Turkish flagged vessel attack [What if?--becomes What now?]

Great Debates
921

No, but do you really believe that Israel is immune to “rally round the flag” effects, in particular given the near psychosis of siege mentality that tends to infect your body politic? Or to deliberate government spin in the face of a clearly botched effort? I would not think so relative to my nation, nor the US nor …

Your personal affirmations are fine, and you’ve been here a while - I believe your sincerity mate and I have said it before, your interventions represent the honourable side of your country. I also believe that the people you’re talking to can easily be caught up in well-intentioned tunnel vision. (Not mind you that I care for activists, especially the Leftist sort of the UK contingent, nor trust their spin either).

At the same time, your commandos attacked - yes attacked - a ship under an allies’ flag at high seas, and in a flagrantly aggressive and flagrantly stupid and incompetent fashion (despite queerly enough taking that translation of Hebrew on its face value, ostentatiously declaring in the media they were anticipating / fearing terrorist action). It seems rather evident from the behaviour of the Government, including its hamfisted control of the foreign media relative to this that it went in looking for trouble. And stupidly got it.

The UK fucked up with Exodus and you lot fucked up here. Own goals, pure and simple.

To quote the Haaretz article:

A lot of generally friendly observers are saying the same thing. Some of which I quoted here in this thread.

Israel seems trapped in the late 1970s to early 1980s in its entire mentality of dealing with both neighbours and its dwindling number of allies - allies being lost by own goals, not due to any great skill on the part of its enemies. Who you can still thankfully for you count of being even more incompetent than your leadership… so far.

Again to quote de Tallyrand, this was worse than a crime, it was an (unforced) blunder. Simple as that.

The idiot quibbling is mere theatre.

922

The fact remains that the Rachel Corrie was towed to port without incident and that 5 out of 6 ships in the flotilla were towed without incident. The 6th ship had the problem and it also had an arsenal. Video of some of that arsenal has been presented. The 6th ship was looking for a confrontation.

923

The fact is we have an IDF video showing not an “arsenal” but a bunch of ships tools, some common knives, kitchen knives and the like. The fact it is being a labelled an “arsenal” is merely sad and pitiful and rather rejoins the Haaretz article’s comments about pining for the heroics of the 1970s. The only persons who are going to be taken in by the rather sad effort at propaganda are the pre sold.

It is entirely immaterial if the 6th ship was looking for a confrontation or not. Inappropriately using a commando operation at high seas against a ship flagged under a major regional ally is a colossal fuck up and a failure of leadership. In particular as in the Hebrew media, the IDF was pre-incident pimping the idea of terrorist confrontation. That rather suggests to the non-pre-sold that there is rather more to this than the IDF line.

924

Perhaps ship’s tools, but they were used as an arsenal. It wasn’t a commando operation until the operation met resistance. It does make a difference if it were looking for a confrontation. No matter what you may think about the blockade, Israel was legally trying to enforce it. I don’t think Israel considers Turkey a major regional ally, although she was until recently. However, about a month ago Turkey has been courting the Arab world more fervently. She, apparently, wants to be a regional leader. Turkey is the one who wishes to disengage from the Israeli friendship.

925

If they were throwing vibrators at the commandos, would they have been deemed part of the arsenal?

926

On the one hand, Israel is really bad at this asymmetric warfare in the digital age thing. And everyone can appreciate the irony of Jews creating ghettos.

And yet, otherwise functioning human beings thought it would be a great idea to pick up a knife and charge at commandos who are rappelling onto their ship from a helicopter while said ship is trying to break a military blockade. Talk about Darwining yourself.

927

Ships tools are ships tools. Calling them an arsenal is simply a very sad effort at propaganda and spin, to post-facto justify an excessively aggressive Rambo use of force, when trivially easier tools were in place.

An arsenal typically, in non-deliberately inflammatory and propagandistic usage means just than, an arsenal: a place for storing or a store of military weapons and munitions. Ships fire axes, common kitchen knives, etc are not in any ordinary sense an arsenal.

That’s utterly specious and absurd.

Military helicopter rappeling actual military commandos down on a foreign vessel in international waters is most certainly a commando operation.

It did not turn into a violent commando operation, of course until it fucked up. But then we have the Hebrew article I cited above.

To you perhaps.

Not particularly to other observers, as civilised nations try to manage not to use live ammunition on civilians with whatever ad hoc items they have on hand.

However, looking for confrontation doesn’t excuse the results, as it is trivially easy to have taken another approach than using a commando operation to board the vessel at high seas

That’s the official Israeli position.

Which, you may take note, is not the only opinion on the matter. Never mind the issue of high seas and jurisdiction (see e.g. Exodus).

Merely asserting the Israeli position does not make it established fact.

Right it’s always the other guys fault.

Always the other guys fault. Never mind this very same Turkish government invited the Israeli PM - first ever for the Muslim world - to address the Parliament as recently as 3 or 4 yrs ago, had previously been quite warm. Couldn’t possibly be Israel fucked up, no it’s always the other guys.

