Israel kills to Maintain Blockade

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Instead, they chose to disregard all the accumulated wisdom and do it cowboy-style. Whether that's because of ignorance, malice or incompetence, I have no idea.

---

Maybe it was all three :curtain:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ironside

It gets better, appearently the first boarding attempt from boats was stopped by the crowd with water hoses, stun granades, boxes of plates and with the bars showing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6sAEYpHF24

---

They've got plates? And HOSES? OPEN FIRE! :laugh4:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Subotan

They've got plates? And HOSES? OPEN FIRE! :laugh4:

---

The whole incident is just so ridiculous. From the Israelis riding down one at a time and getting pelted with God knows what to the activists armed with plates and throwing people overboard, it would all be hilarious if nobody got killed. I was waiting for....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

The whole incident is just so ridiculous. From the Israelis riding down one at a time and getting pelted with God knows what to the activists armed with plates and throwing people overboard, it would all be hilarious if nobody got killed. I was waiting for....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK6TXMsvgQg

---

Being honest, I can really see that working. Benny Hill playing as Israeli soldiers helicopter rope down into a riot crowd, then having that picture Lemur come-up on screen of Roping 101. etc

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PanzerJaeger

The whole incident is just so ridiculous. From the Israelis riding down one at a time and getting pelted with God knows what to the activists armed with plates and throwing people overboard

---

I'm not buying the argument made by Israel and its supporter that the activists were all evil and awful. Pick any demonstration you want, then try dropping police officers one by one down in their midst, while shouting "we're closing you down!".

Who thinks the police won't get attacked in such a situation?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

I'm not buying the argument made by Israel and its supporter that the activists were all evil and awful. Pick any demonstration you want, then try dropping police officers one by one down in their midst, while shouting "we're closing you down!".

Who thinks the police won't get attacked in such a situation?

---

Obviously not everyone was a terrorist I imagine the other boats are full of genuine people but there were plenty whackjobs in amongst them on the Turkish boat fact.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy

Obviously not everyone was a terrorist I imagine the other boats are full of genuine people but there were plenty whackjobs in amongst them on the Turkish boat fact.

---

Fact: there are plenty of similar whackjobs in any given demonstration.

Still people do not die in other places.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Fact: there are plenty of similar whackjobs in any given demonstration.

Still people do not die in other places.

---

in a confined space with no rapid back up available with a mob of people violently attacking the 'interlopers' with iron bars and slingshot fired marbles, people are going to get hurt, and die.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

in a confined space with no rapid back up available with a mob of people violently attacking the 'interlopers' with iron bars and slingshot fired marbles, people are going to get hurt, and die.

---

Indeed!

So why on earth Israel choose this aproach instead of one more suited to avoid hostilities boggles my mind.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Indeed!

So why on earth Israel choose this aproach instead of one more suited to avoid hostilities boggles my mind.

---

you mean a full assault, with soldiers fast-roping down in groups of six from two separate helicopters, with automatic weapons and authorisation to use them, at the same time as flash-bangs and tear gas are fired onto the deck from accompanying corvettes?

ah yes, i can just see the same group of moralising poseurs screaming at the heavens that once again Israel had demonstrated their inhumane disregard for proprieties by responding with heavy handed military action when all that was required was sweet reason.

they fastroped in one-by-one, equipped with paintball guns because they did not want to escalate an already volatile situation. they cocked it up, because they didn't anticipate a mob wielding iron-bars as a greeting party, and the sad result was more extreme force had to be employed to pacify the 'peace' activists.

without perfect knowledge this was a lose-lose situation for israel, which is what the 'peace' activists intended.

This morning on the way to work heard Israel's PM making a statement about the whole thing. Apparently the boats were full of people who were going to "encourage terrorism". I am not making this up. Oh, and the boats were breaking a blockade, not bringing supplies. (Not sure how that even parses.) And it was a "hate boat, not a love boat."

I swear to god, I know some cut-rate PR shills who could do this better.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemur

This morning on the way to work heard Israel's PM making a statement about the whole thing. Apparently the boats were full of people who were going to "encourage terrorism". I am not making this up. Oh, and the boats were breaking a blockade, not bringing supplies. (Not sure how that even parses.) And it was a "hate boat, not a love boat."

I swear to god, I know some cut-rate PR shills who could do this better.

---

according to israel the boat was a blockade runner, but agreed with the rest.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

you mean a full assault, with soldiers fast-roping down in groups of six from two separate helicopters, with automatic weapons and authorisation to use them, at the same time as flash-bangs and tear gas are fired onto the deck from accompanying corvettes?

