Israel is like "Silence! I keel you!"

On a more serious note, this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/10195838.stm

Is it just me or do some people rush too much with their condemnations? The protesters went in knowing that they the Israelis will act against them and they did attack the soldiers when they boarded. I am skeptical as to whether or not they shot at the Israelis but they did attack them with metal poles (and perhaps knives).
I will probably end up condemning it as well but first I would want to wait couple of days to hear the whole story because judging from the actions of the protesters on the flag ship the story might not be as black and white as my dear bearded, embassy vandalising, flag burning friends would like us to think.

 

A mob attacks you, even with weapons, standard retaliation procedures are tear gas and rubber bullets, with nightsticks maybe thrown in. Not fully automatic assault rifles. Ok, so, they attacked your folk with knives, poles, axes, maybe even a few pistols. Why are you even on the ships in the first place?

I'm sorry, but Israel doesn't have much ground to stand on here.

 

It doesn't I just think that people are omitting the fact that the soldiers were shooting into people who were hitting them with large metal poles, stabbing them and (if they are telling the truth) even shooting at them. I actually read a quote from one of the leaders of the humanitarian organizations reducing the incident to a bunch of soldiers shooting into sleeping passangers. That is where I have a problem. Israel should be condemned but please condemn it for the actions that it did actually comit, don't make **** up because then I am forced to go out and actually try and defend this zionistic mess to a certain extend although I have no sympathy for doing so.

 

Right, and if they were doing it, it explains Israel's actions, to a degree, and I do agree with you on that. If someone is attacking you, you retaliate.

I'm asking why Israel was even on the boats in the first place. As said by the article:
"Israel says its soldiers boarded the lead ship in the early hours but were attacked with axes, knives, bars and at least two guns."

If your two countries are as close to being at war as possible, what would you expect would happen if you dump a bunch of your soldiers onto some of their boats at 4 AM? Israel, in my opinion, was simply looking for this kind of confrontation.

A side note, the next aid flotilla is going to be escorted by the Turkish Navy.

 

It seems clear to me Israel planned a military raid; you may even say assault, in order to protect their sovereignty. Or so that's their story and they're stickin' to it.

One may easily argue that their intention is actually to keep sovereign rights from Gaza.

 

Actually looking at it more I have to sum it up like this:
1. Israel has a long-standing naval blockade over Gaza.
2. The convoy intentionally decided to break that blockade.
3. Israel sent troops to arrest and stop the convoy in compatibility with number 1.
4. People aboard the convoy decide to club, throw and stab the fully armed soldiers that boarded the ship.
5. After a struggle where the soldiers failed to gain control without the use of fire arms they were forced to use them.

The only objection against the Israelis here is step 1. Whether or not they were justified in imposing a naval blockade. It is arguable since there is a clear intention to stop arms being imported to Gaza although perhaps not completely justifiable but then again that all comes down to the Israel vs Palestine conflict.
One more possible objection is that they might have anticipated this sort of encounter and bring crowd-control equipment.

The bottom line is the people aboard the ships knew what they were getting themselves into and they perhaps grossly underestimated the consequences of their action (especially once they started attacking fully armed soldiers). I have sympathy for them and their cause. In a way they made themselves martyrs. But in attacking Israel one has to focus more on the entire concept of the blockade rather than what actually happened on that boat since that actually isn't so clearly pointed against Israel as it seems to be portraied as.

This is of course assuming that the soldiers used fire arms to the minimum and really only for their most basic defence which it seems like it from the videos I've watched but this should be cleared up in the upcoming days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/10199862.stm

The thing that went wrong on that boat is that the Israelis brought no crowd-control whatsoever. No tear gas, no rubber bullets, no tazers, only live ammunition. As a consequence of that they had no other option but to use live ammunition because that's the only thing they had at their disposal. That's what they did wrong and should be condemned for. It's sort of like when police goes against rioters who burn stuff down, throw rocks and attack the policemen with poles but you don't give the policemen any appropriate equipment except from their standard hand-gun. It's a disaster bound to happen.

 

One of the friends of my sister was on this ship when the Israelis attacked it !

According to her, the ship and the crew had the intention to go to the Gaza strip even if they knew they Israeli float would prevent them from reaching Gaza.
The ship was full of humanitarian stuff (food, books, water, goods, etc ...) and some members were ARMED with some guns ! Yes, there were some weapons (2 or 3 guns according to her) in the ship.
So ... must we say that those passengers were terrorists ?