928

It’s still not clear to me whether all the other boats were boarded in the same way.
ps. Israel “fuck up”?
Inconceivable!

929

That’s what I’ve been saying. I simply cannot believe the level of outrage and surprise at what happened. Both sides intentions were made abundantly clear well before this incident happened.

930

There is outrage and surprise because
(I) These events have impacts beyond just the immediate self-defeating idiocy of the blockade and its collective punishment of Gaza, notably relative to undermining peace process and
(II) It was so fundamentally unnecessary.

See, e.g. the protests in Greece where petrol fire-bombs, sticks, rocks, bars, other items of "lethal force"were used by both citizen and non-citizen protesters, but as in most civilised countries resolved without use by the state of live ammunition on civilians.

Of course not purely analogous, nevertheless, indicative. Israel actively opted for a fundamentally unnecessarily aggressive approach relative to ships under the flag of a long-time military ally, with citizens of said ally.

Had the UK done something similar, say to a boat full of American citizens bringing contraband to the IRA in protest, and shot dead some, it would have faced an equal and well-deserved shit-storm.

(Never mind the historical example of the Exodus, rather closer analogy)

931

wmfellows, what alternative security measures WRT Gaza should Israel engage in that are effective, yet less onerous (or deadly)? What I mean is that you are saying that the blockade itself is a self-defeating gesture, and I’m inclined to agree…but if they stop blockading Gaza’s shores, what are they to do about the very real threat of an increase in arms being smuggled into Gaza, presumably to be used at a later date against Israelis?

932

[quote=“FoieGrasIsEvil, post:931, topic:540765”]

wmfellows, what alternative security measures WRT Gaza should Israel engage in that are effective, yet less onerous (or deadly)?

[quote]

First, my comments were relative to those ships. As we have already seen, and has been done in the past, it is entirely possible to intercept and divert ships without the theatrics of helicoptering commandos on board.

As the smuggling is already there, a narrowly construed blockade / inspection regime that is truly focused on actual weapons and not on an ever shifting kaleidoscope of banned goods that are painfully clearly collective punishment, would be eminently supportable.

The problem here is Israel is gratuitously, idiotically rendering itself the bad guy for no discernible reason nor gain, other than domestic “red meat” short-termist politics.

Engaging in Orwellian denials, e.g. of Turkish alliances and absurdly legalistic justifications of a major cock-up merely highlights the moral bankruptcy and idiocy of the current approach.

933

Yeah, I don’t understand some of the items on the “banned products” list either. Can any Israeli poster reading along make sense of it? Surely there’s some sort of justification, no matter how flimsy or preposterous…

934

I’ve decoded much of a transmission preceding the raid. Uses code words, but never mind the meaning can be understood. Some words may be approximate as the diction is unusually unclear:

*Load up on guns, bring your friends, it’s fun to lose and to pretend, she’s overboard and self assured [indisctinct].

Hello. With the lights out, it’s less dangerous, here we are now [indistinct]. Our little group (tribe) has always been and always will until the end, hello [indistinct]. Here we are now [indistinct]*.

Plain evidence of a guilty mind if ever there was one.

935

The only thing I can say is that lists that make no sense like that tend to be the kind that grow after being bitten. They let some coriander through… it winds up being pot or something. They let wood for buildings through, it winds up being used for tunnel supports. So a bunch of logical changes to not let something repeat, and then the list just starts being bizarre.

936

Egypt to strip Egyptian men married to Israeli women of Egyptian citizenship.

King of Jordan sends aid convoy to break blockade.

Some activists still missing believed to have been shot and thrown overboard.

937

Link/cite insidiously deleted from post.

938

It is a lie being spread by Israeli media that the other 5 boats were boarded with no incident also.

It was the Marmara which was boarded first by troops. The others were smaller and faster and sped past the Zodiacs which were firing percussion grenades, within seconds rubber bullet, then within less than a minute live rounds at the Marmara.

The other boats were then boarded and activists aboard the Challenger 1&2 sustained an attack by troops. Two are in hospital still with broken ribs and other injuries. Mark Regev lied when he said on live TV that there was no resistance from the other boats and that they were not injured.
Lies.

939

Alex Harrison is outside 10 Downing Street now telling the true story of the attack on her boat the Challenger 1.
Alex Harrison, a Free Gaza activist who was on the smaller Challenger yacht, which was crewed mainly by women, said the Israelis used rubber bullets, sound bombs and tasers against them.

“Two women were hooded, they had their eyes taped,” she said, describing how the yacht was quickly overwhelmed. “We stood and tried to obstruct the armed, masked men and maintained no other defence and still they used violence.”

Harrison, 32, from Islington, north London, also witnessed the Mavi Marmara being stormed from above by helicopter and said the Israelis started firing before their troops touched down on the boat.

“I have seen some selective footage that the Israelis have chosen to put out suggesting that we responded with violence,” she said. “You must remember that these are unarmed civilians on their own boat in the middle of the Mediterranean. People picked up what they could to defend themselves against armed, masked commandos who were shooting.”

940

As your well-cited sources amply prove… :rolleyes: