Freedom Flotilla hijacked

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I can't tell if that is a kitchen knife, or a lethal, high-powered knife (obviously prepared for "a fight" with that one). Just asking....

 

To be fair, you are choosing your questions. No, I couldn't tell you the number of people that died in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But I couldn't tell you the number of Nazis the Allied killed...

 

In reply to KJ's post no one has posted about the 5 year old vest photo Israel released to show as evidence of contraband or the edited audio tapes of the communication between Israel and the ships.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/06/gaza.flotilla.recordings/index.html

 

Yeah, we got a little far afield on that topic, didn't we?

Possibly because they wanted to make a bigger controversy for the IDF. Shooting soldiers would only justify them shooting back in everyone's eyes. Stabbing and beating them, though, may be mroe acceptable to some.

Umm, no. I posted a video showing them calmly passing out metal rods before the Israelis had even been sighted.

I think there were quite a few idiots, and that they likely did plan something. Compared to the whole population of the ship, though, I agree they were a minority.

The Israelis took it, searched it, removed any contraband, and handed it over to Hamas. Hamas refused to take it untill all activists were released. They also complained about the aid not coming in it's entirety. I don't know why they expected Israel to hand over contraband material to them, but apparently they did. Anyway, that was a little while ago, and I don't know what's happened since.

Only if you expect them to go to war with the IDF. If you just want to make a mess, smaller weapons are better.

Thus why I don't think anyone actually thinks that was their plan.

 

Peace protesters and Human Rights activists are known for their suicide attacks?

According to you, boarding a ship using brutal overwhelming force, gas bombs and armed soldiers at 4 AM in international waters (and a very long way from the coast) was not an attack but a regular inspection by the military?

That is somewhat ironic (and disquieting) that you are staunchly defending the Israeli position AND then elaborate on a defence of Nazi Germany, expounding a rationale that says that the victors are the ones writing history...

The Allies did some terrible things to win the war, that much is true, but that does not exonerate what the Nazis did or would have done if nobody had stopped them.

Putting Auschwitz and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the same level is misguided at best.

As horrible as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were, they were military operations. The fact that they were bombings of an unforgiving and terrifying scale unmatched in history is not to be questioned. There is no denying that it was morally wrong and couldn't be justified from a moral standpoint especially when considering the second bombing on Nagasaki which was clearly indefensible. The argument for the bombing of Hiroshima that claims that it was needed to win the war is still a highly debated subject.

BUT as horrifying as those bombings were, you can't say that it was the same as the Death camps and the Final Solution. The systematic mass murder of Jews, Slavs, Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, leftists, disabled and mentally ill people or any religious or political opponents... (and that is a non exhaustive list), the slave labour, medical experiments, sterilization, torture, killings that were enforced by the Nazis to ensure the "purity" of the German race can't be paralleled.

As far as Nazis are concerned there is no moral ambiguity whatsoever.

If your assumptions that might makes right and that the victors write history were 100% correct then we would be glorifying what the Allies did to win the war. With hindsight many (if not most) certainly don't glorify the bombing of Dresden or the use of the atomic bombs. It's quite the contrary actually, as we take WW2 as an example to point out the horrors of war.

Your emphasis on moral relativism which pushed to the extreme tends to reduce everything to the simple truism that might makes right regardless of any other consideration is fundamentally biased.

YOU certainly did.

You actually think that "stabbing and beating" soldiers armed with automatic weapons and supported by war ships would make shooting back less justifiable? Any resistance would be seen as a perfect excuse for the military to shoot to kill. That's not a valid argument.

 

As for the IHH: This is so silly. Yes, some French anti-terror specialist said in a footnote that they channelled fighters to Bosnia? Aha. So that's proof? For what? Guilt by association? And the IHH spoke to Hamas? No kidding. The Red Cross speaks to Hamas as well, because, you know, it's like that Hamas rules Gaza. The IHH did relief work after the earthquake in Haiti. I wonder what radical Islamist agenda they had back then? Establish a secret Al Qaeda foothold in the Caribbean? OMG! Considering the humanitarian situation in Gaza there is ample reason for an aid NGO to want to deliver humanitarian relief to Gaza without any Al Qaeda ties. Let's just keep it simple.

