Quote: Original post by phantom
They even have an offical ceasefire in place with Hamas.

"Ceasefire" is not a peace treaty. Many wars have gone for years with a 'ceasefire' in place. To have a ceasefire merely means you are at war, but agree to stop shooting.

hi everyone,

There is a Hebrew(?) saying "a clever guy knows how to get out of trouble that the smart guy would avoid in the first place".
Obviously in respect to the "relief" convoy Israel has been neither clever nor smart.

The clever way to get out of trouble would be to wait for national waters, avoid boarding the ship (eg. block its path) or board the ship with forces who can handle a violent mob without being lethal.
The smart way to avoid the trouble would be to use some excuse (eg. the renewed talks with Abu Mazen) to lift the blockage before (preferably years before) this day.

The blockage was a worthy attempt to weaken the Hamas control, and to (make easier the) release of the captured soldier Gilad Shalit. The blockage failed those two goals, but the public opinion here in Israel is something along "the blockage should continue until Gilad is returned", in essence Isarelies don't feel guilty for the blockage because by clinging it to Hamas's prisoner, so in Israeli eyes it is Hamas who actually controls the continuation of Gaza blockage.

I put quotes around the word relief, because I think actual relief was a very small goal of the convoy - Israel more than once offered to transport the relief content by ground and as the convoy was late a few days without any circumstances in Gaza, it is not a relief as say humanitarian relief to disaster areas. The major purpose of the convoy is to put Israel in a bad spot in international eyes and it succeeded this much more than (Israel) anticipated.

The debate whether there was a lynch or not, or if the soldiers were at risk or not is very obvious from my angle. Not only are there videos of a soldier being stabbed, and a soldier being bitten with clubs by multiple "peaceful civilians"; not only are there 5 injured soldiers with stab wounds and broken bones; but to me the most obvious proof that the soldiers (felt) at life risk is they began using their hand guns.
Granted, this isn't a logical proof and if you have no faith in Israeli soldiers then this makes no sense at all. But I do have faith (I know some of them) and I do know IDF wanted to avoid using force. Not because it is such a force hating organization, but because IDF was very much aware of the cameras and public attention, so obviously lethal force was to be used as the last option to keep soldiers alive.
Israeli soldiers are met with protesters who spit at them and throw stones at them on a almost daily basis, and they maintain control without lethal force; and the Commandos took over Iranian weapons boats without lethal force. Needless to say if Israel was such a law breaking nation who cares not for human lives as described in this thread, the ships could have been easily sinked.

Now if you read previous "Israel war crimes" threads here, I am usually in favor to some degree of most Israeli actions. I think most actions are "forced" actions when all else failed, and I do not believe forever acting "proportionally" is the smart/good thing to do on the long run. I strongly believe any of you would feel the same if your houses were attacked.

But in this particular case I don't think it was "forced" as the entire blockage could have been lifted years ago and anyway this takeover could have been done more cleverly.
Still, lets not get carried away and call it a terrorist attack, or murder. It was an action on level of a badly made official arrest, and there is some great distance from this to the terrorist attacks who try to kill the most civilians possible.

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by Valderman

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by trzy
Didn't Israel offer to allow the flotilla to dock at Ashdod and transport humanitarian supplies by land after inspection?

Of course they did. But how Hamas would break the blockade and provide themselves with the necesary weaponery to kill more people then?

Yeah, it's a good thing those weapons didn't make it. God knows what Hamas would have done if they had gotten their hands on two dozen clubs and kitchen knives! :(

I wasn't talking about this shipment. But about the ones that would come if Israel was forced to raise the blockade by the international community.

You know what? So far I know, Jewish people don't go around blowing up things in a futile attempt to conquer the world. Most armed conficts in the WORLD have something to do with the Muslims and their freaking hatred towards everything.

There are 1.5 billion muslims in the world, my dear sir bigot; blaming "the muslims" for everything wrong in the world makes about as much sense as blaming Asia. And what do you know, "the muslims" aren't the only people who like to blow shit up!

It's strange, you know. My girlfriend's father is a muslim, and I've never seen him or his wife blow anything up. They also don't really seem to be into the business of hating everything. No, I think you should pull your bigoted head out of your ass and start seeing reality for what it is. Most muslims, just like most jews, christians, atheists, etc. are perfectly normal people. Unfortunately, some people are not very nice. They may be muslims, as with that Iranian president fellow whose name I can't seem to get right, or they may be jews, like Benyamin Netanyahu. They might even be christians; esteemed ex-president Bush or the pope, for example!

