Dizzy is really delivering the video goods right now. First Brian Haw, now the peaceful aid activists welcoming Israeli soldiers peacefully onto the ship.
It's hard for me to conclude anything other than this was a deliberate attempt to provoke the soldiers into some kind of action. There is no way the "aid activists" can claim any kind of moral high ground, they were clearly armed and spoiling for a fight.
I don't for a moment believe that any genuinely peacefully intentioned people would have kicked off like that.
As ever people attack the proportionality of the Israeli response, but really, who out of all those sanctimonious whingers would actually stand there and take a beating until they were unconscious or dead and then be thrown overboard?
But I think there's a different question that needs answering: did the Isrealis have the right to board that boat? And where they boarded it? If it was in international waters, then the responsibility for everything that happened must rest with whoever took the decision.
So: the IDF soldiers were justified in defending themselves and I defy anyone to say they wouldn't eventually have resorted to shooting in a situation like that.
But the Obo jury is still out on overall responsibility.
9 comments:
I agree entirely with this article.
As far as some people are concerned there is no level of violence that you can do to an Israeli or Jew that is unjustified. If you want to randomly rain down missiles on their towns fine. If you want to walk into their cafes where their teenage kids are hanging out and blow their fucking arms legs and head off that’s cool. And if you want to try and run a blockade, ignoring the offers of landing at a port and transporting all genuine aid by land then when they have no choice to board the ship to verify its contents, then when the soldiers arrive you beat them with metals rods and stab them with knifes, hey that’s just peachy.
And if you want to drive them into the sea or destroy them utterly as Arab leaders crow weekly then it’s cool. I suppose herding them into gas chambers is ok too.
Of course the bedwetting liberals loath Israel. It’s a sovereign state that doesn’t want to sign up to the EU. How dare a small sovereign state exist, it’s against the principles of bureaucracy.
Six of one and half-a-dozen of the other, I think, as in just about every case involving Israel & Palestine.
But here's the thing - if you look at the video at 0:53, the commando is armed with a paintball gun.
So they had non-lethal weapons, with pistols for if all else failed. Hardly going in looking to commit mass murder, was it?
D
"But here's the thing - if you look at the video at 0:53, the commando is armed with a paintball gun."
I think 0:54 is more interesting. Behind the guy with the paintball gun you see the Turkish Cavalry charge past.
I'm not joking, really, go look.
Did Israel have the right to board those ships?
Here is the Isreli govt. lawyer explaining their position:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2W457Ot6qw&playnext_from=TL&videos=rGUghRPQ2Jw
True, they are probably somewhat biased but then again, everything she says can be verified from public sources.
"Did Israel have the right to board those ships?"
The British Navy regularly boards ships in international waters.
Its got several boats doing it full time around Somalia.
In Somalia it's the EU Naval Force. They slipped that one past us quietly, didn't they.
600 activists on a ship is an "aid" to what exactly? This was a stunt guaranteed toprovoke a reaction that could be exploited. The IDF fell for it unfortunately.
But if the IDF really were the evil hobgoblins the various rent-a-yob crowds across Europe claim them to be, there wouldnt be any witnesses.....and there are times when that wouldnt be a bad outcome either.
Israel seems as hopeless at playing the propaganda war against the Hamas and Hamas supporters as Maggie was useless at playing the propaganda war against the IRA and IRA supporters.
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