Gaza Terror Flotilla
Gaza’s Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh has got the bloody propaganda triumph he was preparing for when he told followers last week that whatever came of the Gaza “aid” flotilla, it would be a win for Hamas – whether the ships reached Gaza, or ended up in a showdown with the Israelis at sea.
At least 10 people, possibly more, are reported dead, after Israeli forces boarded one of the ships, the Mavi Marmara, to stop it running the Israeli blockade on the terrorist enclave of Gaza. The ”peace activists” had advertised themselves (scroll down to point 8 in their “mission” statement) as adhering to “nonviolence and nonviolent resistance in word and deed at all times.” This turned out to be a brazen lie. Whatever the “aid” aboard the ship, the “peace activists” were waiting with knives and metal clubs, with which they attacked the Israelis. Though some of the details are still unclear, there are also reports that they made a grab for Israeli guns, and Real Clear Politics — which has posted IDF video footage – says they had firebombs ready as well. (Update: more details in IDF footage here).
Out of this came the headlines the organizers of this terror tour had been looking for. All the usual folks are shocked! shocked! that a deliberate provocation, staged with all sorts of planning by the faux-peace-pals of Hamas, turned into a violent showdown. Reuters reports that France is “profoundly shocked,” Europe “calls for inquiry,” and Turkey’s Iran-lovin’ Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is denouncing the Israelis for “state terrorism.” Washington “regrets loss of life” and is “examining circumstances” — though the basic circumstances here are no mystery whatsoever. They boil down to Israel being left by its craven Western allies to deal solo with the terrorism that boils out of Gaza, the support for that terrorism that flows from Syria and Iran, and the cheerleading — and apparently the helping hand — for this arrangement that emanates from the current Islamic leadership of Turkey.
The United Nations Security Council is of course being called into action. Who’s on that Council? Along with the U.S., the 15 members include China and Russia (both busy arming Iran), Brazil and Turkey (brokers of the recent joke uranium-swap deal that won’t stop the Iranian bomb), and Lebanon (home to the Iranian-fostered terrorist group Hezbollah, now rearming for its next assault on Israel). This is the crowd that has failed abysmally to contain the nuclear bomb projects of totalitarian North Korea and terror-sponsoring Iran. But in treating the self-choreographed mayhem of the Gaza flotilla as the world crisis of the hour, they have perhaps found a topic worthy of their talents.
Taking Washington at its word, that facts might actually matter, the place to start investigating is not with the beleaguered Israelis, but with the origins and funding of this self-styled “freedom flotilla” — which more aptly deserves renaming as the Gaza Terror Flotilla. It appears to have had a multitude of organizers and contributors, from a former prime minister of Malaysia, to — according to Al Jazeera — contributors in Bahrain, Kuwait, and that empire of Middle Eastern peace and stability, Yemen.
But one of the main players appears to be Turkey. It was a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, which after a big sendoff from Turkey apparently took the lead in the flotilla, its passengers professing nonviolence while waiting with knives and metal cudgels to start a fight. And in Turkey, a lead player in this bloody exercise has been a Turkish foundation, the radical Islamist IHH, or Foundation for Human Rights, Liberties, and Humanitarian Relief. The IHH enjoys consultative status with the UN as a non-governmental organization, or NGO, has an office in Gaza, and has apparently been taking part in this Gaza stunt with the blessing of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Far from serving as a seal of good housekeeping for the IHH, such ties ought to call into question the judgment of both the UN and Erdogan.
For details on what led a French magistrate in the 1990s to explore IHH connections to terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, a piece of required reading is a working paper released in 2006 by the Danish Institute for International Studies: “The Role of Islamic Charities in International Terrorist Recruitment and Financing.” The entire report is illuminating, but for the section on the IHH, scroll to pages 10-14. When this report was written, the IHH was active in providing “charitable donations” to what were then “rebel-dominated areas of restive Sunni central Iraq.”
