Quote :

"Israel flotilla action sparks diplomatic furor Security Council to meet after raid in international waters kills 10 activists JERUSALEM - Israel's storming of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla set off a diplomatic furor, drawing criticism from friends and foes alike and straining ties with regional ally Turkey, which called off planned joint military exercises. The United Nations Security Council called an emergency session for later on Monday following the killing of 10 of the mostly international activists aboard a six-ship convoy that tried to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. Washington said it deeply regretted the loss of life and was examining the circumstances that led to the bloodshed while Turkey, Israel's strongest Muslim friend in the region, summoned the Jewish state's ambassador and said it would recall its own. The boats were carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials. The activists said they also were carrying hundreds of electric-powered wheelchairs, prefabricated homes and water purifiers. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that after a security check, permitted humanitarian aid confiscated from the boats will be transferred to Gaza through authorized channels. However, Israel would not transfer items it has banned from Gaza under its blockade rules. Palmor said that for example, cement would be allowed only if it is tied to a specific project."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37423584/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

While it's not entirely shocking that Israel acted in this way, it's still fucking despicable. The flotilla was obviously sent out to provoke an Israeli reaction (after all, they were bringing in CEMENT), but I don't think they were expecting Israel to meet them in international waters and kill 10 people.

5/31/2010 11:13:31 AM

Horrible. We'll have to send them a sternly worded letter along with our next $1 billion check.

5/31/2010 11:21:06 AM

Memo: Stop killing people

5/31/2010 11:35:24 AM

Bibi is determined to shit his foreign relations diapers as hard as possible.

Get ready for a bunch of conservatives to run in here and defend Israel at all costs, even though most Israelis think they're ignorant pricks. lol

5/31/2010 11:44:13 AM

Fuck Israel.

Quote :

"We'll have to send them a sternly worded letter along with our next $1 billion check."

lol.... sigh

5/31/2010 12:55:21 PM

Quote :

"The flotilla was obviously sent out to provoke an Israeli reaction (after all, they were bringing in CEMENT), but I don't think they were expecting Israel to meet them in international waters and kill 10 people."

well, maybe next time they will.

and then maybe next time they won't try to deliberately provoke an israeli reaction.


You want to act tough and fuck around with an embattled nation? Then get yourself ready for some ass whooping.

5/31/2010 1:44:23 PM

Agreed

They attacked the soilders with steel bars. There isnt much a guy is going to do with someone in his face hitting him with a crow bar. For fuck sake your are going to get shot.

5/31/2010 1:49:19 PM

steel bars and axes... I mean, if they were going the civil disobedience route they should have been completely peaceful because then the casualties would have meant something.

As it stands, now they just look like punk ass douche bags who were out to start some shit and ended up biting off waaay more than they could chew.

[Edited on May 31, 2010 at 1:52 PM. Reason : s]

5/31/2010 1:51:24 PM

Yeah, if my boat was being attacked by soldiers in international waters, I wouldn't try to defend myself either. Shameful.

5/31/2010 1:54:44 PM

haha. mcdanger called it

5/31/2010 1:56:38 PM

No, I'm saying its fine if they want to defend themselves, but there are certain strategies and when you are helplessly overpowered sometimes a non-violent approach is the most effective tactic.

So, these guys loaded up some boats with materials they knew would piss off the Israelis, sail their boats straight into a blockade, ignore repeated warnings to each boat's captain to change directions, try to fight their way through with axes, and now want me to give a flying shit that they got their asses whipped?

nah.

5/31/2010 1:57:37 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo

the people on the ship instigated it. fuck em if they got shot for doing what they did. as someone who has executed shipboard searches, i can tell you that this would have been my worst nightmare. it's hairy enough going onto them when everything is peaceful looking. start hitting me with pipes and knives and you're damn right i'm going to shoot your ass...legitimate cargo or not

[Edited on May 31, 2010 at 2:03 PM. Reason : .]

5/31/2010 2:01:08 PM

Oh GOD not cement, Gaza might be able to rebuild and get its people employed with that!

5/31/2010 2:06:04 PM

I don't think you understand. This debate comes down to who you think Gaza Strip/West Bank belongs to. The debate is over though, because the bible tells us - it belongs to the people of Israel. They are God's chosen people, and in order for the end times to come about like the bible forecasts, they must stay in Israel and rebuild the temple.

