OMG, hell just froze over.
A snowball is now the king of Hell, I find myself agreeing with something Finn says (on Israel, we tend to agree on a lot of other topics).
Police would have the authority to pull me over, an authority I tacitly agree to by continuing to live here. These soldier had no such authority, as it did not take place in their country, or anywhere they have any claim to.
I do not see this in black and white terms, in fact it all seems very muddled. That’s why I’m latching onto the one part of this that seems pretty undeniable, and that would be the words: International Waters.
This is exactly what happens when you respond to a political threat with military force. Someone is going to get shot, and the onus will be on the people who responded militarily in the first place, regardless of who shot first.
Who cares that they warned them? If I tell you I’ll shoot you if you come to my town and I subsequently shoot you when you come to my town does it somehow make it okay?
Isn’t there SOME way that Israel can let SOME of the people out of Gaza? Certainly there are people in gaza that didn’t vote for Hamas right? Does Israel think that a popular revolt can overthrow Hamas in Gaza? Probably not, so why not let out the obviously innocent civilians and let them move to the West bank or something?
I think you have an overblown sense of how critical we are of Israel.
How did they attempt to do it and in what way were they rebuffed?
Who are these activists?
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e105.htm
http://www.diis.dk/graphics/Publications/WP2006/DIIS%20WP%202006-7.web.pdf
So… where does helping us in New Orleans fit into their agenda?
I feel a bit like I’m in a time machine. 
Just a suggestion - you’d get more, and better, responses if you read through the whole thread first. Many of your points have alreadly been addressed subsequently.
For example, the whole “international waters” thing has alreadly been thrashed through (the answer: whether the ships were in ‘international waters’ or not is irrelevant from an international law perspective).
Well my opinion has always been that you can be legally in the right but still morally wrong.
My views on the death penalty cover this, for example. It is legal in certain places in the world. It is still morally wrong to do it IMHO.
What Israel did may be legally OK, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t immoral and stupid.
But what if the US allows coriander?
Then the terrorists have won.
The right of a power to enforce a maritime blockade by military force in international waters has long since been cited in this thrad.
I have told you, several times, that I believe that the blockade’s restrictions should be eased even while I have pointed out what the actual law saw about consignments.
You’re now claiming that sweet treats are a necessity because the Army gave it to their troops. You are aware that cigarettes were part of the ration, too?
Are cigarettes also necessities?
At the point where you’re arguing that candy is a necessity, your argument has lost any degree of accuracy.
I have repeatedly now pointed out how odd it is to focus solely on Israel when Egypt can and has opened its border many times in the past. Why is your concern “Isn’t there SOME way that Egypt can let SOME of the people out of Gaza?”
Here’s the deal. When some nation declares a blockade and you decide to run it, you have effectively decided to pick a fight. You can argue who is morally or legally “right” but right or wrong, Israel is the side with the destroyers, helicopters and commandos. When said commandos drop out of the sky onto your deck and you attack them with guns, bats, pool cues, deck chairs or whatever, they are likely to care about little else other than defending themselves with whatever they happen to have handy - in this case Israeli assault rifles.
I mean what do you think happens next if you somehow repel the boarders anyhow? Something that doesn’t involve 5" shells crashing through your hull and exploding?
Maybe that’s what they wanted. Basically to provoke a fight that would result in a media shitstorm for Israel, in which case, mission accomplished.
I tacitly agree to their authority by not wanting my head blown off.
Again with the “international waters”. So far as we have been able to determine, that’s totally irrelevant to the legality of Israel’s acts under international law.
There is a more concise discussion of that very issue in this thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=12522171#post12522171
In summary: a state having legally declared a blockade may ‘attack’ (that is, interfere with, arrest, etc.) a ship that is not in “neutral waters” which is a blockade-runner - meaning, they can do so in “international waters”.
There is a treaty by which certain states have agreed not to do this to ships in 'international waters", but importantly neither Israel nor Turkey (the ship in issue was under the Turkish flag) are signatories to that treaty. This has lead many commentators to (totally incorrectly) assume that blockade-runners cannot, as a generality under international law, be interfered with in international waters.
And he clarified almost immediately. Why are you harping on this? His clarification should have either exposed the weakness of his argument without the hyperbole or it will have no effect because the argument doesn’t depend on the hyperbole.
Did you also say something about the north of Lebanon not being touched when it demonstrably had been touched.
Would it be moral and sensible, in your opinion, if it took place within Israeli territorial waters?
Are you in some sort of time warp reading this thread, late? You keep responding to posts that are days old.
In this instance, one poster made a sarcastic comment indicating that starvation was the goal of the blockade. A second poster asked a sarcastic question Why else would they have one?. I replied, sarcastically, with a one-liner about weapons, demonstrating that the one-liners were not really helpful to the discussion.
I never claimed that that was the only reason for the blockade and I have taken no position on the entire list of banned materiel. Even FinnAgain has noted that the overall banned list has problems with it.
A number of posters (on both sides) would really do well to actually take the time and spend the energy to try to find out what all the issues might be and pay attention to the response. (It won’t happen, but you all would do well if you would.)
That double standard (imposing the burdens of an occupying power without the powers of an occupying power) because israel applies the inverse of that double standard to itself (taking all the powers of an occupying power without the attendant responsibiltiies).