The real crisis here is not the fate of the Gaza Terror Flotilla per se, whose organizers have now got the headlines they wanted. The blood is on their hands. The real crisis involves the profound unwisdom of a democratic world that finds it easier to criticize and condemn Israel than to face the mortal threats proliferating in the Middle East. While the headlines, the political grandstanders, and the UN Security Council now focus on this propaganda coup prepared by supporters of Hamas, Hezbollah is rearming in Lebanon, Turkey is engaged in a dangerous shift from its old alliances with the West toward new partnerships with Syria and Iran, and Iran continues its march toward the nuclear bomb. Does anyone in the West really believe that the threat here is to Israel alone? In this latest clash over the terrorist enclave of Gaza, the real question that wants answering is why did no democratic country send its ships to Israel’s aid, to make common cause against this terror-loving flotilla? Or – with the blessings of the UN, Turkey, and armed “peace activists” — are terrorist-run enclaves such as Gaza, dedicated to the extermination of entire nation states, now to become an accepted feature of the international system?
The question at hand is as to whether the boarding in international waters is justified under the Law of the Sea treaty, to which both parties are signatories, also known as the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, or UNCLOS. Article 110 of the Law of the Sea Treaty specifies military ships are “not justified in boarding [a foreign ship] unless there is reasonable grounds for suspecting that: (a) the ship is engaged in piracy; (b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade; (c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting…; (d) the ship is without nationality or (e) …the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.” Boarding of ships involved in the illicit drug trade is also permitted.
However, unless solid evidence is presented that the ships were sending weapons to Hamas or something to that effect (of course IDF can plant this evidence – I do not think the Turks would be so dumb as to carry arms, this is a humanitarian mission to bring needed food into Gaza which is not Israel but which Israel maintains control over), then Israel should have to answer in the Security Council. I think Israel could be without friends in this scenario. Turkey is also at least as important as an ally within NATO as is Israel, and is much more useful to the US in the Middle East than is Israel, which is practically a pariah state in the region.
The bloodshed could have been avoided if the ships simply let themselves be guided to Ashdod, where their humanitarian aid could have been offloaded and trucked to Gaza by land. Why did they not acquiesce to this, if their aim was truly “humanitarian aid”? The blockade is not meant to stop food or medicine, it is meant to stop arms shipments to the hostile forces in Gaza.
What about this don’t people like you understand?
The part where Israel may not have had the legal right to board the ship, making your point irrelevant. I think that’s the part JR and people like him don’t understand.
The Israelis did “have the legal right to board the ship” however much you may wish otherwise.
It would appear just from this comments thread that there are a number of treaties and maritime law. I read on another forum from a marine salvager that maritime laws are pretty hazy in regards to boarding, searching, and seizing in international waters and can justify it in court.
I am in no way an expert on this, and would like to learn more about it. If any of those captured by the Israeli’s has clear ties to a terrorist organization would that be submitted in court..if it actually goes to court?
Tim Maguire wrote:
The part where Israel may not have had the legal right to board the ship,
Israel has the moral right to self-defense — and that trumps any alleged limitations on “legal rights“ imposed by any treaty or convention.
Of course, nobody on the ship had the right to self defense.
Those aboard the ship had no need to engage in self defense.
They attacked first.
I hope by self defense you don’t mean killing innocent lives on board?
yeah, well, the same could be said for Waco or Ruby Ridge . . . just let the officials come in and confirm that there is nothing wrong going on. This is the kind of world that conservatives rant against about in public but yearn for in private – random search and seizure of everybody but themselves. You’re not interested in liberty. You crave tyranny.
You have no standing.
Hail Rush. Go Sarah!
skeeziks wrote:
Of course, nobody on the ship had the right to self defense.
When you choose to aid and assist groups like Fatah and Hamas — both of which explicitly renounce the very concept of individual rights and, instead, advocate the imposition of a totalitarian Islamic dictatorship — when you choose to side with such people, you surrender all claims to rights.
skeeziks wrote:
yeah, well, the same could be said for Waco or Ruby Ridge . . . just let the officials come in and confirm that there is nothing wrong going on.
Nonsense. The two situations are completely different. The people at Waco and Ruby Ridge were NOT members of a terrorist group openly advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government and the creation of a theocratic dictatorship — nor did they have a track record of initiating the use of physical force to murder, kidnap and loot their enemies.
Israel got out of the Gaza strip and turned it over to “the Palestinians” — who promptly flooded it with terrorists and rockets to fire at Israel. Israel has every right to try and prevent the smuggling of additional weapons into Gaza.