And then - people, get a grip. The people on the ships were armed? Like with the odd knife, slingshot, metal tube and whatever weapon they could scavenge on the ship? My country has seen worse in the violent left wing protests against the nuclear power plant at Wackersdorf or the annual may riots in Berlin Kreutzberg. While the level of violence was dramatic and easily exceeded that on the Miv Marmara, Germany used riot police against that, not army elite units.

Contrast that with Israel's attack against the flotilla. They sent out their best of the best. Their Shayetet 13 is a legendary elite unit. They undergo tough training and operate under the harshest of conditions. Western equivalents are the US Navy Seals, Delta Force, SAS or SBS ... When faced with resistance they overcome it with lethal force. That's what they're good at. That's what they train. All these units have in common that they are not trained as riot police. Commandoes against Demonstrators? They do not learn how to disperse demonstrations or engage in de-escalation negotiations - standard police tactics. The IDF's Chief of Staff said the commandos responded as their training demanded. The problem with that silly comment is not the response of the Israeli soldiers but why they were allowed to get into such a situation in the first place. The Israelis mis-employed their crack unit.

Why send a crack naval commando unit to quell what, despite metal posts and sling shots, was a hyped up political demonstration? A PR gimmick?

We don’t know all the facts yet, but on the face of it Israel again overreacted and got itself into a situation much worse than it would have been in had it not responded to this PR gimmick at all. Had the ship gone through - so what? Gaza would have received construction materials! And food! Medical supplies! Electric wheelchairs! The horror! Spelling imminent doom for Israel! And what people were on board? Hardened terrorists? What a joke. This was a random mix of people, and correspondingly without any unit cohesion or discipline. We're speaking of several dozen more or less well intentioned liberals and peacenicks and Palestine activists. And some of them resisted the boarding? OMG!

Newsflash: Reacting rash, impulsively and violently is what young men (bottom of page) do when they are feeling assaulted by anyone. That's why armies put sergeants in charge of kids. Kids get angry and that anger clouds better judgement. But no, that's too simple. They must have been hardened terrorists, because otherwise the Israelis would have overreacted - which they didn't do. And they didn't do that because that must not be.

I mean, considering that indeed just aid goods and construction materials were on then ship - what would have been the harm of letting it through blockade? If it came to a confrontation with Hamas, any construction build using these materials - no matter whether it would be used for bunker, home or hospital - is nothing that the IDF couldn't bomb to rubble again easily, they have a renowned air force after all. The Israelis knew perfectly well what the ship carried. The only reason they had to board this ship was because Israeli leadership was headstrong and wanted to make an example of it.

T2 said it already: Israel has a track record of shooting first and thinking later. The excuse for such behaviour always seems to be "everyone hates us!" Well, eventually they will become a victim of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 

That's a pretty short-sighted comment, Rags. After all, a bomb could be attached to an electric wheelchair, and the wheelchairc could then be controlled remotely towards any target. Voila! - a suicide wheelchair!

 

I love the mental gymnastics people are going through to blame/attack Israel. Let's review the facts shall we.

1. Israel has declared and enforced a naval blockade of Gaza for years
2. An Islamic group funds a convoy of ships to try to break the blockade.
3. The purpose and destination of this flotilla is well known
4. Israeli forces intercept the well documentated and tracked ships
5. On all of the ships (except one) everything goes peacefully
6. On these ships the crew is detained and then released. The cargo is diverted to an Israeli port, inspected and then some of it is sent to Gaza. Hamas refuses the aid
7. On the one ship that there is trouble the Isreali forces board the ship carrying "paint ball" guns and sidearms.
8. While boarding the ship they are set upon by the crew/passengers
9. When the "paint ball " guns prove ineffective and the soldiers are taking casualties they switch to their sidearms and kill/injure some of their attackers.

I personally don't find any of this surprising. I would imagine that any reasonably intelligent person could have written the script of how this was going to go down.