---

Yes, why do it like that, when there are proven ways of going about such businesses that is way which will limit the risk to everyone involved.

The Norwegian coast guard does this all the time against Russian fishing ships; you think drunk russian fishermen are happy that some foreigners are about to take their livelyhood away from them? And yet, this goes on all the time, without incident. Because the coast guard follows proper procedure.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Yes, why do it like that, when there are proven ways of going about such businesses that is way which will limit the risk to everyone involved.

The Norwegian coast guard does this all the time against Russian fishing ships; you think drunk russian fishermen are happy that some foreigners are about to take their livelyhood away from them? And yet, this goes on all the time, without incident. Because the coast guard follows proper procedure.

---

lol, i really don't think the example compares.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

lol, i really don't think the example compares.

---

Have to agree with F'unc, Horetore. Your typical vodka-brave Russian fisherman might love an excuse to pop someone in the nose, but probably will not escalate violence beyond that. This convoy had a goodly cadre who were really there as agitators trying to stage an incident. The situation doesn't really compare.

On the other hand, any assessment like that makes the poor tactical procedures used LESS excusable, not more.

more information on our peaceful brotherhood for kindly fraternal relations with oppressed muslims:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7142977.ece

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

more information on our peaceful brotherhood for kindly fraternal relations with oppressed muslims:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle7142977.ece

---

I herby dub these people MOPE

Quote:

---

Most Oppressed People Ever

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lemur

This morning on the way to work heard Israel's PM making a statement about the whole thing. Apparently the boats were full of people who were going to "encourage terrorism". I am not making this up. Oh, and the boats were breaking a blockade, not bringing supplies. (Not sure how that even parses.) And it was a "hate boat, not a love boat."

I swear to god, I know some cut-rate PR shills who could do this better.

---

I'm of the opinion that under any conditions, Israel is successfully spinning the argument as long as it focusses on "terrorism". Those are the terms by which it defines the Gaza blockade.

Conversely, the definiting feature of the blockade for those whom are against it is its affect on Gaza's civilians.

As long as Israel steers the discussion away from the human cost of its "pro-active" defense, they have the initiative.

To be honest this blockade is useless anyway has it stopped the rockets or mortars at all, when has a blockade really worked against a determined enemy even Cuba is still here. All this bloskade has done is probably enrich the tunnel diggers anHamas who prob tax all the goods coming through the tunnels.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Furunculus

they fastroped in one-by-one, equipped with paintball guns because they did not want to escalate an already volatile situation. they cocked it up, because they didn't anticipate a mob wielding iron-bars as a greeting party, and the sad result was more extreme force had to be employed to pacify the 'peace' activists.

without perfect knowledge this was a lose-lose situation for israel, which is what the 'peace' activists intended.

---

That's the thing. They had IR cameras on both the surrounding ships and choppers what visibly shows the iron bars at least. People can be seen carrying this at the first boarding attempt at 4:10. The shots seems to been around 20 min later (both by eyewitness reports). The troops are then airdropped into the crowd standing there on the ship. While I agree on that the soldiers probably didn't expect that crowd, the surrounding fleet had that knowledge.

The cock up seems to be so bad that this starts to sound relevant.
"One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation."

Seriously, unless several resignations of the ones responsible for the operation starts to shows up, I'm going to start to consider this as an intentional outcome from the the ones in control of the Israeli part, with the soldiers used as sacrificial lambs. No matter if you find the action justified, it's horribly mishandled.
Combine the operation being authorized outside most of the goverment with it being done just inside the self-proclaimed protection zone. Then we have debatable following of standard procedures, incredable large cock up when boarding a ship with known hostiles and media blackout except on the material showing that the crowd is hostile (in particular when it's obvious that material on the shooting exists).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Idaho

Israel Kills to Maintain Blockade

Israel of course claims that it was fired on - but of course they will retract this 3 months down the line in a muttering aside by some minister. Just like the white phosphorous attacks in Gaza, etc.

They want to starve out the Palestinians, and they won't tolerate any interference in this plan.

---

Ummm.... No they not. Did you not see the videos of the Israeli troops being attacked or did you just happen to not mention it here?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by |Sith|R|AntiWarmanCake88

Ummm.... No they not. Did you not see the videos of the Israeli troops being attacked or did you just happen to not mention it here?

---

I think his original commentary was more of a reaction to the IDF's "PR style" in previous incidents.

