Freedom Flotilla hijacked

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Shoshino,
Einat Wilf, a member of the Israeli parliament’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee

The Israelis usually try to justify the total blockade of Gaza on the basis of preventing weapons from reaching Hamas and maintain that no humanitarian crisis in Gaza exists because of the quarantine.

What is the purpose of the blockade of Gaza?

Dov Weisglass, an adviser to Ehud Olmert, then the Israeli Prime Minister, explained that in 2006: 'The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger,' he said. The hunger pangs are supposed to encourage the Palestinians to force Hamas to change its attitude towards Israel or force Hamas out of government. That also easily accounts for the arbitrary criteria about what Israel allows into Gaza and what not.

Considering Weisglass' statement it is pretty clear that the blockade is about collective punishment.

 

"Who shot first" is the story of history (I'm guessing the first protesters in neanderthal history were beaten by the bigger clansmen soldiers who in turn said the protesters hit them first... I'm kidding btw.. ). I mean just take Bloody Sunday in the UK...

I know it's counter productive for a debate to see things in gray, but the situation is rarely if not never in black and white. As some have stated before in this thread, there *have* been tries of a peaceful solution to the israelli-palestinian situation on the part of the Israelli. Peaceful solutions that were annihilated by suicide bombings and rocket attacks. However, there also were openness by the palestinian representatives to achieve a peaceful solution. Which were thwarted by Israelli tanks destroying civilian arab villages... There is simply too much extremism (mainly religious) in the region for peace.

As to the situation at hand, the bottom line is : we don't know what happened. However, you can't automatically count people attacking soldiers as terrorism or evilness. However stupid it is to attack someone holding an automatic weapon (I agree with pretty much everything), it's can also be a pretty courageous thing to stand up to your beliefs. If nobody did that, I'm not sure there would even be a democratic counrty in the world today (c'mon, while I would probably not do what the guy in Tinanmen Square did, it was still a noble and courageous act). Going toe to toe with a soldier saying "No, I will not bow down to you or your reign of fear", it does not necessarily mean the passenger were evil.. It may just have been a symbolic act by people who thought a cause was greater than they were...

The flotilla didn't hide the fact they were in a win win situation : either they deliver aid to the region or they get stopped by the Israelli and the latter get bad press. I don't understand why some here view it as a "secret" ulterior motive. In the mind of the flotilla passengers, putting bad press to a cause you perceive to be unjust is a worthy act. As some have stated, they probably were not expecting to be shot at and killed...

 

Sarah Palin's thoughts on the matter. They seem well thought out to me, especially for someone who we are constantly reminded is stupid

Spoiler

The media, as usual, seems to be reporting only one side of the Israeli Flotilla incident. Don’t trust the mainstream media to give you both sides of a story fairly… you must seek out fair reporting to ensure you have all the information.

As far too many in the media, and in various governments, rush to condemn Israel, we must put the recent events off Israel’s coast into the right perspective. This “relief” convoy was not about humanitarian aid, as the liberal mainstream media keeps reporting. The whole operation was designed to provoke Israel, not to provide supplies to Palestinians held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza. Anyone who sees the video of Israeli commandos being attacked as they land on that ship knows the people aboard were vicious thugs, not “peace activists.” The media insults our intelligence with their outright mischaracterization of who these enemies are.

Israel delivers thousands of tons of humanitarian supplies every week to Gaza. These ships could have offloaded their cargoes at a nearby Israeli port if they really wanted to help the people of Gaza. Instead, they chose to incite confrontation and violence. Israel has a right to prevent arms shipments to Gaza that will be used to target innocent Israelis, so they were legitimately checking the cargo on the flotilla. Turkey has chosen to condemn Israel but we should be asking some serious questions about Turkey’s role in this whole affair. Why is a fellow member of NATO sponsoring such a dangerous publicity stunt? As one expert points out: “Three ships of that six-ship pro-terror convoy flew Turkish flags and were crowded with Turkish citizens. The Ankara government – led by Islamists these days – sponsored the ‘aid’ operation in a move to position itself as the new champion of the Palestinians. And Turkish decision-makers knew Israel would have to react – and were waiting to exploit the inevitable clash. The provocation was as cynical as it was carefully orchestrated.”

We can only hope the Obama Administration does not join the anti-Israel chorus in the aftermath of this staged confrontation. Please, Mr. President, we need to let Israelis know we stand with them in their fight against terrorists and those who arm and support them. America and her ally, Israel, stand by waiting for your response.

- Sarah Palin

 

Guess: She didn't formulate them herself? They were written for her? And they stress that Israel is Noble, Right and Just?

Opening the spoiler ... it appears I was right.

 

She's far from stupid. She is parleying her popularity into a small financial empire. She is essentially becoming quite wealthy and powerful off of being a useless know-nothing. She has never had any interest in "governing," since that would require knowledge and hard work (neither of which she also has no interest in), but she is smart and savvy at marketing herself and seizing the moment of opportunity.

 

Sounds like Paris Hilton. When will the sextapes be released?

 

joacqin you are as a man stranded clinging to an iceberg.

you arguments hold nothing, there is nothing but opinion and conjecture, really the weakest arguments Ive ever seen you make in this forum

 

Wow, all that for wanting to see sex tapes....

 

So you're going to trust Al-Jazeera?! And I watched that footage, it was far from unedited. At least the IDF footage was obviously continuous.

Except that that would leave a cruise ship stranded about 70 miles out to sea without food or water and with no practical means of towing it. This ship was big. Had they tried your 'reasonable approach', they would have only succeeded in creating another humanitarian situation. I don't know, though, maybe a week of starvation would have led to a peaceful surrender.