Today, I was reading in my local paper that now an Iranian group is thinking about doing the same thing and the Iranian Navy may escort the ships. Will anybody be surprised when Israel sinks all of those ships? Considering the wailing and gnashing of teeth over this incident, I can't wait to see what the usual suspects have to say when this happens.

 

Snook, I don’t think anyone here is arguing that Israel doesn’t have the right to enforce its blockade (which is what your first 4 points seem to suggest) (although some are questioning the appropriateness of the blockade itself). The debate is more about how they went about it (dropping armed commandos from helicopters at night) and whether the point at which they enforced it was proper. So “any reasonably intelligent person” should be able to see the stupidity on both sides.

 

I read in the news today that Israel accepted to open up a bit the blockade of Gaza in return of a promise from the international community that the investigation in the incident would be handled internally by the israelli military. What? Why would you try to buy off people like that if you had nothing to hide? It's not like the international community would exclude Israel from the investigation. They just want to be a part of it to make sure it is done properly.

 

Snook,
I have a hard time imagining these ships passing through the Suez Canal (which is controlled by Egypt). It's posturing. I'd have thought you'd have gotten used to that from Ahmedinejad by now.

As for the rest, the legal aspects of the blockade are far from being as simple as you suggest, and I might consider elaborating again, if called on, but generally I am tired on doing that because, albeit interesting it is laborious and time consuming - and it doesn't interest you in the slightest anyway. These legal aspects are complicated and we all know that if things are complicated there are two sides of the story (there aren't really)

Well, governments lie about inconvenient truths, and Israel is no exception. And they admit they doctored audio of raid on Gaza flotilla to make the activists look like anti-Semites? Oh, that ... doesn't matter! Because Israel was justified anyway! And even if they didn't say it, they probably thought it? Also: If they did that to the audio, how reliable is their video? Or their narrative?

People should be aware that Israel in her official statements matter is doing advocacy. For that it doesn't matter whether what Israel did was right or wrong, or legal or illegal - it's just that Israel looks good. Anything that makes Israel look bad legitimises the opposition, and the current Israeli government sees such 'delegitimisation' as a mortal threat, and thus, smartly, engages in ... delegitimising actions like seizing the flotilla in the ham fisted way they did. It is inevitable that such a paranoid view results in excess.

You'll treat whatever people say to the end that Israel was not in compliance with international law like you treat global warming: Experts disagree, so how can we laymen know?! And it's probably a hoax! and go with the source you like - the Israeli government and their cheerleaders in the US. I think the global warming analogy is apt: Just as with the hacks arguing global warming is a hoax, you have hacks arguing that Israel was, of course, fully acting within her rights. If I was working for the Israeli government, or was deeply committed for reasons other than employment, I would say that as well, but alas, I am not, so I can be intellectually honest.

 

Ragusa,

What you say has some validity, but you are missing the forest because you keep focusing on individual trees. You are correct in that I do not care about the "legal" nicities you have obviously spent countless hours reseaching, linking, summarizing, and posting. That is because they are all meaningless. I see the phrase "international law" tossed around all the time as if some such thing exists. In reality there are just a multitude of treaties that nations either sign or don't sign. If it turns out that a treaty turns out not to work for a nation any more they break it or sign a new one. It isn't like a nation can be arrested by Interpol, tried, convicted and sent to prison. A nation does what is in its best interest for itself and its citizens. If that happens to work for other nations then that is a bonus. If not, they don't care. I am guessing you see things the way you do because you are a lawyer, and therefore would like to see things follow some sort of law or precendent. I am also the same as an accountant as I like my rules and regulations. However, they only fit for the compliance side of life, they don't work for large parts of reality.

Israel has decided a blockade is in the their best interest. It isn't a genocide for if it was the people in Gaza would all be dead by now. Is it pleasant? Of course not. To enforce this blockade Israel is going to intercept any ship that states its intention of breaking the blockade and any ship that it believes is going to attempt to break it.

As to landing the commandos at night which has Splunge concerned. They came in a friggin helicopter. it wasn't like they HALO'd out of C-130 or snuck up on a mini-sub. Unless people think the Israeli's have invented quiet helicopters, there wasn't much of a surprise that it was happening. Everyone on board with even an inkling of intelligence knew that they were going to be boarded eventually. If it happened 18 hours earlier then expected it shouldn't have caused such chaos, as it obviously didn't on the other ships.