The evident purpose of this flotilla was to establish the precedent that ships could come into Gaza without Israeli inspection. Once that precedent was established, then the smuggling of weapons could begin. Israel did the right thing in not permitting that to happen.
There you go again, lying about things that are easily checked.
In both Waco and Ruby Ridge, the authorities never tried to peaceably search the premises.
@JR, “this is a humanitarian mission to bring needed food into Gaza”
False. Are you really so naive? No one is starving in Gaza; there is no food crisis there. This was patently not a humanitarian mission, but rather an “attack”, as it were, with two main goals: first, deliberately to create a violent confrontation for anti-Israel propaganda; second, and relatedly, an attempt to prise open the sea lane to Gaza to allow Iran to arm Hamas with classes of weapons not conducive to tunnel-smuggling.
If you really think this was about food aid, you are either militantly ignorant of the wider context or perhaps a sympathizer with an agenda.
According to the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994:
SECTION V : NEUTRAL MERCHANT VESSELS AND CIVIL AIRCRAFT
Neutral merchant vessels
67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:
(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;
(b) engage in belligerent acts on behalf of the enemy;
(c) act as auxiliaries to the enemy s armed forces;
(d) are incorporated into or assist the enemy s intelligence system;
(e) sail under convoy of enemy warships or military aircraft; or
(f) otherwise make an effective contribution to the enemy s military action, e.g., by carrying military materials, and it is not feasible for the attacking forces to first place passengers and crew in a place of safety. Unless circumstances do not permit, they are to be given a warning, so that they can re-route, off-load, or take other precautions.
You left out the part about running a legitimate blockade.
Not surprising that you did though.
The US enforced a blockade against Cuba, and against the Confederacy, and against North Vietnam. Ships were stopped and searched in international waters. The British did this time and again during the Napoleonic Wars. Both the US and Royal Navies enforced embargoes against the slave trade.
Unless you’re thinking of some other universe, I think Israel was on pretty solid legal grounds.
Not that YOU care, of course.
Nice try, JR, but you’re not fooling anybody.
Israel was provoked into acting in self-defense.
He may not be fooling me, but he is piquing my interest. I don’t know enough about the law of the sea to render judgment–I’ll have to wait for somebody else to do that for me. But JR did quote relevant law–something none of the people opposing him here have done.
Tim (and JR),
“He may not be fooling me … But JR did quote relevant law–something none of the people opposing him here have done.”
Since Israel is not a signatory to the Law of the Sea treaty (UNCLOS), it is not relevant. So it turns out neither JR nor you are as clever as you have fooled yourselves into thinking.
In any case, how is the boarding party supposed to ascertain whether weapons are present on board without, you know, boarding?
Any unauthorized vessel entering an area under official blockade can be boarded. That’s international law that predates the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Of course, both Israel and Egypt offered to distribute the ‘aid’ on the flotilla but that wasn’t the point now, was it. Hamas and its supporters wanted a bloody clash and they got one.
Israel will never allow ships to run the blockade and for the very good reason that Iran and its allies will flood Gaza with rockets.
JR,
Are you going to spam every article on this with the exact same cut and paste? Here’s a piece of advice for you: It isn’t working. You can be seen for what you are.
Thanks Claudia for pointing up the self-serving hypocrisy of Erdogan, Hamas, and all the other useful idiots and apologists in perpetrating this terrorist flotilla. The disgusting cover charade of “humanitarian supplies and food” is risible when juxtaposed to groaning store shelf pictures from Gaza. The UN continues to do everything it can to coddle the terror tactics of these Potemkin protesters.
What utter nonsense. It was nothing more than provocation and a dry run to test Israeli resolve. Europe is being rotted from within by Islamofascists and their apologists. Israel will not fall for the taquia of genocidal murderers.
Ok…why isolate and then provoke Israel, or allow it to be provoked?
By most accounts, Israel has 200 nukes of varying sizes. By some reports they have over 400.
Then, there’s the publicly denied “The Sampson Option.”
Putting Israel against the wall, with up to 400 nukes and The Sampson Option doesn’t seem like a wise thing for anyone to do. (Unless you want approximately half a billion Muslims to die.)
Muslims hold life cheap, including their own. They are so blinded by psychotic, insatiable, genocidal Jew-hatred, that they would be willing to lose 300 million plus Muslims as Martyrs to finish the work of Adolf Hitler — who has basically supplanted Mohammed as their final prophet.
