People are shooting at Israelis from the Gaza strip.
Israel creates a floating blockade to make it harder to shoot at them.
People try to bring supplies in the name of humanitarian aid.
The Israelis say, Take your stuff to this port over here instead. Don’t try to break the blockade because if you do, bad things will happen.
They try to break the blockade anyway, making it seem less about providing aid and more about, well, breaking the blockade.
Bad things happen.
It’s all Israel’s fault.
Got it.
PAD
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At this point Israel has GOT to understand that anything they do will get the worst possible spin and that they need to keep that in mind. They should have at least waited until the flotilla was out of international waters, even though I believe it can be argued that this is not a prerequisite to action under the circumstances. Given the fact that the current administration seems lukewarm at best toward them they can ill afford this kind of incident.
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Then again, maybe the Turks are correct and it is a crime against God and humanity to attack humanitarian aid to oppressed minorities who are only fighting for their independence. In which case Israel should immediately send some nice aid to the Kurds in Turkey. I’m sure the Turkish government will understand and respond with a show of calm reasoned restraint that will serve as an example to all.
Okay. Setting aside whether Israel has a right to impose such a blockade, this raid was very close to piracy on the high seas.
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As to the people who attacked heavily-armed commandos with deck chairs and bottle and so on – if someone i consider has no right to board my ship without my permission does so, i might toss a few bottles, too.
I’ve just watched Newsnight, which showed footage shot by Turkish reporters on board the main ship. It clearly showed the protesters included a number of people armed with metal bars and wooden clubs – not “deck chairs” and “a few bottles.” It also showed at least one wearing a gas mask, and most wearing inflated life jackets, which the analyst pointed out was to counter tasers and lessen the effect of rubber bullets. So the protestors had done what they could to make any non-lethal weapons the Israelis might use ineffective. The footage also showed that as soon as the first two Israeli soldiers set foot on the ship, they were set upon by a mob of men with clubs (remember, this is NOT the Israeli’s footage, this is from the protestors’ own reporters).
I’m not saying the blockade or the boarding are right. But if you attack an armed soldier with a club, then don’t be surprised or complain if he shoots you.
And if an armed man should break into your house and begin to rape you, and you fight back, don’t be surprised or complain if he beats you into submission.
You can’t be serious with that analogy.
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PAD
Why not? OK, the rape part makes it a bit overstated. But..
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“if you attack an armed soldier with a club, then don’t be surprised or complain if he shoots you.”
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I may not be surprised. But if that armed soldier is invading my house (or boat in international waters) he should not be at all surprised that I act to repel him.
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To suggest, which I think that Stuart V’s comment does, that one should not fight back when invaded is ridiculous.
But the analogy is false. It’s not a rapist who is invading your house, but the police. They might be wrong to break in, they might be attacking the wrong house, but if you know that SWAT are outside your door about to break it down, you do not arm yourself. Meeting them with force is guaranteed not to end well for you.
Actually, it isn’t the police breaking in, either. It’s agents of s foreign power attacking outside their jurisdiction.
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They might be wrong to break in, they might be attacking the wrong house, but if you know that SWAT are outside your door about to break it down, you do not arm yourself.
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So if they’re wrong to break in, they’re attacking without cause (having the wrong house) if I end up getting hurt because I objected it’s my own fault?
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This analogy, as all analogies will do when stretched very far, is breaking down. But a point remains: When armed attackers invade, blaming the resistors for getting killed and/or chalking it up to “bad things happen” is wrong.
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A reasonable case could be made the people on the boat should have known there would be some consequences to fighting back, but I don’t think BEING SHOT DEAD would be a reasonably expected one. And even if it were, then the heavily armed attackers who initiated the attack should certainly have recognized it as a possibility and prepared for it (i.e., to avoid it).
“Actually, it isn’t the police breaking in, either. It’s agents of s foreign power attacking outside their jurisdiction.”
The point of the change in analogy is that fighting against a rapist makes sense; they’re going to attack you even if you pose no resistance. Knowing it’s a trained combat unit coming in, who may not injure you if you don’t resist, but undoubtedly will if you do, means the intelligent move is to not resist.
“So if they’re wrong to break in, they’re attacking without cause (having the wrong house) if I end up getting hurt because I objected it’s my own fault?”
You can object – but if you pick up a weapon, then you are making it way more likely you will be hurt, and lessening the chance to object because attacking someone who has a gun is a good way to get shot.
“When armed attackers invade, blaming the resistors for getting killed and/or chalking it up to “bad things happen” is wrong.”
They could have avoided the soldiers moving in simply by diverting. And, based on the footage from the Turkish reporters, the soldiers boarded but weren’t attacking, not until they were attacked by those on the ship.
“A reasonable case could be made the people on the boat should have known there would be some consequences to fighting back, but I don’t think BEING SHOT DEAD would be a reasonably expected one.”
Yes, it is. The people on the ship knew it was soldiers about to board, and that they’d be armed; you attack an armed soldier, his most likely response is that he will use his weapon on you. When you add to that the fact that the protestors who met the arriving troops had donned protection to reduce the efficacy of any non-lethal weapons the troops might have, then you’ve got to expect the troops will switch to using their lethal weapons.
“And even if it were, then the heavily armed attackers who initiated the attack should certainly have recognized it as a possibility and prepared for it (i.e., to avoid it).”
How? They’d asked the ships to divert, and been refused. They could try shooting the ship’s propellers, but that’s not a precise art, and a stray shot causing the ship to sink would have endangered many more lifes on board. They could have dropped gas to try and stun the people on board, but the footage shows some of the people on board had gas masks. They boarded the ships armed with tasers, rubber bullets and some lethal weapons; if they’d not been met with violence then it’s entirely likely they wouldn’t have opened fire (nobody got shot on the other ships that were boarded, because there nobody attacked the soldiers). The soldiers boarded the ship, but the people who “intiated the attack” were the protestors who immediately set about them in a mob and tried to beat them with clubs.
I have every sympathy with people wanting to make a peaceful protest, whether I agree with their cause or not. The minute they turn to violence, they lose that sympathy.
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“Setting aside whether Israel has a right to impose such a blockade, this raid was very close to piracy on the high seas.“
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I don’t know. The police have a road blocked off. A guy drives up and says that he wants to get to a specific somewhere. The police point out that he can still get to that somewhere by turning around and taking that road over there.
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The driver basically says “screw you” and decides to drive through the police barriers. The police pull the guy over, he fights with them and they arrest him and impound his car.
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Would that be “very close to” carjacking on the open road?
According to the San Remo Manual,(http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/7694fe2016f347e1c125641f002d49ce) it is permissible under rule 67(a) to attack neutral vessels on the high seas when the vessels “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.”
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(67. Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:
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(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.)
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I think it was a very unwise move by the Israelis but not an act of piracy and not worthy of UN sanction…especially given the clear affronts to human rights done daily by some of those supposedly outraged by this.
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Israel is brilliant in conventional warfare but well nigh semi-competent in unconventional warfare. They are getting their áššëš kicked on that front.
Bill, Ive heard some retired fleet officers say what you just said the last two days, but they also added that the common and safe procedure when facing civilian vessels under those circunstances was to disable the ship rudder and tow it to port, not to board it during the night.
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Sending airborne commandos to a ship with hundreds of civvilians was an extremely unwise move.
I agree. I can think of lots of ways this could have been done more effectively.
Jerry Chandler
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Well, there isn’t (or wasn’t, until Egypt re-opened the border) an alternate route.
And, to take your analogy a touch further, if the driver was still two blocks away from the roadblock when the cops shot out his tires with a shotgun and then tried to haul him out of his car before he’d actually done anything…
International waters, remember?
Bill Mulligan
Okay – i’ve seen that since i commented, and i was wrong..
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But the manner in which this raid was conducted was just wrong.
Mike, you’re obviously more reasonable than most of the actual parties in the Middle East.
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“And, to take your analogy a touch further, if the driver was still two blocks away from the roadblock when the cops shot out his tires with a shotgun and then tried to haul him out of his car before he’d actually done anything…
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International waters, remember?”
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But Mike, the catch is, from several news reports I’ve seen, the people who were raided declared their intent to run the blockade. Again, that changes the equation a bit.
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Still, this was a PR mess that Israel walked into. There are parts of this mess that look to me like justifiable actions by Israel while not being particularly smart ones.
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Granted something new may have come up in the last 9 hours that I missed. The last thing I remember about the day was taking my prescribed muscle relaxant just after breakfast this morning and thinking to myself that the “May Cause Drowsiness” warning on the bottle was a bit understated.
There’s a pretty distinct flipside to this one.
I fall pretty heavily in the middle. The flotilla was basically slapping in the face of Israel, in the process of doing something good (presuming we don’t have guns squirreled away in there). OTOH, high-seas piracy is a pretty bad way of dealing with it.
Who can hope to understand any of this? As someone with a family, who works 50 hrs a week (with travel) spends time at the gym, reads comics, watches tv, plays with his kids, pays bills and doesnt believe in any sort of god(s). I dont have the time, energy or patience to get past the lies,truth (as people see it) spin, PR, politicians and praying.
I’m with you there. I’ve no political or personal ties to the region and i’ve come to realize it’ll never end. They can have each other. I don’t care who is right or who is wrong and i’m no longer interested in sorting out who I agree with.
It was NOT “piracy.”
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It was the legal enforcement of a legal embargo and blockade.
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It was more legal than the Cuban blockade during the Missile Crisis.
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It was an ambush by the terrorists on the ship, and Israel was dámņëd lucky not to have lost any of its soldiers — who boarded armed with paint guns, and holstered pistols.
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Next time, at the first sign of resistance, they would be justified in backing off and sinking the ship.
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J.
“It was an ambush by the terrorists on the ship,”
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“Terrorists” now? really?
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And repelling armed boarders who sneak onto the ship in the middle of the night is now an “ambush”?
Yes, Sean, “terrorists.”
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The group that sponsored them has numerous ties to terrorist groups.
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They were acting to support a known terrorist group.
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They brought plenty of weapons and declared their aspiration to be martyrs.
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They were chanting “death to Israel” and the like.
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They flew a white flag while the first five ships were boarded without incident, then attacked the boarding party before they even set foot on the ship.
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They prepared for the fight by putting on improvised body armor and weapons (steel pipes, combat knives, and the like).
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So yeah, “terrorists.”
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You got a better term? How about “peace activists?”
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J.
The group that sponsored them has numerous ties to terrorist groups.
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So they’re twice removed from a terrorist group. And my friend’s neighbor’s son has a criminal record, so watch out for me, right?
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They brought plenty of weapons and declared their aspiration to be martyrs.
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And Israel helped them achieve that goal, so now Israel is aiding a terrorist group?
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Yeah, it’s ridiculous to make that connection. But no less ridiculous than claiming they “ambushed” the soldiers attacking their ship or coming up with a sorts of “sure, their cargo was inspected by a friend of Israel before they left port but that doesn’t mean they didn’t pick up bad things along the way” suppositions to justify actions after the fact.
People link Israel to the Jewish religion and act like any criticism or action is anti-semitism. Israel has done some pretty screwed up and violent acts and hide behind religion to justify them. It’s not a religion, it’s a country and it needs to be treated as such.
I’m sure you didn’t agree with bush proclaiming America to be a christian nation while launching his “crusade” and probably don’t associate muslim countries with islam itself.
Basically israel is a country that was forced into a region and then took on a seige mentality. imagine the indians being given manhattan and then building walls and defensive posts in brooklyn and queens in the name of protection.
Not that the other side is behaving themselves either. I think it’s a matter of a bunch of really screwed up violent countries in a hostile and nasty region with the whole world being forced to root for one side or the other. I say we tell all countries involved to sort it out themselves and we stop being so easily manipulated.
I think it just boils down to: people getting killed while trying to deliver humanitarian aid is not a good thing. Breaking a blockade and sailing into waters where they weren’t supposed to sail is not a the smartest thing to do either, but people dying because of it is tragic.
Israeli media I’ve read about this agree with international media on this case, PAD; It was a bad way of dealing with the issue. They could have only made it worse if they sank the ships. For starters, Israeli commandos violated turkish and greek sovereingty by seizing those ships, thus alienating two allies of Israel. Ireland isnt too happy either, I dont know what you americans think of the two US ships in the flotilla.
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But Turkey was one of the few allies Israel had in the region. Crucial whenever there was negotiations, and close enough to hold joint military drills. The one scheduled in two weeks, along with greek forces, has been cancelled. You can talk about spin, but at least four turkish nationals have been killed while in a Turkey-flagged ship sailing international waters. There is no way any self-respecting country would take that well.
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Then there is the “they attacked us first” thing. The IDF says they only used deadly force when attacked, but the people in the ships (including elected representatives from such radical countries as Sweden) say the shooting started even before the boardings. There is footage corroborating the IDF position, but then most recording devices have been held by the IDF. They said “There could be explosives within them” and only released some turkish TV footage. As long as the rest of recording equipment and footage is released, no one can say wich version is true, but the whole “information blockade” and seizure of cameras smells pretty rotten to me. If you dont want people to think you are hiding something, dont act like you do actually hide something. Trasparency is never a bad thing if you are on the right.
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Then there is the crime they are charging the people from the flotilla with; “Illegal entry on the country”. The ships were in international waters and their destination was not Israeli territory, by Israel own admision. For any Israeli judge to accept these charges, it would mean an admision of Israel de facto jurisdiction over Gaza.
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And I agree with you the flotilla aimed not only to deliver relief (there were things in the ships Israel forbides, like concrete or medical equipment) to people in Gaza but to test Israel. Some might be evil antisemites but I am guessing most just think the blockade isnt right. And that doesnt mean they support Hamas or that they are terrorists (like the Israeli ambassador to Spain keeps saying here). It just means they consider collective punishment inhumane and want to do something about it.
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So, Israel got tested. And it failed miserabily.
You fail to state how they ought to have handled the situation. Just allow the vessels to sail on through? Then the blockade would have failed miserably and Israel may as well allow anyone to just go right in with weapons and explosives for the terrorists to use against them. Wouldn’t that be a hëll of a worse failure for Israel, or at least the potential victims of those weapons?
How enforce the embargo?
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Arrest the ships. (Yes, that is the legal term.)
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.Demand that they heave to and submit to inspection.
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If they don’t, fire a warning shot.
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If they still don’t, disable their rudders.
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They are then clearly in the wrong, and anything that happens from there in is arguably their own fault – at least, you don’t looks as stupid and ill=prepared.
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You don’t make a pre-dawn commando raid from helicopters, apparently without preliminary challenge or warning.
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Not unless you want to look almost as inept as the Bush Minor Mis-Administration, anyway…
The ships were searched prior to their departure, all pasengers screened with metal and explosive detectors. Turkey is not a rogue state, its a NATO member and a postulant to the European Union. And the closest ally Israel has…had in the area.
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If you accept Turkish officials word, there were no weapons among the supplies carried. There were some things Israel have forbidden on previous cargoes tho. Wheelchairs, certain medicines and medical equipment (the latest seem to fall on a complete electronics embargo) and most of all, cement. See, ever since the embargo started, there is people living in tents because their houses were destroyed or damaged by Israeli attacks. Without adressing the matter of the attacks, I think we can agree it would be a good thing people could get a roof over their heads again.
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It all adds up to the notion of collective punishment. Some did wrong thus all must suffer.
If you accept Turkish officials word, there were no weapons among the supplies carried.
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I accept that. Now: Tell me it is impossible for other ships to have rendezvoused en route and off-loaded guns and missiles onto the ships. Absolutely, flat-out impossible. Couldn’t happen. No way.
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PAD
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“And the data might be wrong sometimes, but no self respecting police force would board a ship because there is a remote possibility of a high seas rendevouz not beign noticed by any of the 700+ activists on board.”
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Would a self respecting police force simply sail up and out and of the blue board any old ship at random just for the heck of it? No. However, would a self respecting police force stop and board a vessel they previously had no reason to if the vessel in question decided to run a police blockade rather than redirect to a port that the police force told it to set a course for? Yeah, you betcha.
Impossible? no. I’d say it is improbable enough to, at least, give it a though before boarding the ship.
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Police agencies board ships all the time on th eintel of drugs, weapons or people are beign smuggled. Cold data, not assumptions. And the data might be wrong sometimes, but no self respecting police force would board a ship because there is a remote possibility of a high seas rendevouz not beign noticed by any of the 700+ activists on board.
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That is, unless you assume all those people were too busy mášŧûrbáŧìņg to antisemitic pørņ or bathing in the blood of the innocents to actually notice the maneuver.
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We can agree to disagree on the subject of the blockade (I think its counterproductive and constitutes collective punishment, you think its justified and necesary for the security of the state of Israel). But can we, at least, agree on the notion of armed forces behaving responsibly in their use of force? Political issues aside, my main concern with the last few years of IDF operations is the gross disregard of intelligence and the security of foreign civilians.
Police agencies board ships all the time on th eintel of drugs, weapons or people are beign smuggled. Cold data, not assumptions. And the data might be wrong sometimes, but no self respecting police force would board a ship because there is a remote possibility of a high seas rendevouz not beign noticed by any of the 700+ activists on board.
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What you said really had nothing to do with what I said. It didn’t matter what 700+ people saw or didn’t see. This wasn’t about interviewing 700+ people and asking them for eyewitness accounts. It was dealing with people who were determined to use force to break a blockade and then attacked the soldiers. It’s really not much more complicated than that
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Would it have been preferable if they had been able to do so in a way that didn’t involve killing anyone? Absolutely. And it would also be nice if Israel’s neighbors were able to deal with the Jewish state in a way that didn’t involve trying to kill the population.
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PAD
Would it have been preferable if they had been able to do so in a way that didn’t involve killing anyone?
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Not “if they had done so” but “if they had been able to do so”. As if there was no other way possible.
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That makes it sound like there was absolutely no way to avoid killing people. Is that actually what you believe?
his wasn’t about interviewing 700+ people and asking them for eyewitness accounts. It was dealing with people who were determined to use force to break a blockade and then attacked the soldiers. It’s really not much more complicated than that
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It isn’t about actually finding out what the people in the boats say did or didn’t actually happen. It’s about just knowing what they’re going to do anyway and dealing with people who fight back when attacked. It’s really not much more complicated than that.
That makes it sound like there was absolutely no way to avoid killing people. Is that actually what you believe?
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I don’t know, Sean. I wasn’t there and, oh, neither were you. I think it certainly would have been preferable if the Israelis had disabled the rudder or in some other way incapacitated the ship.
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None of which changes the fact that when armed soldiers say, “Don’t try to bust the blockade or we will board you,” then you shouldn’t try to bust the blockade if you don’t want to be boarded. And if they say, “If your only motivation is genuinely humanitarian efforts, then go to this port and you will be able to accomplish your mission,” and humanitarian efforts really ARE your only motivation, then go to the dámņëd port. This isn’t that complicated.
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PAD
I don’t know, Sean. I wasn’t there and, oh, neither were you.
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Never claimed I was. Peter. So what’s your point?
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I think it certainly would have been preferable if the Israelis had disabled the rudder or in some other way incapacitated the ship.
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I absolutely agree. And, despite not being there, I haven’t seen any explanation (granted I’ve only caught a limited amount of the news) as to why they didn’t take that route. As it is, there route they took had some foreseeably possible tragic consequences and didn’t really work out so well for them.
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“If you must do this dámņ silly thing, don’t do it this dámņ silly way.” – Sir Humphrey Appleby
As it is, there route they took had some foreseeably possible tragic consequences and didn’t really work out so well for them.
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Funny: That’s exactly true of the “humanitarians.” Yet the global consensus seems to be that it was entirely the Israelis at fault. A consensus reached by countries with copious history of abuses of human rights themselves. Which is what I said in the first place.
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PAD
Funny: That’s exactly true of the “humanitarians.”
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OK, I’m puzzled. Can you clarify for me what actions the humanitarians (I’ll eschew using the sarcasm quotes since, while you may not care at all for their methods, their goal was to alleviate suffering) took that was going to result in someone being put in the position of immenent harm? Threatening to run the blockade, in a boat that could be disabled from a distance, does not put anyone in immediate danger.
