Ships to Gaza incident

[MOBIUS]

so giving up the san remo defence its now about the idfs resources. give me a break. there is no reason to belive these people could break the blockade if they where allowed to cross the magic line first.

Indeed, the more this story is debated, the more untenable and laughable the pro-Israel position is...

Now they're telling us a medium sized cruise ship could outrun a bunch of navy ships surrounding it to the coast! I mean, we all know the IDF is incompetent, but come on!

[germanos]

Only feeding yourself with opinions you share, while ignoring people with different opinions, makes a human defenitely stronger!

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It's not that I cannot stand or hear your opinion. Though while beating a dead horse might make me stronger, it's not going to get me anywhere.

I do try to ignore your posts anyway, but your walls of text and mind the consecutive posting of them, make it quite an annoyance.

[Robert]

complicated situations come with nuance and not with one liners.

[Gibsie]

I agree that the "interntational waters" stuff is mostly a side-issue at best. Israel's woeful attempt at stopping the ship was ridiculous no matter where it happened, and their bad planning and performance resulted in the death of nine activists. Sure, the activists were fighting back. That's human nature. And they did seem to be picking off the Israelis one by one as they arrived. That is the REAL problem with the operation. You don't just send your troops down one by one into a mob. The mob will gang up on and hurt your soldiers. That's what mobs do. The instant you send your boys, undersupported and underprepared into a MOB that is going to try to bash their brains in, you are signing the death warrants of the people you are trying to detain.

Can you imagine a police operation like this happening? You have a suspected terrorist stronghold, so you send in a couple of officers. You give them tasers to protect themselves. Your officers then walk straight into the middle of the den and are set upon by the people you're raiding. At that point, what option do you have but to send the rest in all guns blazing. Completely ridiculous. Send them in with a cohesive battleplan, armed and ready (And not with fething paintguns, you morons!), backed-up by their comrades and with overwhelming force.

Zevico said it best: "The Israelis had a choice: do it earlier with far less people and less boats and resources or do it later and expend more resources." The answer is, with any policing operation, is to expend as many resources as it feasible to take down your subjects with minimal loss of life. Why would you NOT do that, unless you want an excuse to pop a few hippies? But Israel took the cheap option and it only costs the lives of nine activitists... and a large chunk of what little reputation they had left. This leaves the Plomps and the Peretzes in the unenviable position of basically having to argue that the dead people got what was coming to them, and that's not going to make Israel look any better either.

[Drake Tungsten]

My give-a-**** reading on this one is flatlining.

QFT

[Robert]

The Israelians could most probably have done a much better job indeed.
But that doesn't take the responsibility of the mob away.

If a man walks with a bag of money into a scary neighbourhood, he's stupid, but the guy who takes the money is still a thief.

[dannubis]

Don't really care on who is responsible for the ****up itself on that deck. Lessons are to be learned for both sides. (Don't beat up armed soldiers + Don't land on a deck full of angry people)

However, 9 people died (incidently none of them are Israelis)... where are the weapons concealed on the ships?

[Asher]

Bzzt. Misquote. Serves you right for failing to read the original source. The original quote comes from an article entitled "Sorry Sorry, But The Verdict Is In On The Long American Excursion In Iraq. And It Is Favorable":

It's not a misquote. He edited it after people took issue with it without comment, because that's how he rolls.

[Ellestar]

The Israelians could most probably have done a much better job indeed.
But that doesn't take the responsibility of the mob away.

If a man walks with a bag of money into a scary neighbourhood, he's stupid, but the guy who takes the money is still a thief.

Ok, fine, let's take the closest thing to what happened - some part of the demonstration become a riot. Demonstrators throw rocks at policemen and beat them with sticks if they come too close. As far as i know, democratic countries don't send soldiers to kill even violent demonstrators, and even non-democratic countries that kill demonstrators in such cases are being condemned. A country that killed demonstrators puts some or all of the blame on demonstrators, but free democratic countries don't buy such rhetoric and put the blame on killers. That's exactly what happened in this case. And most countries officially supported that point of view, with the exception of some of the Israel allies of course.

Also, you'll lose in any court with such a pitiful defence. "Mob" is a virtual thing, it can't be responsible for anything.

[rah]

I think it's different depending on if the demonstrators are your citizens or not.

[Robert]

About to break through a millitary blockade, while singing songs about murdering your people.

[Ellestar]

However, 9 people died (incidently none of them are Israelis)... where are the weapons concealed on the ships?

From Wiki


As Mark Steel said,

To strengthen their case the Israelis have released a photo of the weapons they found on board, (which amount to some knives and tools and wooden sticks) that the naive might think you'd expect to find on any ship, but the more astute will recognise as exactly what you'd carry if you were planning to defeat the Israeli army. It's an armoury smaller than you'd find in the average toolshed in a garden in Cirencester, which goes to show the Israelis had better destroy Cirencester quickly as an essential act of self-defence.

Then again, i don't see any blood on the weapons, and IDF claims their soldiers were wounded, with knifes too IIRC. Kinda suspicious.

[Imran Siddiqui]

the more astute will recognise as exactly what you'd carry if you were planning to defeat the Israeli army. It's an armoury smaller than you'd find in the average toolshed in a garden in Cirencester, which goes to show the Israelis had better destroy Cirencester quickly as an essential act of self-defence.

[Robert]

The weapons they found is defenitely not something very impressive
Which only raises the question: why not let them enter the ship to search it.

Anyway, reading the wiki article made it clear to me that the legal debate is not that settled as many here claim.
While continueing to acknowledge the opposing opinions from experts, I quote some that support it, only to show that things are disputed and the black/white story supported by some here is shortsighted.

It's a complicated issue, even legally.

Alan Dershowitz, a professor of Law at Harvard University, wrote that the legality of blockades as a response to acts of war “is not subject to serious doubt.” He likened Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza to United States naval actions in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, which the U.S. had deemed lawful although not part of an armed conflict. Dershowitz argued that action taken in international waters is permissible if "there is no doubt that the offending ships have made a firm determination to break the blockade."

"The Israeli blockade itself against Gaza itself is not illegal, and it's okay for Israeli ships to operate in international waters to enforce it," said Allen Weiner, former U.S. State Department attorney and legal counselor at the American Embassy in The Hague, and now a Stanford Law School professor.

Professor Ruth Wedgwood, the Edward B. Burling Chair in International Law and Diplomacy at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, said that under the law of armed conflict, which would be in effect given Hamas's rocket attacks on Israel and Israel's responses, Israel has "a right to prevent even neutrals from shipping arms to [Hamas]," and that "the right of visit and search under the law of the sea, or under the law of armed conflict, can be conducted on the high seas".[153] Pointing out that the U.S. itself, as a neutral throughout most of the 1800s, submitted its ships to inspections on the high seas to allow belligerents to make sure that its cargoes weren't actually fueling any of the European wars, and the U.S. itself blockaded Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis, she also noted that in the wars in Yugoslavia, the U.N. itself, and NATO, through Operation Sharp Guard, imposed a blockade on shipments to Yugoslavia.[153] She opined that the goal of the flotilla was to: "denude Israel of what it thinks it was guaranteed in the 1993 Oslo Accords, which is the control of the external borders of Gaza and West Bank.... The problem ... is that you could easily have a rearming of Hamas, which caused a terrible conflict."

According to Abbas Al Lawati, a Dubai-based Gulf News journalist on board the flotilla, Israel is likely to cite the Gaza–Jericho Agreement (Annex I, Article XI) which vests Israel with the responsibility for security along the coastline and the Sea of Gaza.[154] The agreement stipulates that Israel may take any measures necessary against vessels suspected of being used for terrorist activities or for smuggling arms, ammunition, drugs, goods, or for any other illegal activity.[155]

Tel Aviv University law professor Yoram Dinstein, author of The Laws of War at Sea, has written that "there are several instances of contemporary (post-UN Charter of the Law of the Seas) practices of blockades, e.g., in the Vietnam and in the Gulf War."

Philip Roche, a partner in the shipping disputes and risk management team with the London-headquartered international law firm Norton Rose, said: "On the basis that Hamas is the ruling entity of Gaza, and Israel is in the midst of an armed struggle against that ruling entity, the blockade is legal."[157] The basis for that is the law of blockade, derived from international law that was codified in the 1909 London Declaration concerning the Laws of Naval War, and which was then updated in 1994 in the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea--"a legally recognized document".[158] Under the law of a blockade, a ship can be intercepted on the high seas as long as it is ship is bound for the blockaded territory.[159] As to the use of force when boarding a ship in such circumstances, it is legal but must be proportionate, according to Commander James Kraska, professor of international law at the U.S. Naval War College.[160] Proportional force does not mean that guns cannot be used by forces when being attacked with knives, but "there has got to be a relationship between the threat and response," said Kraska.[161] According to J. Peter Pham, a strategic adviser to U.S. and European goverments, "from what is known now, it appears that Israel acted within its legal rights".

Once again: these quotes are there to show that the legality of Israel's action is disputed, and experts are also supporting it. (while other experts oppose it).

[Al B. Sure!]

Ok, fine, let's take the closest thing to what happened - some part of the demonstration become a riot. Demonstrators throw rocks at policemen and beat them with sticks if they come too close. As far as i know, democratic countries don't send soldiers to kill even violent demonstrators, and even non-democratic countries that kill demonstrators in such cases are being condemned.

Umm... In Israel, the response to preteenagers throwing rocks is to send in the tanks.