Don’t believe me? Ayatollah Rafsanjani said exactly that in 2001.
As for the Europeans, they are so addicted to Jew-hatred that they simply cannot break free of the addiction — even if it kills them in the form of scores of Israeli nukes obliterating their cities.
Frankly, they don’t care either. A European can die happy in a nuclear explosion if he knows he has a Judenrein world.
The half a billion Muslims will be “martyrs for Allah”, understand? Those who are perfectly willing to send all those martyrs to paradise will no doubt be hunkered down in their nuclear-proof underground bunkers, preparing for the Brave New Caliphate. Get it now?
Israel is willing to allow “aid” into Gaza, such as food to sustain people whose life’s mission is to exterminate the Jews. They do demand that they be allowed to inspect the shipments.
All Europe and many western countries are seeing is that the Muslims are set to take care of the “Jewish problem.” They don’t see the existential threat posed by the Muslims who dominate the UN these days.
Israel is more than welcome to blockade parts of it’s country or territories if it likes. If it feels that it can enforce the blockade, and if no one is going to stop them, then it’s more than welcome to blockade another country as well.
However, people having their ship boarded in such cases have every right to defend themselves. If somebody is boarding a ship I’m on, ready to kill me and the other passengers, then I don’t think I’d do much different than the folks on the ship. I just think it was idiotic of them not to have any real weapons to defend themselves with.
On the flip side, you know have 20 or so “martyrs” on that ship, which is going to go quite a ways in the public view on this. I’ve no idea where this is all going, but no one is coming out of this a “winner”. An emboldened Hamas will benefit neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis.
Sean at no. 12, your words betray you. No one boarded a ship “ready to kill (you) and the other passengers”.
The fact of the matter is quite the contrary: the IDF got on board with the stated objective of taking control of the bridge in order to bring that ship to port. There was no plot to kill anybody and all you can possibly do by twisting some cheap little Hamas lies is prove your true colours.
The only people acting in legitimate self-defense were those brave Zahalis who had been sent into an operation under the false assumption that these terrorists of peace would offer only passive resistance as this is what they had also stated in their previous press releases.
How wrong they were! But then, that only goes to show that one must never trust the word of a liar. Unless of course stabbing and clubbing people to death is your idea of passive resistance.
I’ll have your own words for it: “I don’t think I’d do much different than the folks on the ship”. In this, Sean, I think we can both agree. Cheers, and no offense offered.
” . . . those brave Zahalis who had been sent into an operation under the false assumption that these terrorists of peace would offer only passive resistance . . . ‘
Then why did they need to board the ship at all?
Because skeeziks, very bad things (ie: bombs, expolsives…) are delivered via “freedom flotilla” to Gaza. If your response would be that food is delivered, there is no shortage of food in Gaza.
Sean wrote:
However, people having their ship boarded in such cases have every right to defend themselves.
No, they don’t — not in this case.
When you choose to aid and assist groups like Fatah and Hamas — both of which explicitly renounce the very concept of individual rights and, instead, advocate the imposition of a totalitarian Islamic dictatorship — when you choose to side with such groups, you surrender any claim to rights yourself.
A number of European countries refused to let the “flotilla” stage out of their waters because they knew that this was a setup for provocation. Turkey allowed it and promoted it, so Turkey is the one that needs to be punished and kicked out of NATO, the absurd EU membership consideration, and so on. These Turks are the same clowns of WWI fame with the same loyalties. This time the Muslims need to be taken down for good, unlike the “hearts and minds” fiascos that have been so costly to the West.
Maybe “(c) the ship was engaged in unauthorized broadcasting”. Ever think of that?
pwn3d.
The al-jazeera report featuring the antisemitic chant alone is way off the scale.
Turkey out of NATO
Turkey fascist state with Iran
Erdogan the islamic leader of Turkey is undoing the work of Ataturk and is turning Turkey into another islamic sh–hole. Perhaps he’s trying to recreate the so-called glories of the Ottomans. The Ottomans were nothing more than a bunch of corrupt enslavers.
Sean,
You really are a gutless coward.
I have a proposal for you. You and some of your friends drive around in a car speeding, making noise, going through stop signs, calling attention to yourselves.