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What was reasonably foreseeable by the folks on the boat was that their ship would be disabled and they’d be detained. The liklihood of getting shot dead would have to be an extreme outlyer. What was reasonably forseeable by the soldiers, particularly if the folks on the boat were suspected to be dangerous folks acting with terrorists as some have claimed, was that an armed raid on the boat would result in injury. Deaths might be not the most likely result, but certainly more likely than in any scenario reasonably anticipated by the blockade runners.
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Hardly “exactly” the same.
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Yet the global consensus seems to be that it was entirely the Israelis at fault.
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Please don’t rush so quickly to claim victimhood. There are many residents of this globe, several who’ve posted comments here including me, who have not said “entirely” Israel’s fault. Even those with more official positions (Clinton) have been criticized for not coming out with a clear statement supporting one side and condemning the other. And the US has come down on the side of Israel. So much for the claim that it’s “global” that it’s “entirely” Israel’s fault.
Threatening to run the blockade, in a boat that could be disabled from a distance, does not put anyone in immediate danger.
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I think it safe to say that when armed authorities are saying, “Don’t run this blockade or else,” and you run the blockade, you don’t get to assume that the “or else”is going to be the most passive means possible. I think the smart thing to do, the wise thing to do, is allow for the possibility of being boarded. And should that happen, the absolute worst thing you can do is attack the guys boarding you.
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I already said I wish the soldiers had found a non-lethal means of dealing with the situation. That’s kind of obvious. But I’m also saying that I wish the people on the boat had likewise found a non-lethal means of dealing with the situation, such as…oh, I don’t know…coming out with their hands up and empty and saying, “We are on a humanitarian mission and have nothing to hide.” Rather than, y’know…attacking the soldiers..
Please don’t rush so quickly to claim victimhood. There are many residents of this globe, several who’ve posted comments here including me, who have not said “entirely” Israel’s fault.
I’m claiming nothing. I’m American, not Israeli. And when I was referring to “global consensus,” I wasn’t referring to this board, obviously. I was referring to the vast majority of countries that officially condemned Israel. I was referring to the United Nations, which condemned Israel. I was referring to the actual globe.
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PAD
So Israel didn’t take the best possible rout to their goal, and the folks on the boats didn’t take the best possible rout to their goal.
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Stupid moves and fault on both sides?
Sean…I’m not sure how many times and ways I have to say it. The issue I took was that around the world, people were howling that the fault was entirely Israel’s. That was what I took exception with, from the very beginning. You and others have tried to transform that simple position every which way from Sunday into the notion that I’m whitewashing Israel of responsibility. Why you and others can’t wrap yourself around the notion that I never said that, I can’t even begin to guess.
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PAD
I was referring to the vast majority of countries that officially condemned Israel. I was referring to the United Nations, which condemned Israel. I was referring to the actual globe.
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But the US didn’t and, even putting aside any sense of personal national importance, I’d not label something a “global consensus” when such a key nation isn’t part of it. And you also said the consensus was it’s “entirely” Israel’s fault, which is not the case. You were overstating it and that’s all I was pointing out.
You and others have tried to transform that simple position every which way from Sunday into the notion that I’m whitewashing Israel of responsibility.
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Uh, don’t think I am. (And the first objections I saw from others were to the apparent shrugging off the deaths with “bad things happen”. Not saying that was the intent, but clearly some folks read it that way.) I believe I’ve largely been arguing against the idea that Israel couldn’t have found a better way to deal with the boaters.
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You’ve said you wish Israel had found a different non-lethal course to take. I’ve agreed with you.
I long ago came to the conclusion that there are no good guys in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Neither side seems to have any goal anymore other than inflicting suffering on the other side.
Agreed. I used to think Israel was as good a country as they could be given their circumstances, but now I rate them even or slightly below Egypt and Turkey… and they’re falling by the week.
The point you miss in your recap is that bad things have heppened on international waters, not on Israel territory. It’s as if Mexico forbids people visiting Canada and start shooting people heading for canada in the Rocky montains.
As for the rest of your comments, agree.
Peter, as a writer I love your work. But as an unapologetic Israel supporter, you frustrate the heck out of me.
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“El Hombre Malo”, one of the reasons Ireland is upset, is that some of their government ministers were due to be ON that boat, but they were refused boarding permission by Cypriot authorities.
I’m with you John, if some people are dead I wouldn’t go online saying its fine with me or supporting the guys who did it. Instead I’d just keep my mouth shut and say a prayer for the dead people and they’re families.
I agree with you John, two sides to everything.
Yeah right and wrong
Hey Peter,
If this was one of your stories you would certainly explain both sides here.
You’d hardly be on the side of the raided in neutral space and killed crowd.
Its a shame that your personal points of view are so set.
Also, ever lived in a country that being blockaded?
What if your friend died because he couldn’t get specific medicine because your neighbour Mexico says you shouldn’t have it.
Also, the way to peace is surely to allow people to have basic amenities. Its all in the hierarchy of needs,
freedom and spiritual development come way after decent food, shelter and comfort.
As for the flotilla, they were attacked in international waters, sending relief aid to an economically screwed country.
Also, the Taoiseach in Ireland said that there would be serious consequences if its Irish citizens were not returned. Which, I think means that the next time the Israeli ambassador goes for a pint it’ll be mostly head.
“Go to this port and we’ll search you (and maybe imprison you) before you can give aid to this country that needs aid to survive.”
Sounds like a dictatorship in Africa.
You know what, we all stick with our own when You know what, we all stick with our own when theres a discussion (country, religion, county, region, comics, books, favorite ice-cream, etc).But if some group of people I knew killed some people when there were other options, I wouldn’t be on the internet saying its grand or explaining the situation. I’d be respectfully quiet and maybe say a prayer for the people who died and their families.
I’m classy that way.
I understand both sides. On the one side, a country that was forced to create a blockade because enemies who still desire to push all the residents into the sea elected an even more extremist government.
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On the other side, a group of humanitarians who apparently felt that breaking through a blockade was more important than actually delivering the vital supplies to those who needed them. And if Israel HAD let them pass, that gets turned into a triumph against Israel and a signal that they’re weak and don’t have the stomach to enforce the blockade.
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Meanwhile our own country has a pretty consistent track record of stampeding all over human rights when our own security is at issue. To say nothing of what Turkey is doing to the Kurds.
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The stench of hypocrisy from countries that are quick to condemn Israel, but hardly have clean hands in the way they conduct themselves, is positively suffocating.
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PAD
“The stench of hypocrisy from countries that are quick to condemn Israel, but hardly have clean hands in the way they conduct themselves, is positively suffocating”.
I hear ya.
Course many countries have a history of getting the the living šhìŧ conquered out of them.This has helped them avoid invading anyone else and practicing the hypocrisy you’ve mentionted, so you’re going to get some guilt-free condemnation there.
Oh I’m not saying the embargo protocols are wrong, I’m saying the embargo is wrong.
And its behaviour you won’t stand for for an instant if another country was doing it. If Italy put an embargo on Spain the US would be the first to say its wrong, and the loudest to say it god bless ye.
If Mexico (or indeed anyone) tried to put an embargo around the US you’d have international condemnation of Mexico pretty quickly. Although it would be short condemnation as America would then bomb it to pieces until whatever was left felt like surrendering, plus Mexican tortilla’s might need to be renamed freedom chips.
Well the two sides I see are:
-Israel tried to enforce an illegal blockade and completely fûçkëd it up.
-They can’t say they were wrong because they live in a tough neighbourhood, so “International opinion” isn’t worth a glass of piss to Israel.
I’m just trying to figure out what this has to do with comics?
Couldn’t you setup about another website for your political views?
http://www.go_on_Israel_ya_good_thing.com perhaps?
It’s not a comics blog. it’s Peter David’s blog. PAD’s political views are part of what makes him him. Why should he censor himself on his own bleeping blog?
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And this is coming from someone who agrees with PAD on a pretty small set of political views, by and large. Wouldn’t dream of asking him to tone it down to preserve my delicate sensibilities though.
“I’m just trying to figure out what this has to do with comics?
Couldn’t you setup about another website for your political views?”
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I dont think he should. This is his personal blog where he gives his views on comics, but also on all kind of media and on politics. I for one came here some years ago because I love his BIDs and discovered he is a great read on many other subjects (even if I disagree all too often with his international issues views).
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I could understand your comment if this was a corporate issued blog, part of the PR apparatus of Marvel. But it’s not.
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Besides…who says international politics dont have to do with comics? ask Joe Kubert about his work on the Balkan’s conflict, Sacco about his wrok on Palestine or Satrapi about Iran.
I’m just trying to figure out what this has to do with comics?
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This is PAD’s personal website/blog. If you think he should be forced to only talk about what you want him to talk about, then you’re sadly mistaken.
Alright lads, I take back the point about the political blog.
Feel free to concentrate on my other points.
And its behaviour you won’t stand for for an instant if another country was doing it. If Italy put an embargo on Spain the US would be the first to say its wrong, and the loudest to say it god bless ye. If Mexico (or indeed anyone) tried to put an embargo around the US you’d have international condemnation of Mexico pretty quickly.
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You can’t pull these “examples” out of context. If Italy put an embargo on Spain and we were at war with Spain, then I doubt the US would have anything negative to say about it.
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For that matter, where is the international condemnation when Israelis are being blown to bits? Fired up? Shot and killed?
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I’m simply saying that it’s kind of amazing that when people try to set car bombs or knock down buildings, the world seems to have a remarkable knack for blaming the perpetrator…but when Israel is getting smacked around, the victims are ignored and the perps get tea and sympathies.
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PAD
PAD, there is condenation whenever Israeli citizens suffer terrorist attacks. And I know because Ive seen my representatives publicy comndening those attacks. The very same papers and radio stations that get labeled antisemites (and not by private citizens but by the Israeli ambassador himself) whenever they are critic of Israel actions, dedicate pages and time to report Hamas or Hezbola crimes on a regular basis. Every time something happens, the Israeli ambassador is given a full page to explain Israel’s position on the very same media outlets he labels “antisemite” on a constant basis.
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But there is something true…the criticism on one side’s wrong is louder. I cant speak for everyone because I know there is a lot of true antisemitism out there, but there is an explanation for that. When Hamas fires a rocket, it’s a crime. When Israel’s drops a bomb over a school its a crime too. But a crime I might be an unwillingly accomplice to. Because my country doesnt make deals with Hamas. My country doesnt sell weapons to Hamas.
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Despite it’s tame criticism of Israeli actions, no spanish goverment has stopped selling weapons to Israel or has taken any step to cancel the “Prefered Trade Partnership”. In the case of the USA, the implication is much deeper.
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So we protest, louder, because we think of the two wrongs, one we are forced to enable and we dont want to.
“You can’t pull these ‘examples’ out of context. If Italy put an embargo on Spain and we were at war with Spain, then I doubt the US would have anything negative to say about it.”
Well I had to come up with some wild examples there because the idea that you, or anyone in a first world country would know what an embargo is like, or what its like to live under one, is ridiculous. But some people from other countries see Palestinians suffering, decide to help, and get killed. Of course theres international outrage over it. What did you think would happen, the world would legalise the event? It’d be open season for pirates everywhere. See what the term “International waters” means after that.
Speaking for myself I’m deeply saddened when anyone on either side is killed. And where’s the international outrage when Israelis are killed? Well it seems to be all over the news in Europe. And all over the internet. But lets face it, we don’t get the time to get that outrage out there before some palestinians are blown up.
The point is, people are dead and you’re saying “Let me see if I got this straight”, the last time Palestinians were killed, at least a number of who had to be innocent, you said “What did they think would happen”. If a Palestinian author said that on his site do you think people would leave it unremarked?
Let’s face facts, when a ‘good’ country (which I believe Israel to be) does something right, it’s considered extreme or outright wrong. But if a ‘bad’ country (China, North Korea, take your pick of African country) does something wrong, it’s just considered how they do things. It is disturbing to the point of fear, but it is the time we live in.
Thinking in terms of “good country vs bad country” is a dangerous path. We should judge a country policy or action on the basis of its motivation and consequences. While it’s true that Israel is a more modern country, more respectful of the rights of its citizens… his policy towards it’s neighbors is, for many, appaling. That doesnt mean Israel is a “bad” country, nor it means what Hamas or Hezbollah are “good” by any means.
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A lot of people think in terms of “sides”. Us vs Them, Good vs Bad. They are on “our side” so what they do must be right, justified or, at least, what the “other side” forced them to do. Its a pretty common mindframe in american commentators, an extension on the whole execionalism and the “city upon a hill” crap.
The “international waters” issue is bogus. The flotilla declared, from the outset, their intention to break the blockade. That made Israel’s stopping and inspecting their ships legal the instant they left Turkish waters.
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Further, the ships were never going to enter Israeli territorial waters. They were going to go straight from international waters to a Gazan port. So if Israel was only allowed to act within its own waters, then it could never enforce the embargo.
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The “peace activists” were an armed mob waiting to attack, and they did. They wanted a violent confrontation with Israel, and they got it.
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J.
If they were “an armed mob waiting to attack, and … wanted an armed confrontation with Israel…” then Israel was kind of dumb to give it to them in theis ham-handed manner.
Its only legal if you acept the blockade is legal. Since Israel never signed the international treaties regarding blockades and the treatment of civilians, their actions and their legality are strictly unilateral.
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Imagine a NGO decided to smuggle radios (Or Bibles, or Ayn Rand books, or whatever) to North Korea. Not only that but they publicy anounce so because they want to weaken both Kim Jong Il regime and it’s international standing. Imagine the North Koreans sink the ship. It would be legal too.
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I am guessing some people would also say “they had it coming” but most people would cry foul at the lethal enforcement of unfair policies. Some of the media that now call the people from Mare Marmara “terrorists” would be calling the hypothetical victims of PyonYang heroes.
Let’s make it a more direct analogy and say that they openly advocate the destruction of North Korea and are supported by those who further advocate the genocide of all North Koreans. I’m not going to weep bitter tears for the hypothetical victims of PyonYang. And I freaking HATE the north Korean regime.
That would only be a more direct analogy if you:
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a- Believe the people in the flotilla advocate the destruction of Israel. And as far as I’ve read and heard, they dont. The whole equation of delivering aid to Gaza with endorsing Hamas is a perverse one.
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b-You could argue radios and free press would undermine North Korean’s regime, allowing it’s subject to have information, dissent and, eventually topple the goverment in some way or another. I am sure Kim Jong Il feels more threatened by uncensored media outlets like radios and satellite dishes than Israel is by cement and wheelchairs.
The whole equation of delivering aid to Gaza with endorsing Hamas is a perverse one.
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Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas seems to get it: on 05/29/2010 he said“If the ships reach Gaza, it’s a victory for Gaza,” Haniyeh told some 400 supporters after touring Gaza City’s small fishing harbor, where several smaller vessels breaking the blockade have docked in the past. “If they are intercepted and terrorized by the Zionists, it will be a victory for Gaza, too, and they will move again in new ships to break the siege of Gaza.”
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Considering that one of the main sponsors of the flotilla seems to have been the IHH I would not be too quick to dismiss any possible ties between the flotilla and radical terrorist supporters. http://counterterrorismblog.org/2010/06/shooting_the_messenger_a_look.php
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I’m a little curious about why Egypt has also blockaded Gaza. What is the reason? Surely not some Jewish animus against gentle Palestinians. I would also ponder why the Egyptian blockade has received 1/1000 the criticism of the Israeli one but I think we can all guess that one.
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Of course Hamas would try to capitalize the whole thing, but I still think the blockade is wrong. Moreso, one of the problems anyone should have a problem with that blockade is that it allows the thugs to capitalize on any effort to help Gaza’s population.I said that equation was perverse and them making it should only prove my point.
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Regarding Egypt… They started to get along with Israel after leaving the Soviet’s orbit and becoming an ally of the USA. So they have to play along to keep their ally happy (and any suspicion of islamist extremism at bay). They’ve gotten a lot of grief for that on the Arab leage but since they only play a small role (the one gate in Rafah) and dont take part in the naval blockade (in fact, many of the vessels seized since the blockade started shipped from Egypt with their autorities looking the other way), theyve gotten a free pass in western media.
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But on the other hand, if the egyptians were to seize two american ships in international waters and killed any american national, all while enforcing the blockade, I am guessing the consequences would be much more severe and real (not just PR) than the ones Israel is suffering now.
Regardless of who is right or wrong… lives were lost. I don’t really think that’s worth proving a point (on either side).
Grey
“Bad things happen.
It’s all Israel’s fault.
Got it.”
Israel is Obama and the rest of the world are Republicans.
No, Israel is Bush. he split up the Gores, don’t you know? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20006438-503544.html?tag=cbsnewsMainColumnArea
I am still worried that Israel has short-nation-syndrome, and is still playing on the ‘poor persecuted us’ feelings. Unfortunately, due to the ill-judged but well-intentioned meanings of this aid convoy, Israel has upset more people than it really should do. There’s over reaction and then there’s OVER REACTION, and I think both sides are guilty of that.
The commandos boarded the ships in international waters; an act that can be called piracy, so unless Israel want to claim ‘two wrongs make a right’ I’d suggest they back off, and start letting assistance get through.
After all, surely Israel want to ensure that a minority group of people in Gaza are assisted and helped, right? I mean, it’s not like Israel knows anything about persecution and censure, is it?
I can see your point, Peter, but I think I’d agree with it a lot more if you didn’t use the phrase “Bad things happen.” They didn’t just “happen”; Israel did them. To a humanitarian aid vessel. They could have handled it by disabling the vessel and towing it to port, but instead they fired on the ship and then boarded it with commandos. There’s just no way that’s going to look good, even if Israel was legally in the right.
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PR matters. And ascribing the passive voice to Israel’s decisions–pretending that Israel is entirely the victim, while the bad things that happen to its enemies are the work of some sort of mysterious karmic forces–is what’s losing them their international support.
I can see your point, Peter, but I think I’d agree with it a lot more if you didn’t use the phrase “Bad things happen.” They didn’t just “happen”; Israel did them. To a humanitarian aid vessel.
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And they would assume it to be a humanitarian aid vessel why, exactly? Nowadays if you’re in a NY subway station and you see a suitcase standing by itself on the station, do you assume it to be a harmless American Tourister? Or do you treat it like something that could potentially kill you?
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You’re at the front security desk at a building. A guy walks in with an envelope. He says he’s a messenger. You say, “Okay, well the messenger entrance is around the back. Go there.” The guy says, “Screw that, I’m going in this way,” and tries to bolt past you. Do you shrug? Do you figure, “Ah well, he’s probably just what he says he is.” Or do you tackle him?
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Am I happy this happened? No. Am I sanguine about it? No. But they tried to run a blockade, which is what an enemy would do. They attacked the soldiers, which is what an enemy would do. If you act like an enemy and do everything an enemy does, it’s a little late to say, “We’re humanitarians; don’t hurt us.”
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PAD
PAD, the flotilla submitted to rigurous screening before leaving Turkey, a NATO member with close ties to Israel. And even if Israel didnt trust their allies to check on the ship cargo, the way they handled the situation played out completely wrong. It was contrary to standart and logic.
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To follow your security guard analogy; The messenger carries identification and tries to deliver to a tenant who is having trouble with the owner of the building, so the guard tries to stop him by force and after the messenger resist, pulls ut a gun and kill him.
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Let me throw another idea to the plate… Present day Israeli goverment is a Hawk nest. There are pretty extreme individuals in the goverment, more than ever in the history of Israel. Political pressure from the Obama administration has been received with less than grace from some goverment partners. Netanyahu is pretty hawkish but is not completely inmune to compromising, and was in Canada when all this started, meeting with Obama the next day to discuss issues like the settlements.
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Would it be too far fetched to think some elements within the goverment have forced this whole situation in order to dynamite any chance Obama would have gotten some compromises from Netanyahu?
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Less than a month ago, Lieberman (Foreign affairs minister and Deputy prime minister) clashed with H.Clinton. His position have allways been of force and segregation (even advocating for the deportation of disloyal israeli arabs).
“it’s a little late to say, ‘We’re humanitarians; don’t hurt us.’ ”
Thats pretty dámņ heartless.
Heres what this comes down to. You’re on a side, you’re sticking to it, if anyone so much as tries to get food to someone who you consider your enemy, they deserve to get killed, or at the very least you won’t mind if they do.
Do you know whats missing so far from this post from you, ANY sympathy at all for people trying to change a šhìŧŧÿ situation getting killed. The characters in your books and novels always go on about not hating people just cause you’re born on a different side. About wanting peace because everyone deserves it, even if its very very difficult.
So you write about fine ideals, ideals to live up to, which your readers admire. But when it comes to you the people who have sympathy for your enemy deserve to get killed.
Thats a DISGRACEFUL attitude, which won’t change a dámņ thing, and doesn’t make you better then the people on those boats your condemning.
The reason I suggested you put this on another site is that I didn’t want to realise how heartless you are and be dissapointed.
Too dámņ late. Heres hoping I’m never on a different side to you.
Can’t wait for you’re next Star Trek New Frontier book:
“SHOT EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT EM OUT”
Here’s what this comes down to. You’re on a side, you’re sticking to it, if anyone so much as tries to get food to someone who you consider your enemy, they deserve to get killed, or at the very least you won’t mind if they do.
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this is the very definition of a strawman argument. If you can’t argue your point on the actual facts it’s better not to just assign nonsensically exaggerated motives to your opponents, at least not in this forum.
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Would it surprise you to hear that food is arriving in Gaza every day…through Israel? How does that fact jibe with your account?
Hey Bill,
For all you know some of the humanitarians on those ships may have been inspired at some point by the characters in PAD’s books and their peace keeping peace loving ways.
So its fine for the author of those books to say its okay if they’re dead.
But who cares if they did or not, these were peaceful people trying to give aid to a poor country and he’s saying its good they’re dead.
If that jibes with you then fine, it doesn’t jibe with me.
Heres what this comes down to. You’re on a side, you’re sticking to it, if anyone so much as tries to get food to someone who you consider your enemy, they deserve to get killed, or at the very least you won’t mind if they do.
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Uhm…no. I said nothing like that. I’m saying that if the people on the boats had, as their priority, humanitarian aid, then they lost sight of the goal. Because they were told by the Israelis how to accomplish that goal without any harm coming to it and they deliberately disobeyed and forced the issue. As others have pointed out, humanitarian aid has been getting to Gaza for some time. This, on the other hand, comes across to a reasonable observer as a politically motivated gambit cloaked in humanitarianism.
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PAD
So its fine for the author of those books to say its okay if they’re dead.
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Where did he say that?
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these were peaceful people trying to give aid to a poor country and he’s saying its good they’re dead.
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ok, now where did he say THAT?
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If that jibes with you then fine, it doesn’t jibe with me.
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As near as I can tell we are both in strong disagreement with the thing you say PAD said that he did not, in fact, actually say. As, I suspect, is PAD.
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Argue against what he said. You may not get anywhere but at least it counts for something.
Nowadays if you’re in a NY subway station and you see a suitcase standing by itself on the station, do you assume it to be a harmless American Tourister?
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If the suitcase had openly declared that it contained medical and other humanitarian supplies and it’s trip to the subway station was well publicized and a friend of mine declared it went thru screening when it was packed, then, yeah. I’d assume it wasn’t about to blow up in my face.
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Your analogy doesn’t work, PAD.
PAD: The point is on what authority other than force is Israel entitled to demand obedience from the flotilla?
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Israel unilaterally decides what is aid and what is a luxury or a security threat, and even if you acepted that prerogative, the way they are deciding is pretty alarming. Their own data shows a dramatic decrease in the amount of food that gets into Gaza, and the medical conditions of the strip have gone down the sewer since many medicines and equipment are either luxurious or a security threat, in the unillateral oppinion of the IDF.
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And I agree with you, the flotilla had a big political element to it. So what? They submitted to extensive inspections by a third party that is/was friendly to Israel before departing. The whole political statement they were looking for is that Israel is mantaining an unlawful collective punishment over the population of the Gaza Strip. And they pretty much proved that right, proved that for as high the ideals behind the state of Israel are, their policies have long gone wrong.
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The whole “they should have obeyed” position is perverse. They were in open seas, carrying an origin-sanctioned cargo from a lawful state. The only authority of the IDF soldiers boarding the ship was force, not law. If a somali pirate kills a crew member during a ship seizure, we all demand justice. We dont say “they should have know better than to sail those seas” nor blame the victim for not kneeling fast enough.
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“Whatever it takes” seems to be the motto of IDF operations as of late.
If the suitcase had openly declared that it contained medical and other humanitarian supplies and it’s trip to the subway station was well publicized and a friend of mine declared it went thru screening when it was packed, then, yeah. I’d assume it wasn’t about to blow up in my face. Your analogy doesn’t work, PAD.
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But comparing Israeli soldiers endeavoring to enforce a blockade to rapists…THAT you’re okay with.
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Yeah, I think your analogy-meter is out of whack there, Sean.
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PAD
If the suitcase had openly declared that it contained medical and other humanitarian supplies
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I, for one, would never trust a talking suitcase.
Bill Mulligan,
So PAD didn’t say its good these lads died, course he didn’t say it was BAD either, just “meh, what did they expect”. Tell me if someone said “well what were they thinking” to you in a conversation, what would you think they mean? Well it wouldn’t be “tragic they died” and it wouldn’t be “I don’t mind either way”.
Because do you know how “I don’t mind either way” would be translated here, by now bringing it up at all.
So clearly since PAD is bringing this to our attention, and the Israelis are not at fault, and were no heavy handed, and are not wrong in any way whatsoever then…………………………what is he saying?
“Bad things happen”
And the last time Palestinians got blown up it was “What did they expect”.
In my book thats saying the deaths don’t mean anything to him, and since he hasn’t said they were wrong, unlawful, unnessesary, or even a dámņ shame, then what opinion is left?
“If you act like an enemy and do everything an enemy does, it’s a little late to say, “We’re humanitarians; don’t hurt us.””
Yeah Bill, sounds like a man on the fence to me.
But put that aside and what I said before is still valid, its not classy when people get killed to go online and say its their own fault or imply they deserved it.
In fact its the opposite of classy, its petty small minded behaviour.
So excuse me if the next time some palestinians get blown to pieces I don’t come to this site to see the level-headed,impartial “what did they expect” rants of PAD.
You see when Israeli’s get killed it bothers me and I don’t go to sites that say “what did those Israelis expect” and “its a little late to say don’t hurt us” either……THATS being on the fence. THATS being “a reasonable observer”.
PAD: But comparing Israeli soldiers endeavoring to enforce a blockade to rapists…THAT you’re okay with.
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Yeah, I think your analogy-meter is out of whack there, Sean.
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You don’t like folks mis-representing what you say, Peter. Don’t turn around and so it yourself. Where did I say the comparison to rapists was okay? My actual comment was “OK, the rape part makes it a bit overstated. ” You’re claiming I’m “okay with” the part of the analogy that I specifically said I didn’t care for.
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As for any meter being out of whack, you didn’t actually respond to my comment on your suitcase analogy. Your rebuttal is entirely “You’re wrong over there.”
In my book thats saying the deaths don’t mean anything to him, and since he hasn’t said they were wrong, unlawful, unnessesary, or even a dámņ shame, then what opinion is left?
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Excuse me for not using the exact terminology that you find acceptable. But we’re not talking about ten people who were on a fishing excursion, accidentally wandered into Israeli waters and were blown out of the water by a trigger happy patrol boat. We’re talking about a boatload of people who said they were on a humanitarian mission but seemed much more interested with breaking the blockade and pushing Israel into a no-win scenario. They gambled that Israel would back down. Which, of course, had Israel done so, would have been declared a victory for Hamas and just encouraged more blockade busters.
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Basically all I’m doing is observing that a whole passel of nations who have committed all manner of human right’s violations in the name of their own security–countries that aren’t even surrounded by enemies, as Israel is–are busy pointing scolding fingers. You can say that Israel doesn’t care about the Palestinians, but Hamas just prevented Israel from delivering humanitarian supplies, so obviously Hamas doesn’t care about them either. When are you going to understand that all of them–the Palestinians, the humanitarian boats–all of them are just pieces in a game to the radicals, with the only acceptable triumph being the destruction of Israel? Why do you find it so hard to wrap yourself around that?
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PAD
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El Hombre Malo: “PAD, the flotilla submitted to rigurous screening before leaving Turkey, a NATO member with close ties to Israel. And even if Israel didnt trust their allies to check on the ship cargo, the way they handled the situation played out completely wrong. It was contrary to standart and logic.”
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That’s twice I’ve read this in posts by you and it was equally meaningless each time. The ships left port after being screened. Okay. So this means, of course, that no one could ever have met the ship after it left port. After all, it’s completely unknown in the history of sea travel for a boat to be met after it left a port to load or unload contraband.
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You also keep sidestepping the basic idea that the boats were sailing at a blockade with the intent of breaking the blockade. Israel’s forces overreacted badly, but the event would not have happened to begin with had the groups on the boats not been intent on breaking the blockade.
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Sean D. Martin: “If the suitcase had openly declared that it contained medical and other humanitarian supplies and it’s trip to the subway station was well publicized and a friend of mine declared it went thru screening when it was packed, then, yeah. I’d assume it wasn’t about to blow up in my face.”
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Yeah! And they even put a cardboard sign on a stick and wrote “Baby Milk Factory” on it with a Sharpie!
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🙂
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Sean, the ships could have done everything they did and not decided to run the blockade. Once their intention to run a blockade becomes known their cargo becomes suspect. It wouldn’t be the first time in history that a ship was carrying what it declared itself to be carrying and a little something extra.
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We have a border with Canada that has checkpoints at the border. If a semi-truck leaves a warehouse with a fully checked and declared inventory that doesn’t mean that it isn’t still subject to being stopped and checked if the driver does something to raise suspicion. What might raise suspicion? Well, for starters the driver making it clear that he was going to just blow the checkpoints at the border and bypass any of the US weigh stations along the interstate.
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Is it possible that border guards or law enforcement officers could overreact in how they deal with the truck? Sure. Would they be stupid for having done it that way? Sure. Would they have had the opportunity to overreact to a truck running a checkpoint and trying to sidestep being checked if the driver hadn’t decided he was doing it his way rather than the way he was instructed to do it? Not likely.
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I’m not thrilled with the actions of either side here, but I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt a little less to the side that basically declared it intention to say F U to a blockade when it had an alternative to those actions that would still have gotten their “humanitarian” mission taken care of.
You don’t like folks mis-representing what you say, Peter. Don’t turn around and so it yourself. Where did I say the comparison to rapists was okay? My actual comment was “OK, the rape part makes it a bit overstated.
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Saying it’s “a bit overstated” is such a far cry from saying “it’s wrong” that I’m really not seeing the difference. If you wish to say, “Comparing Israeli soldiers who are doing their job to rapists is flat-out wrong,” then I’ll believe that you’re not okay with the metaphor.
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PAD
On the one side, a country that was forced to create a blockade…
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But we’re not talking about ten people who were on a fishing excursion, accidentally wandered into Israeli waters and were blown out of the water by a trigger happy patrol boat. We’re talking about a boatload of people who said they were on a humanitarian mission but seemed much more interested with breaking the blockade and pushing Israel into a no-win scenario.
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“forced” “pushing Israel into a no-win scenario”
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It’s a shame Israel has no control over it’s actions.
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We’re not talking about someone turing around with an object in their hand that looks a lot like a gun a split second decision needs to be made and action taken this instant because you don’t have time to confirm it’s just a cell phone. It was a planned operation by folks who had plenty of advance warning and time to decide just what they would do and decided not to arrest the boat or disable its rudder or any of the other non-lethal courses suggested above.
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Israel wasn’t “pushed” into the course of action they chose.
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They gambled that Israel would back down. Which, of course, had Israel done so, would have been declared a victory for Hamas and just encouraged more blockade busters.
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Becuase Israel had no choices between doing absolutely nothing and dropping armed men onto the boat?
As for any meter being out of whack, you didn’t actually respond to my comment on your suitcase analogy. Your rebuttal is entirely “You’re wrong over there.”
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I didn’t respond because your comment was so ridiculous that it wasn’t worth the effort, to be honest.
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PAD
Becuase Israel had no choices between doing absolutely nothing and dropping armed men onto the boat?
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Didn’t say that either, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find anyplace that I did say that.
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PAD
I’m not thrilled with the actions of either side here, but I’m going to give the benefit of the doubt a little less to the side that basically declared it intention to say F U to a blockade when it had an alternative to those actions that would still have gotten their “humanitarian” mission taken care of.
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Not sure what giving the benefit of the doubt means if one side has a clearly stated intention to run a blockade in an unarmed boat while the other has armed ships. It still looks like an attempt to blame the dead for having gotten shot.
I didn’t respond because your comment was so ridiculous that it wasn’t worth the effort, to be honest.
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Going to respectfully disagree. A suitcase left unattended on a NYC subway platform is, yes, cause for caution and even alarm. A boat showing up unannounced whose motives are unknown is cause for caution and alarm.
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But neither of those was the case and my pointing that out I don’t see as “so ridiculous.”
Going to respectfully disagree. A suitcase left unattended on a NYC subway platform is, yes, cause for caution and even alarm. A boat showing up unannounced whose motives are unknown is cause for caution and alarm.
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Except in all cases you have to assume the worst. Suitcase left unattended? Assume the worst. Unknown boat showing up with unknown motives? Assume the worst. Boat announcing its intention to blow right through something you’ve created to help safeguard your country’s security? Assume the worst.
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These were not “humanitarians” who attempted to bring their materials through the already existing pipelines, complied with all requests, and were then gunned down. This was the equivalent of deciding that the no-fly zone around Washington, D.C. wasn’t going to stop you from air-dropping sandwiches to the homeless people downtown. So you fly your Cessna over Washington D.C., you’re told to turn around immediately, and you tell the airforce jets coming your way to go to hëll. Guess what happens next.
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PAD
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“Not sure what giving the benefit of the doubt means if one side has a clearly stated intention to run a blockade in an unarmed boat while the other has armed ships. It still looks like an attempt to blame the dead for having gotten shot.”
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I’d honestly be amazed if you wrote any of that with a straight face.
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Here’s a little experiment for you to try. Find the closest secure U.S. military base in your area on a map and drive to the town/city/county that it’s in on a scorching hot day this summer. Load your car up with coolers stocked with ice cold Gatorade and handmade sandwiches. Swing by the local police department and have them inspect your car and your cargo. Leave the station and, when just shy of getting to the base, call them and tell them that you’re not stopping for any of their security checkpoints but that it’s A-Okay and they don’t have to stop you or use force against you or your vehicle because, per local police inspection, you’re unarmed and just wanting to bring humanitarian aid to the soldiers on the PT field who are working out on this deadly hot day. Oh, and if for some strange reason they choose to stop an “unarmed” man on a humanitarian mission and try to pull you out of your car; fight the soldiers by pulling a long knife and a club out from under your seat.
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Let me know how that works for you. Let us all know what unreasonable people the soldiers were to you just because you said you were going to run their armed checkpoints without stopping your car or your “unarmed” self. I’m sure the story will be all about how they thanked you for the Gatorade and sandwiches and took you out for lunch to show their gratitude.
Jerry Chandler:
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“So this means, of course, that no one could ever have met the ship after it left port. After all, it’s completely unknown in the history of sea travel for a boat to be met after it left a port to load or unload contraband.”
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We are talking about a ship with TV crews (at least three networks that I know of), various reporters and individuals, from different backgrounds, some of them keeping live feed of the trip (one of the three spaniards sent a video just before the signal was jammed). If this was a few people’s operation, I would agree with you, but this was a 700+ crowd. We can discuss about how many of them were misled, about how the desire to make a political statemen stained the humanitarian effort, but I doubt you are infering those 700+ people were all part of a giant scheme to smuggle weapons into Gaza. A holocaust survivor, a Swedish parlament member, a best seller novelist and a Nobel prize laureate all covering up a weapons run while the cameras were rolling.
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“You also keep sidestepping the basic idea that the boats were sailing at a blockade with the intent of breaking the blockade.”
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I didnt sidestep that. I adressed the notion of the blockade beign an unlawful unillateral act and thus the authority of the IDF troops in international waters based only in their military power. You might agree or not with their political statement, but if you think the blockade is a wrong measure, taking action to undermine it is the next step. During the mandate days, jews defied a law they considered unfair by trying to smuggle refugees into Palestine, often clashing violently with british troops. Remember Exodus? If the tactic is acceptable when you deem the cause right, it must be acceptable when you think they are wrong.
The Army base analogy is not aplicable. US soldiers guarding a US base on US soil (or wherever is lawfully built) have an authority that goes beyond their capability to kill you. Now imagine it’s a bunch of canadian soldiers that decided to block a road in Minessota because it suits Canada’s security. Their authority within american soil comes exclusively from the mouth of their guns.
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Most people would obey them, but I am guessing some wouldnt. Some would say “I am not submitting to force” and try to pass the blockade, and maybe get killed doing so. Sure, you can say they were fools, but that doesnt make the soldier that shoots less of a killer.
We are talking about a ship with TV crews (at least three networks that I know of), various reporters and individuals, from different backgrounds, some of them keeping live feed of the trip (one of the three spaniards sent a video just before the signal was jammed).
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So what? The onus is not upon Israeli soldiers to be watching the blockade runner’s entire journey on live stream. The onus upon the humanitarians–if a humanitarian mission is really their imperative–to get the materials to their subjects. Announcing they’re going to try and break a blockade is not the way to do it.
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And to keep with Jerry’s utterly correct analogy, if the person with the refreshments for the soldiers was covered by Eyewitness News from the moment he went to the Shop-rite to the moment he approached the base, the check points still wouldn’t let the driver through and would not tolerate being attacked with knives and clubs.
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PAD
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“The Army base analogy is not aplicable.”
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It’s perfectly applicable. We were discussing what kind of idiots declare that they’re going to run a blockade and then act surprised that the people holding the blockade use force to keep them from doing so.
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“Now imagine it’s a bunch of canadian soldiers that decided to block a road in Minessota because it suits Canada’s security. Their authority within american soil comes exclusively from the mouth of their guns.”
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Okay. So Minnesota has been firing rockets into Canada and sending suicide bomber into their territory to kill civilians by blowing themselves up in market shops and bus stops so Canada blockades Minnesota. The people on the blockade say that you can still enter Minnesota, but you have to go through a checkpoint. A group of people declare that they’re running the blockade. They get their áššëš handed to them. Illegality questions about the blockade or not; if the people who decided to run the blockade “unarmed” then act surprised that they got their áššëš handed to them they are morons.
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“We are talking about a ship with TV crews (at least three networks that I know of), various reporters and individuals, from different backgrounds, some of them keeping live feed of the trip (one of the three spaniards sent a video just before the signal was jammed). If this was a few people’s operation, I would agree with you, but this was a 700+ crowd. We can discuss about how many of them were misled, about how the desire to make a political statemen stained the humanitarian effort, but I doubt you are infering those 700+ people were all part of a giant scheme to smuggle weapons into Gaza.”
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Two things are wrong with your statement.
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(1) There have been things smuggled onto vacation cruise ships before where no one on the ship knew a thing about it or had any after the fact evidence of it. Well more than 700+ people taking pictures and video at all hours of the day and a small boat can still pull up unnoticed or, as is more likely, ignored when ship’s staff treats it like it belongs there.
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People only see and/or notice something when they’re looking for it.
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(2) We’ll take it as a fact for just a second that everyone on the ship was being vigilant and watchful and doing everything they could during their waking hours to make sure that none of the people on the ship who pro-Hamas or anti-Israel could get anything on the ship that wasn’t supposed to be there. Fine. The people on the blockade are supposed to know this and trust this as a fact how? A ship is headed their way with the declared intent of running the blockade and the people on the blockade are just going to take their word for it that they’re not carrying any weapons?
