"Humanitarians with knives"

Israel is under fire again.  And so it goes.  In brief, during the night of May 30th-31st, a flotilla of aid ships from Turkey carrying about 700 Palestinian supporters were surrounded and boarded by Israeli commandoes.  In the end, 9 or 10 supporters were killed and 10 IDF soldiers were injured, 1 seriously.  It's unclear how many supporters were injured.

Before I go on, I should say the flotilla was made up of 6 boats, and that 5 were boarded without any injuries whatsoever.  If Israel intended to murder the supporters, as many claim, they certainly would have opened fire against the first ship, or perhaps blown the whole flotilla out of the water, sinking any video recording onboard, not published their own videos, and hid the whole event, or said they sunk an enemy military ship.  There are hundreds of alternatives, but as it stands, there is no way to reconcile the fact that 5 ships were peacefully boarded with the idea that the Israelis meant to massacre the supporters.

Also, boarding the ships, in itself, is perfectly legal.  Israel has ordered a blockade of Gaza, not an embargo.  Israel's blockade is to ensure weapons don't get sent to Gaza (ruled by Hamas, which has declared itself to the purpose of destroying Israel).  Supplies to Gaza have two options: they are sent to Israel, which checks for weapons, and sends all humanitarian supplies to Gaza.  The other option is to send the supplies to Egypt, but Egypt often blocks all supply movement to Gaza, as Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was a politicl party in Egypt until it was banned.  While those who send aid to Gaza may be reluctant to send their supplies to Israel (which is, in their eyes, the reason they need to send aid to Gaza), the fact is Egypt's blockade of Gaza is much stricter (And Hamas doesn't fire rockets into Egypt).  Egypt now, however, has opened a border crossing into Gaza.

Here's a video posted by an Australian newspaper (The Herald Sun).  They've highlighted certain events.  It's shot from a distance and with nightvision - it isn't particularly disturbing or gritty, but you can clearly see what's going on.  The first Israeli commando goes down the rope (which is lowered from a helicopter) and as immediately attacked (00:16).  Then two more commandos go down (00:20-00:28).  Between that, (00:26) someone throws something towards the commandos.  You can't clearly see who throws it, but I think it is a passenger of the boat.  It looks like that, but it isn't crystal clear.  Around 00:30 the video cuts and the next thing you see is a melee on the deck of the boat.  The newspaper tags the rest.  I would like someone to show me how this video shows the Israelis were acting murderously or recklessly.  It was clearly in self defense.

The purpose of the flotilla was not to deliver goods to Gaza, it was to push Israel to enforce its blockade.  To quote that Australian paper again:

"Arab television showed one woman on board exulting: "We await one of two good things - to achieve martyrdom or reach the shore of Gaza."

Added another passenger, Yemeni professor Abd al-Fatah Nu'man: "These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them.""

What?  Really?  Really??  Well, they knew the blockade was there.  They were contacted by radio and ordered to divert to Ashdod (city in Israel), then they were warned they would be boarded, and they still went forward.  And since we can assume those on the boat believed what they said, namely, that Israel is a murderous nation and the IDF is a military of baby killers, they all expected to die.  THEY ALL EXPECTED TO BE KILLED!  So, yes.  Unfortunately, really.

Egypt also offered to take in the supplies and convoy them into Gaza.  They were also refused.  Israel wasn't rebuked because it is Israel and the passengers didn't trust it, Israel was rebuked because the primary goal of the flotilla was not to get supplies to Gaza but to test the blockade.  That is not the actions of humanitarians, but provocateurs.

And more boats are coming.  And these are not small boats, or rafts, or even sizable motorboats.  These are really big boats.  I mean really big boats!  This boat looks like a cruise ship (I got the picture from the NYTimes.  This is the ship where the deaths occured).  And more boats are coming, one Irish ship was spotted in the Medeterranean, and is expected to reach Israel June 4th-5th.  Another boat is rumored to have left Turkey, possibly with a military escort.  That seems highly unlikely to me, but maybe.  In any event, if more boats are coming, then the pressure on Israel will only get worse, especially if there is another battle.

My real problem, however, is the coverage.  I had to hunt for those quotes, and that I
 had to pull it from an Australian paper is a bit surprising.  I know everyone loves to hate Israel, and that the purpose of the flotilla was to cause a media coup, but this video evidence is very clear, and the facts are not disputable.  5 ships were boarded without incident, the passengers of the 6th boat attacked the soliders, and deaths occured on that ship.  Why is Israel blamed?  I mean they've been described by supporters as "Humanitarian activists with a few knives?"  Humanitarians shouldn't have any knives at all!  And that they all grabbed pipes and chairs and came running out, it seems to me this was a well coordinated maneuver, and I'm nervous about what will happen when these other ships arrive.

But I must absolutely declare my support for Israel in this crisis, and will eagerly take on anyone in a discussion about it.  Bring it on!  There is no justification for what happened, and the Israelis acted as best as anyone could ask for.

Most of the information came from this website.  Here's another article on this topic I found interesting, but not citation worthy.