rockets since the wall effectively prevents them from using suicide bombers in retaliation? Israel's continued expansion of settlements is, if anything, proof that Palestinians are incapable to effectively prevent it.

Blind to that, one thing that Israel's defenders apparently cannot fathom is that Israel is unwilling to negotiate.

For instance, in talks the Syrians will predictably demand the Golan back. That has been their position ever since they lost it. Why talk with the Syrians, when not talking and keeping is so much easier? For security reasons of course. Syria is militarily incapable of forcing Israel to return it, so why bother? Israelis have grown fond on Golan wine and skiing there in the winter.

Israel does not want to have negotiations because it enjoys a comfortable status quo at the moment, the occasional nuisance of rocket attacks notwithstanding. If that was a grave threat, Israel would have long crushed Gaza. They didn't. To Israel's hard liners having such a nuisance simmering at their borders offers an excuse to postpone indefinitely, for security reasons, any meaningful negotiations.

The lack of success in Israel's recent wars is not an indication of weakness, but rather underlines Israel's failed attempts to impose political solutions with force of arms. It doesn't work. Not only did Israel, despite their superiority, in their recent wars fail to achieve their objectives, they often strengthened their opponents. Considering that they regularly underestimated their opponents and overestimated their capabilities, they don't show particular good judgement. But they were insulated from the ill effects parties to a conflict normally suffer for such failure thanks to what is about unconditional support from the US. Israel receives political support from the US, and 3 billion as aid (which it doesn't have to repay) annually from the US, in addition to arms.

Think of the attack on Lebanon in iirc 2006: Stated objective: Putting an end to rocket attacks and destroying Hezbolla, or to at least forcing the Lebanese government to crack down on them. Triple fail. In fact, they got bloodied. Deprived of military targets by Hezbollah, Israel deliberately targeted and severely damaged civilian infrastructure (bridges, the air port, port facilities, sewage treatment plants and the like) in Lebanon. Israel killed about 1200 civilians, and lost 121 soldiers and 44 Israeli civilians were killed. Sanctions were duly thwarted with a US veto.

Then came the attack on Gaza in late 2008: The stated objective was putting an end to rocket attacks and destroying Hamas. Double fail. The price for destroying the Gaza infrastructure, economy and the killing 1400 or so Gazans in 2008? Israel lost 14 soldiers and 3 Israeli civilians were killed. Sanctions were duly thwarted with a US veto.

Moshe Dayan once summed up Israeli strategy as: Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother. That, especially when coupled with territorial expansion, is not exactly an exercise in fitting in.

CENTCOM is deeply worried that Israeli intransigence is costing the US, making it difficult for the US to conduct foreign policy, fight their wars, and creating additional instability and risks. Quite recently the head of Mossad told members of the Knesset that Israel has turned from an asset to a burden for the US. Indeed, the same week Anthony Cordesman, an establishment icon at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote an essay under the title "Israel as a Strategic Liability?" in which he said:

As I said, Israel's conduct is fast losing it friends.

 

NOG, the point I made many posts ago was that I have seen those types of preparations made to repel boarders with specific non-lethal intent. Nothing on the videos posted show me otherwise -- perhaps you have more extensive training in how to repel boarders from a vessel at sea than I do....

 

Did they follow through? Nope. If you look at the link you've posted you'll notice that these resolutions didn't have any effect. The UN certainly didn't get in the way. A resolution that is not implemented or vetoed or which is worded in such a way as making it impossible to make any further demands is useless.

What do you mean by "none of their business"? That's the UN you're talking about.

Are you insinuating that they shouldn't have allowed the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 or that they shouldn't have been involved in the question of Palestinian refugees ever since?

Exactly, Israel's compliance would go a long way in showing that they're not trying to hide something. A sensible move would be to comply and take responsibility for what happened instead of trying to evade the blame or trying to spread the blame around -which would be believable if the protesters had been planning for a fight or to force their way through the blockade. They expected to be stopped, that was the plan all along to embarrass the Israeli government and draw international attention to the blockade that had been ignored for two years now, what they didn't expect however was to be stopped with so much violence so far from the blockade lines.

By maintaining a hard line the Israeli government can only alienate more people who although they recognize the need for security see the absurdity of the blockade -and I'd like to point out the fact that security goes both ways, throughout the years the Palestinian population has been subjected to military occupation and oppression (violence, imprisonment, curfews, checkpoints, limited freedom, evictions, destruction of property and infrastructures, once again the list is far from being exhaustive) and denied the very basis of what constitutes security.

I see posters justifying Israel's actions by pointing out that such actions are needed to insure the security of its citizens and I'd like to ask them: is "security" something that only Westerners should be entitled to?

By causing a humanitarian crisis, the blockade can only create more opposition against Israel, strengthening the position of groups who prone a more violent approach instead of peace talks and unify the entire population behind Hamas (moderate Palestinian organizations and parties have been losing ground because of Israeli policies that are more and more radical -we're a long way from the Oslo Accords).

Nothing good can come out of it, or as the phrase goes: "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

 

Sorry, I thought you were just being rhetorical, especially since you did not answer mine either.

 

One of the points made here is that some of the people on the ships with the peace activists were quite possibly individuals who wanted to pick a fight to increase the amount of attention paid to the incident.

Their intent, as far as I can tell/guess, was not to run the blockade (why do you even bother mentioning that possibility anymore?) but to cause an international incident. It is possible that some thought the incident would be even more dramatic if it involved people getting killed.

Enter a few individuals on one of the boats looking to attack the boarding soldiers when they would come.

Thus the possibility that some were armed with a few hidden guns and the rest with more makeshift weapons. In either case the point, in this incident, may have been to attack and increase the possible value of the incident by making the boarding soldiers defend themselves (I make a point of not using the word "attack").

All the better if a few peace activists also among the crowd die in the ensuing gunfire as those would be people who would be trying to be passive/unarmed so their death would attract all the more attention.

That is the long view. In the long view Israel has been stirring up a revolt/resistance by treating Palestinians badly (at best 2nd class citizens).

They can claim to have left the Gaza strip only to see Hamas take over. But they they left no structure of authority when they pulled out giving an already organizing Hamas a power vacuum to grad as much as it could have.

The obvious answer is no. However many nations, western and not, have an obligation to defend their citizens. The problem I see is more that Israel abuses "security" to attempt land grabs and removing settled populations of people. That isn't defending.

In large part I agree. It refused to recognize voting decisions of the population and then when it got into a fight with Hamas it didn't bother to clear them out in a longer and bloody battle that may have provided a second chance to let a power structure form in Gaza that could have been handed power.

Israel should have jumped at the chance to make a deal with Abbas. It failed to.

Now there are extremists in positions of power on each side. Feeding off the anger each other stirs in the other's base.

 

As for the knives, whether they are kitchen or military issue, there is only one fact that to me is important. The intent of the person wieding them.The activists weren't sleeping in the kitchen nor were they sleeping with them in their pockets. So obviously they went and got them. There is only one reason for that, to use them. Now, whether their intent was for protection as a deterrent(which IMO is the case, though a stupid choice against military boarders) or to cause harm to the boarders(which I doubt was the initial reasoning, but in tight situations reasoning from people with no experience in tight situations is usually going to be not well thought out.). There could of been a few on that particular ship who had some bad intent and wanted an incident to occur, as I highly doubt everyone aboard all fo the ships were completely innocent of their intentions of joining the flotilla, as the funding is questionable.

 

That was not the only question I asked. Nevertheless, I thought you were just trying to be funny. That was a serious answer? I guess it satisfies you but I can find no sense in it. I have yet to see proof of any weapons. If anything can be a weapon, including the computer sitting on my desk, I guess the word itself has no meaning. There was some fool charged with assualt for puking on a guy somewhere (I can't remember the details), so I guess even "puke" can be a "weapon." I supposed if someone on the boat had hurled, [maybe sea sick] he could have been a suspect and shot onsight because he was using a "weapon."