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I’m sorry, but you’re naive or just flat dumb as a brick if you’re sitting on a blockade of a country that lobs missiles at yours, sends suicide bombers into your country, elects as a part of the official government a terrorist organization who has as a plank in their manifest the destruction of your country and has friends and allies who routinely run weapons into your country whenever they can get the chance and you’re just going to take the word of the people running your blockade that they’re unarmed, carrying only humanitarian aid and are not smuggling anything to help other people kill your people.
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Now, since you seem to think that the job of people running such a blockade is to let anyone just sail through so long as they promise that they’re behaving themselves and just have good intentions… Are you just naive or flat dumb as a brick?
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That should be “manifesto” up there.
PAD:
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“And to keep with Jerry’s utterly correct analogy, if the person with the refreshments for the soldiers was covered by Eyewitness News from the moment he went to the Shop-rite to the moment he approached the base, the check points still wouldn’t let the driver through and would not tolerate being attacked with knives and clubs.”
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The analogy is only correct if you think the authority to enforce a blockade emanates stricly from the power to do so. I dont.
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And I agree with you the flotilla had less of an humanitarian intention than a political one; challenging the notion of Israel having the right to collecivly punish everyone in Gaza. Would they have followed a peaceful resistance path (non violently refusing to submit to the instructions of what they deem unlawful, forceful rule), I would have no problem with the two intentions (humanitarian and political) going together, but some elements within the Mare Marmara seem to have failed on that (unless footage released in the future proves otherwise).
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Jerry Chandler:
“We were discussing what kind of idiots declare that they’re going to run a blockade and then act surprised that the people holding the blockade use force to keep them from doing so.”
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Ghandi did. Black activists did in the USA, if I remeber well. They announced their intention to go from A to B against the wishes of the people in power, sometimes even against laws they deemed unfair. And they got beaten and killed for it. As I said above, some elements in the flotilla failed to stick to a non violent approach, but by your analogies, even if they had, they deserved to get punished for the foolish atempt to disobey the man with the gun.
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“Now, since you seem to think that the job of people running such a blockade is to let anyone just sail through so long as they promise that they’re behaving themselves and just have good intentions… Are you just naive or flat dumb as a brick?”
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Id like to think neither, thanks for asking. I prefer to see myself as an unrealistic obsessive compulsive when it comes to the use of force and the power of states. Not because I am a libertarian or anything, but because I am a statist that believes states should adhere to regulations and bilaterality in order to prevent injustice or an unfair use of force. Hence my preocupation about autority in this case.
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They Should have let the ships dock at Gaza. For many reasons. The first beign that it wouldnt be the first ship that they allow to dock in Gaza since the blockade started. Heard about them? I did, but not on the front pages and not more than once. Second, because the way this flotilla had been organized, it seems to me pretty safa to assume there wasnt any weapon aboard. Not 100% sure, but thats why armies rely on intelligence, to collect data and act when there is evidence or a dire possibility of danger. Third because running the blockade like they are doing is costing them more in terms of international backing than a campaign of assasination would ever do.
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Id like to put on the plate again the possibility of the whole fiasco beign organized by Lieberman-like elements within the goverment, trying to prevent Netanyahu making any compromise in the now aborted meeting with Obama. The timing couldnt be more precise.
If you wish to say, “Comparing Israeli soldiers who are doing their job to rapists is flat-out wrong,” then I’ll believe that you’re not okay with the metaphor.
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To coin a phrase, “Excuse me for not using the exact terminology that you find acceptable.” In any event, I clearly did NOT say, as you claimed, that it was “okay with” it.
So you fly your Cessna over Washington D.C., you’re told to turn around immediately, and you tell the airforce jets coming your way to go to hëll. Guess what happens next.
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A boat still distant from shore is not the same as an airplane minutes from a potential target. Disabling an aircraft without destroying it is a fair sight more difficult than disabling a boat.
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No immediate “we have only moments to decide” decision had to be made. Dropping armed soldiers onto the boat was not the only means available to Israel.
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Apples and oranges. Yeah, both are fruit, but of considerably different characteristics.
Let me know how that works for you. Let us all know what unreasonable people the soldiers were to you just because you said you were going to run their armed checkpoints without stopping your car or your “unarmed” self.
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Show me where I objected to the boat being stopped. On the contrary, I’ve asked why thay wasn’t the action taken. If you’re going to object to what I’ve said, at least object to what I’ve said.
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If someone did what your hypothetical described, yes, I’d expect them to be stopped. I would not be suprised to find their car surrounded by armed men. I would not be surprised to find the car’s tires shot out once a warning shot thru the windshield hadn’t slowed the driver down.
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I would not consider it a reasonable response to board the car (ok, the analogy is getting a bit muddy here since one can’t really board a moving car as one can a boat) and create a situation where lethal force is used while the car is still miles away from the gate.
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“I would not consider it a reasonable response to board the car (ok, the analogy is getting a bit muddy here since one can’t really board a moving car as one can a boat) and create a situation where lethal force is used while the car is still miles away from the gate.”
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If you don’t know that someone is coming to run your checkpoint or break your blockade then you stop them at or behind the thing. That’s the most common type of event because most people don’t warn armed guards that they’ll be there in twenty minutes to run past them. We see this event 99.9% of the time and most people tend to see that as how things are “supposed” to play out. You wait until the very last moment do do anything because that’s how it “always” happens.
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Not the case if the idiots planning the run announce their intentions in advanced and if the people on the blockade or checkpoint have a brain. When that happens you give yourself a buffer zone and head them off at the pass before they hit the one yard line. Trust me. I have experience with this kinda thing. If it’s a viable threat and indicators are that the threat will do what they say they will do you head them off at the pass rather than allow them to choose where your first and last line of defense is located.
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They said they were running the blockade. They were stopped before they could get to the blockade. Why risk them running it or, if there were any real nutjobs on board, allow them a chance of damaging a part of it with explosives on a boat?
If you don’t know that someone is coming to run your checkpoint or break your blockade then you stop them at or behind the thing. That’s the most common type of event because most people don’t warn armed guards that they’ll be there in twenty minutes to run past them.
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…if the idiots planning the run announce their intentions in advanced and if the people on the blockade or checkpoint have a brain.
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I’d think that when someone does want the armed guards that the guards would then have the time to use their brains to prepare a course of action that achieves the objective (stopping the boat) and doesn’t have a notable foreseeable risk of having to shoot people.
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They said they were running the blockade. They were stopped before they could get to the blockade.
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Again, I’m not making any objection to their being stopped. My dismay is that they chose to do it in such a stupid way (and that folks then seem to lay the blame for the resulting deaths entirely at the feet of the dead).
I can only shake my head at how Israel pretty much mangled this operation. Like Bill said at the start, they *know* that, rightly or wrongly, there’s a lot of PR here. And Israel pretty much approached this in the worst way possible. Why deaths were necessary in this case is beyond me.
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Now it may only get worse as another pro-Palestinian ship is going to try and beat the blockade in a couple of days.
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And yet, nothing changes when it comes to Palestine. Israel doesn’t want it. Nor do Egypt and Saudi Arabia, for their own selfish reasons.
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Something has to be done, because the current situation is a çlûšŧërfûçk.
People amaze me, this situation was handled correctly by Israel, they closed easy access and created controlled access to an area. If rules are followed there is no problem with providing humanitarian aid to non-humanitarian peoples. These vessels did not follow the rules, they were boarded, and resistance was met with force that ended the resistance. End of story.
“If rules are followed there is no problem with providing humanitarian aid to non-humanitarian peoples”
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Rules unilaterally enacted by one party, by force.
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The aid is meant for all Gaza inhabitants, not just Hamas. Unless your point is to call all palestinians “non-humanitarian” for some reason. Would it be that case, shame on you.
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And the aid finds many problems if routed by Israeli channels. the IDF, again unilaterally, decide whats necessary and what is a luxury or a security threat. Medical equpment seems to be a security threat. Medicines are a luxury. Building materials (many in Gaza live in tents because their house got damaged or destroyed in the conflict) are a security threat. And so on.
Moreso, according to Israeli official data, the flow of food towards Gaza has been cut to 25% of what entered the strip prior the blockade. Either they were a bunch of gluttons back then or now they are eating badly. Fishing has been severely restricted (three miles off the coast). All this is made to prevent everyone (not just Hamas) from building any kind of reserve, so whenever the IDF decides to attack, the risk of starvation make Gaza inhabitants more compliant.
I’d like to thank PAD for bringing a point to my attention that wasn’t mentioned in any of the news coverage I’ve seen on this situation–that the Israeli government offered to accept the flotilla’s cargo at a location outside of Gaza (specifically, the Israeli port of Ashdod), an offer that was refused outright by those aboard the flotilla. Funny how that little detail is left out of the media condemnation of Israel, but is easily found online, in reports published days before the raid.
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Whatever one’s opinion of the Israeli government’s handling of this situation, all it takes is a little effort with the search engine of one’s choice to discover that many of the activists aboard the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” went into this fully intending to provoke a confrontation. It’s hypocritical to poke a bear and then cry foul when you get mauled.
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Chuck
See, I find it hard to get into the specific mindset of every single person on that boat, which was ostensibly about delivering aid, is that “We’re gonna run this blockade and attack the hëll out of anyone who sets foot on it!!!” Was that the intention from the outset? Just to provoke? This wasn’t exactly an entire boatload of bomb-strapped jihadist terrorists but they were actually delivering humanitarian aid. You can’t label this in black and white “They were right, they were wrong”. There is no specific good guy in this situation or moral high ground. Running a blockade is quite a silly idea when they had a different place to land. But people shouldn’t die while delivering aid. That’s the main thing that feels icky about all this.
“Was that the intention from the outset? Just to provoke?” Sadly, yes, it seems it was, at least for some on board.
http://intifada-palestine.com/2010/05/gaza-freedom-march-prepares-emergency-response-for-freedom-flotilla/
“A violent response from Israel will breathe new life into the Palestine solidarity movement” That reads to me like some felt that getting a violent response out of Israel was the most desirable outcome. Again, not claiming the blockade is necessarily right, nor Israel blameless in their handling of things, but it does look to me, based on stuff not from Israel but from the protestors, like they were setting out to provoke.
Yeah, there’s often a thin line between political protest and violent confrontation. And nobody knows where that line should be drawn. You know the difference between idealists and zealots? I dunno either, but they usually end up dead.
That’s the thing. If they’d made the protest, sailed towards Gaza until they were intercepted, then diverted, they’d still have (a) got the aid there (or most of it), and (b) drawn public attention to the blockade. Or even if they’d kept going, but not armed themselves when they knew the army was about to board them – you’d have had the outrage at Israel being heavy handed, without the deaths. Most of the ships were boarded without anyone being killed. But, based on their own comments and their own footage, some of those onboard that one ship wanted the violence.
According to the following article from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/02/israel.palestinians.aid/
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Israel has attempted to deliver humanitarian aid from the l flotilla to Gaza, but Hamas has refused to accept the cargo.
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if true–and one is advised to wait for all facts on these things before shooting one’s mouth off, to coin a perhaps unfortunate phrase–it would certainly lend credence to those who say, in the words of writer Cliff May, The purpose of the flotilla was never to deliver humanitarian aid…The purpose of the flotilla was to open a route for the delivery of missiles, explosives, and other weapons to be used to kill Israelis — to assist Hamas in what Hamas is candid enough to acknowledge is its mission: Israel’s annihilation.
Next time, Israel should just fire 2 rounds from their 6″ guns at the water line of the blockaid runners. They can then pick up the passengers from the water. Obviously the cargo isn’t so important since Hamas wouldn’t accept the aid that Israel offered to deliver after inspection.
There is an issue no one is commenting here; the seizure of all recording equipment by the IDF. Officially, it was confiscated because “it might hold explosives” but after two days they have only released the one turkish TV footage that shows crew members opposing the commandos.
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Either the rest of the cameras and phones were fill with c4 or with inconvenient footage.
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Transparency is the best weapon of the innocent.
Peter David: it’s a little late to say, ‘We’re humanitarians; don’t hurt us.
Conor Lynch: Thats pretty dámņ heartless.
Luigi Novi: No, it’s merely his observation. He’s saying that if humanitarians wanted to be treated as humanitarians, then they should act like humanitarians. Running a blockade and threatening a country is not “giving humanitarian aid”.
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Peter David: forced” “pushing Israel into a no-win scenario
Sean D. Martin: It’s a shame Israel has no control over it’s actions.
Luigi Novi: If you want to debate, then do it honestly, and without distorting the intended meaning of another person’s words. If you can’t do that, then you’re not really discussing things with anyone else, but merely talking to yourself.
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The issue is not that one cannot “control their actions”. The issue is that certain actions will lead directly to a certain response. If I point a guy at a cop, and the cop shoots at me in response, it’s because he had to. The fact that I forced the cop to do this—which indeed my actions had the effect of doing—does mean that he couldn’t “control” his actions. It merely means that my actions forced his hand. If you want to disagree with Peter or anyone else here, fine, but don’t pretend not to understand the clearly intended meaning of their words.
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Depends on the guy you point at me. If it’s Uwe Boll then, yeah, I’m shooting you yah heartless bastitch. Him too just for th films he’s unleashed upon mankind. Now, if you point a Billy Connolly at me I might be too busy laughing to shoot you. Might even thank you for it.
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Of course, one of my fellow officers would love it if you pointed any guy at her right now. It’s been a while.
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I don’t think I distorted the meaning of the words. I disagree that Israel was pushed into a now-win scenario. There were plenty of ways that they could have stopped the boat, thus achieving their aim of preventing it getting to Gaza, without resorting to a night-time raid. This was NOT just a choice between letting suspect cargo reach Gaza and lose face vs armed raid on the ship and international scorn.
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If I point a gun at a cop, sure, I expect s/he may have no real choice but to shoot back. But if I shake my fist I figure there’s all sorts of ways the situation could be dealt with short of shooting me.
Agreed. But if the fist you’re shaking has a knife or a club in it and you’re advancing, the cop is gonna shoot you.
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PAD
Hopefully in the leg.
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Remember, I’m not charging at him full steam giving him only a moment to react. I’m plodding along giving him plenty of time to find a non-fatal way to stop be in my tracks.
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The no-time-to-react part doesn’t come until AFTER the soldiers dropped onto the boat. A situation the soldiers could have prevented ever happening.
Hopefully in the leg.
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Hopefully. But if he misses and puts a bullet through your head, your upset relatives are still going to have a hard time selling the idea that you don’t bear any responsibility for the outcome.
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PAD
“Hopefully in the leg.”
Contrary to what movies might suggest, shooting at the limbs isn’t the most realistic option. It’s a smaller target, so unless your a truly exceptional shot, most people are trained to shoot at the main trunk of the body. You are more likely to hit that.
“Remember, I’m not charging at him full steam giving him only a moment to react. I’m plodding along giving him plenty of time to find a non-fatal way to stop be in my tracks.”
Which wasn’t what the people on the ship were doing. They weren’t coming at the soldiers one at a time, slowly walking towards them and trying to look menacing. They rushed the soldiers in a mob. At that point, even if the soldier was an expert marksman, he’s not going to have time to aim to wound.
“The no-time-to-react part doesn’t come until AFTER the soldiers dropped onto the boat. A situation the soldiers could have prevented ever happening.”
How? Look at the options.
Ships sailing with openly stated intention of breaking the blockade.
Option 1: let them do so.
Option 2: stop them.
Whether Israel has the right to do the blockade here isn’t the point; everyone knew they wouldn’t go with option 1. Doing that would mean more such ships, and even if these ones were genuinely only carrying humanitarian aid, that wouldn’t be true of all the ones that followed. So we go with option 2, stop them. How to do that?
Option 1: ask them not to break the blockade.
Option 2: force them not to break the blockade.
Option 1 was tried. Israel got told by the ships that they were going to break the blockade regardless, so option 2, force them, becomes the only choice. How do you do that?
Option 1: shoot the ships to disable them, then tow them to your chosen port.
Option 2: board the ships and make them go to your chosen port.
Shooting to disable the ships might, in theory and hindsight, have been a better option, but then you’d have had complaints of “they opened fire on unarmed ships” and heaven help them if the shots, instead of disabling propulsion, had breached the hull, killed anyone or sunk the ships. So boarding the ships becomes the more realistic option. It’s not an unusual or bizarre option. Navies and coast guards around the world do it all the time, and if there is any worry the people on board might put up an armed resistance, the boarders go armed. Normally it doesn’t end in bloodshed, but that’s because normally the people boarding are not immediately attacked. Usually boarders don’t come down from helicopters, but that’s mostly because normally you don’t have them available to you or people trained to board in that manner. I’ve gone ship to ship quite a bit. Boarding by bringing a ship alongside is tricky when both ships are co-operating; doing so when one vessel is much larger and is actively trying to prevent you is exceptionally dangerous. Plus, on a big vessel, if you board by sea you then have to make your way up to the bridge through several decks, tricky if there are hundreds of people trying to stop you, even if all of them are just peacefully trying to block your way. They boarded by helicopter to give themselves the shortest route to the bridge.
Contrary to what movies might suggest, shooting at the limbs isn’t the most realistic option. It’s a smaller target, so unless your a truly exceptional shot, most people are trained to shoot at the main trunk of the body.
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Of course. But we’re not actually talking about shooting a person in the leg, are we? It’s an analogy and picking on the technical details of the analogy is missing the point.
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They weren’t coming at the soldiers one at a time, slowly walking towards them and trying to look menacing. They rushed the soldiers in a mob. At that point, even if the soldier was an expert marksman, he’s not going to have time to aim to wound.
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Again, you’re seriously missing the point. As I said “The no-time-to-react part doesn’t come until AFTER the soldiers dropped onto the boat.” The boat was plodding along and was a large, not terribly fast moving target on which there was plenty of time to take aim.
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Shooting to disable the ships might, in theory and hindsight, have been a better option,…
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I’m pretty certain that it was an obvious better option in foresight. To follow your format:
Option 1: shoot the ships to disable them. Likelihood of fatalities: small.
Option 2: board the ships and make them go to your chosen port. Likelihood of fatalities, notably higher.
And that there are distinct differences in those likelihoods should be pretty obvious. Having commandos zodiac alongside and fire a rocket at the rudder or propellers is foreseeably less likely to result in injury or death than a nighttime raid attempt to commandeer the ship.
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…ave been a better option, but then you’d have had complaints of “they opened fire on unarmed ships” and heaven help them if the shots, instead of disabling propulsion, had breached the hull, killed anyone or sunk the ships.
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At least in that situation Israel would be able to claim they tried to stop the ships in the manner least likely to cause injury to the people on it. Yeah, they’d still be condemned from some quarters, but it would be better than the reaction they’re getting now, wouldn’t it?
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Seriously, I just don’t get the folks who argue there were no better options for Israel and they did what they had to do and make all kinds of excuses and rationalizations to support that.
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Your own concluding paragraph argues that they knew their was a likelihood they’d face armed resistance and have “hundreds of people trying to stop [them]”. Yeah, so let’s try to take over the ship rather than try any other method.
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Stop the boat before it gets to it’s destination. Fine. But don’t do it in such a boneheaded way.
Sean D. Martin: I don’t think I distorted the meaning of the words. I disagree that Israel was pushed into a now-win scenario.
Luigi Novi: Which has nothing to do with the manner in which you interpreted Peter’s words. Peter, whether you agreed with him or not, opined that Israel was. That does not mean that he was implying that they “could not control their actions.” If you want to debate whether they were pushed into that scenario, then fine, do so. But distorting Peter’s words by inferring that he meant something he clearly didn’t doesn’t accomplish this.
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Disagree, but disagree honestly, Sean.
“Of course. But we’re not actually talking about shooting a person in the leg, are we? It’s an analogy and picking on the technical details of the analogy is missing the point.”
The analogy had moved exceptionally close to the actual events. That’s why I pointed out the flaw in the “technical details.”
“The boat was plodding along and was a large, not terribly fast moving target on which there was plenty of time to take aim.”
Sean, do you have any experience with naval weapons? I do. Shooting to disable another vessel is not an exact art.