When the police stop you instead of cooperating with them
start to beat them with clubs and through gas bombs at them. As you claim is your right.
I dare you to try this in any country of the world. China perhaps? How about Iran? If you and your friends get out of the hospital let us all know how it went.
The blood in on YOUR hands. And the hands of all those like you who support terror and the indiscriminate murder of the innocent.
Many of us in the USA are getting sick of the games that the terrorists play. We will soon want our government and its army to take the terrorists – and their allies – to task. You and your friends will be wishing it was the Israelis and not the Americans who are fighting.
Our boys won’t be armed with paintball guns.
AMEN!
I HAVE BEEN READING ABOUT THE FLOTILLA TRAGEDY AND READING SEVERAL RESPONSES…I DONT USUALLY COMMENT BECAUSE THERE IS SO MUCH TO SAY THAT I MIGHT BE ONLINE FOREVER AND THAT WOULD GIVE ME A HEADACHE…I DO WANT TO COMMENT HOWEVER BECAUSE YOUR STATEMENT WAS UNIQUE IN CONTENT, COMPARING THE ARGUABLY PROVOCATIVE REFUSAL OF THE ACTIVISTS TO ABANDON THEIR PLANS TO A MOTORIST BREAKING TRAFFIC LAWS…MY ARGUMENT IS THAT BEING PROVOCATIVE IS NOT NECESSARILY A CRIME OR EVEN AN ACT THAT IS CONSIDERED DANGEROUS…IN THIS CASE, BEING THAT IDF SOLDIERS WERE NOT AUTHORIZED TO USE LIVE AMMUNITION UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY (THEREFORE RENDERING THEIR OPERATION AN INITIALLY PEACEFUL ONE) AND THAT THE ACTIVISTS HAD MAKESHIFT WEAPONS AT BEST, I WOULDN’T SAY THAT THIS PROVOCATION WAS ESSENTIALLY DANGEROUS…IN COMPARISON, SPEEDING PUTS A DRIVER, PASSENGERS, AND ANYONE IN THE VICINITY OF THEIR PATH IN DANGER OF BEING HURT…SAME GOES FOR RUNNING LIGHTS OR HAVING MUSIC TOO LOUD TO HEAR AN URGENT CAR HORN…POLICE (NOT MY FAVORITE PEOPLE I HAVE TO ADMIT) ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS FUEL DRIVEN MACHINES, FOR EXAMPLE, AND SO THEY PULL THE DRIVER OVER…THE FLOTILLA WAS FOUND TO HAVE ONLY WHAT WAS CLAIMED TO BE THERE, WAS NOT SPEEDING OR EVEN CLOSE TO GAZA WHEN IT WAS BOARDED…YOUR ARGUMENT IS INHERENTLY FLAWED BECAUSE THE TWO CIRCUMSTANCES, WHILE BOTH PROVOKING A REACTION FROM SECURITY FORCES, ARE WILDLY DIFFERENT IN REGARDS TO THE FORCE NECESSARY TO MAINTAIN THE SAFETY OF HUMAN LIFE…DOES ANYONE KNOW IF ANY SOLDIERS WERE KILLED OR IF ONLY ACTIVISTS WERE SHOT IN THE HEAD?
There is seen in episode 7 of 24 when FBI Agent Larry tells Jack Baur that we have rules that needed to be followed. Jack fires back, “Not Today”. Good for Israel. They are taking any crap from terrorist.
My Lai.
“However, people having their ship boarded in such cases have every right to defend themselves.”
From an inspection?
David Koresh? Yes, we would like to come into your compound and conduct an inspection to make sure that there is no child abuse or illegal activity occurring. Randy Weaver? H, we’re here to make sure everything is OK with your family. Can we come in?
You have no standing.
Some day I will meet a liberal who both has a brain and knows how to use it. Today apparently, is not going to be that day.
Review the assault on the Waco compound. The govt gave Koresh and company no chance to surrender or to permit a search. That was a guns hot, military assault from the time the first horse trailer pulled up.
Can any of these civilisation-hating leftists show me which port, and dock in Gaza that could recieve/off-load these ships?
seriously…does anyone think the anti-semitic forces of the world can win, any conflict, of a serious nature, with Israel?
one has to go beyond the ‘dream’ of a pan-arabic rising up against israel and explain their chances of putting together a ‘competitive’ military to actually fight the israelis.
the catch 22 is that no islamic country has the leaders who are confident enough to raise an army, for fear that as soon as they empower a military, they get overthrown.
this recent event is the closest thing they can get to an actual battle…
pretty sad, but in all honesty…yawn.
mtl, that’s precisely why they’ve waged a proxy war with Israel since the 1950s or 60s and the Arabs in Gaza and West Bank have been the foot soldiers. They’ve resorted to cowardly terror tactics because they don’t want to be seen as the weak horse against a tiny state. Israel can beat them all, including Turkey and Iran.
Unfortunately, the flotilla accomplished exactly what it set out to do. Most of us here are sympathetic to the Israeli cause, but the lion’s share of the world are not. They look at the Israelis as the beligerents in this situation. Right or wrong of the issue are largely irrelevant. To just about everyone outside the US and Israel, the Israelis are at fault. They may have been right to interdict the flotilla, but they are quickly losing the PR war.
As far as the legality of the situation, the Israeli’s blockade of Gaza is on shaky legal ground. All of the examples cited by Ken Mitchell predate the Law of the Seas Treaty, which supercedes previous law. The real sticky part is that Israel isn’t a signatory.
To homegrown lawyers:
Helsinki Principles on the Law of Maritime Neutrality
5.1.2(3) Merchant ships flying the flag of a neutral State may be attacked if they are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search, capture or diversion.
5.1.2(4) Merchant ships flying the flag of a neutral State may be attacked if they
(a) engage in belligerent acts on behalf of the enemy;
© are incorporated into or assist the enemy’s intelligence system;
(e) otherwise make an effective contribution to the enemy’s military action, e.g., by carrying military materials, and it is not feasible for the attacking forces to first place passengers and crew in a place of safety. Unless circumstances do not permit, they are to be given a warning, so that they can re–route, off–load, or take other precautions.
5.2.1 Visit and search
As an exception to Principle 5.1.2. paragraph 1 and in accordance with Principle 1.3 (2nd sentence), belligerent warships have a right to visit and search vis–à–vis neutral commercial ships in order to ascertain the character and destination of their cargo. If a ship tries to evade this control or offers resistance, measures of coercion necessary to exercise this right are permissible. This includes the right to divert a ship where visit and search at the place where the ship is encountered are not practical.
5.2.10 Blockade
Blockade, i.e. the interdiction of all or certain maritime traffic coming from or going to a port or coast of a belligerent, is a legitimate method of naval warfare. In order to be valid, the blockade must be declared, notified to belligerent and neutral States, effective and applied impartially to ships of all States. A blockade may not bar access to neutral ports or coasts. Neutral vessels believed on reasonable and probable grounds to be breaching a blockade may be stopped and captured. If they, after prior warning, clearly resist capture, they may be attacked.
Claudia,
Are you sure Hamas got its triumph?
I may be very wrong, but the Security Council resolution has nothing to bother Israel. Everything Israel is required to do is what they do anyhow, like sending the activists home.
Condemnation comes from the usual suspects, as it would in any case.
On the other hand, the flotilla was indeed stopped, and for the next one (apparently soon) the IDF will be much better prepared.
Another unfortunate PR disaster for Israel. As Max Boot says:
“Israel cannot afford to become another South Africa, Burma, or North Korea. Come to think of it, even South Africa couldn’t afford to become South Africa: an international pariah regime. It was too democratic and too Western to bear such isolation indefinitely”
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/304271
What if Israel had trained twenty volunteers to board the vessel and then be beaten, maimed or killed, not fight back. Then where would the disapprobation rest today?
After that they could have boarded with much of the world’s blessing.
The world’s reaction would still be to blame Israel for creating a confrontation where none was needed.
It doesn’t matter what Israel does, the international media will blame them.
Look at the number of news agencies who condemn Israel for responding to rocket attacks!
To paraphrase Groucho Marx “Who ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes” This is what CNN and MSM put us through every day. Who do we believe, What we see on the Video or the lying mainstream media telling us that Israel is now guilty again of overreaction. What a load of crap. The media better wake up or perhaps they are just doubling down on mendacity. I don’t suppose any intelligent American believes for a minute that CNN is not a lying bunch of liberal scumbags with an agenda. How about the BBC and Le Monde? Just as biased and just as much BS.