Turkey is now reporting that a US citizen was killed on the boat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

Quote:

---

JERUSALEM -- A U.S. citizen of Turkish origin was among the nine people killed in a botched Israeli effort to stop a Turkish aid ship from reaching the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a Turkish official said Thursday.

"It's a Turkish-origin American citizen. We know that," the official said by phone from Turkey, adding that more details were not yet available.

The nine bodies were flown home from Israel to Turkey on Wednesday, along with hundreds of activists, aboard a Turkish plane. Israel was not able to identify the bodies because the dead had no identification on them, Israeli officials said.

The American citizen was identified by the Anatolia news agency as Furkan Dogan, a 19-year-old student. His body had four bullet wounds to the head and one to the chest, the news agency reported.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

Have to agree with F'unc, Horetore. Your typical vodka-brave Russian fisherman might love an excuse to pop someone in the nose, but probably will not escalate violence beyond that. This convoy had a goodly cadre who were really there as agitators trying to stage an incident. The situation doesn't really compare.

On the other hand, any assessment like that makes the poor tactical procedures used LESS excusable, not more.

---

If they had used the procedures used all over the world when boarding a possibly hostile ship, then this would not have happen. Plain and simple. Don't act like ships like this being boarded is a once in a lifetime occurence. That 10 people end up dead in an EPIC FAIL is quite rare, however.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by drone

Turkey is now reporting that a US citizen was killed on the boat.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

---

4 bullet wounds in the head and 1 in the chest? What were the Israelis doing? Practice shooting?
Or were they like:
"You shot him in the head."
"I did? Better make sure he is dead.." (3 shots could be heard..)
That activist must have been some increadibly powerful zomby when it takes 4 bullets to take him down.

I understand if you shoot someone in the leg if you want to stop him. But in the head??

It's a little ridiculous that the IDF is releasing nothing but edited, commented, prepared snippets of video. Obviously they have full versions. Obviously they're not going to let anyone see them.

Here's a hard, well-parsed essay that expresses a great deal of what I've been thinking:

Operation Make the World Hate Us

The assault on the 'Mavi Marmara' was wrong, and a gift to Israel's enemies.

Israel does not need enemies: it has itself. Or more precisely: it has its government. The Netanyahu-Barak government has somehow found a way to lose the moral high ground, the all-important war for symbols and meanings, to Hamas. That is quite an accomplishment. Operation Make the World Hate Us, it might have been called.

I leave it to others to make the operational criticisms of the Israeli action, and will say only that even my amateurish understanding of the tactical challenge posed by the interdiction of the boats suffices to suggest that there were other ways to do this. I also will not pretend to a perfect grasp of what happened on board the Mavi Marmara. I have pondered the videos that both sides have released, and concluded that the Israeli soldiers sliding down that rope had no intention of attacking the people on board and that the people on board had no way of being confident of this. I cannot expect Palestinians and their supporters to believe the best about the Israeli army. (This is what Israeli hardliners call “the restoration of deterrence.”) I do not doubt that some of the activists on the ship welcomed a confrontation with Israel, but the Israelis should not have obliged them. In any event, what took place on that deck looks to me like a tragic misunderstanding. Yet there was no reason to think that anything else would have transpired.

The important point is that the killing of civilians on the Mavi Marmara—I understand that they were “armed” with metal bars and a knife, but still they were civilians, and soldiers are trained to respond unlethally to the recklessness of a mob—cannot be extenuated by reference to “asymmetrical warfare” and Israel’s right to defend itself. This was not warfare, at least of the physical sort. Israel was not under attack. A headline in The Washington Post yesterday reported that “Israel says Free Gaza Movement poses threat to Jewish state.” Such a claim is absurd. It is true that the movement has grown in recent years, and is now troublesome to Israel’s policy in Gaza; and it is also true that the Turkish charity that sponsored the “Freedom Flotilla” has ties to Islamicist groups. But this is hardly what Israel likes to call, in the Iranian context, and there quite plausibly, an “existential threat.” The extension of the definition of a security threat to include hostile activities that have little or no bearing upon security is an ominous development.