“I’m pretty certain that it was an obvious better option in foresight. To follow your format:
Option 1: shoot the ships to disable them. Likelihood of fatalities: small.
Option 2: board the ships and make them go to your chosen port. Likelihood of fatalities, notably higher.”
No, it wasn’t the obvious choice with foresight. Correct assessment of options:
Option 1: shoot the ships to disable them. Likelihood of fatalities: medium, and if it goes wrong you are talking about hundreds of people at risk. Plus you get the public outrage of “opening fire on an unarmed vessel in international waters.”
Option 2: board the ships and make them go to your chosen port. Likelihood of fatalities – minimal, IF the people on board do as they claimed they would, meet you with passive resistance only. The people on the ship openly stated they’d resist non-violently, simply sit blocking doorways and the like, which would mean manhandling them out the way. And that’s apparently what did happen on the other ships – result, no need to blow holes in those ships and no fatalities despite being boarded.
The factor that changed things on the one ship was that they met the boarding soldiers with violence. Given the prior claim that they would resist passively, that’s where the Israeli’s miscalculated as to what option was the better one. Yes, in hindsight trying to disable the ship probably would have been the better choice, but it is in hindsight, not foresight.
“At least in that situation Israel would be able to claim they tried to stop the ships in the manner least likely to cause injury to the people on it. Yeah, they’d still be condemned from some quarters, but it would be better than the reaction they’re getting now, wouldn’t it?”
So you think that if Israel had opened fire on an unarmed ship and as a result sunk it with the resulting loss of way more than the casualties we actually got, that the resulting international response “would be better than the reaction they’re getting now”? I suspect that’s not how it would play out.
“Seriously, I just don’t get the folks who argue there were no better options for Israel and they did what they had to do and make all kinds of excuses and rationalizations to support that.”
And I find it sad that so many people fail to recognise that a lot of the better options were denied them. Did they make bad choices – yes. But given the way things were proceeding, I can also see why they made those choices.
“Your own concluding paragraph argues that they knew their was a likelihood they’d face armed resistance and have “hundreds of people trying to stop [them]“. Yeah, so let’s try to take over the ship rather than try any other method.”
No, my concluding paragraph noted they knew they’d face hundreds of people trying to stop them. However, and this is the crux of it, they knew this because those people had clearly stated they’d put up [b]passive[/b] resistance, not armed resistance. That proved to be a lie.
“When are you going to understand that all of them–the Palestinians, the humanitarian boats–all of them are just pieces in a game to the radicals, with the only acceptable triumph being the destruction of Israel?”
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The point is the difference between YOU and WHAT YOU WRITE.
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In your books people have peaceful ideas and good intentions that are worth aspiring to. Also those characters have open minds and try to look at a situation from multiple points of view.
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And then readers go to your website after a number of deaths are reported in the media and its “SHÍT HAPPENS” or “what did they expect” which, come on, to an adult is the same thing.
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So in the real world you stick to a side, fine, we all do, so you’re no different to the rest of us. It doesn’t make you different from the people on the other side sticking to their position. So the world doesn’t really need books about understanding, peace and explorering situation from multiple angels, it really needs one more person the internet taking a side and sticking to it.
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But I think your body of works stands for some measure of fairness, rationality, and people looking for peaceful resolutions.
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An one look at your site and its clear you don’t.
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Its like finding out an author of science fiction doesn’t believe in science, or a person who writes romance novels who thinks romance is for idiots. Or a person who writes books on equality for the sexes can’t stand either men or women, “hey thats my side, I’m sticking to it”
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Thats why I like writers like Garth Ennis, his characters often discuss šhìŧŧÿ situations and say “screw it, both sides are wrong”. He grew up in the North of Ireland during a really šhìŧ situation and has written numerous stories where both sides of that conflict are complete idiots, even the Punisher had a trip to Ireland to find out the people on either side of that conflict were a bunch of clowns.
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But the characters in your books look for peaceful situations and in reality you say “hey, MY side is RIGHT, THEIR side is WRONG”.
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So theres a whole section of your readers who think like john above:
“But as an unapologetic Israel supporter, you frustrate the heck out of me.”
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And many who think, “oh he’ll WRITE a good story, but just go to his site and he’s completed one-sided”. Many people won’t identify with a body of work if the author behaves like he doesn’t believe it.
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So enjoy your one-sided discussion, in reality all your saying to your readers is that the ideals in your books are fine in theory, in some alternate reality or ficticious future. But you wouldn’t want to BELIEVE any of it.
Actually, I think Captain Calhoun and Jamie Madrox and Sir Apropos are downright pig-headed and intransigent in their positions. Well, maybe not Apropos, but the other two are. Hëll, half the conflicts in New Frontier books come from the fact that Calhoun believes he’s right.
It’s like a guy who claims to want to see both sides of an argument but, when given the chance to show how it’s done, just trots out fake quotes (in actual quotation marks) to make the person he is arguing with look as unreasonable as possible, as opposed to just arguing the actual points. Got it.
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I would not be at all surprised if even some of the people who agree with your politics wish you’d do a better job of defending them. But it seems like this is the best you’ve got.
I don’t know what you think you’re reading into my work, but they are entirely your inferences. I write about all types of characters, and some are peaceful, and some are belligerent, and some are compassionate and some are complete áššhølëš. You’ve basically decided to pigeon-hole my work into some individual interpretation of it and then hold me to a standard that you’ve made up for yourself. I’m sorry if I haven’t measured up to this image of my work that you’ve made up in your own head, but the failure isn’t mine; it’s yours.
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PAD
FACTS Bill?
Thats hilarious, things like this attack can take days to sort out, did PAD wait days before posting this? Did he wait for facts? NO.
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As usual people are dead and PAD’s like “It’s all Israel’s fault. Got it.”
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Heres my politics Bill, I don’t want to see anyone on either side get killed, I don’t consider either side to be my enemy and I don’t make glib remarks about people who just died. And if an author I had respect for wrote an article about dead Israeli’s with a title of “what did they expect” I’d have something to say about it.
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Especially if its following with books and novels about reason and understanding.
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You know what, if “good guy” characters in PAD’s book had shot people the way it happened here, they’d at least admit it was a tragic loss of life, not PAD though, to him they did something “an enemy would do”. so fictional characters get more respect from him then “humanitaries”.
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Oh, and the “people who agree with my politics”, you think they’re coming to this site anymore?
I kind of agree with your point of view on the Mare Marmara incident and I come to this site. Daily.
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And as Bill Mulligan pointed out, Id love to see much less ad hominem in your comments and more detached observation. You write in an outraged tone that doesnt help your position. One discuss to, hopefully, find common grounds. And in the age of internet,these threads are one of the rare spot where you can find a sensible enough crowd to actually do that. But you wont find many common grounds calling people “heartless bášŧárdš”.
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Now, regarding your analisis of PAD work in relation with his views… I actually find him to be pretty consistent. Your problem comes from perspective. See, when his characters use force, they use it from a position you agree with, so you dont see a problem with it. In this case, the use of force comes from a perspective you disagree with, hence the problem. I have long come to disagree with the use of force and the idea of autority on most superhero books, but that doesnt prevent me from enjoying them.
“See, when his characters use force, they use it from a position you agree with, so you dont see a problem with it. In this case, the use of force comes from a perspective you disagree with, hence the problem.”
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Interesting point, so please find me anything in PAD’s books or novels where the good guys do something like this, and with no remorse or sympathy blame the dead people for causing it, and we’ll discuss perspective.
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And my tone is slightly outraged because of the blaise glib remarks towards unfortunate deaths, and PAD’s insistance on not plainly saying what he believes. I used a ridiculous example of Italy putting an embargo on Palestine and PAD’s response was “we were at war with Spain, then I doubt the US would have anything negative to say about it”. So has the U.S. declared war on Palestine?
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And PAD has referred to these people as “behaving like an enemy”, are all Palestinians his enemies?
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And when he wrote “What did they expect” the last time Palestinians were killed by Isreali’s did he mean they deserved to die?
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And if they are his enemies? Is it still ghoulish to say “What did they expect” when Palestinians are killed. And use sarcasm to say its not our fault when some “humanitarians” get killed.
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The facts are PAD is wrong the instant he writes this one-sided stuff before all the bloods mopped up and says he’s a “reasoned observer”, and when some deaths occur its not tragic, or an occasion to consider “how could we avoid this”, nope, its time to throw on the sarcasm font, shrug your shoulders and say “what did they expect”.
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And is that what the message in his books is?
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Course he can’t actually say yes to any of the above, because the soap box he’s standing on is made from the books he writes which won’t sell so well overseas to people he refers to as his “enemies” and those “acting like his enemies”.
Why wouldn’t they be? Are they so thin skinned that they can’t bear to read other opinions? And how is it that you, alone among them, were so blessed as to be made of stronger stuff?
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You yourself mentioned “a whole section of readers” who are frustrated by PAD’s opinions, so I don’t see how you can feel that you are a lonely voice here.
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true, PAD did not wait until all the facts were out to voice an opinion but if that is to be criticized shouldn’t it be by someone who hasn’t done the same? Or am I reading too much in assuming you think Israel was clearly in the wrong here?
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PAD’s insistance on not plainly saying what he believes.
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See, you assume to know what he believes. You assume to know why.(“we all stick with our own”). And on those assumptions you get outraged. Well yeah, I guess if you assign bad thoughts based on bad reasons to people you can get all sorts of righteous anger. Probably not going to change a lot of hearts and mind that way though.
You yourself mentioned “a whole section of readers” who are frustrated by PAD’s opinions, so I don’t see how you can feel that you are a lonely voice here.
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Did I say I was a lonely voice. Are you a lonely voice?
PAD did not wait until all the facts were out to voice an opinion but if that is to be criticized shouldn’t it be by someone who hasn’t done the same? Or am I reading too much in assuming you think Israel was clearly in the wrong here?
I’ll answer any questions of me you want Bill, I’ve already said I think any death is tragic in this conflict. But I don’t write blogs saying only certain deaths are tragic and write books which say all life is sacred.
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PAD’s insistance on not plainly saying what he believes.
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See, you assume to know what he believes.
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Hey Bill, I’m ASKING PAD what he believes. So if I know what he believes, why am I asking? Do you know what he believes, you appear to be defending it so please fill me in.
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I guess if you assign bad thoughts based on bad reasons to people you can get all sorts of righteous anger
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Again Bill, asking, not assigning, so your argument has no weight. So you answer the question then, would you really write a blog saying these people deserved to get killed the day they died? Well? Do you think there is anything wrong with that at all?
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What did you think when you heard people were killed, did you feel sympathy or did you wait to see if they were right or wrong before you felt any sympathy for them or their families.
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I mean, whats next, PAD writes more novels about peace, patience, comdemning violence, regretting the lose of life, and then when real people are killed starts his next article with “well what did they think would happen” or “so its OUR fault, riiiiight”.
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“I’ll answer any questions of me you want Bill, I’ve already said I think any death is tragic in this conflict. But I don’t write blogs saying only certain deaths are tragic and write books which say all life is sacred.”
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Except he hasn’t said that. I’ve seen you interpret it that way, but I haven’t seen him actually say that.
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It is possible to see deaths as tragic while still voicing the idea that the acts that brought about the deaths were stupid or that there was a “well what did you expect” nature about them. Well into the last century there were still Christian missionaries, even after repeated warnings from other locals, marching off into jungles to “save” some tribe that ended up killing them or even having them for dinner.
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The loss of life was a tragic, but then it was a somewhat stupid way to die. It’s given an even greater “Well what did they expect” aspect when you look at how many warnings some of these people were given about the tribe they were headed off to “save.”
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Hëll, look at some of our pop culture figures. We look at the talent of someone who has just died an untimely death due to their own actions and call it tragic. We still say that it was more or less expected and could be seen coming from a mile away. Lindsay Lohan is the currant train wreck waiting to happen that some are right now pointing to as the next Well what did you expect” death that they can see coming from a mile away.
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It will still be seen as a tragic death by some, but it’s doubtful that those same people will argue with someone saying that you could kind of expect it to happen based on the last few years of her ever more and more self destructive lifestyle.
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Let me make it a bit more personal. If a father of two with a history of drinking and driving decides to get smashed one night and drives himself home he’s making a very foolish decision. If he wrecks his car and dies, would you call it tragic? If you learned that he had previous DUIs under his belt and was driving on a suspended license when he died… Are you going to say that it was tragic but kind of expected and stupid on his part?
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Now add in the twist that the drunk driver kills a friend of yours in the accident that took his life. You might be noble enough to still call each death tragic, but are you going to argue with someone who says that the death of the DUI driver was somewhat expected given their actions?
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You can acknowledge that what someone did was the reason that bad things happened to them and still consider their death a tragedy. In this case it was basically it really was also basically a what did you expect” moment given that they chose to run an armed blockade with the intention of breaking the blockade and then fighting armed soldiers.
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Tragic? Yes. Expected in such a case? Yes. One doesn’t exactly negate the other.
Hey Bill, I’m ASKING PAD what he believes. So if I know what he believes, why am I asking?
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Except you’re really not. You’ve provided your interpretation of what you think are my beliefs, and you’ve repeatedly accused my fictional voice of being at variance with my real life voice…a charge which I dispute, but even if it were the case, it seems rather loopy. I know one writer off the top of my head who has produced deeply spiritual stories involving God and angels and faith, and he himself is an atheist. Does that invalidate the stories somehow? Does that make him a lesser individual? Basically you’ve set up this situation where you’ve established your personal interpretation of my work–which is, y’know, your right–and then dumping on me because you feel what I say in life is at variance with what I say in fiction–which is, y’know, kinda dumb.
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But you’ve given me no indication that you’re genuinely interested in my beliefs, if for no other reason than that you’ve consistently mischaracterized everything I’ve said thus far. Seems to me you’re mostly interested in hearing yourself talk.
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PAD
Bill, when I say “we all stick to our own” I was expanding on PAD’s take about this conflict. He says he has enemies so I asked him who those enemies are, if I even speculated what group he’s in that has these enemies everyone would be all over me, and why not, only he know why these are his enemies so ask him.
Anyway PAD, you say you don’t need to agree with the stuff you right, alright, I think that makes what you write about peace in your books a bunch of hypocrasy because you just said you don’t need to believe it. So why not stay away from the Star Trek books if you don’t believe in this whole peace and life is sacred thing.
“I know one writer off the top of my head who has produced deeply spiritual stories involving God and angels and faith, and he himself is an atheist. Does that invalidate the stories somehow? Does that make him a lesser individual? ”
Actually PAD it makes him a complete hypocrite. A man writing about others having faith while having none is the definition of hypocrasy. So if you’re comparing yourself to this man well…
Jerry, you said:
“The loss of life was a tragic, but then it was a somewhat stupid way to die”
Jerry if PAD had put THAT line in this page I’d have no problem. Its the complete lack of any compassion at all for the dead thats infuriating.
Now add in the twist that the drunk driver kills a friend of yours in the accident that took his life. You might be noble enough to still call each death tragic, but are you going to argue with someone who says that the death of the DUI driver was somewhat expected given their actions?
Good question, so if my friend in killed here (rather then the other side of the world), how would I react. I’d be angry at him of course, I’d be very angry. But I wouldn’t write in a blog online about it before his family had buried him, especially if they lived in the same area as me.
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But lets say I remain angry, lets say it wells up over time and I feel I have to condemn this man online, I’d wait a few months anyway for his families sake, then I’d write about how I felt about him for what he did and I would say his death was tragic and I would at least mention my condolences to his innocent family for his stupid behaviour, and then I’d have my rant. And it wouldn’t be vague, and again it would be after I at least acknowledged his families suffering.
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Oh, and to expend on your example, I’d wait for facts, I’d wait til after the inquest, what if he accidentally took too much medication? what if it was a fault with the car? what if he wasn’t drunk at all this time? what if his car slid on ice? what if things weren’t so clear cut.
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So all this happens to an actual friend of mine and I’d still be more compassionate then PAD about it.
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So PAD, if you can’t answer these questions, where I want to know what you think. Then don’t answer them and i believe that by doing so you admit you don’t want people to know what you think.
So has the U.S. declared war on Palestine?
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And PAD has referred to these people as “behaving like an enemy”, are all Palestinians his enemies?
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And when he wrote “What did they expect” the last time Palestinians were killed by Isreali’s did he mean they deserved to die?
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And if they are his enemies? Is it still ghoulish to say “What did they expect” when Palestinians are killed. And use sarcasm to say its not our fault when some “humanitarians” get killed.
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Oh and PAD, some additional facts, an irish man was put his hospital after being badly beaten by Israeli soldiers at an airport, he was wearing a prison uniform and had no weapons. Eye witnesses are currently saying that all he did was ask for a lawyer then they wanted to put hand cuffs on him, and for that he’s in hospital.
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Did he deserve it?
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Isn’t it even possible that mistakes were made since this began somewhere? Even within the realm of possibility.
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And if mistakes were made, will those deaths be tragic then PAD, will you write “those deaths were tragic but…” , or “I feel for the families but…”. I’ve read all your posts, not one word of compassion for these dead people and their families, and it wouldn’t cost you anything.
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And you say
“You’ve provided your interpretation of what you think are my beliefs,”
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Okay, do these people or their families deserve any compassion from you at all?
And if they don’t why not?
“Actually PAD it makes him a complete hypocrite. A man writing about others having faith while having none is the definition of hypocrasy. So if you’re comparing yourself to this man well…”
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Uhm… No… That makes him a writer. I know this may be a hard concept for you to grasp, but writers of works of fiction explore ideas of all sorts in all kinds of ways. They also populate their works with characters that aren’t carbon copies of themselves. If you think that a writer’s job is to make book after book filled with carbon copies of the writer’s persona as all of the characters… Well, let’s just say I won’t put much faith in anything you say about your reading lists.
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“So why not stay away from the Star Trek books if you don’t believe in this whole peace and life is sacred thing.”
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Yeah, why not stay away from those phaser firing, battle fighting, alien killing characters in the Star Trek universe that believe in this whole peace and life is sacred thing, Peter. God knows that James T. Kirk never so much has harmed another life form so much as one time, let alone killed shiploads of Klingons and Romulans, and it’s a shame that you would sully that good character’s universe’s stories with your less than whole peace and life is sacred beliefs.
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“Jerry if PAD had put THAT line in this page I’d have no problem. Its the complete lack of any compassion at all for the dead thats infuriating.”
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Well, given that Peter has expressed those things and more in past threads and columns, including in threads and columns dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, I’d say that he should be well covered on that front. Did he not put it in this threads header? Yeah, but I’d say he could be forgiven for not doing so out of frustration with the situation. I am getting frustrated with the situations and the slanted coverage of so much of it and I don’t have the personal stakes in the matter that he does.
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“But lets say I remain angry, lets say it wells up over time and I feel I have to condemn this man online, I’d wait a few months anyway for his families sake, then I’d write about how I felt about him for what he did and I would say his death was tragic and I would at least mention my condolences to his innocent family for his stupid behaviour, and then I’d have my rant. And it wouldn’t be vague, and again it would be after I at least acknowledged his families suffering.”
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Big words. I’ll believe when I see it. Beyond the density displayed by your statement in general, there is the little fact that Peter didn’t start the discussion in a vacuum. It’s a news story. It’s being covered by every major news organ in the world. Peter commented on the story and how it was being covered. Somehow, I doubt that amounts to the same thing as you saying or not saying something around the family of a DUI driver who killed himself.
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“Oh, and to expend on your example, I’d wait for facts, I’d wait til after the inquest, what if he accidentally took too much medication? what if it was a fault with the car? what if he wasn’t drunk at all this time? what if his car slid on ice? what if things weren’t so clear cut”
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What if you grew pink horns and a green tail and started singing the blues? Since the basic commentary is on the event and how the event is being portrayed in the news (you know, by all those people who you have yet to condemn but who are not waiting for all the facts before condemning Israel) and it’s playing out pretty much like it usually does… I’d say he has every right to comment on it if he wants to. Since a large part of what he’s commenting on is the nature of the news’s portrayal of the event he seems to be working on all of the facts he needs. The event happened, pretty much most of the media immediately jumped to the storyline of it all being Israels fault and he commented on the fact that much of the portrayal of the event is that it’s all Israel’s fault.