Thank god for the internet. Now watch Obama spin this too.
So, how is it that you think you know what really happened on that boat? Israel arrested and detained a journalist covering the event, and now they are denying access to the passengers and preventing them from using cell phones, Twitter, etc. And yet YOU know what really happened. How do you know?Because Israel told you and Steve Doocy confirmed it. And Gretchen Carlson really REALLY wants it to be true. But here’s what you DON’T yet now about this mess . . . it wasn’t the israelis behind the order to board . . . it was Richard Armitage.
The video of the so called “passengers” attacking the Israeli’s is widely available.
Perhaps you should try learning about reality before letting your jerking knee speak for you again.
Chico Marx, Tommy, not Groucho. As for the former junior Senator from Illinois, I do not believe he will try to spin this unless it becomes absolutely unavoidable. As with the Gulf catastrophe, he will do his best to vote present, and if that does not work, he will blame the whole matter on the policies of the Bush Administration.
Some of you will find this piece (from Israel National News) rather interesting:
“Much of the equipment and supplies aboard the “humanitarian” ships for Gaza has been checked and found to be worthless.
“An IDF source said that the poor condition of the supplies renders most of it unusable. “This once again strengthens the evaluation that the intentions of the flotilla organizers were not humanitarian in the first place,” he said.
“Many of the medicines are expired and/or came in an assorted, not easily organized manner. In addition, much of the equipment is in poor condition. Despite this, it is being taken to the Kerem Shalom crossing, and will be distributed in Gaza by human rights organizations.”
“Many of the medicines are expired ……”
===============
This may be the normal state of ‘aid’ to Gaza from their fellow Islamists. The Arab nations are not known for charity toward their bretheren.
It strikes me that Israel’s mistake, was in permitting ANY survivors! Next time, send any boats to the bottom, quickly. The uproar could not be much worse, and the world is rid of more vermin.
Gaza Flotilla Story: More Accuracy from Hamas than the L.A. Times
http://yesbuthowever.com/gaza-flotilla-hamas-times-9000020/
Round one is over. Round two will shine the light of scrutiny on the shell game played the Sons of Allah since before Mahomet arrived on the scene.
The main mission for the flotilla was to lift the blockade. As long as rockets are still being fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel, the blockade remains in place.
Araby has to learn, and accept, the difference between equality and sameness. Until that day comes, the best option is a trusteeship until a majority of Arabs in the greater Middle East accept that, however long it takes.
#27
Yeah, the stated goal of the Free Gaza Movement. who organized the blockade runners. is to break the blockade (so that terrorists can get the supplies they need, obviously) not to bring humnitarian aid to Gaza, which the Israelis are happy to assist in, and which they’re doing right now.
It says so right on their website.
“We want to break the siege of Gaza.”
http://www.freegaza.org/en/about-us/mission
This is not about bringing food to Gaza…it’s about breaking the blockade so that HAMAS can get weapons and military equipment to expedite their war against Israel.
Good for the Israelis, they did the right thing, and if their attempts to board blockade runners are met with any more violence by the blockade runners, then they should simply sink the ships and have done with it, just like we’re doing to pirate ships in the Indian Ocean these days.
Menachem Ben Yakov writes:
“According to the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, 12 June 1994:”
Please do not be so naive. You sound like some worthless, hippy, communist professor. International Law is to law what Military Music is to music. Israel is threatened by Hamas. Israel has the right to protect itself. It is the same for all nations. End of story.
the peace flotilla came out as the victim right from the gate, if the IDF would have given them flowers they still would have been the perpetrators. was it my lying eyes that showed someone swinging clubs at the Idf? but the lies got out first so now the IDF sounds like they are in spin control even if its the truth. blockade runners have confrontation with blockade ships, aren’t they in a state of war? FTW if they don’t like what Israel did.
I totally agree with Ms. Rosett. Here is a paragraph from my last newsletter article “The Next Islamist Attack” :
“Israel’s “Concrete Step” in Gaza
To Israel he gave the following advice, “the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel’s security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress”.