Anywhere you go for humanitarian duties, you have to carry some guns to protect yourself from people who want to attack you.
The israeli soldiers wanted to invade the ship, from a boat and from an helicopter.
The passengers protested and wanted to reach Gaza at any price. They don't accept the blocus made by Israel. According to most of the people (and me) Israel has no right to decide about the destiny of Gaza.

The crew had maybe got some warning from the Israelis and didn't follow the instructions (that had not to be) and that's why they prepared to "welcome" the Israelis on board.
Who attacked who the first ? We don't know. Maybe they used their guns first or the Israeli soldiers attacked some crew members and then they fought back ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvS9PXZ3RWM&feature=player_embedded#!

 

If The Gaza strip were it's own State; this alone would be an act of war. Of course, this is not the case and a whole 'nother can of worms. Whether or not the Palestinian people have the right to form their own sovereign nation; claiming their own land and laws is a matter of personal opinion. I like to think that anyone claiming to be a a humanitarian would believe these people have a right to rule themselves.

The convoy was from Turkey if I understand correctly. A foreign nation entering your waters; Israel does own it's waters, against your wishes may certainly considered an act of war itself. The ship does seem to genially be on a peaceful mission of aid (errr... except the guns onboard). But, it is irresponsible for the people running the convoy to not have cleared their work with the Israeli government. This is assuming the Israeli government would ever allow such ships to pass through their blockade.

And back to number one, I myself feel they are doing something pretty ****ty to their fellow human-beings. Yet, they do have authority to attack a foreign vessel breaching their blockade.

You are doing something illegal and the government steps in... with guns... big ****ing guns.
I'm torn.

On one hand, I do believe that violent resistance against oppression is needed in rare circumstances. But is this one of them? Sure, the treatment of the Palestinians seems unjust to me. I just don't think that this convoy had all of that on their shoulders and probably should have given up peacefully. What's the worst thing that happened if you do that and really are just on a humanitarian mission of aid? You get sent away and garner national attention? Arrested, maybe, but that'll happen for sure if you attack.

Higgs, I need only point to how you close your above statement. The Israeli soldiers should have been issued nonlethal weapons in addition to what they had brought on board.

All in all, both sides ****ed up.

 

Straight up QTF.

This whole thing is all kinds of FUBAR

.

 

Stuff like this happens every now and then, and UN has condemned Israel many a times for such warcrimes as this! But you never see anything being done about it.

How about calling in a ghost for some tactical nukes on their harvest workers? eh? whos with me? siege tanks, maybe no?

 

It's not a warcrime and by the way when people were talking about banning trolls in the circumcision thread how about we ban ica-finger? His trolling is really annoying.

 

the israeli trrop attacked the ship on international waters, not on the israeli waters.

and the activists had also some launch-stones and maybe used them against the soldiers.

 

'The Israel government says its soldiers faced violent resistance as they boarded the largest ship, the Marmara. The Free Gaza Movement denies there was violent resistance to Israeli soldiers, saying the soldiers immediately opened fire on unarmed civilians. Video released by the Israeli Defense Forces showed intense fighting on the decks of the ship.'

Here the Free Gaza Movement is openly lying. Come on how guillable does one have to be to believe that when we have a direct video footage which directly contradicts them.
Although now that I know a little more I object to Israels decision to intervene while the flotilla was still a long distance away from Israeli waters. They should not have carried out the raid so far off-shore. Not that it would change anything in the end...

 

The ship was supposedly fired on before being boarded. Of course nothing will happen with the USA's ability to veto any condemnation in the UN.

 

See, what I heard is that the Israeli troops fired a few warning shots in the air or water or whatever, as kinda a warning to settle down, group up type thing. A few people on the flotilla thought that the troops were firing at them, and 'returned' fire, which lead to the confrontation.

Again, this is what I heard, and could very well be illegitimate.

 

As far as I understood, a violent reaction came from only one of the six boarded ships, while the Israel troops displayed a over the top aggression on all six vessels. Which was a bit of a mistake seeing as the ships had different companies manning them.

 

We need to send ghosts to call down nukes on the whole middle east, they will always be at war for dumb reasons. And nuke china and india and africa while you're at it, trim a couple billion off the population, and end world hunger as a result.

 

How exactly is nuking the biggest exporters of food in the world going to solve world hunger?

 

Plus there's the whole issue of radioactive fallout getting caught by prevailing winds and spreading across the globe.

This is the Lounge, there's no place for idiotic comments.

 

Huh ... There is no risk at all man !
I breathed the Tchernobyl radioactive gas that was spread through Europe int he 80's and I am fine.

Actually don't believe what you "heard" from other people. I believed first there was just ONE ship that was travelling to Gaza. I was wrong. As I also believed there were guns in the ship. There were some stones-launchers and some ... Pokemon !