Ragusa, in the video released by Al-Jazeera that you linked to, you can see people running around in gas masks. I don't know about the vests, they're all wearing life preservers, but some obviously have gas masks.

Unfortunately, that's something that can only be determined after a search of the vessel. You realize, of course, that by international law a blockade must stop all craft indiscriminately, don't you?

It seems that the arguement has moved from 'Israel illegally attacked humanitarian aid vessels in international waters' to 'Israel botched a legal enforcement of it's blockade by not expecting resistance'. Does that mean you agree with us that this was all legal, Ragusa?

Oh, and by the by, it seems that the flotilla aid has already reached Gaza, and Hamas doesn't want it.

 

There we go again... NOG, you made up our mind, and it doesn't matter what I said or will say. What makes you think I am interested in debating you in vain?

PS: Besides that Hamas doesn't want what Israel lets through might have to do with something contained in these lines of the article you linked:

Figure out what I mean?

 

That's not true. You look at the origin and destination, factor in the reputation of the shipper, determine if there is a risk associated with the shipment, and then stop only suspicious vessels.

 

If that's true, then the whole israeli argument about the legality of their actions is collapsing. The territorial waters extend from 6 to 12 miles from the coastline. If Gaza's territorial waters are set to 12 miles (something that I really doubt), the addition of the 20 miles zone makes a total of 32 miles. The incident took place about 80 miles away from the coastline.

 

Didn't St. Reagan bomb Libya asserting the principle of free passage in international waters?

 

I'm sorry, it just seemed from the tone of your recent statements that you were attacking the method of the interdiction as ineffective and unnecessarily risky, which seems to me to directly contradict your earlier assessment that this may have been an attack with murderous intent. Please, if you think you can reconcile the two, continue.

Sorry, I guess it's craft of all nationalities, meaning you can't select craft from one nation to stop. It's apparently in there to stop state-sponsored piracy from being covered as a 'naval blockade'

Actually, no. A naval vessel is considered in violation of the blockade as soon as they leave port with the intent of violating it. In most cases, you probably don't know with any certainty that they intend to run the blockade until they do, but in this case they broadcast their intent widely.

Also, I've heard everything from 20 miles to 68 miles for the covered zone, and everything from 50 miles to 70 miles for the site of the incident. I haven't heard 80 miles out yet, though.

Libya hadn't declared a blockade of anything. They were trying to assert territorial waters outside of the traditional 12-mile limit.

 

Please find me where I wrote that because I can't recall having written it.

Explain to me how a blockade does not infringe on free passage This should be fun.

 

No.

They were claiming ownership of the entire Gulf of Sidra -- the US decided to do a "freedom of navigation" exercise in the Gulf of Sidra in response to the claim; which resulted in two Libyan Fitter aircraft being shot down by two F-14's off the USS NIMITZ.

The bombing of Libya was retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin bar in 1986.

 

Sarah Palin (or more likely her speech writer) must have this paragraph on quick text in Microsoft Office. I think every speech she has released in the past year has started with that paragraph.

 

T2,
the St. Reagan reference was tongue-in-cheek; the freedom of navigation (or "free passage") aspect was not.

The aid ships were in international waters, and even when Israel claims a 20 mile zone around Gaza's waters, 80 miles off they were safely out of that. So, the question about freedom of navigation is relevant.

Inferring what? That this intent gave Israel a right to intercept everywhere? If this violation of blockade gave Israel an unlimited right to intercept, Israel would have had the right to legally intercept or even attack the vessels everywhere - in Turkish or Greek waters, or Japanese or US waters, or wherever their course happened to lead them. Unconvincing.

 

There was an interview this morning with the two Bulgarian journalists who were on one of the smaller ships and were released a bit earlier than some of the other civilians involved. From the part I caught, they said that their ship was taken with much less drama, and the marines (who had come as stealthily as possible) boarding it had basically shouted for people to calm down and that everything would be fine. The big ship was taken in a more belligerent manner, though, and stormed with a cry. I wonder if the idea behind that was hat more trouble was expected and the marines tried to intimidate the passengers... which obviously didn't work quite so well. Having a lot of untrained, agitated and confused civilians didn't help either. I doubt they'd be hostile enough to attack armed men with improvized weapons in a normal situation (even the few that did fight), so I'd say crowd mentality and stress were at least part of the why things turned (that) violent there.

The journalists were treated less kindly in Israel itself, and noted that while on the ships they were told they'd be flown back to their home countries, they were psychologically coerced and treated in a hostile manner in a camp near the airport. According to them, some Azeri colleagues of theirs were intimidated and told that weapons or large amounts of money were found in their baggage. Anyway, iirc all the people have been freed. I wonder what will happen to the aid now.

That article by Mrs. Palin was another example of something I really dislike about the part of the Republican party that she is a part of (and similar political groups in general), btw: the "everybody is against us" syndrome. The mainstream media in the US has only one side of the story, and is not calling it fair, she opines. The Palestinian part of the story, supposedly. Really? The US media? Do we need to do an actual survey of the sources they used, and count how many came from Israel and how many from actual Palestinians? I doubt reactions to the statements of Israeli officials are published (or shown) as often as might be the case in, say, had it been a scandal between Greece and Turkey. But who cares? It's good publicity to play the victim, especially when there's no one to call you on it. Oh, woe is us! Not everything is going 101% our way, we are oppressed!

 

@NOG

From the Convention of the High Seas (1958)

Since Turkey never gave to Israel permission of boarding ships under the turkish flag in international waters and since no other of the conditions described above were met, Israel did not have the right to board outside of the blockade zone.