Israeli forces storm Gaza aid ship, and beat people on board. Fatalities reported.

[agricola]

Interesting take on the situation here:

Not that I agree with all of it, but the last paragraph deserves a wider audience:

No matter how one looks at the conduct of the Israeli government and the IDF, it is hard to understand how stupid and tragic it was. Time and again, Israel tries to prove that what can't be solved by force can be solved by more force. Over and over, the policies of force fail. The problem is that with each failure, the part of the world in which we would like to belong is losing patience with us.

and this is in Haaretz!

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

So, your apparent justifications have simply been ---- what ?

There haven't been any apparent justifications.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

And yet you still excuse the Israeli foces ....

I haven't excused one foce..

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

So what you are admitting is that all the posts you have made on this thread have been made from a point of ignorance

None of us know more than what we've been able to glean from news services etc. You're in the same boat of relative ignorance that I'm in. Sorry.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

There haven't been any apparent justifications.

Indeed.

They have been,
Post counting,
Dare i say it,
Trolling bollocks.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The answer to this is to read the thread first and, if you are completely clueless about the topic on hand, either read up on it first or keep your trap shit. That would ensure you avoid the embarrassment of defending the indefensible simply because you fancy being contrary and daring or whatever.

Any other contrary positions you;d like to adopt today? Perhaps you could argue that rape is sometimes justified or that Mandela was a terrorist, just for the lolz. You bellend.

Nobody is defending the indefensible.

And as for bellend, like I said, Tidy: try to tone down on the testosterone.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Well let's take a couple of steps back.

Do you know that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal?

Do you think the Israeli illegal occupation of Palestine is justified?


Do you know that the Israeli blockade of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians is illegal?

Do you think the Israeli illegal blockade of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians is justified?

Now if you think they are justified then it would be logical to think that you might find yesterday's actions justified.

If, if, you think these illegal actions are not justified in what way do you think their action yesterday might be justified?

Who is justifying anything? I'm just saying that if a man with a gun pointed at you tells you to stop and you don't, you might get shot.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

This is the first time Israel has murdered passengers

Given your opinion of Israel, would you have said that murdering passengers was totally outside of the realm of possibility?

 

[rioted]

None of us know more than what we've been able to glean from news services etc. You're in the same boat of relative ignorance that I'm in. Sorry.

Trite and untrue. Some of have taken the time...

 

[Maidmarian]

There haven't been any apparent justifications.

Bloody hell man !

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

. Some of have taken the time...

Not sure what that means.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Bloody hell man !

If I say a man with a gun tells you to stop, and you don't, and you're shot, and that you might have envisioned that you'd maybe be shot when you didn't stop - does that say anywhere that the shooting was justified or legal?

 

[Sesquipedalian]

Bloody hell man !

It's shocking,
Isn't it ?

I have always had some regard for Johnny as a poster,
Mostly because that Username,
Posts without malice,
On a personal level at least.

It is always a hard lesson,
To learn that you are wrong,
I have always been wrong about Johnny.

 

[Maidmarian]

It's shocking,
Isn't it ?

I'm more appalled than shocked.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

I'm more appalled than shocked.

Yeah,
That's a better choice of words.

 

[cesare]

Those paintball guns look very realistic don't they? I guess they'd look even more realistic in the hands of commandos being wynched down in the middle of the night from a helicopter onto your vessel ... whilst your vessel is also surrounded on the sea.

Why paintball guns? Because of their relatively realistic nature? Look like a gun, sound like a gun, the effect of the red paint might look like blood in the darkness and melée?

If the Israelis wanted to merely take control of the ship; they could have done that easily.

Nah ... I think they needed that first wave of paintballers, in order to provoke retaliation.

"Bbbbut, they were only armed with paintball guns guv! Then they were attacked by those howwid terrorists on board! What other choice did we have?"

 

[cesare]

If I say a man with a gun tells you to stop, and you don't, and you're shot, and that you might have envisioned that you'd maybe be shot when you didn't stop - does that say anywhere that the shooting was justified or legal?

It does when you deploy the analogy of the man with a gun = a policeman ostensibly upholding the law.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

Those paintball guns look very realistic don't they? I guess they'd look even more realistic in the hands of commandos being wynched down in the middle of the night from a helicopter onto your vessel ... whilst your vessel is also surrounded on the sea.

Why paintball guns? Because of their relatively realistic nature? Look like a gun, sound like a gun, the effect of the red paint might look like blood in the darkness and melée?

If the Israelis wanted to merely take control of the ship; they could have done that easily.

Nah ... I think they needed that first wave of paintballers, in order to provoke retaliation.

"Bbbbut, they were only armed with paintball guns guv! Then they were attacked by those howwid terrorists on board! What other choice did we have?"

Excellent post.

 

[Maidmarian]

Yes. sadly.

eta @ cesare

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

It is always a hard lesson,
To learn that you are wrong,
I have always been wrong about Johnny.

Always?

God, you must be a shit judge of character.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I'm more appalled than shocked.

How about 'grossed out'?

'Mortified'?

'Nonplussed'?

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Nah ... I think they needed that first wave of paintballers, in order to provoke retaliation.
"

That's the paranoid explanation. Another might be that given it was an international group, they were expecting some mild resistance that might be quelled with a couple of smart stings from paintball pellets. They could have taken beanbag guns or rubber bullets aboard, which are less lethal than bullets, but which might cause serious injury if things go wrong. They chose an even less lethal weapon than that.

And don't forget that commanders have political considerations to think of, but they won't casually put their men in harm's way. If they'd expected serious resistance, it wouldn't have been paintball guns the men were carrying, because being underarmed for the anticipated situation, exposes the soldiers to greater risk of injury.

 

[cesare]

That's the paranoid explanation. Another might be that given it was an international group, they were expecting some mild resistance that might be quelled with a couple of smart stings from paintball pellets. They could have taken beanbag guns or rubber bullets aboard, which are less lethal than bullets, but which might cause serious injury if things go wrong. They chose an even less lethal weapon than that.

And don't forget that commanders have political considerations to think of, but they won't casually put their men in harm's way. If they'd expected serious resistance, it wouldn't have been paintball guns the men were carrying, because being underarmed for the anticipated situation, exposes the soldiers to greater risk of injury.

I don't think that it's a particularly paranoid explanation - given that their immediate response to the resistance was to open fire with live ammunition rather than step up the 'less lethal' options.

 

[Maidmarian]

How about 'grossed out'?

'Mortified'?

'Nonplussed'?

No , I said Appalled and that's what I mean.

That's the paranoid explanation. Another might be that given it was an international group, they were expecting some mild resistance that might be quelled with a couple of smart stings from paintball pellets. They could have taken beanbag guns or rubber bullets aboard, which are less lethal than bullets, but which might cause serious injury if things go wrong. They chose an even less lethal weapon than that.

So benign were those weapons that they killed 10+ people.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

No , I said Appalled and that's what I mean.



So benign were those weapons that they killed 10+ people.

We've been through this already. I don't think it was the paintball guns did the killing.

I'm sorry to hear you're appalled. Maybe if you reread what I've written tomorrow, you'll realize it isn't as appalling or shocking as it seems to appear to you tonight. It's quite logical.

 

[Maidmarian]

We've been through this already. I don't think it was the paintball guns did the killing.

I'm sorry to hear you're appalled. Maybe if you reread what I've written tomorrow, you'll realize it isn't as appalling or shocking as it seems to appear to you tonight. It's quite logical.

No , it's not "logical" it's , as I said, appalling.

 

[Sesquipedalian]

Always?

God, you must be a shit judge of character.

You are right there Johnny !

 

[Stibs]

If I say a man with a gun tells you to stop, and you don't, and you're shot, and that you might have envisioned that you'd maybe be shot when you didn't stop - does that say anywhere that the shooting was justified or legal?

There's a lot of debate about whether or not this was legal or not, which really isn't the issue. At some point, the ships would have entered Gaza's waters, and then, presumably the law gets sticky. The legality only really makes a difference to governments, particularly Turkey, who may wish to take further action.

The ships were running the blockade with a human shield of activists. Who these activists were is not entirely clear, but many were peace campaigners and one was a holocaust survivor. They were well publicised demonstators.

Your analogy with the policeman and the bullhorn is good up to a point. However, it fails to recognise that sometimes demonstrators feel they have to make the oppressor decide whether to fire or not. Forcing the oppressor to decide does one of two things. It either forces him to recognise his own humanity, or it proves he is inhuman to the outside world. Either way he loses face.

Sharpville.
Dharasana Satyagraha.

I suspect those on board and the organisers thought that the Israelis had enough humanity that they would succeed in their demonstration.

 

[cesare]

Presumably Israel takes the view that their blockade is legal. If that's the case, I suspect that it was never likely that they'd willingly allow the blockade to be breached - preferring instead to maintain that 'defend the legal blockade' stance by pre-emptively taking 'defensive' action in international waters.

Just how far out into international waters they're prepared to take their acceptable 'defensive' action/s, is something that interests me. It was also a question that I asked Sas earlier ... but he seems to have missed it.

 

[Stibs]

Presumably Israel takes the view that their blockade is legal. If that's the case, I suspect that it was never likely that they'd willingly allow the blockade to be breached - preferring instead to maintain that 'defend the legal blockade' stance by pre-emptively taking 'defensive' action in international waters.

Just how far out into international waters they're prepared to take their acceptable 'defensive' action/s, is something that interests me. It was also a question that I asked Sas earlier ... but he seems to have missed it.

To be fair to the Israelis, I don't think they expected the people on the ships to fight back. We all know that their remonstrations about terrorists and how they knew all along they were dangerous are bollocks. They thought it would be easy and that they could prove their might without any danger to themselves or bad PR.