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What other facts would you like him to add?
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“So PAD, if you can’t answer these questions, where I want to know what you think. Then don’t answer them and i believe that by doing so you admit you don’t want people to know what you think.”
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Yeah… The man that has a blog where he has for years now commented on every little thing about pretty much everything under the sun doesn’t want people to know what he thinks. Yeah… Your logic is just… amazing.
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“Okay, do these people or their families deserve any compassion from you at all?
And if they don’t why not?”
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Wow… Just… Wow….
He says he has enemies so I asked him who those enemies are,
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Okay. I didn’t make it past this comment. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you have absolutely no interest in anything I’m actually saying, but in your twisted interpretation of what you think I’m saying. So I’m done with you for this thread.
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PAD
Bill, when I say “we all stick to our own” I was expanding on PAD’s take about this conflict. He says he has enemies so I asked him who those enemies are, if I even speculated what group he’s in that has these enemies everyone would be all over me, and why not, only he know why these are his enemies so ask him.
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Epic flail. He said Israel has enemies. If you think PAD is pro-Israel just because he’s a Jew just say so. I’m sure you wouldn’t be the first. YOU said that Peter was sticking to his own, now you think I should ask HIM what YOU meant by it? Good grief.
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Have the last word if you want, this has gotten pointless. I should be preparing for ConCarolinas (Anyone going? I’m on 5 panels!)
“Have the last word if you want, this has gotten pointless. I should be preparing for ConCarolinas (Anyone going? I’m on 5 panels!)”
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And I should be doing more script work while I’m out of active duty. So ditto for pretty much everybody else here. Have the last word. Have 100 of them. I have more important things to do over the next few days.
“Did he not put it in this threads header? Yeah, but I’d say he could be forgiven for not doing so out of frustration with the situation. I am getting frustrated with the situations and the slanted coverage of so much of it.”
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Wow, you’re getting frustrated after DAYS of slanted coverage but PAD wrote this on day ONE with the minimum of facts out there.
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Well, given that Peter has expressed those things and more in past threads and columns, including in threads and columns dealing with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict,I’d say that he should be well covered on that front.
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You’ve made my point for me, you’ve clearly looked through all his additions to this thread to quote him on any expression of sympathy for these people and theres none. And this is a different situation then usual so he couldn’t have covered it before, and still no sympathy.
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Big words. I’ll believe when I see it.
As I said before you wouldn’t see it, I wouldn’t write an article like this without one word about those deaths being tragic. And I was responding to a scenario put to me as honestly as I could, and you respond with:
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“What if you grew pink horns and a green tail and started singing the blues?”
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Yeah, solid point there, and yet you haven’t answered the question I put to you Bill, would YOU write an article like this?
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If you think PAD is pro-Israel just because he’s a Jew just say so.
Someone asked me what side I think he’s on, that not for me to say. But if I say what he’s writing is one-sided and someone asked me what side he’s on, who am i to say what it is.
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Lads, you want to disagree with me thats fine, but exactly what am I asking for thats difficult? ONE WORD of compassion for people killed and their families by the man putting this article forward asking you to judge them. The “reasoned observer” putting things in a reasoned way can’t even be THAT balanced. You’d think having compassion for them was against the law of something.
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“You’ve made it abundantly clear that you have absolutely no interest in anything I’m actually saying, but in your twisted interpretation of what you think I’m saying. So I’m done with you for this thread.”
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Yeah, it must have been the questions that gave you that impression. And if I’ve “twisted” your interpretation, its because I wasn’t clear on what you interpretation is. I asked some questions, you don’t want to answer them. Wonder why, related to novel sales probably.
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And frankly I’m done with this site, I don’t need to come here to get trash like “What did they think would happen”, and “So its OUR fault” when people are dead. I honestly don’t know what you’ll be putting here next.
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Hey PAD Why not head over to http://www.amazon.co.uk/ and put a little note saying “Hey Europeans, mess with Israel in any way and get killed and i have no sympathy for you”, cause no-one there would buy your books thats why.
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So PAD’s through with me on this thread, so I’m through with this thread.
And frankly I’m done with this site, I don’t need to come here to get trash like “What did they think would happen”, and “So its OUR fault” when people are dead. I honestly don’t know what you’ll be putting here next.
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Just for the record: This, Conor, right here, is why I’m done discussing the particulars of the matter with you, and what I meant when I said that you were not interested in what I had to say, but only your twisted interpretation. Because if you do a fast search through this topic for the “trash” that you quoted, you will find that the ONLY person who said either…
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…is you.
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PAD
Perhaps they should have taken the same action North Korea took and just sank the dámņ boats.
The outrage over this situation is ten times that tragic loss of life.
now that is outrageous
Did I say I was a lonely voice. Are you a lonely voice?
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Kindly explain “Oh, and the “people who agree with my politics”, you think they’re coming to this site anymore?” to me. I took it to mean you thought that the people who agree with your politics did not come to this site anymore.
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Again Bill, asking, not assigning, so your argument has no weight.
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You assigned to PAD the supposed reason for his opinion–“we all stick with our own”. (What exactly do you mean? Jews? People who live in a democracy? Allies of the USA? Other than religion I don’t know what PAD has in common with the average Israeli.)
http://tinyurl.com/3ylk8ap
Interesting piece on the seizure and detention of some other blockade runners.
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Also… how cool are those 1947 ads?
Wonder why Radelle Fággøŧš never caught on?
IDF Photos of Knives Allegedly Contradict Turkish Claims of ’No Weapons’
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com
IDF photos of two dozen knives, including a machete, plus clubs, chains and metal rods used against Israeli Navy commandos in the flotilla clash Monday contradict Turkish claims that the passengers did not carry weapons on board.
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However, if you check the photos at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ own flickr feed : http://www.flickr.com/photos/israel-mfa/4662343871/meta/
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The date and time of original digitizing: 2006:02:07 04:49:57
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So apparently, Israel is faking the photos to justify these killings. Lovely.
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Still, what can be expected from the same people who counterfeited Irish passports to facilitate an extra-judicial killing?
Let’s be honest; this is the same old, same old, going around in circles. There have been Palestinian refugees for 60 years. Israel constantly gets into these situations where people provoke them, they shoot them, and the international community condemns it.
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The only real question is, what is the US going to do? Is it in the US interest to keep defending Israel? As an American and a Jew, I find myself forced to take a cold-hearted view and say “No” (and yes, I can already hear the cries of “traitor to your heritage” from some elements of our community, and probably from my relatives in Israel if they happened to read this. I’m sorry, but America is more important, both to me, and to the future of the world, than Israel).
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Is Israel a friend? Sure. But whatever they offer us in the way of technology, intelligence, etc, just isn’t worth these continued hassles. We can fight the war on terror just as effectively without Israel. It’s probably time to say “You’re own your own”, and wash our hands of it. This probably won’t happen with the current administration because of political considerations, but I do see it happening within 10-20 years as Americans get sick of regularly getting dragged into this garbage.
I kind of like what John Stewart said about this whole fiasco;
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“You know, whatever you may think of the respective leaderships Israelis or Hamas, whatever gods you pray to or whatever direction you may pray to them in, if you can’t even look at Gaza and agree there’s suffering there that needs to be alleviated, no matter who’s to blame for it, then your heart is so dead tourists flock there to float on their backs in it,”
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I like this proposal–http://volokh.com/2010/06/02/let-turkey-have-gaza/
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…if Turkey is so concerned with the welfare of Gazans, why not let Turkey run the place. Israel doesn’t want it, and never has; it tried to give it back to Egypt several times, but Egypt doesn’t want it, either. Meanwhile, Gaza is controlled by a terrorist government that is both cruel and incompetent; and Israel is not going to lift its siege to long as Hamas is in charge.
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But maybe Hamas, which of course is concerned with nothing more than the welfare of its subjects, would be willing to turn the administration of Gaza over to Turkey. Gazans would benefit from Turkey’s trade ties with the rest of the world; Gazans and Israelis would be rid of Hamas; and Turkey would be able to send all the aid it wants to Gaza! Win-Win-Win! And if Hamas doesn’t agree, let’s just say that Turkey, or at least its Ottoman predecessors, has been in charge in Gaza before, and knows how to deal with violent local factions.
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Indeed. http://dearcomputer.nl/gir/?q=armenian+genocide&s=4&imgtype=any lest we forget.
A third party complete takeover might be a viable awnser, at least until the area is stable and civil society takes over militant tactics. But arabs dont like turks that much.
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A few years ago a friend and me were writing some background for a near-future game and we picked up the chinese african trend, pushing it a step further and having them take over Palestine to boost their international standing. They are sufficiently detatched from the issue, have the means to do it and they’ve been building ties with the arab world for the last ten years.
Oh, I definitely think there’s suffering that desperately needs to be alleviated.
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See, the thing is, I believe the first step in alleviating it is for Hamas to declare that Israel has a right to exist and they wish to put down their weapons, have a permanent cease fire, and work together with their neighbors.
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Hamas believes that the first step tin alleviating the suffering is to wipe out Israel, and after that, everything will be better.
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Between those two positions is a No Man’s Land where peace talks go to die.
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PAD
Basically, you are saying that until Hamas ceases to attack Israel, no steps should be taken to alleviate the suffering of the whole population of Gaza. That for as long as Hamas makes Israel suffer, the whole population of Gaza must suffer too. Or at least that alleviating their suffering is secondary.
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That is called collective punishment.
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And between that position and Hamas’, there is plenty of room for compromise and negotiation. Believing the solution will come from pummeling one side to submission is what kill peace chances. If Hamas is wrong for believing violence is the awnser, Israel is too often guilty of believing that too.
Basically, you are saying that until Hamas ceases to attack Israel, no steps should be taken to alleviate the suffering of the whole population of Gaza.
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Internet Discussion Rule #27: When someone begins a sentence with “Basically,” the rest of the sentence will bear no resemblance to what the person being quoted actually said.
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PAD
Well, you said “the first step in alleviating it is for Hamas to declare that Israel has a right to exist and they wish to put down their weapons, have a permanent cease fire, and work together with their neighbors.”
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If that’s the first step, I take the next steps (the ones where people in Gaza get to rebuild their homes or get medicines) come after it and never before. I pretty much understood that you dont want or desire collective punishment to be inflicted on Gaza civilian population, but that the blockade strategy objetives are more important, therefore rendering the issue secondary.
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But Ive learned something new… Internet HAS rules!. Who wouldve told.
I pretty much understood that you dont want or desire collective punishment to be inflicted on Gaza civilian population, but that the blockade strategy objetives are more important, therefore rendering the issue secondary.
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Then you misunderstood. I think the most important objective is that everyone agree to live with each other harmoniously. Once that happens, relief flows to Gaza. Once that happens, Israel can drop its siege mentality.
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Failing that–which, let’s face it, is what’s happening now–then what’s important is finding ways to get relief to the Gazans in a way that minimizes the risk of Israelis getting shelled. Interestingly, those means are already in place. So quick, let’s get those relief supplies to the Gazans…oh, wait. Hamas won’t allow it. But rather than focus ire on Hamas, let’s have the UN condemn Israel.
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Makes sense.
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PAD
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“If Hamas is wrong for believing violence is the awnser, Israel is too often guilty of believing that too.”
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See, this is where many on the left come off to me as, well, naive or stupid. I don’t like violence. I don’t think that it answers very much most of the time except who can be the most effectively violent. However, I at least understand that there is sometimes a need for it.
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Hamas wants to inflict its special little brand of violence on Israel. Hamas will not stop trying to do that just because Israel stands up and says that it’s no longer going to fight back.
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Would you just take it if someone walked up to you, broke your nose, knocked you down and started kicking you in the ribs? You would just curl up in the fetal position and declare over and over that violence isn’t the answer to anything? And, when they walk away and declare that they’re going to do the same thing to you every day from now on, will you just take it each and every day because believing violence is the answer is wrong? Oh, and the person doing this to you is half your size at best.
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Oh, and while there’s lots of talk about helping you out from lots of people no one actually does anything to seriously help you out with this problem. So, do you just put up with it or do you fight back?
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Every time, every time, Israel has given them an opening Hamas has attacked them. Hamas has it written into the documents that guide its foundation and existence that the destruction of Israel is one of their primary goals. They have never shown any intention of not attacking Israel or trying to achieve that goal.
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So what is Israel supposed to do, El Hombre Malo? Are they just supposed to roll over and, as someone said in the last big Israel/Gaza thread, live with the “inconvenience” of daily missile attacks? How about opening their border and just turning a blind eye to the waves of suicide bombers killing men, women and children in the market place? That work for you?
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“Basically, you are saying that until Hamas ceases to attack Israel, no steps should be taken to alleviate the suffering of the whole population of Gaza. That for as long as Hamas makes Israel suffer, the whole population of Gaza must suffer too. Or at least that alleviating their suffering is secondary.
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That is called collective punishment.”
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Except that is not what is happening right now. Israel does send food over the border. Israel does allow aid over the border. Israel is, or at least was, even supplying Gaza with electricity.
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But every time they give an opening to Hamas, Hamas launches attacks at them. Oh, and Hamas is a part of the duly elected government of that runs Gaza.
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But, yeah, what about all those other people in Gaza who aren’t part of Hamas?
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Well, there’s always the other members of the government who aren’t a part of Hamas. Of course in the last few dust ups when Hamas threatened to start sending suicide bombers into Israel they refused to condemn the concept when asked about it by reporters. That’s some real caring, peace loving government officials there. Hamas threatens to restart the sending of Palestinians into Israel as suicide bombers, even teenage ones, and the members of the other branches of the government can’t find it in their vocabulary to condemn that suggestion when asked to do so on American TV.
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And how about the “regular people” in Gaza? I’m sure there are a few who don’t want anything more in the world than peace between Israel and Gaza, but it seems that this group is such a tiny minority that they can’t eject Hamas from their land or even get much of a leash on them. They certainly don’t seem to be able to stop Hamas from setting up missile launchers in school yards or other public places.
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Or the majority of them may just be unwilling to try.
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But so long as Hamas makes Israel have to react to a threat of violence, and the people in Gaza do next to nothing to put a leash on Hamas, then Israel will sometimes have to act with violence to deter that violence. Just as you would eventually have to get out of the fetal position and up off the ground to stop the punk who has decided that their goal in life is to break your ribs and beat you almost to death every day.
You and others here keep saying there is a way to deliver the aid without breaking the blockade, yet that is not entirely true. As said before, by the very IDF accounts, the flow of food they are allowing into Gaza is one quarter of what they were getting before the embargo, add up the severe limits to the fishing industry of the strip (now limited to 3miles off the shore). So either they were a bunch of fat gluttons before, or right now they must be skipping some meals.
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And there are some things Israel wont allow into the Strip;
-Medical equipment… because it has wires and stuff inside, I am guessing.
-Certain medicines
-Cement… “unless linked to specific projects we approve”. Wich is a problem because right now cement is needed to repair and rebuild private houses. Where should poor old Ahmed fill the form to request cement for his project or getting a roof over his family’s head?
-Wheelchairs and crutches.
-Tin cans. See, the excuse is the Tin can be used to build barriers and fortifications, but the reality is the whole goal is preventing them from building any kind of food reserve, shortening the time time of effect if they ever decide to cut the flow completely. The trouble, again, is that this strategy doesnt discriminate between civilian and combatants.
-Textbooks.
and so on…
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So the problem here is the unillateral decission about all these supplies. They could have let the Red Cross screen the aid, or any other Tthird party, but they took upon themselves to decide what goes in, and they did a horrible job at it.
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Oh yes, and Hamas tries to capitalize on that. Wich is another good reason not to use this strategy.
And there are some things Israel wont allow into the Strip;
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Yes, that’s a shame. Even more of a shame that they have to scrutinize everything in terms of whether it can be turned into a weapon. Even more of a shame than that is that Hamas will most likely try to turn them into weapons.
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I don’t know about medical equipment or medicines, but…
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-Cement… “unless linked to specific projects we approve”. Wich is a problem because right now cement is needed to repair and rebuild private houses. Where should poor old Ahmed fill the form to request cement for his project or getting a roof over his family’s head?
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That is a shame. What would be nice is if poor old Ahmed and his friends told Hamas that they should stop using cement in order to build supply tunnels for weapons and buildings in which to store weapons, all intended for the destruction of Israel, because it’s really making it difficult to rebuild. And that if Hamas weren’t dedicated to destroying Israel to the detriment of its people, then life would improve. But hey…why do that when one can blame Israel?
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Wheelchairs and crutches.
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Yeah, uhm…that’s a lie. I’m not saying you’re lying; just that you’re credulously accepting the lies of others. As of January, nine truckloads of wheelchairs had been delivered to Gaza. There have probably been more since. What Israel is balking at is electric wheelchairs. Why? Obviously, because Hamas wants to use the circuitry from the wheelchairs to make bombs.
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And when you go to an airport, you can’t bring water through the checkpoint because it might be something flammable disguised as water. And you can’t bring a jar of peanut butter through because it might actually be explosive. Ðámņ those Israelis for…oh, wait, that’s actually in United States airports.
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It isn’t paranoia if they ARE out to get you.
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PAD
Jerry Chandler:
Oh no, dont count me in as a pacifist. I am not, by any means. I do see the how violence can be useful or even the only option at a certain point. But I am also all for responsability (institutional and individual) when it comes to the consecuences of violence. Israel’s defence too often goes along the line of “we were forced to take these measures”, and too often it is a lie. They werent forced but, from the many options, they choose that one because they think they are good at it and its usually smart election-wise.
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See, I mentioned it here before; lately, the knesset have become a Hawk nest. Hamas is a despicable hate group bent on destroying Israel, unfit to negotiate with, on that we agree. But then what do you call Lieberman, a moldavian disco bouncer arrived in 1979, linked to Kahane and Katch, who defended deportation of every arab from Israel and the territories (yes, even arab israeli citizens) and the execution of arab prisoners? That guy is the minister for foreign affairs of Israel right now, and deputy prime minister.
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Is it so far fetched to think the influence of him and guys like him in the goverment is a factor on the amount of force and the tactics the IDF uses?
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Regarding aid delivery, read slightly above.
Yes there is suffering in Gaza and it is the fault of the current and past gov’ts. This suffering can be stopped in one full swoop and that is by Jordan taking in their fellow Jordanians now known as Palestinian and end it.
but they wont.
because they want them to suffer.
They serve a purpose.
But I GIVE UP!!!!!!
Such a complete whitewashing of simple truths….
Whenever I hear the idiotic platitudes of “Never Again” I feel like puking and most importantly punching.
The brainwashing and the glazing of the truth to fit political needs. The stupidity, the brainlessness the lack of curiosity, the lack of suspending ones pre-set racial beliefs to see what is really happening.
In our lifetime Iran will nuke Israel, killing millions and Palestinians as well, but they won’t need them as the sacrifices they have been for decades anyway.
And the compassionate western world will ask how did we let it happen again.
PAD,
On a potentially related note, what is your opinion about America’s embargo of Cuba?
I don’t pretend to know enough about it to have an informed opinion. My off the cuff, uninformed opinion is that it seems pretty stupid. If the end game is to try and get Cuba to become a Democracy, you don’t shut down relations; you ratchet them up. Deluge Cuba with everything that’s good about America to make them want to be like us. You get more flies with honey than vinegar (although as was pointed out elsewhere, you get even more flies with šhìŧ, so I’m not sure what that’s about.)
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PAD
although as was pointed out elsewhere, you get even more flies with šhìŧ
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Big Bang Theory
I thought it was “Big Bang Theory.”
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PAD
Also note that it’s been, what, 60 years of embargoing Cuba now? Fat lot of good it’s done.
We get so caught up with the “I’m right, you’re wrong” mentality that we forget who are the real losers here – the people in Gaza and Sterot and Ramallah and Tel Aviv who just want to live normal lives without worrying about tanks flattening their livelihoods or missiles dropping on their houses or idiots taking the land they’ve been living on for generations or setting off bombs on buses because God told them to.