 

The only problem I have with that reasoning, is that there is no guarantee that the ones who wanted to escalate the conflict wouldn't be among those killed. In fact, one could argue that those seeking to instigate the attack would be most likely to be killed. So unless you are suggesting that self-preservation is an instinct the instigators did not posess, I don't think your conclusion is correct.

 

Chandos,

The guy was arrested at a Phillies game, as he purposely puked on another fan and his daughter as well. Then, when apprehended, he did it to the cop also. Freaking scumbag and deserved to be arrested. That is a very disgusting thing to do, especially to a little girl.

 

I agree. But pointing out that anything can be a weapon, is...well, pointless.

 

Sorry, but that is theory crafting. What evidence would support this theory of yours?

That they wanted to create an international crisis is obvious. That they wanted to get killed by the military is not.

If you want to become a martyr for a cause you don't use weapons. If you use violence you only give support to people who see violence as a justified means to an end (and that applies to everyone).

Still, non violence can only get you killed when the other side is willing to run you over with a bulldozer.

Don't read my comment as evidence that I'm advocating for more violence. I'm just pointing out the limits of non violence when dealing with people who are willing to do anything because they won't ever question whether they are right or wrong and seem not to care about the value of human life anymore. It's a vicious circle as violence only brings more violence.

Unfortunately they didn't and it set a bad precedent as it only weakened Mahmoud Abbas and dramatically undermined his leadership thus reinforcing Hamas.

That much is true, but your own interpretation ranks peace protesters among the people who want the violence to go on and I think that you're wrong on that point.

 

Unless anyone here was onboard the ships or otherwise directly involved in any pertinent planning, all we can deal in is likelihoods, not certainties. So sweeping statements to the effect of "the flotilla wanted to kill the Israelis" or "the flotilla had no intention of hurting anybody" are baseless.

For what it's worth, my own guess, and all it is is a guess, is that the flotilla people simply got in over their heads. They wanted to kick the hornets nest, did so, and didn't anticipate that things would get that 'hot' in response. Simple.

 

I thought I answered your question reasonably well, but T2 did it even better.

Sure, BTA, the results are what the results are, but I was never under the impression that the results were under debate. We've been debating intent -- particularly the intent prior to the boarding, since we all appear to agree things spiraled out of control from there -- and that's why the weapons employed are relevant.

A hangar and some duct tape can be a lethal weapon. My point is and has always been that the presence of a 3 inch long utility knife in no way indicates that the activists were looking for a fight from the get-go. Wouldn't it actually be more surprising to hear that there weren't a few utility knives on a ship? I'm not debating the fact that you can kill someone with a knife, I'm arguing that it doesn't mean what you seem to be arguing it means about the intent of the activists prior to the incident. There may have been lethal intent when that knife was employed, but that's hardly surprising. The activists, after all, appear to have thought they were in mortal danger.

T2 handled that already. Several times.

 

I hear ya. But in defense of that, I think the underlying meaning of that is they actually used the knives as weapons. If they were just kitchen knives, the knives should stay in the kitchen or dining area. If kitchen knives are found on person, the whole scenario changes...

 

For several of them, that thinking appears to have been well-founded.

 

A lot, since it shows that at least prior to the boarding, the activists did not have a specific lethal intent. They planned to repel the boarders non-lethally and were not necessarily looking for a fight. I guess you're ignoring me....

Clearly, but the question is whether they were the victims of a self fulfilling prophecy -- i.e. they were in mortal danger only because they believed they were in mortal danger and acted accordingly -- or if they were in mortal danger because the Israeli commandos boarded with lethal intent. I think the former is a near certainty and the latter borders on the absurd; the most plausible conclusion is that neither the activists nor the Israeli commandos were looking for bloodshed before this tragedy occurred.