Report: Israel storms Gaza-bound aid ships

[FunkMasterFlame]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

I seemed to have missed the story...just like everyone seems to have missed the stories detailed in my links.
I still have not found the story you refer to about a sovereign nation attacking a humanitarian vessel. I did find the story about Israeli soldiers commandeering a vessel as it attempted to slip through a blockade. Is that what you meant?

Yeah and whose authority were they under? I can assure you that those Israeli warships didn't just decide willy-nilly to attack the ship. They were ordered by the state of Israel to stop the flotilla by any means necessary, and they did so.

[HOZ]

Originally Posted by FunkMasterFlame

Yeah and whose authority were they under? I can assure you that those Israeli warships didn't just decide willy-nilly to attack the ship. They were ordered by the state of Israel to stop the flotilla by any means necessary, and they did so.

Any means?!!!

Then why did they not just sink it along with any evidence that they did something? A torpedo here a torpedo there....and oooops...Where did that ship go?

Whether you agree with the joint EGYPT-Israeli blockade or not. They were enforcing a blockade of Gaza and walked straight into a carefully laid trap by Hamas supporters.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by flylock shox

Pretty easily: you just bold the words "or wrong."

But I doubt Vlad really means to say he'd support Israel "no matter what."

Pretty much. Call me prejudiced, but I look at the situation from the point of view that Western civilization is in all respects superior. I will support the "Western"/"civilized" side. When the Palestinians have reached the same level, I will view the 2 sides equally.

[FunkMasterFlame]

Originally Posted by Nage Waza

This is great! Had the boats never attempted to break Israel's blockade, this never would have happened. In fact, had they done as Israel asked, which was to provide the supplies to the Israeli government for Gaza distribution, just like EVERY other group does, none of this would have occurred.

The real question is was the purpose of this vessel to make this whole situation happen? Sad if true. DUMB if not true.

Yeah, and had Israel never placed Gaza under an illegal, collectively-punishing blockade, there never would have been a need for the humanitarian blockade-breaking ships.

And any supplies given to Israel for distribution among the Gaza people would surely rot in a warehouse for a couple years, before being dispersed.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by FunkMasterFlame

Yeah and whose authority were they under? I can assure you that those Israeli warships didn't just decide willy-nilly to attack the ship. They were ordered by the state of Israel to stop the flotilla by any means necessary, and they did so.

1. Why did they 'attack' just the one boat and not the others?
2. Why did they lower them down one by one if they wanted to 'attack' the boat? Why not just sink it?

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

You said "nobody seems to care", which sure sounds like you think it gets ignored to me.

And if you think what you pointed out is true, how could you possibly be posting links all day to atrocities carried out by people who aren't from Israel?

I think the disconnect here is that you seem to think we should be holding fundamentalist lunatics to the same standard we hold the Israeli military. That there should be a discussion here every time some nutcase does something crazy in the Middle East or in Africa, and the fact that there isn't means something perhaps sinister.

The implication appears to be "you guys only bring up something bad when Israel is involved, and then you bash them for it". It's not true.

But it is true that a lot of crazy stuff happens that doesn't get the same amount of coverage as when Israel is involved. You know why? Because Israel is an ally of Canada, a democracy with a functional government and military. They are not a bunch of lunatics with a death wish. When they do something wrong (and some of us think they do wrong occasionally), it is news.

When some crazy son of a bitch attacks a hospital or blows up a house of worship he has some inconsequential theological disagreement with, it's just another day in the news. When an ally and a democracy do something wrong (including apparently killing a Canadian citizen in international waters), it's a big deal.

So we both agree that we only seem to care because Israel is similar to Canada.

So Israel did not drop a bomb from a helicopter and sink the ship, nor did they launch a torpedo, nor did they lob a few grenades, which would have been a 'lunatic' thing to do. What they did do is board the ship, just like Canadian soldiers would have in a similar situation. What worked on five other boats did not work on one of the boats, as a mob attacked the soldiers. So was this mob made up of those 'lunatics' you speak of? How do you battle 'lunatics'? Soldiers were not going to leave their 'brothers' to die on that boat, and we are where we are.

You see, in your own answer you describe how we view Israel with a different set of rules and standards, yet discount the other set of rules Israel is battling within groups like Hamas. Once we understand what Israel is up against, you quickly see why it is important for the IDF to board a boat and investigate the contents. And you can begin to see why people on a boat are willing to provoke the bee hive, since they have a different set of rules than the soldiers confronting them.

I don't mean any of my points at you in particular, just making good conversation. I appreciate the same.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Pretty much. Call me prejudiced, but I look at the situation from the point of view that Western civilization is in all respects superior. I will support the "Western"/"civilized" side. When the Palestinians have reached the same level, I will view the 2 sides equally.

Aaah, civilized. Superior too. That's us. The Jews certainly were treated well by us civilized folk in the Western world.

[flylock shox]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Pretty much. Call me prejudiced, but I look at the situation from the point of view that Western civilization is in all respects superior. I will support the "Western"/"civilized" side. When the Palestinians have reached the same level, I will view the 2 sides equally.

Of course, this assumes a Western civilization could not descend to a lower (morally/politically speaking) level than that of the Palestinians.