Also, if you disagree with that, or you think that we shouldn't be giving foreign aid to Israel (i.e. borrowing money to give to Israel, why don't they fucking borrow their own money), you're anti-Semitic.

5/31/2010 2:14:00 PM

I don't think the blockade itself is reasonable.

However, if you're going to have a blockade then I don't feel much sympathy for people who don't think you'll enforce it.

Also if I understand it, most of the ships surrendered peacefully and did not got shot all to hell. The ship that decided to start off with violence was the one that got fucked up.

So, in short:

Blockade: Bad
Enforcement: OK
Shooting someone who is attacking you with a goddamn axe: OK

---

I hate to admit it, but for once one of the comments on CNN wasn't completely inane. It asked how the Turks (who were big in this convoy) would have responded to a similar convoy bringing aid to the Kurds in their country.

5/31/2010 2:25:37 PM

^^ The bible shouldn't dictate our foreign policy, douche.

5/31/2010 2:43:38 PM

he was quite obviously being sarcastic, douche.

5/31/2010 2:52:48 PM

hey look, optimum is being too sensitive again

5/31/2010 3:25:09 PM

Of course they knew they were poking a giant. That was the point.

Their mistakes were:
1.) Having anything remotely like weapons(including slingshots, OMG). The weapons allow faggots the world over to dismiss them as "violent".

2.) They should have let those jews kill the holocaust survivor they had on board. Now THAT would be good press.

3.) More Americans! Everyone knows dead foreigners aren't worth a shit, media wise. If they're muslims they're obviously enemies of israel, so no big loss there. Now if a dozen or so Americans were killed they'd have some martyrs they could be proud of and take to the bank.

5/31/2010 3:38:50 PM

Quote :

"take to the bank"

anti-semite.

5/31/2010 4:00:44 PM

you would think you could have boarded the boat faster.

Meh, I dont know anything about such things.

5/31/2010 9:18:50 PM

I watched CNNs coverage of this and though I really prefer CNN to fox/msnbc because it's usually in the middle Sanchez was soooo anti-isreal it was insulting. Personally I don't trust Isreal at all but these guys asked for it. They were offered alternatives that wouldn't have caused any problems then they foolishly attacked a guy carrying an assault riffle.... you might get shot.

5/31/2010 9:29:06 PM

THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE

THEY WERE ASKING FOR IT!

5/31/2010 10:00:39 PM

when someone attacks me with an axe, I suddenly don't view them as innocent.

but if I was israeli, the world would demand that I sit there and get thrown overboard or take an axe to my chest

5/31/2010 10:24:42 PM

Did you watch the video? They were asking for it.

And I wouldn't call those pipe-wielding maniacs innocent, either.

5/31/2010 10:29:00 PM

It looks like the violent members of the flotilla



Brought a knife to a gun fight

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAA

5/31/2010 10:43:25 PM

guys be real

Israel Blockade Gaza for four years!
Israel attacked Gaza and killed thousands of children, women and elders, including last strikes as part of their pilot training program (kill some Arabs program)!
Israel decided no international aid to reach to Gaza!
Israel attacked civilian ships in international water (US couldn't do it with North Korean ship that it thought it would have nuclear materials!)
Israel sent thouthands of their special force on a military operation against civilian with no expectation of any type of resistance!
Israel killed at least 10 civilians and beat hundreds who are not Palestinian and who are European, Turkish, Arabs, Asian, Muslims and Christians!

If any of you think that is about Palestine he/she is wrong. It is Israel again thinks it can do whatever it want with whoever it want, and expect USA to take the heat for it! Good luck!

Watch the movie - english will come after a while - watch fast those videos will not last long

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB-Mk4bFz-U&feature=popt00us05

[Edited on May 31, 2010 at 11:17 PM. Reason : ]

5/31/2010 10:57:13 PM

I seriously don't understand how people have their panties in a wad over this.

- They were running a blockade
- They attacked the soldiers



I know you wish there wasn't a blockade, but if that's what this is all about, then lets complain about the blockade, not some random assholes who got their asses kicked.