If you think religion or ethnicity influences this in any way, then I'm sorry but you really do have a small child's understanding of what's going on around you. Different people: bad, people like my dad: good!

Quote: Original post by Valderman

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by Valderman

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by trzy
Didn't Israel offer to allow the flotilla to dock at Ashdod and transport humanitarian supplies by land after inspection?

Of course they did. But how Hamas would break the blockade and provide themselves with the necesary weaponery to kill more people then?

Yeah, it's a good thing those weapons didn't make it. God knows what Hamas would have done if they had gotten their hands on two dozen clubs and kitchen knives! :(

I wasn't talking about this shipment. But about the ones that would come if Israel was forced to raise the blockade by the international community.

You know what? So far I know, Jewish people don't go around blowing up things in a futile attempt to conquer the world. Most armed conficts in the WORLD have something to do with the Muslims and their freaking hatred towards everything.

There are 1.5 billion muslims in the world, my dear sir bigot; blaming "the muslims" for everything wrong in the world makes about as much sense as blaming Asia. And what do you know, "the muslims" aren't the only people who like to blow shit up!

It's strange, you know. My girlfriend's father is a muslim, and I've never seen him or his wife blow anything up. They also don't really seem to be into the business of hating everything. No, I think you should pull your bigoted head out of your ass and start seeing reality for what it is. Most muslims, just like most jews, christians, atheists, etc. are perfectly normal people. Unfortunately, some people are not very nice. They may be muslims, as with that Iranian president fellow whose name I can't seem to get right, or they may be jews, like Benyamin Netanyahu. They might even be christians; esteemed ex-president Bush or the pope, for example!

If you think religion or ethnicity influences this in any way, then I'm sorry but you really do have a small child's understanding of what's going on around you. Different people: bad, people like my dad: good!

Hey, if the suit doesn't fit, don't wear it. What I said is statistically true whatever your girlfriend's father is violent or not.

Quote: Original post by LessBread

Quote: Original post by MaulingMonkey
What matters, ultimately, is preventing such tragedies from reoccurring. This means understanding both sides of the conflict -- their circumstances, their mistakes. Not LessBread's sensationalism.

Pay attention to this and in twenty years you'll be sensationalist about it too.

The claim that such tragedies can be prevented from reoccurring if we only stop to understand both sides of the conflict, their circumstances, their mistakes is nonsense. Such understanding of the 2008 invasion of Gaza didn't prevent this tragedy. Such understanding of the massive bombing of Lebanon in 2006 didn't prevent this tragedy. Why should understanding of this incident prevent the next tragedy?

Outright prevention of all tragedies ever is obviously impossible. I won't bother to ask you to avoid misconstruing me, nor to explain how antagonism is somehow a step up from the alternative.

Quote: Original post by owl
Hey, if the suit doesn't fit, don't wear it. What I said is statistically true whatever your girlfriend's father is violent or not.

Statistically, everything wrong with the world is the fault of "the muslims?" I'd love to see those statistics.

Quote: Original post by Valderman

Quote: Original post by owl
Hey, if the suit doesn't fit, don't wear it. What I said is statistically true whatever your girlfriend's father is violent or not.

Statistically, everything wrong with the world is the fault of "the muslims?" I'd love to see those statistics.

Did I say that or are you trollin' me?

Quote: Original post by owl

Quote: Original post by Valderman

Quote: Original post by owl
Hey, if the suit doesn't fit, don't wear it. What I said is statistically true whatever your girlfriend's father is violent or not.

Statistically, everything wrong with the world is the fault of "the muslims?" I'd love to see those statistics.

Did I say that or are you trollin' me?

Did I misunderstand? The way I got it was that you claim that statistically, every major conflict in the world is the fault of "the muslims." Was that incorrect? If so, please do correct me. And produce the statistics you're referring to.

Quote: Original post by rip-off

Quote: That's what usually happen when a bunch of civilians fuck with the military in a war-zone. Yes, you mind, the entire middle-east is a war-zone.

While true, it is exactly what the protesters wanted. They wanted escalation, maybe they got more than they wanted with the deaths. But the international outcry is what they were looking for.

This.

I don't think either side expected this to end as it did, but they both made some very poor decisions which led to the outcome.

Quote: Original post by Valderman

Quote: Original post by owl
Hey, if the suit doesn't fit, don't wear it. What I said is statistically true whatever your girlfriend's father is violent or not.

Statistically, everything wrong with the world is the fault of "the muslims?" I'd love to see those statistics.

I don't think anyone is saying that. But Islamic extremism is a factor in more conflicts than any other religion. Yes, contrary to your indoctrination, what fundamental beliefs people hold about morality and society do influence how their societies operate.