[FunkMasterFlame]

Originally Posted by Coys1882

1. Why did they 'attack' just the one boat and not the others?
2. Why did they lower them down one by one if they wanted to 'attack' the boat? Why not just sink it?

1. Maybe the Israelis were expecting the people on the Marmara to allow themselves to be boarded as easily as the other ships, and when they encountered unexpected resistance they panicked and started shooting? Its hard to say the Israelis weren't itching for a fight when they send a helicopter full of commandos for a night-raid against a ship of civilians on an aid mission.

2. There are many degrees of force available to a military. You've seen the world-wide condemnation of Israel's actions already, can you imagine the response if they had just blown the ships out of the water? They would instantly turn into a pariah-state and would be shunned by the entire international community. The Israelis may be crazy, but they ain't that stupid.

[VladtheImpaler]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

Aaah, civilized. Superior too. That's us. The Jews certainly were treated well by us civilized folk in the Western world.

The Western civilization has evolved since then... quite a bit. I'm not saying it's perfect, or close to it, but it's far, far superior to all the others... There is a reason people like me/my parents emigrate to Canada, US, Germany, Australia, UK, and, yes, Israel which is full of Russians/Ukrainians who fake documents to make themselves "Jewish".

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by FunkMasterFlame

1. Maybe the Israelis were expecting the people on the Marmara to allow themselves to be boarded as easily as the other ships, and when they encountered unexpected resistance they panicked and started shooting? Its hard to say the Israelis weren't itching for a fight when they send a helicopter full of commandos for a night-raid against a ship of civilians on an aid mission.

The whole boat aid idea was horrible from start to end. To claim this was an aid mission is a bold faced lie. This was an attempt to push through a blockade and make a political statement. Please call it like it is. And what panic are you talking about? There were 100 to 200 people on board the boat, a few soldiers fired on the crowd to save their skin. I would imagine what 'panic' would look like, the aftermath would be similar to what the US helicopter gunship did when it unloaded on the van. Modern weapons, specifically the kind Israeli engineers attach to helicopters, would have left zero survivors. If someone panicked, that would have been the end result.

I think discussion of the events is interesting, and I don't think anyone here thinks this was not a series of events that ended in a tragic manner. I do think that your rhetoric is over the top and you want to vilify Israel.

[FunkMasterFlame]

I don't seek to vilify Israel. Its actions vilify itself.

[Coys1882]

Originally Posted by FunkMasterFlame

I don't seek to vilify Israel. Its actions vilify itself.

Send that post in - it's gold.
http://www.threadless.com/

[spiteface]

Originally Posted by VladtheImpaler

Pretty much. Call me prejudiced, but I look at the situation from the point of view that Western civilization is in all respects superior. I will support the "Western"/"civilized" side. When the Palestinians have reached the same level, I will view the 2 sides equally.

Have you ever lived in a non-"civilized" nation to judge so adamantly? Have you ever been in the shoes of the non-"Western"ers to form an opinion of their circumstances and conditions they live in on a daily basis? If your answers are no to both of the above, I suggest you look closer at how ignorant your statements have been and how much you have to learn about life beyond the bubble that is North America. This is exactly the backwards attitude that will propagate misunderstandings and forever propel this world into a never-ending conflict.

[longsuffering]

Originally Posted by FunkMasterFlame

Yeah, and had Israel never placed Gaza under an illegal, collectively-punishing blockade, there never would have been a need for the humanitarian blockade-breaking ships.

And any supplies given to Israel for distribution among the Gaza people would surely rot in a warehouse for a couple years, before being dispersed.

So in essence, the IDF, or whichever government ministry is responsible for distributing the foreign aid donated to Gaza, acts in much the same fashion as the Transferstelle - the German authority that was in charge of the traffic of goods, both into and out of the Warsaw ghetto.

Ironic much?

[FunkMasterFlame]

An interesting take on the legal position of the attack, in regards to it taking place in international waters.

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archiv...gal_posit.html

A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place
on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody's territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.

In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution.

[Sluggo]

Doesn't pretty much all non military ships fly flags from small island nations nobody has heard about? I guess Israel is at war with Saint Lucia or Tuvalu.

[FunkMasterFlame]

As far as I know, the only flags flying in this flotilla were the Turkish, Greek and Irish flags, with the attack taking place on the Turkish ship Marmara.

Turkey has recalled its ambassador to Israel and warns of "unprecedented and incalculable reprisals". They've also promised to send more supplies to Gaza with an armed, naval escort.

Ireland has demanded the immediate return of 7 Irish people "kidnapped" by Israel in international waters.

Looks like these countries are taking it damned seriously to me.

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

So in essence, the IDF, or whichever government ministry is responsible for distributing the foreign aid donated to Gaza, acts in much the same fashion as the Transferstelle - the German authority that was in charge of the traffic of goods, both into and out of the Warsaw ghetto.

Ironic much?

Another foolish post...Israel must waste their time distributing supplies to gaza so that they can prevent the weaponization of Gaza. Of course you know that yet you ignore it, the golden standard of all your posts.
You even outdid yourself by comparing jews to nazis.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by FunkMasterFlame

Yeah, and had Israel never placed Gaza under an illegal, collectively-punishing blockade, there never would have been a need for the humanitarian blockade-breaking ships.

False dilemmas are awesome!