The longer this goes on, the more I think that neither side really wants it to end. If it did, what purpose would they have? Both Hamas and the Israeli government have defined themselves by who they oppose, not what they stand for. Take that away and what do they have left?
I wonder what would happen if Obama came out and said, “Okay, we’re sick of this. Both of you are in the wrong here, and we’re giving you money. So here’s the deal: Israel, for every dollar you spend on settlements, including security, roads and utilities, we’re deducting two dollars from the money you receive from us in foreign aid. Hamas, for every missile and car bomb you send, we’re deducting five million dollars from the aid sent to Gaza. The tab starts right now, and will be announced every single day until a peace treaty has been signed, Israeli forces are out of the West Bank, the siege of Gaza is lifted, and the leaders of a new Palestinian state publicly announce their support of the existence of the state of Israel.”
I like that…except I’m not so sure I would be sending ANY aid to Gaza unless I had absolute control over it. Considering how Hamas has in the past confiscated aid and sold it I would want to make sure that nothing we send is ending up putting money in their pockets.
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I think it would be hard for anyone not to feel sympathy for the hard life of many Palestinians but I have little hope that it will improve. The radicals are in charge and are as likely to kill anyone who opposes them as they are Israelis. They are raising kids on a culture of hatred not seen since Der Sturmer ceased publication, without Julius Streicher’s flair for subtlety. What money is sent to them must be filtered through many levels of corruption (Had Arafat spent just a fraction of the money he squirreled away on hospitals, universities, whatever, he would have been their Washington. Don’t know what he DID spend it on…obviously not toiletries.
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“As said before, by the very IDF accounts, the flow of food they are allowing into Gaza is one quarter of what they were getting before the embargo”
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And, as has been pointed out here and pointed out and documented elsewhere, some of the decreased flow of aid into Gaza has been due to Hamas refusing to allow the acceptance of some shipments coming from Israel.
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I suppose that’s Israel’s fault as well.
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“Is it so far fetched to think the influence of him and guys like him in the goverment is a factor on the amount of force and the tactics the IDF uses?”
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Certainly not. I said above in my first few posts that the reaction by the blockade was an overreaction. However, the simply fact is that there would have been no need to react to an action had there been no one declaring that they were going to run the blockade and that Israel could go F themselves.
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Yet 99.9% of the coverage I’ve seen seems to gloss over that one little fact.
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There may also be a mindset in some of those in the Israeli Government making the call on these plays that is less than helpful for their PR but somewhat understandable. They may simply be growing tired enough of the bûllšhìŧ that they don’t care about appearance and scale of response.
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And why wouldn’t they be getting tired of worrying about those things? Hamas can launch missiles into Israel for several days with barely a blip on the world’s news services. Israel responds to the attacks and it’s wall to wall coverage five minutes later with most of the POV being expressed in terms of how bad Israel is.
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And of course any response by Israel is decried as not proportional to the attacks by Hamas. In the last big dust-up that was in the news we saw the opinion expressed by many here and elsewhere that Israel should just take it and shrug. Israel responding to the “inconvenience” of missiles being fired into their country was just over the top and out of control. A few injured or dead Israelis didn’t warrant a more effective and efficient response to shut down the ability of Hamas to launch those missiles. Israel was just the big bully who was picking on the poor little Hamas.
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And, of course, most of the people espousing those sentiments would condemn each and every action of Israel while spending paragraph after paragraph excusing the attacks by Hamas as justified in the face of the terrorist actions of Israel.
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If some of the hardliners in the Israeli Government are getting to the point where they don’t care what the perception of their actions are because they know any action will be portrayed as excessive, over the top and unwarranted; can you blame them? If some of the hardliners in the Israeli Government are getting to the point where they don’t care about the proportionate level of their response to Hamas because they’re tired of swatting the same bee year after year after year and have decided to start moving to eliminate the bees and their hive once and for all; can you blame them?
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I think it’s going to be a hellish road for those with that mindset and it’s going to do Israel a world of harm, but, honestly, will it really do them more harm than the garbage they go through now?
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You and everyone else who takes every opportunity to jump all over Israel’s ášš at the drop of a hat might want to devote some of your words and efforts at a different target. There’s this little group that’s a recognized terrorist organization in that region. They’re called Hamas. Maybe some of the pressure and investigations that so many want done to Israel would be better served if directed at Hamas.
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When Hamas stops taking everything they can get their hands on to make weapons to launch at Israel there might be less need by Israel to restrict what Hamas can get their hands on.
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When Hamas is reigned in and stops spending half of every called ceasefire lobbing missiles into Israel then maybe Israel won’t feel the need to flatten and destroy locations where Hamas is storing missiles and launching them from.
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If Hamas and their supporters in Gaza ever finally stop their šhìŧ and Israel then decides to keep up their end of the fight for the rest of the year or more… Well, then Israel is acting like the bad guy. But as it stands now Hamas and various “humanitarians” won’t stop stirring šhìŧ up. Not Israel’s fault if they have to react to the actions of those šhìŧ stirrers.
“You and everyone else who takes every opportunity to jump all over Israel’s ášš at the drop of a hat might want to devote some of your words and efforts at a different target. There’s this little group that’s a recognized terrorist organization in that region. They’re called Hamas. Maybe some of the pressure and investigations that so many want done to Israel would be better served if directed at Hamas.”
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I’ve said Hamas are the bad guys before, here and elsewhere. Never tried to justify their actions, but in the “us-or-them” mindframe people seem to see this conflict, objecting to Israel’s course of action seem to them like justifying the other side. And it’s not.
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Ive also explained why I devote much more time to object Israel actions that Hamas’, at least here. First, you dont find many people defending Hamas in this blog. Nor in any site I usually enter. Second, as I said above, there is no connection between Hamas and me. If my country were to sell weapons or cooperate with Hamas, I would object, in public forum and on the street. And with my vote. But it doesnt.
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It does cooperate with the state of Israel tho. We sell weapons, we share intel, we pursue organizations that finance them. Most western countries do. So, for as long as my country enables Israel in its otherwise justified fight against terrorist, I will object every time I find something objectionable. The same as I object whenever my goverment do something wrong. Its my duty as part of the demos.
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But the point here is you see too many people saying too much against Israel and too little against Hamas, right? Well, look again. My grandfather said something that might be pertinent here. He was a communist militant who fought in the civil war, so after the war and imprisonment, every now and then the police would take him to the station to shake him up a bit, or simply lock him whenever some event was taking place (like Ike’s visit). He said he sometimes would love to see life through a fascist’s eyes, because he would be seeing commies everywhere.
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PAD and you complain at the amount of negative coverage Israel get in the media, compared to Hamas. I say “look again”. For every Huffington Post piece there is Drudge report, for every Al-Jazeera there is Fox News. Look at this thread; most commentators are ok with Israel’s actions. If I go to the fairly equidistant AP pieces on Yahoo News, the commentators there are overwhelmingly supporting Israel’s actions and basically (oops, that word again) advocating arab genocide, But then I know where I have to look to find a majority of people talking about zionist media conspiracies and equating Israel with the third reich.
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If you pick a side, you will see the opposing side everywhere. So dont. I choose to stand for what I believe is right. Not WHO is right but WHAT is right. The first will change with every step, the later wont. But I would hate to end up supporting the wrong actions of anyone just because I think they are “mostly” fine.
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And I write long paragraphs about it to try make the message as clear as I can while I wait for my muscle relaxants to kick in and head to sleep.
“And I write long paragraphs about it to try make the message as clear as I can while I wait for my muscle relaxants to kick in and head to sleep.”
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So you’re the other one getting a little too drugged out this week. Man, that little warning on the bottle that it “may cause drowsiness” is just a we bit understated. …
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Mine is a torn abdominal muscle. What’s yours?
I want to ask you one simple question: Do you think Israel has a right to exist?
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Yes or no?
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PAD
Jerry Chandler:
Something with the sciatic nerve, I still have to go to the traumatologist, but have been the last two days on pills. Next friends who need help moving better hire profesionals. Getting quite a laugh from all my friends because I am walking like an old man (I’m 35).
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PAD:
Yes I do. But thats a pointless question for me. It exists, there is people who call it “home” and identifies with it. Those people dont lose the right to live there or to consider themselve Israelites, not even if Israel, as a state commited any crime (a hypothetical one).
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Did Germany lose it’s right to exist after WWII? My father says it did but hes very sanguine, I think it didnt, it couldnt. That right emanates from every individual and its not conditional.
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Now my question would be this; do you believe Palestine has a right to exist as a state? and is it a conditional right?
Palestine has a right to exist as a country. That hasn’t changed. Israel is a state within that country. A state within that country also called Palestine? I’ve no problem with that. As for “unconditional,” well, fertilizer has an unconditional right to exist as fertilizer. But does it have a right to exist as part of a bomb designed to kill people in Times Square? Not so much.
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PAD
The analogy is a bit problematic ,not to say “stinky”…did you have to compare them with fertilizer? why not the electric wires or something with less of a derogatory connotation? But I digress…
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See, I can understand the logic behind conditioning the existence of a Palestinian state to the threat it might represents to Israel (or any other neighbouring state, for that matter). But the question is… does Israel have the right to unilaterally set the conditions for the creation of a Palestinian State? So far seems it believe it does. And some conditions I can understand, like the state of Palestine carrying constitutionall provisions about the territorial integrity of Israel. But others are a bit more tricky, like the ones about Jerusalem or the settlements. And others are downright cynical like the one about refugees. A state that carries in its constitution its condition of home to a lot of people who have never set a foot on it forbids the creation of a neighbouring state that allows the return of expelled refugees who were actually born there. All in the name of preventing Palestine from becoming that…fertilizer you mentioned.
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And this does not justify terrorism, by any mean. But its the reason I raised the issue of “conditions for existence”. Israel as a state is issuing conditions for the existence of Palestine as a state, but the fact is that if we could argue about palestinian identity 100 years ago, circunstances have created a palestinian identity that exists now. And since it exists it has a right to exist.
The analogy is a bit problematic ,not to say “stinky”…did you have to compare them with fertilizer? why not the electric wires or something with less of a derogatory connotation? But I digress…
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Because electric wires have one purpose: To conduct electricity. Whether used to light a room or trigger a bomb, they’re being used for their designed purpose.
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Fertilizer, when used properly, is something very positive: It helps things to grow and makes life better for people. But when it’s used as a means of killing people, its positive nature is being perverted. Same deal: A Palestinian state that is designed for bettering people’s lives? I’ve no problem with that. A Palestinian state that is consumed with the idea of destroying its neighbor–so much so that it will prevent aid getting to its own people in order to further that goal–is a perversion of the concept. Then you’re talking the beginnings of a rogue state.
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And if you don’t think that states can stink, then you, my friend, have never driven down the New Jersey Turnpike with your windows open.
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PAD
I stand corrected then, fertilizer is a more accurate analogy than electric wires. How do you feel about bolts and nails? their nature is esentially constructive but when used as shrapnel their nature is perverted. And they dont stink (but this is just me bargaining).
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My only interaction with New Jersey (one of the four states of the USA I’ve been to) consists on my way in and way out Newark airport, and that was enough, thank you. We could ask Seth Meyer and the rest of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players if they believe the state of New Jersey has a right to exist tho.
I stand corrected then, fertilizer is a more accurate analogy than electric wires. How do you feel about bolts and nails? their nature is essentially constructive but when used as shrapnel their nature is perverted. And they dont stink (but this is just me bargaining).
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I suppose that works too. Obviously, considering someone recently tried to blow up fertilizer in Time Square, I think the reason that was on my mind is understandable.
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My only interaction with New Jersey (one of the four states of the USA I’ve been to) consists on my way in and way out Newark airport, and that was enough, thank you. We could ask Seth Meyer and the rest of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players if they believe the state of New Jersey has a right to exist tho.
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Well, since the Super Bowl is going to be there, I think it falls into the category of “necessary evil.”
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PAD
Well, someone else is trying to ship stuff (concrete) through to Gaza. An Irish ship loaded up with a genuine nobel peace prize winner. Don’t seem like the type to attack boarding soldiers with knives and clubs, and they said they don’t want their shipment sitting at Ashdod port. Should be interesting to see what happens, at least. Best way to make a non-violent protest is to actually make a non-violent protest.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/03/gaza.raid/index.html?hpt=T2
Well, you can see that clearly, the loss of life is affecting the Israelis…
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Oh no, it’s not. They’re cheering, applauding, and looking for more death.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBs2b5OvyIo
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Thanks for the hit and run. Maybe you’ll try and contribute something more substantial in the future?
Well, let’s see. I see an “up with Israel” demonstration. I see a woman with a camera crew actively antagonizing them and getting them angry at her, presumably so she can have provocative footage. I see “translations” except I have no reason to believe they’re accurate.
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Here’s what I don’t see, and I think it’s quite telling:
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I don’t see them burning Arab flags.
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The Arab world? Tons of burning Israeli flags, spitting on Israeli flags, throwing shoes on Israeli flags. The Israelis? They’re just celebrating being alive.
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That’s the conflict in a nutshell.
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PAD
Perhaps they are also proud of their military and showing their support, I like the part where the man asks the lady where she was when bombs were hitting Israel. She says she was there with all the worlds’ media, maybe but she sure wasn’t in Gaza asking them about it. Wonder why?
I’m sorry, but I think this bears reading: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/furkan-dogan-us-citizen-k_n_599173.html
Now, I understand that Israil has a right to defend itself and the Palistenans are not saints either, but they have a right to a viable homeland that is not randomly invaded every couple of months because a few bad apples fire some rockets. the current PM is a convicted thug who wants the conflect sturred up and disrespects our President every chance he can because he knows he can get support from the right wing in this country.
hmmm
some other sites worth reading?
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=387&sid=1319015
http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2010/04/arizona-sheriff-says-cops-are-being.html
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/arizona-rancher-shot-and-killed-by-illegal-immigrant/
“The Arab world? Tons of burning Israeli flags, spitting on Israeli flags, throwing shoes on Israeli flags. The Israelis? They’re just celebrating being alive.
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That’s the conflict in a nutshell.”
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Actually, here’s the conflict in a nutshell:
If all the Arabs in the Mideast laid down their arms, there would be peace; if Israel laid down their arms, there would be no more Israel
That’s been said many times (including by me) and it becomes no less true. Actually the better way to phrase it is, “If all the Arabs in the Mideast laid down their arms, there would be no more war. If Israel laid down their arms, there would be no more Israel.”
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PAD
amen
But the Arabs feel exactly the same way. They are afraid that if they drop their weapons Israel will kill them. Isn’t that no less true to them?
Okay, I have not been able to watch as much news recently as I normally would. But from what I’ve been able to gather, the only stations that have shown the full clip of the flotilla incident – including the not-so-insignificant footage of the Israeli commando being tossed overboard to fall 30 feet and the “peaceful” activists beating at least one of the Israelis like Rodney ling with metal instruments have been: 1.) Fox and 2.) CNN.
Is this correct? Has anyone seen anything to contradict this on the other networks? Because when Helen Thomas basically accuses Israel of a war crime, my confidence in the rest of the American media giving Israel a fair shake is not that high.
“Mary Warner says:
June 1, 2010 at 10:16 pm
I long ago came to the conclusion that there are no good guys in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Neither side seems to have any goal anymore other than inflicting suffering on the other side.
Reply
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UmberGryphon says:
June 2, 2010 at 3:20 am
Agreed. I used to think Israel was as good a country as they could be given their circumstances, but now I rate them even or slightly below Egypt and Turkey… and they’re falling by the week.”
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You know, the basis for these statements has to be either ignorance or extreme moral relativism. What does it take to convince people that Israel simply wants to EXIST and often has to take measures to ensure they do?
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Even if you discount their history – which is pretty tough to do, but bear with me – the fact remains that Israel is the ONLY country in the Mideast where women are actually encouraged to go to school, don’t have to worry about how they dress, don’t have to worry about being gang raped as “punishment” for walking with a male stranger; don’t have to worry about being stoned to death for the “crime” of allowing themselves to be raped and shaming the family; don’t have to walk behindand act subservient to their husbands,etc.
And you still think there are “no good guys” in this struggle? Shame on you.
That is actually not true. I am not going to argue with you about the more advanced character of the Israeli society compared with it’s neighbours, that goes without saying. But the thick brush you are using to describe the situation of women in those countries shows, tho use the very same adjective you used, your ignorance.
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Women in Egypt, Syria, Jordan or Lebanon (that is, the four neighbours of Israel) can go with their head uncovered, study whatever they want or join the military. Yes, they are less advances societies, specially in rural areas. Yes, the incidence of machism is bigger than in Israel, but thats a matter of gradation, not of condition. The picture you are drawing is more akin to the arabic peninsula and the wahabbi regimes no one seems to blockade.
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And I happen to know the living conditions in those countries by personal account of female friends who lived there for years.
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Moreso, beign a more advanced society doesnt make Israel a “good country”. There is no such thing as a “good” country, just good or bad actions and policies. You start considering some countries as inherently good and soon you find yourself defending some monstruosity because there MUST be some reason that “good” country was forced to do it. And thats bad for the soul.
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In my country, no one would get punished for baring her breasts in public nor for uttering George Carlin’s seven words on TV. Does that make us a better country that the USA, since we are more free? Does that entitle us to any special consideration if we were to clash on any issue?
In my country, no one would get punished for baring her breasts in public nor for uttering George Carlin’s seven words on TV. Does that make us a better country that the USA, since we are more free? Does that entitle us to any special consideration if we were to clash on any issue?
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I’m sorry, I got to the part about women baring their breasts and I got distracted. What were you saying?
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PAD
I said “no one”, not just women. I am sure many here know of the existence of man bøøbš. Geez PAD, your mind smells like…New Jersey.
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🙂
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You said no one would get punished for bearing “her” breasts.
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Ah ha! Pronoun trouble!
Agh! cursed english… in spanish that posesive pronoun would have been neutral.
Well, if it’s any consolation, your English is vastly superior to my Spanish. ¡Beba rápidamente las uvas de tractor! (literally: Drink quickly the tractor grapes!)
Just to add one thing about a nation’s “right” to exist. I personally don’t believe any nation has the “right” to exist. Nations exist because a group of people had enough force of arms to take over a piece of land and defend it. The only right in that scenario is “might makes right.” Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t have the might to continue in this vein indefinitely, especially as more and more nations turn against it.
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Nations have come and gone throughout history. It’s a very Darwinian process. If Israel isn’t capable of sustaining this status quo, maybe that’s a sign that their approach is wrong.
Matt…just a friendly word of advice…don’t approach any Native Americans and tell them that the reason their nation was wiped out was because they were doing it wrong. I doubt it’ll go over very well.
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PAD
I think most Native Americans would agree that the main reason they lost their land was that the Europeans had a stronger force of arms. Israel’s fortunate in that their disparity isn’t QUITE as great (particularly with the nuclear equalizer), so they have more options to get a better outcome. But they aren’t strong enough to ignore world opinion in perpetuity.
By your definition, a right is something you are able to defend on your own, by any means necesary, wich is one libertarian notion I specially despise because what implies.
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It implies the weak, the infant, the meek doesnt have rights. It means slaves have no right to freedom unless they are able to free themselves. It means if you cant defend yourself or pay someone to do it, you can be robbed or killed. It puts every crime’s responsability on the shoulders of the victim, because ultimatelly, he only have rights as far as he can defend himself.
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Rights are inherent or they are no rights at all.
On the contrary, I think an individual has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I’m simply saying I don’t think a nation-state’s existence is a right, because they’re artificial constructs created through force of arms. If we assume a nation-state to be a “right”, then we get the Balkanization effect.
“Rights are inherent or they are no rights at all.”
By that definition, the only right any of us has is the right to die. Because every other right can be taken away from you, but, though others might be able to postpone it, no one can ultimately stop you dying.
In a just and civilised society people can reasonably expect that society to respect and defend their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness (and do the same for “the weak, the infant, the meek”), but, if you define rights as something “inherent”, something that can’t be taken away from you (as opposed to something that shouldn’t be taken away from you), then none of those things are rights.
So yes, if you want to be able to keep the “rights” to such things, you should be prepared to defend them when and if someone tries to take them away. And it doesn’t imply the weak, infant or meek have no rights – because we should be defending them for everyone, not just ourselves.
I believe rights to be inherent because you have them wether they are recognized by others or not. Neither the state or the society give us those rights but recognize them. A slave’s right to freedom exists before he is set free. My right to property doesnt stop when things are stolen from me. I still have a right to those things.
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Rights can’t be taken from you the same as they are not given to you, merely recognized by a society that we create precisely to defend what we believe are our rights. And yes, one should defend his rights (as well as others’) to the extent of his possibilities, but rights dont cease to exist if someone more powerful than you doesnt recognize them.
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Right not allways make might, but might never makes right.
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Right?
I think we’re more disagreeing on the semantics than what “rights” people should have. The fact of it is, the things you feel your rights guarantee you absolutely can be taken away – you can be enslaved, you can have your property taken, you can be imprisoned, you can be killed, etc. If you mean by “inherent rights” the things that these are things that shouldn’t be taken from you, then yes, I’d agree. if you mean by “inherent” that they cannot take them away from you, I wouldn’t.
To me, a right is something you’re morally obligated to defend on someone else’s behalf, no matter what. And as you say, you can’t lose a right even when it’s violated. I think there are plenty of situations where there’s good reason for nations to defend another nation’s existence (see Czechoslovakia 1938), but there also cases where it’s acceptable to not intervene (ie; the fall of the Soviet Union). So a nation’s existence can’t be a right, in my eyes.
“Just to add one thing about a nation’s “right” to exist. I personally don’t believe any nation has the “right” to exist. Nations exist because a group of people had enough force of arms to take over a piece of land and defend it. The only right in that scenario is “might makes right.” Unfortunately, Israel doesn’t have the might to continue in this vein indefinitely, especially as more and more nations turn against it.
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Nations have come and gone throughout history. It’s a very Darwinian process. If Israel isn’t capable of sustaining this status quo, maybe that’s a sign that their approach is wrong.”
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Matt,
People in that nation have a right to life. Your matter-of-fact support of a “Darwinian process” that could wipe out an entire Jewish state sounds dangerously close to eugenics – which would-be saviors have tried to enact many times with devastating results.
Let’s not forget; Jews lived in Palestine (and other Arab lands) LONG before the existence of the state of Israel. The disappearance of that nation-state does not mean the disappearance of the Jewish people. Indeed, an argument could be made that the existence of the state of Israel has made Jews LESS secure in Arab lands.
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I’m not, by the way, saying “let’s get rid of Israel.” I’m simply saying it’s existence is not necessarily more imperative than, say, Yugoslavia. If it continues to exist, it will be because it’s population (and by extension, their leaders) have made decisions that are conducive to that.
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And I think a large part of that is dropping the paranoia that the whole world is out to get you, which is accompanied by sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “LA LA LA.” Even if you don’t agree with criticism, it’s better not to react belligerently/defensively, and at least pretend to take others’ concerns seriously.
Connor Lynch: In your books people have peaceful ideas and good intentions that are worth aspiring to. Also those characters have open minds and try to look at a situation from multiple points of view…..And then readers go to your website after a number of deaths are reported in the media and its “SHÍT HAPPENS” or “what did they expect” which, come on, to an adult is the same thing.
Luigi Novi: The mindlessness of this comment is astounding.
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The reason there are different points of view in Peter’s work is because there are typically different characters espousing them. Peter often has characters in conflict with one another, and that includes not only protagonists and antagonists, but also in-group debate among protagonists. That’s a fundamental quality of good storytelling, which is Peter’s job to convey.
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By contrast, Peter is not under any obligation to exhibit Multiple Personality Disorder when expressing his own views. The most it could be argued that he or anyone else is obligated to do is adhere to some modicum of provisionalism, testability and falsifiability in the conclusions he holds, and for the most part, his conclusions do exhibit those qualities. The fact that his ultimate position on a given issue not the one you hold yourself does not mean that he does not consider different arguments or points of view.
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Even if we were to entertain this specious comparison with his authored works, whether a given work or even his body of works conveys “multiple points of view” is subjective, and open to interpretation, as is always the case with extrapolating an author’s mindset from what he writes. In the volume 1 X-Factor story he wrote in which a doctor developed a test to determine if a fetus was a mutant, the characters debated the merits and implications on this test, which might cause one to interpret an openness to multiple POV’s. On the other hand, Rahne ended up destroying the all the computer info about the test, which might cause a different reader to surmise that Peter himself would be against such things. Then again, the Mutant Liberation Front also wanted to quash the doctor and his work, and ended up killing him, so would yet another reader interpret Peter to associate Rahne with terrorists and murderers because they both were against the test?
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One could go on and on listing examples from Peter’s work, but it doesn’t change the fact that implying a contradiction because Peter’s views in a real life issue doesn’t square with your interpretation of his fiction is just plain flat-out stupid.
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If that doesn’t fly with you, consider that in an issue during his second run on Captain Marvel, a Palestinian suicide bomber tried to blow up a bus in Israel. Before she could, a mother holding an infant pulled out a gun and shot the bomber dead. Not much in the way of “multiple points of view”, at least if you’re dead set on interpreting it as such.
Connor Lynch: I think that makes what you write about peace in your books a bunch of hypocrasy because you just said you don’t need to believe it. So why not stay away from the Star Trek books if you don’t believe in this whole peace and life is sacred thing.
Luigi Novi: Where has Peter “written about peace”? Where has Peter indicated that “peace and life are sacred”? Where has it been indicated that this one notion, above all others, is a centrally defining theme running through his work, much less that it’s intended as a reflection of his personal views, and not just your interpretation? Can you answer this?
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Peter David: I know one writer off the top of my head who has produced deeply spiritual stories involving God and angels and faith, and he himself is an atheist. Does that invalidate the stories somehow? Does that make him a lesser individual?
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Conor Lynch: Actually PAD it makes him a complete hypocrite. A man writing about others having faith while having none is the definition of hypocrasy.
Luigi Novi: No it isn’t.
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Hypocrisy is the act of claiming beliefs or standards that one does not truly hold or adhere to. Just because a writer writes about faith does not mean that he himself has to have that particular faith, since one of the reasons for writers to write is to explore ideas, including ideas that the writer himself/herself does not hold. That has nothing to do with hypocrisy.
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And since it bears upon comics, another reasons for writing about a character whose religious views differ from your own is that they may be pre-existing characters you didn’t create that are part of an ensemble. Kinda hard to do that if there’s this arbitrary and mindless little rule of yours in place that says that writers can only write about points of view, backgrounds, beliefs, sensibilities, etc., if he himself holds it. A scene during Infinite Crisis featured Mr. Terrific talking about his atheism, and Ragman talking about his Judaism, without any clear indication that the writer favored one point of view over the other. But in your view, this makes Geoff Johns a hypocrite, an attitude that shows a bit of a disconnect between your use of the word and its actual meaning, a disconnect no doubt facilitated by your poor attitude.
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Conor Lynch: As I said before you wouldn’t see it, I wouldn’t write an article like this without one word about those deaths being tragic.
Luigi Novi: So everyone has to express their views of the tragedy as explicitly as you dictate? Thanks, but no thanks. I prefer Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations–as well as assuming a bit of good faith–by letting others express themselves how they want, and assuming, unless I have a good reason not to, that their views on the tragic aspects of such events is a given.
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Matt Adler: I think most Native Americans would agree that the main reason they lost their land was that the Europeans had a stronger force of arms.
Luigi Novi: Matt, most Native Americans were killed off through pathogens brought over unintentionally by Europeans, against which the Natives had no immunity, and not arms, and for some historically contingent geographical reasons not related to mere stronger force of arms, as Jared Diamond goes into in his Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs and Steel. (Yes, guns and steel are part of it, but “stronger force of arms” is an oversimplification.)
Oh, I know that most of the deaths were brought on by contagion; but we were discussing the idea of a people losing control/integrity of their territory (granted, the Native Americans didn’t have the same ideas about this as we do, but being forcefully expelled from their lands and put on reservations is close enough). And let’s face it, if they had sufficient force of arms, they likely would have been able to make the outsiders get the f___ out, thus lessening their continued exposure to invaders of a more microscopic nature.
I must be getting old. I feel so tired of the whole dámņ thing, of the game of throwing blame around, the spins, while people get killed, and everything is just a game of socio-political chess for ALL the involved.
I agree with El Hombre Malo that there are no good nations or bad nations, but there are nations that are expected to be good. Israel will always be judged under a microscope. I suppose that is mostly because Israel is one of us, part of the family. By family I mean the West, the Judeo-Christian world.
Because people expect better of Israel, the public reaction against Israel’s every decision will always be louder than is the case with China, or Russia, or Iran, or any other non-Western country that people seem conditioned to accept as either a bad guy nation or a nation with a different cultural/ethinic make-up from ours.
The only question is whether Israel has any right to invade ships traveling in international waters, suffer nonfatal injuries due to incompetent conduct of the invasion, kill unarmed civilians (traveling in international waters, remember), kidnap surviving passengers and crew, forcibly transport them to Israel, then hold them as “illegal aliens” and finally claim itself to be the aggrieved party.
The answer in “No.”
“The only question is whether Israel has any right to invade ships traveling in international waters,”
People keep going on about international waters as if that means that no nation ever has a right to board a ship in them. As has been shown above, that’s not the case. There are many times when you can. So, the answer here isn’t no, it’s maybe – it’s as legal or illegal for them to do it here as it would be to do it in their own waters, given the ships made it clear they were intending to run the blockade.
“suffer nonfatal injuries due to incompetent conduct of the invasion,”
No, that’s suffer nonfatal injuries due to being attacked by the people on board. And only nonfatal by chance, because trying to hit people in the head with metal bars and throwing them off the top deck of a ship (both things clearly shown in the footage) are potentially lethal attacks.
“kill unarmed civilians” Many of those civilians were armed.
“kidnap surviving passengers and crew”
Arrest them.
“forcibly transport them to Israel,”
Again, arrest them.
It boils down to two things. First, if the blockade is legal (and Israel believes it is) then all Israel’s subsequent actions are too. And I’m not saying the blockade is legal – I can understand exactly why Israel put in place, and even sympathise with those reasons (if someone keeps attacking you every time they manage to arm themselves then it makes sense to try and stop them arming themselves), but that still doesn’t mean the blockade is legal. So challenge the blockade by legal means, diplomatic pressure, etc. Heck, even do try to go through the blockade – but if you do, then you know full well they will try and stop you, because they believe they have the legal right to do so.
And knowing that brings us to the second point. Since you know Israel will treat trying to run the blockade the way any other country would treat a border incursion, expect them to do what those countries would do. If you sail with the intention of illegally landing on US soil, or UK, or French, or any other country, and you tell the authorities this or they find out about it, they will intercept you. They will ask you to turn aside. If you do not, they will try to board you and seize your vessel, and will arrest you and lock you up in their country until they can convict or deport you. And if, when they board you, you attack them with any kind of weapon, they will use force in response, up to and including lethal force if that’s what it takes. That’s not Israel – that’s how virtually every country would handle what they perceive as a violation of the borders they maintain.
Every other ship in this protest, including the one that sailed later in the week, got boarded without any fatalities. That’s because on all those other ships, the people didn’t attack the soldiers when they were boarded.
Now a court in Egypt has determined that Egyptian men married to Israeli women–Jewish Israeli Women, anyway–lose their citizenship.
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the visceral Jew hatred in these countries is unfathomable. Every now and again the mask slips and we see just how deep it goes.
Why were people shooting at Israelis from the Gaza strip in the first place?
I’m pretty sure they wanted to kill them. But that kind of gets glossed over.
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PAD
Peter, in Italy we have a lot of problems with informations, but maybe sometimes you have even bigger problems in the USA. The newspapers and broadcast news showed that 1)the assault happened in international waters, where Israel has no authority 2)if Israel wanted to avoid deaths, could have used police instead of one of the most aggressive men of his army 3)on board, there were some maces, all right, but they used it after they were assaulted 4)you can leave items in another place, but you don’t know really when and if they will be sent, and there are some things you can’t give, like bricks, cement and even wheelchairs! Peter, there are people who don’t have electricity! There was a father that had a son needing a machine to survive, and he had to make pressure onm the chest of his son son all the day! Peter, this is nazism! And in Israel, that’s something, you know?
My opinion is largely formed by the footage shot by the reporters on the protestors own ship. And with that in mind
“1)the assault happened in international waters, where Israel has no authority ”
Not true, as shown above. As posts above have shown, international waters does not mean a ship is inviolable and cannot ever be boarded. So the question is whether Israel was correct in this specific instance, not the kneejerk “it’s illegal for ANYONE to board a ship in international waters” that most people seem to have.
“2)if Israel wanted to avoid deaths, could have used police instead of one of the most aggressive men of his army”
They managed to avoid deaths in all the other ships. What was the difference? Ah, that’d be because the “most aggressive men” they had didn’t feel the need to shoot at people who weren’t attacking them.
“3)on board, there were some maces, all right, but they used it after they were assaulted ”
Not according to the footage from the protest’s own reporters. They had maces and clubs, and at least one man was wearing a gas mask (so all the people who said they couldn’t possibly have smuggled anything that wasn’t for humanitarian purposes on board because the Turkish authorities checked is wrong – either the Turks thought gas masks fell into humanitarian aid (unlikely) or some people managed to smuggle stuff they shouldn’t have on board).
As to the rest of your point – they are allowing cement, but it’s got to be for approved purposes (to avoid it being used to build bases to attack Israel), and wheelchairs are allowed (as Peter pointed out), just not electronic ones (because sadly people can rip out the electronics to use in things like explosive remotes and timers).
I hate the suffering this blockade is causing too. I have no problem with people making protests to draw attention to it and put pressure on Israel. But once those protests use violence, they’ve lost any moral high ground.
Peter, I agree with your point that the global consensus appears hypocritical, but “Israel attacks aid ship” is going to be condemned. IF you take that headline at face value. Some do, some don’t.
Now, it does seem to me that the “aid” ship crew was more interested in making a political statement than they were in actually delivering aid. I agree with you there. But WHY would they want to do that? I think it was purely an act of defiance, not attempted smuggling now or in the future. In this case, their act of defiance was answered with gunfire.
By why the defiant act? I don’t think they were counting on Israel to stand down. Why did the Irish vessel pursue the same course? I think it was to make a statement that “we won’t do what you say, because you are wrong.” Some people may accept Israel’s reasons for establishing the blockade, but some don’t. And can you blame them?
Yes, rockets are being fired upon Israel from Gaza. Isn’t that because people in Gaza feel that they were attacked first? Both sides claim self-defense, am I wrong?
When I look at a maps of the shrinking Palestinian territory over the last 50 years, its hard for me to rally behind Israel’s “defense.” It’s hard for a lot of people. And it’s those people that would be prone to condemn the attack, even if the “aid” ship had obscured their motivations.
I’m not an expert on the history of Israel, but it seems to me that Israel created this problem when they ruthlessly displaced the Palestinians during the formation of their country. Even if Israel does indeed have a right to exist, the way they went about manifesting this right seems to me to have been a huge mistake, perhaps one of the greatest mistakes in the history of the world.
I don’t understand how the Zionists, both descendants of and actual victims of displacement, can turn around and perpetuate the same crime? Crap rolls downhill?
This is the context in which some people see the attack on the blockade runners. Peter, does the UN condemnation really seem illogical in this context? I’m not here to argue, I just want to better my understanding of the situation. Let’s help each other understand. Thoughts?
When I look at a maps of the shrinking Palestinian territory over the last 50 years, its hard for me to rally behind Israel’s “defense.”
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The reason it “shrank” was because during the Six Day War, Arabs teamed up to try and kill Israel. Israel wound up expanding its borders as a result. They took the land in a war that was started by people who were trying to wipe them off the face of the Earth. If they hadn’t tried to destroy Israel in the first place, that would never have happened. Israel then wound up agreeing to give back land in exchange for peace. They gave back the land. Guess what? No peace. Perhaps Israel was just being naive. Perhaps it was the equivalent of wrestling a gun away from a mugger, and then being assured that if you just give the gun back to the mugger, everything will be fine. So you give it back and,hey, he shoots you. Who would’ve seen that coming?
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At some point you just stop believing what people tell you.
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PAD
“At some point you just stop believing what people tell you.”
This is true, but certainly not in the way PAD means. I understand that he likes Israel and supports it in whatever it wants to do. Others do not feel the same, and his smug admiration of anything done by a Jew will not necessarily be persuasive to billions of gentiles.
Neither Israel nor any other state has the right to commit piracy against Turkish vessels.
If you believe that the Six Day War is the reason Palestinian territory “shrank” then you and I believe different things. Which is the crux of the issue, I suppose.
That actually was helpful. That’s the thing isn’t it?
What you believe.
PAD,
Any reaction to the comments by Helen Thomas that have resulted in her retirement?
Also, here is a column by Charles Krauthammer that pretty much mirrors your position.
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/charleskrauthammer/story/7DF64E020A59854D86257738007EC3CD?OpenDocument
I support Israel’s actions but I find it a bit disconcerting to find you on the same page as most of the right wing.
Of all the reasons to have an opinion, the fact that it may or may not mirror the opinion of others should be down near the bottom. Me, when I discover that someone I think is a jáçkášš happens to have the same opinion I do, I just think about how even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut.
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If it’s any consolation, PAD’s critics on this one are on the same page as Pat Buchanan. So there’s that, if it matters.
I haven’t read Thomas’s comments.
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As for Krauthammer, I prefer to think of it from Rorschach’s point of view: I’m not on the same page as them. They’re on the same page with me.
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PAD
Okay, I’ve read the coverage about Helen Thomas. I still don’t feel as if I know what she said. Context is everything and none is provided here. I don’t know what she said before, I don’t know what she said after. I don’t know the tone and intonation.
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Also, she’s not writing news articles so that bias becomes an issue. She’s writing opinion columns where bias is SOP.
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I think the reaction is insanely over the top. She said something she now regrets. She apologized for it. Move on. Don’t start dogpiling on the woman. It’s ridiculous.
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PAD
As for Krauthammer, I prefer to think of it from Rorschach’s point of view: I’m not on the same page as them. They’re on the same page with me.
Ha! Perfect!
Oookay, and now I found the video. So basically she’s refusing to recognize that Israelis have a right to be there.
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Okay, well…I disagree, obviously. But, again, she’s working as an opinion columnist. I mean, if Obama said it, then we’ve got a whole new ball game because Israel needs the good will of the U.S. But an 89 year old columnist? Doesn’t really bother me. She said what she thought. That’s the way we roll here. But let’s disagree with her loudly, not shut her down.
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You’re a good man and quite correct.
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Unfortunately for her, a lot of her “pull” in Washington was based on the goodwill of collegues and that’s pretty much gone. She probably made the right choice to retire rather than be treated as something other than the grand dame of journalists. Not fond of the woman but I feel sadness that a storied career will end like this.
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Oh, look… The press cropping photos to make the “peaceful” people on the boats look less like armed hostiles.
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http://blogs.reuters.com/gbu/2010/06/07/cropped-photos/
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I’m sure it was just a mistake like they say it was. And it was just a mistake they happened to make on multiple photos.
They never learn, do they? This ain’t your grandpa’s audience, nimrods. We know how photoshop works.
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Beyond all belief, between the ongoing revelations and that horrid lawn gnome Helen Thomas’ verbal diarrhea, Israel may come out of this better off. Another case of a country that is truly blessed in the quality of its enemies.
My favorite part is when they explain in another site that the original photos were not cropped when they were released in the Turkish press, because Turkey’s is a “warrior culture” (just like every other Middle East nation, I suppose), and it was felt to be an wicked cool thing that the “peaceful” protesters were shown brandishing weapons over fallen Israeli soldiers.
The funniest bit is that you gotta remember Turkey is an allied nation, like Hombre Malo said. If THAT is an allied nation, I’d hate to see an enemy nation.