It is also the inevitable consequence of Benjamin Netanyahu’s cunning pronouncement last year that Israel is now endangered by “the Iran threat, the missile threat, and the threat I call the Goldstone threat.” The equivalence was morally misleading, and therefore dangerous. Ideological warfare is not military warfare. I have studied the entirety of the Goldstone Report, and whereas I do not doubt (and wrote in this magazine in the days before Goldstone) that Operation Cast Lead caused the unjustifiable death of non-combatants, I also do not doubt that the Goldstone Report, which was nastily indifferent to Israel’s security predicament and to the ethical challenges of Israeli self-defense, was an instrument in a broad campaign of delegitimation against Israel—and yet the threat of delegitimation is not like the threat of destruction. It is different in kind. A commando operation is not an appropriate response to an idea. “This was no Love Boat,” Netanyahu said yesterday. “It was a hate boat.” He is right, but so what? The threat of delegitimation is not a military problem and it does not have a military solution. And the attempt to give it a military solution has now had the awful consequence of making the threat still greater. The assault on the Mavi Marmara was a stupid gift to the delegitimators.

You do not have to be a general to grasp these distinctions. In fact, judging by Israel’s recent history, it might help not to be one. But the militarization of the Israeli government’s understanding of Israel’s situation—this has been the most sterile period for diplomacy in all of Israel’s history—is not all that led to the debacle at sea. Rules of military engagement that allow soldiers to fire on political activists (I leave aside the question of their humanitarianism for a moment) may signify something still deeper and even more troubling. It is hard not to conclude from this Israeli action, and also from other Israeli actions in recent years, that the Israeli leadership simply does not care any longer about what anybody thinks. It does not seem to care about what even the United States—its only real friend, even in the choppy era of Obama—thinks. This is not defiance, it is despair. The Israeli leadership seems to have given up any expectation of fairness and sympathy from the world. It is behaving as if it believes, in the manner of the most perilous Jewish pessimism, that the whole world hates the Jews, and that is all there is to it. This is the very opposite of the measured and empirical attitude, the search for strategic opportunity, the enlistment of imagination in the service of ideals and interests, that is required for statecraft.

The complication—the one that deprives anybody who acknowledges it of membership in any of the gangs of commentary—is that there is a partial basis in the actually existing world for a degree of Israeli pessimism. There are leaders, states, organizations, and peoples whose hostility to the Jewish state is irrational and absolute and in some cases murderous. Things are said critically about Israel that wildly burst the bounds of thoughtful criticism. The language in which Israel is described by some governments and international organizations is lurid and grotesque and foul. Anti-Semitic tropes—the conspiracy theory about the Jews, most conspicuously—are regularly encountered in otherwise respectable places. The analysis of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that absolves the Palestinians of any significant role in it is widespread. I do not see how any of this can be denied, or shunted aside, or explained entirely in terms of Israeli behavior. But it is emphatically not the whole picture, except for those Israelis and Jews whose political interests and ideological inclinations prefer it to be the whole picture. For there are forces in Israel, and in its government, that have a use for Jewish hopelessness.

There is a verse in Numbers that Jewish pessimists like to cite: “the people shall dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations.” It is Balaam’s divinely inspired description of the Israelites—Balaam, who came to curse and stayed to bless. But I have always regarded it as a curse, this promise of loneliness. I have heard it intoned lachrymosely and proudly—in our time Jewish pride has a disturbingly parasitic relationship with Jewish lachrymosity—all my life. It chills me to the bone. It is a locution for prophets, not prime ministers. The Jews cannot dwell alone. In fact, their history shows that they never did dwell alone. It is not a tale of insularity and isolation. The apartness of the Jews was never a complete secession from their environment. The engagement of the Jews with the world was a matter not only of practical necessity, but also of theological conviction. And not even the darkest and most dire adversity succeeded in driving them entirely into themselves.

When, in the modern era, the Zionists concluded, quite correctly, that the Jews must extract themselves from anti-Semitic societies and establish a society of their own, a sovereign one, in the land of Israel, it was in part to “normalize” them by making them “reckoned among the nations,” and therefore like other nations. Zionism was a reversal of Balaam’s phony blessing. The state was not supposed to be a bunker, even if it had enemies. But Netanyahu is a creature of the bunker. He talks about peace, but not like a man who hungers for it. He takes no steps toward peace except as the consequence of a crisis—a crisis not with the Palestinians but with the Americans. He liturgically intones his warnings, some of them true, about the external dangers facing Israel, and mistakes brutishness for toughness, and offers nothing. He is a gray, muddling, reactive figure. His preferred strategy for his country is: one quiet week after another unto eternity. His problem is that there are not many quiet weeks.