As to your global warming snide comment. Time is on my side. I plan on resurrecting the global warming threads in thirty to forty years and I will either admit I was wrong or bask in the glory.

 

Snook,
the idea that might makes right is awesome, as long as you're winning. Who or what tells you that Israel is doing that? I certainly can't see them winning.

Since 1982 Israel has been losing, not winning. It is fighting a fight it cannot win, and it is doing so in a way that relies on more of the same - force: The blockade doesn't work? Let's intensify it. We can't beat Hezbollah in Lebanon? Let's try again (and still not beat them). There's a terrorist? Let's kill him. There are more? Let's kill them too. There are still more? Gee, let's kill them as well. Hamas expresses their displeasure about our blockade with firing missiles into Israel? Let's bomb them. Doesn't work? Bomb again. Activists are trying to resupply Gaza? Whack'em. Well, force is of limited utility.

You are under the mistaken impression that what Israel does is either sustainable or justified by the results. It is neither.

In fact, Israel has spent the last three decades blundering and it is beginning to show in them having manoeuvred themselves into a terrible situation. Instead of trying to get out, they are trying to force their way through, and it isn't working. They don't bother.

In a sense they get it right: Legitimacy and goodwill are international currency. Law lends legitimacy. Persistently ignoring law delegitimises in the eyes of Israel's peers, the other nations. What use it is to be strong, but universally detested? Nobody will want to deal with you and your interactions with the rest of the world will be very costly and difficult. Think of Apartheid South Africa.

The way it goes Israel is headed towards a cliff. Once they're over that matters of legality will matter greatly because Israel will then be weak. Unless you aim for a glorious last stand there will always be a tomorrow.

 

Uhh....that isn't likely. When we took measures to address the ozone problem and the ozone hole broke up and began to fade, there was no glory for either side to bask in. Those individuals that wished to argue that the Ozone hole was a non-issue requiring no human intervention viewed the reduction as evidence that there was never a problem to begin with while those viewing the Ozone hole as a real, serious problem viewed the reduction as a sign that the measures we took were successful. Climate change will be no different.

 

Ya know Splunge, one of those crazies could be lurking right here on SP. Now you just gave them another method in which to blow everyone to smithereens. Way to go Splunge! Help out the crazy terrorist why don't you?!

 

I read on Haaretz in a comment on an article that for one poster it was clear, in all seriousness, that the only reason why wheelchairs were to be shipped to Gaza were the high performance electric batteries - according to the poster perfect for IEDs ... see? It's not as if Israel's attack of 2008 killed and maimed people in Gaza. The only reason he could think of were ... IED.

In that sense, Splunge's joking easily emulates the level of other people's innate idiocy

 

What does Innovative Electronic Designs have to do with anything?

 

Indeed!

 

Ah ha, now we are getting somewhere. I think I can summarize your entire post as follows. You don't like what they are doing. You think they are going about doing things the wrong way. You think they are wrong. You should have just said that in your first post and skipped the next fifty. Instead we have pages of nitpicking treaties and pointing out every mis-step you believe Israel has made.

Everyone is welcome to their opinon and while I disagree with yours I accept it as a valid opinion. The Israeli government and therefore the people of Israel on the other hand seem to think they are going about things in a way that will keep their citizenry safe.

Personally, I believe the majority of the arab/islamic nations in the area have only one policy and that is the eradication of the Nation of Israel. I believe any and all attempts at apeasement are futile and destined to fail. I also believe that at some point this will end very badly for the people living in the middle east and it will show the true character of the Western world as to whose side they are on.

 

That's easy Snook. IMO, we have no character as we're on "Oil's" side only. We use Israel as a buffer/ally to shield all of the backlash toward just us for conflicts in the ME. Ultimately, we're just like Israel, we just want to survive and take steps that we "think" are "right" to ensure our safety and prosperity for the future. Of course, we blunder a bit in doing it, but not too badly. We're still here at least.