Lieberman: "There is no humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip"

Yes, since Israel inspected and allowed certain items of the aid now Hamas are refusing to accept it?? Another Fail.

 

I'm pretty sure the flotilla activists were aware of, likely even expected, the contingency in which they would be boarded by the IDF. In fact, I know they were. Surely the fact that they didn't arrive on the Gaza shore unmolested doesn't mean they failed to challenge the blockade. The international calls for Israel to lift it also seem to suggest otherwise.

So you're saying that the activists thought they could overpower the IDF in open seas?

 

^^^ So why not cooperate with the IDF?? Like the other ships, that would of saved 9 lives.

 

Otto;

I totally agree with you on this. I completely understand this was a publicity stunt by the organizers an they expected a confrontation. That said it was stupid for Israel to cater to it. As I have said before there was a simple solution to this. Just allow the ships to proceed to Gaza and have a big press conference while the ships are unloading. If Israel is tacitly all sorts of aid in through tunnels are otherwise they lose nothing by allowing these ships to unload. In fact it makes Israel look like the good guys. Further if these ships are carrying weapons for Hamas the world will see that if they have to publically unload.

 

I agree with you here. Stupid stupid stupid.

As much as it would help the people of Gaza to not have Israel around it might help them just as much, maybe even more so, to not have Hamas.

 

I notice you and Hypedplayer are throwing around a lot of legalities but let me ask you this question. If your ship is forcibly boarded in internation waters do you have the right to defend yourself?

 

Google "Karine A".

This is a logistics issue. Bringing in a hundred tons of weapons on a ship is a whole lot easier than dragging it through a tunnel one box at a time. Especially when there are other people willing to pay more to have their luxury goods hauled. Logistically, they couldn't have carried the Karine A's cargo through the tunnels in any reasonable period of time, even without competition for the throughput of the tunnels. The only way to do so would be to build a massive, four lane highway paved tunnel. And if Hamas tried that, the Israelis would bomb it before it could be used.

This is similar to the reason that the US Army's tons and tons of junk in Iraq was sent by sea even though it took orders of magnitude longer for it to get there. Only the stuff that was needed for the front end of the invasion went by plane. The other 99% was send by sea. With airplanes you simply can't match the throughput of cargo ships.

Your view only makes sense if they didn't really believe the blockade was a security measure for Israel - basically it only makes sense if they were enforcing the blockade just to screw with the Palestinians. If they genuinely believe that it is necessary to inspect ships to maintain security, then there is a whole lot to lose. Specifically, security and lives.

Basically you are saying the appropriate way to handle it would be to end the blockade. But they really believed that doing so was safe, they never would have instituted it in the first place.

When you are dead, it is small consolation if someone thinks you are a good guy for a couple of seconds in passing while reading the morning paper.

 

Hamas has actually cut down the rocket attacks. The sporadic attacks that happen now are caused by lesser known groups like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Resistance_Committees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Palestine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Islamic_Jihad

 

They do have the right to defend themselves, but things aren't black and white. Even though they have the right to defend themselves, it doesn't mean that they should. All those ships that get boarded by pirates in the Gulf of Aden had the right to defend themselves, but they rarely put up resistance. This is because fighting back would pretty much insure their deaths.

From the start Israel said that there was no way that those ships were going to make it to Gaza. Those activist on the Mavi Marmara knew that they were going to be boarded, especially after watching the 5 other ships get boarded and seized. At this point the activist have few options left, they can either fight against a better armed and trained force or they could surrender\put up passive resistance. By choosing to fight they gave the Israelis justification to defend themselves.

If you look at the big picture and take everything into account, which is pretty hard to do since Israel is releasing bits and pieces of video evidence and also because of the conflicting agendas, you can see that this whole flotilla situation was going to go t*** up from the start. The fact that the flotilla was organized by a dubious organization (the IHH), the comments made by the organizers about the flotillas goal being to break the blockade instead of delivering supplies, several hundred Muslims in close proximity to a small team of hostile Israelis and Israel backing itself into a corner by announcing that the flotilla was not going to make it to Gaza; all this gives is a recipe for a bad ending. The Israelis should have been better prepared.

The blame for this whole incident ultimately lies with Israelis as they were responsible for everyones lives since they were the ones with all the guns and had the ability to achieve a better end to this incident.

 

Nonsense.

 

Nonsense.

 

So your tactic is to give in to bullying and oppression?

It might not get people killed you're right.

But to carry your tactic out world wide doesn't seem productive.

Sure if people in Iraq under Saddam had never stood up and fought against Saddam's rule and his sons' brutality then all the people killed in retaliation wouldn't have been killed. But it hardly seems right to blame those that fought against it.

 

Except you missed the part about having the ships unload publically with the media there. If the ships really are smuggling weapons then they will be exposed.

 

I would like to see another country intervene with Israel blockade with success.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127469706

Israel Vows To Stop New Aid Ship Heading To Gaza

An aid ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza could reach Israel's 20-mile exclusion zone by Friday afternoon, an activist said, but Israel's prime minister has vowed the ship will not reach land.