But about those activists: a great deal of bathetic rubbish has been written about them. Insofar as they were bringing food and medicine to Gaza, they were humanitarians; but insofar as they were striking a blow for the government of Gaza, they were anti-humanitarians. A real “Freedom Flotilla” would have sailed for Gaza to liberate it from its rulers. For Hamas stifles Gaza from within even as Israel stifles it from without. It oppresses the Palestininans who live under its sway and has brought them ruin. When did it become progressive to support a theocracy? Consider the case of Henning Mankell, the Swedish writer of thrillers (and the son-in-law of Ingmar Bergman) who was a passenger on one of the boats in the “Freedom Flotilla.” In his youth he took part in anti-Vietnam and anti-apartheid demonstrations, presumably in the spirit of secular reason. For a while he lived in Norway and participated in the activities of a radical Maoist party: let us call that secular unreason. Now he does the work of Hamas and its mullahs. Last year Mankell attended the Palestine Festival of Literature in east Jerusalem—or would have attended it, if the Israeli authorities had not idiotically closed it down. When he returned to Sweden, he wrote that “there is a straight line between Soweto, Sharpeville, and what recently happened [I presume he was referring to the war] in Gaza.” And: “Is it strange that some [Palestinians] in pure desperation, when they cannot see any other way out, decide to become suicide bombers? Not really. Maybe it is strange that there are not more of them.” And: “The state of Israel in its current form has no future. Moreover, those who advocate a two-state solution have not got it right. … The question is whether it will be possible to talk sense into the Israelis in order for them to willingly accept the end of their own apartheid state.” This man has rights, at sea and on land, but he can hardly be lauded as a champion of peace and reconciliation. You are not for co-existence if you advocate the disappearance of one of the terms. (Consider, analogously, the recent adventures of Noam Chomsky in the region. It was widely noted that the Israelis, again idiotically, turned him away at the Allenby Bridge. It was less widely noted that a few days later a reporter for The New York Times accidentally discovered him in Lebanon at the home of Nabil Qaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah, which is not what Voltaire had in mind.)

And yet the screw must be turned again: the anti-Israeli virulence of Henning Mankell and his maritime comrades does not make Israel’s assault on the Mavi Marmara more just or more wise. Now the Israeli government may find it impossible not to modify or even to lift the blockade of Gaza—an outcome that no decent person can decry, as long as Hamas does not exploit the respite to acquire weapons or what it needs to make them, and the past is not encouraging in this regard. Netanyahu will do what he can to get past the mess, hoping that the approach of the midterm elections in the United States will rescue him from the pressure, and the deadening hand of the status quo will be back. And Israel will be known to more and more people—in a wounding misrepresentation—mainly for cruelty.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

Yes, why do it like that, when there are proven ways of going about such businesses that is way which will limit the risk to everyone involved.

The Norwegian coast guard does this all the time against Russian fishing ships; you think drunk russian fishermen are happy that some foreigners are about to take their livelyhood away from them? And yet, this goes on all the time, without incident. Because the coast guard follows proper procedure.

---

Limit the risk to everyone involved? Proper procedure?

Pft.

The last time Spanish ships were discovered fishing near the coast near Bordeaux, French warships shot live explosives at them then chased them all over the Bay of Biscay. We're not going to board them and run the risk of being asaulted by steel pipes and chorizo sausages. Shoot first, then torpedo then. Let Amnesty International worry about diplomatic consequences. These peacemongering Israelis are such sissies, sheesh.


I think the Spanish send an Armada of sixty ships in retaliation, forcing our fleet of just several dozen ships to retreat, then they blockaded our ports. Bummer. Why weren't our nuclear subs deployed?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by HoreTore

If they had used the procedures used all over the world when boarding a possibly hostile ship, then this would not have happen. Plain and simple. Don't act like ships like this being boarded is a once in a lifetime occurence. That 10 people end up dead in an EPIC FAIL is quite rare, however.

---

At what point in my post did I assert or imply that this "stop & board" had no parallel? :inquisitive:

Oh, well.....

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

chorizo sausages

---

Like you wouldn't love having a spanish guy running after you with his "chorizo sausage" out..... ~;)

Isn't this getting, after the usual moral outrage when jews don't commit suicide for all our sins things once again aren't so simple. The left knows the ships were full of people who want nothing but peace, and it would be absolutely inthinkable that they change their mind because someone would have to do it first it at the risk of losing everything he has, such a loving family as long as you know they are 100% correct.

http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default...=178&nid=21215

Leftist people know it simply isn't true, it isn't what they agreed, but more and more is getting out.

What? Israel KNEW this boat was full of very armed and dangerous terrorists and they sent few soldiers, one by one on a rope with paint balls riffles and didn't storm the boats with a fully and well trained unit?:inquisitive:
How unprofessional Tsahal became...:laugh4::laugh4:

What a lot of ..... compost.:laugh4: