Israel to World: "Suck It."

Just to preempt, I think the whole Gaza situation is totally fucked up, and that there is a lot more Israel + Egypt could and should be doing for the people living there. Either/both governments should stepped forward to work with any humanitarian mission if they are that concerned about weapon/rocket smuggling. That neither did, and just told the mission that they can't deliver the aid, is super cold hearted and basically evil by way of Hannah Arendt thoughtlessness. That said, if you want to deliver aid to Gaza, and you already know it's likely that Israel will step in and stop you (at least an even shot, some shipments are allowed through, some are halted), don't carry weapons. That a) sets you up for a violent conflict and b) justifies what Israel was complaining about in the first place -- that you're bringing weapons into Gaza -- and totally undermines any humanitarian mission you might have. And if you're going to carry weapons (maybe you need them in case of pirates? idk), don't open fire on the freaking army. How could that possibly end well?

The statement quoted in Haaretz says they were attacked with live fire.

and protestors say they only passively resisted

NYT:

Channel 10, a private station in Israel, quoted the Israeli Trade Minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, as saying between 14 and 16 people had been killed on one of the flotilla ships. He said on Israeli Army Radio that commandos boarded the ship by sliding down on ropes from a hovering helicopter, and were then struck by passengers with “batons and tools.”

I think you are missing the point of the flotilla. It's not simply a matter of delivering much-needed supplies to Gaza. The point is to violate the Israeli blockade. The point is to draw attention to Israel's policies.

I guess it's possible commandos killed innocents only passively resisting, and then the army covered up for a bunch of psychos in their army, but sounds very unlikely to me. Israel has a functioning press. I don't think that's the kind of thing the government could get away with. (But I could be wrong!)

Considering it's just "he said she said" at this point and will probably stay that way, history is written by the victors, etc.

I guess it's possible commandos killed innocents only passively resisting, and then the army covered up for a bunch of psychos in their army, but sounds very unlikely to me.

Have you no knowledge of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict?

xpost

If the purpose was to provoke Israel into murdering civilians, then mission accomplished, I guess. It seems like a lot of strategy is provoking Israel to do something horrific and then hoping something changes because of it. Maybe this'll be the catalyst for complete change in the relationship between Israel and Gaza -- or maybe it'll just be another really tragic, morally repulsive moment in the Middle East that does nothing to change the status quo or make life better for the people living in Gaza.

Super Cub, I know plenty about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Do you know how Israeli Press works? Most press in Israeli is very cynical and holds the government to account often. It seems unlikely to me that you could get away with lying about something like this.

Well, Ha'aretz is basically Israel's answer to The Guardian and is normally the go-to paper for a liberal viewpoint. But what they've done is to Xerox a government press release/statement without digging further, which may in itself be a comment on the behaviour of the military.

Yeah, I don't think the immediate report tonight will be the final story. But if soldiers opened fire on passive resisters, I imagine that'll be in Ha'aretz this week.

Well it only happened a few hours ago, miles out at see - not sure what kind of coverage you're expecting yet

um, sea

If you know a lot about Israel and this conflict, how is it inconceivable to you that the IDF could be covering up a botched operation that resulted in civilian deaths? The last 20 years are riddled with instances of alleged IDF abuses and accusations of cover-ups. It's a mainstay of this conflict.

http://www.shovrimshtika.org/index_e.asp

xpost

And yeah, this happened like 5 hours ago.

idk Super Cub. Like I said, I guess it's possible they are lying about there being live fire resistance. Just super short-sighted to lie about something like that imo. There were a lot of people on the flotilla. It's not the kind of thing you can conspire about one way or another. I don't see all of the activists making up a story and sticking to it, and, as that website you just linked points out, it's hard to get soldiers to lie about their roles in a conflict.

tbh, I really hope there was live fire. If Israel killed those people, even if they were wielding batons or whatever, it's going to end up really fucked up. Especially if Raed Salah was a casualty. There could be another Intifada, and if you can't trust the Israeli army to handle the flotilla situation, you definitely don't want them trying to handle rioters and protesters all over the place. Things could get massively screwed up really quickly.

I don't want to debate you on this, so this is the last post I'll make on the subject.

I think you are woefully ignorant of the dynamics of this conflict. It's entirely possible that the IDF was fired upon, but it's ridiculous to say that the IDF wouldn't use grossly disproportionate force and then try to cover it up (or at least try and justify it). That is pretty much the IDF's standard operating procedure when it come to Gaza. That was the basic strategy in the Gaza War.

xpost

suzy, one of several pieces in today's Haaretz bitterly criticising the Israeli military: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/gaza-flotilla-drives-israel-into-a-sea-of-stupidity-1.292959

"(or at least try and justify it)"

I don't disagree with this. But there's obv a huge gap between justifying something and covering it up.

Anyway, you're right. It's not worth debating over. The whole thing just has me sick to my stomach and it's 4:20 here when I should be sleeping instead of reading about this.

Oh, woah. It's 4:20.

this is obviously completely fucked up

mordy otm itt

I think you are missing the point of the flotilla. It's not simply a matter of delivering much-needed supplies to Gaza. The point is to violate the Israeli blockade.

indeed: both israel and egypt said they would be fine with the supplies being landed and conveyed into gaza by truck

I try to stay off these threads because Mordy is constantly defending all manner of inexcusable Israeli atrocities, but I strongly disagree with your defense of his blatant idiocy, and Super Cub is the one who's otm here.

i think it's too early in the day to call this an 'inexcusable atrocity' but perhaps you have fresh information

up his sleeve

where the fuck do you see mordy's 'blatant idiocy' n e way? think you're just throwing down tough words

Sleeve, Mordy brings a worthwhile perspective to these threads! Starting with a refusal to call others idiots for arguing for a different picture of the region.

Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent: http://twitter.com/harrietsherwood

Yeah, Mordy's a lot of things, but captain save-an-Israel he's not. He might have more invested in it as a state than some of us, but the investment seems mainly of the "i hope one day they'll stop being assholes" variety, and in this case it's "I hope they're not killing unarmed people because that will lead to even more tragedy". A pretty reasonable position, imo.

One of my very brightest Jewish friends from school is Israeli-born and heavily invested in Zionism (let's just say a cousin of hers has been in a coma for four years). I am reluctant to discuss it with her because her emotionalism around I/P is completely at variance to how coolly and logically she looks at any other issue.

I basically feel the same about those heavily invested in anti-Zionisim

so this isn't very good. also feeling more like IDF overkill.

hate to say it but we pretty much saw this coming, can't even for a minute begin to think of rationalizing or defending this massacre though

again, i'd wait till we had a clearer picture of what happened before trying to 'rationalize' it

if it's true that the israeli commandos landed on the ship and just began unloading into the sleeping civilians (as claimed), then indeed that would be indefensible

it'd be indefensible imo even if the civilians weren't 'sleeping' - and it seems there have been a handful of posts itt that have already tried to justify and rationalize it

idk though like - up to 19 people on the boat killed w/ many more wounded compared to 2 attackers wounded - what did they have, slingshots?

pretty standard IDF casualty numbers imo

http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/1.293313.1275312330!/image/577873088.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_295/577873088.jpg

So it's not short for InDeFensible?

it'd be indefensible imo even if the civilians weren't 'sleeping' - and it seems there have been a handful of posts itt that have already tried to justify and rationalize it

― k3vin k., Monday, May 31, 2010 3:25 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

again, we really don't know what happened. according to the convoy's spokespeople, the civilians were asleep though.

dude - by all accounts the IDF stormed a humanitarian aid boat, slaughtered 10-19 people and barely escaped with a scratch. i think it's pretty clear they fucked up somehow

oh well if they fucked up then clearly it's beyond rationalization

we must use the most emotive language possible in not defending it

sounds like a pretty clean operation, actually.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev accused the leaders of the flotilla of looking for a fight.

"They wanted to make a political statement. They wanted violence," according to Regev, who said Israel wanted a peaceful interception of the ships trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. "They are directly responsible for the violence and the deaths that occurred."

so if they knew they are there to provoke, why attack them? Israel should know by now this kind of stuff plays straight in Gazan hands.

We don't know that they "attacked". They were enforcing an existing (admittedly bullshit) law. Do you seriously expect Israel to cave on it just because someone tested them? For every IDF disgusting abuse of power there's some really callous guerrilla strike by Palestinians or their sympathizers. We can get self-righteous when we know what actually happened, but being so ready to point fingers in such a historically-complex situation is rash. We can get self-righteous when we know what actually happened.

think its probably more important at this point to take the helpful step of making heady accusations and questioning other peoples motivations

honestly, think the only way israel comes out of this not looking like psychos is if there was live fire or some other kind of legitimate threat posed by the activists. honestly wouldn't doubt there was non-passive struggling between some activists and the troops (ppl get hysterical, shit happens, not all activists are actually pacifists), but i find it deeply, deeply unlikely that what happened could justify the IDF acing 10-19 civilians

anyway RIP flotilla ppl, it's pretty horrible regardless who shot first

LOL @ drunken copy n paste double.

um is there any book thats a pretty good non partisan (well...) overview of israeli/palestinian conflict for ppl who are sick of "not understanding the context" of shit that goes down there