The President forgets that when Israel took the unilateral step to withdraw from Gaza and forcibly removed Israeli settlers from their homes in August of 2005, the Palestinian people of Gaza responded by electing the terrorist organization Hamas to govern them. This resulted in the daily firing of rockets over the border into Israel which is not surprising since the elimination of the State of Israel is part of the Hamas organization’s charter. Moreover, the people of Gaza elected the mother of 3 suicide bombers to their Parliament. Mariam Farahat or Um Nidal (Mother of the Struggle) has sent 3 of her sons to their suicide deaths in terrorist bombings of Israelis, resulting in many deaths of civilian Israeli men, women and school children. Israel had already taken a “concrete step” (as President Obama is now encouraging) in Gaza and what did it get them? Daily rockets and suicide bombings! Now it is President Obama’s turn to take a concrete step and stop aid to Gaza as long as Hamas is in control.
Later in his speech President Obama turned to Iran. “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government.” Here President Obama regurgitated the Islamic government’s version of Iran’s 20th century history, so popular with western liberal leaders, media and many educators but very erroneous according to Amir Taheri, the editor of the Kayhan newspaper in Tehran from 1972 until 1979. “
It was some time ago that Caroline Glick, editor of the Jerusalem Post predicted that something like this would happen. It will now make President Obama’s intentions crystal clear. And Hillary Clinton’s response will also be very interesting to say the least.
North Korea sinks a South Korean ship. the world yawns. Israel warns a ship not to break the blockade,the ship does anyway, Israel defends itself. the world is in an uproar.
John from Cinti #33 is right: it doesn’t matter what Israel would have done; it would have been wrong. the “narrative” is always that Israel–as the representative of the evil, white, Judeo-Christian west–is always going to be wrong.
I think the really interesting thing here is the involvement of the Islamic AKP Turkish government. Prime Minister Erdogan is using this to further the political interests of his party against the Kemalists in the opposition. In fact, I doubt that Erdogan cares any more about the Palestinians of Gaza than he cares about the Kurds. For Erdogan, this is a convenient wedge issue to be used to advance his party’s electoral interests. Too bad for Israel that Obama can’t see that Erdogan is converting Turkey into an enemy of the United States.
he licks the a$$es of enemies of the united states.
In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.
Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel’s own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.
Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel’s Vietnam
you must be very young. hamas, hezbullah, the midget in iran and the slimeball in damascus haven’t learned anything and what they did learn, they forgot. too bad for them. Israel is the bad guy, indeed, the baddest. thank god.
there is no sence to blame israel anymore-everybody can watch the video made during zahal operation on flotilla. this video shows that israeli solders did not really expect any violence from people who were on board of flotilla
It didn’t matter what the Israeli’s did. This was going to be played as a propaganda triumph for the Jihadists by most of the world’s media. The press releases were written before the first ship sailed.
Liberal US Jews will have Israeli children’s blood on their hands for electing Obama, for his continuing submission and blatant cravenness, caving to the Islamofascists…
It is absolutely amazing to read that liberals think that the ship that deliberately ran the blockade should have been allowed to simply pass. They assume that it’s mission was peaceful and Israel had no legal right to stop them and board the vessel. They think that the people on that vessel who were armed with knives, axes, and metal rods had every justification to savagely attack the Israeli soldiers. They believe that the soldiers who were forced to defend themselves committed some sort of bloody massacre. No wonder the US is in decline. Too many people seemingly cannot reason.
I am ashamed to claim democratic and western believes of fair play and truth in reporting. I am always stunned to see how the media, the UN and other western countries react with statements condemning Israel without even bothering to verify the facts.
The facts show that Israel had every right to protect itself from arms and weapons being smuggled into Gaza.
Can you imagine the US allowing a free flow of goods across its borders? No other country allows its neighbours to arm itself for the purpose of destroying them. Hamas and Hizbollah openly state that their wish is to annihilate Israel; and we expect Israel to sit back and play wait and see – maybe just keep their fingers crossed.
Shame on the west – Australian prime minister for condemning the acts of self defence by Israel commandos and those other western powers who so readily condemned the Israelis without getting the facts first.
We just love to appease Muslims for fear of being deemed racist of biased. The facts of jihad and other religious crimes are not those of Buddhists or Christians are they? The field of violent propagators is getting smaller isn’t it? But, God forbid we name the culprits in this violent war against civilization.
Stand up for Israel and you stand up for civilization.