You know what I think? I think the Israelis have gotten so much bad publicity over the years that they have become masters at handling these situations and, knowing this, the activists knew that peaceful resistance wouldn't result in any good TV images of Israeli "brutality"

I think they deliberately attacked the soldiers in order to draw fire. I think they wanted the Israeli soldiers to fire on them and even to kill/injure some of them. There is simply no other way to interpret their actions.


[Edited on May 31, 2010 at 11:32 PM. Reason : s]

5/31/2010 11:28:53 PM

Solinari I don't think you are getting the picture:

Blockade is broken everytime there is one. In general UN been against this one in particular and screaming all over the place and still US and Israel did nothing about it.

Second those people wasn’t ass kicked but rather were killed!

If Israel was trying a military operation against civilian ships then it got what it asked for! They broke the international law (as if Israel ever care about it) by doing it in international water, killed at least ten civilians and they start a conflict with major European countries France, England, Greece, Germany, etc, their ally Turkey, and major Arab states by beating and killing their citizens!
If it was just trying to stop the civilian ship for getting to Gaza (which is as bad anyway) then they did it wrong! you don't send special forces to stop a civilian protest and don't expect some type of resistance!

So nothing major … just normal Israeli stuff

[Edited on May 31, 2010 at 11:43 PM. Reason : ]

5/31/2010 11:39:40 PM

I don't think you are giving much credit to the particularly vulnerable position that Israel is in. They don't have the luxury of a European state or the US or Canada. They are surrounded by mortal enemies who daily proclaim their wish to wipe Israel out of existence.

I mean, even a little bit of acknowledgment from you regarding this would be welcomed. Of course, you're blinded by your antisemitism so I don't really expect you to elevate your thoughts beyond, "durr durr Israel bad!!"

What you see as over-reaction, I see as a natural reaction to a deliberate provocation. Israel doesn't want to have to deal with this kind of bullshit over and over. So, deal with it harshly and let the pussy liberals stay home next time.

[Edited on May 31, 2010 at 11:46 PM. Reason : s]

5/31/2010 11:45:40 PM

It doesn't surprise me that there are apologists for Israel's most recent international crime; there were those on this board excusing Israel's actions during December of 2008 when they attacked hospitals, UN schools and humanitarian workers.

How is it that Israel was blockading international waters, anyway?

I can understand the Israeli commandos defending themselves once attacked, but they were illegally boarding a ship if I'm not mistaken.

And I may also be mistaken about this, but doesn't Israel typically throw these people into secret prisons once they are boarded?

6/1/2010 12:15:12 AM

No apologisting necessary. It's as simple as playground rules. You fuck with the wrong kid too many times and your ass is gonna get shot.

6/1/2010 1:07:02 AM

Nah, they send them to lovely vacation resorts. They have so much fun there that they forget to write home ever again.

6/1/2010 1:08:01 AM

don't forget organ harvesting while we're bashing Israel for defending itself against imminent threats

6/1/2010 1:23:24 AM

Hey if you cross paths with an Israeli and happen to have lots of fresh, juicy organs...well it's your own fault.

6/1/2010 1:43:30 AM

Isn't antisemitism fun?? We can all participate!

6/1/2010 1:46:11 AM

Quote :

"Blockade is broken everytime there is one."

No, not really. The US has used blockades before -- notably with Cuba -- that didn't get run. And unless I'm mistaken, those were conducted in international waters, too. It's hard to conduct a blockade in territorial waters, because that takes something that is probably an act of war and turns it into something that is definitely an act of war.

Quote :

"They broke the international law (as if Israel ever care about it) by doing it in international water, killed at least ten civilians and they start a conflict with major European countries France, England, Greece, Germany, etc, their ally Turkey, and major Arab states by beating and killing their citizens!"

Well, I haven't seen all that much outrage out of Europe. As for the Arab countries...well, I think it's been obvious for a while that neither one gives too much of a fuck what the other thinks.

Quote :

"you don't send special forces to stop a civilian protest"

Who else would you recommend sending to stop, board, search, and possibly detain a ship? We use special forces when we go after Somali pirates (in international waters, unless I'm mistaken).

Quote :

"there were those on this board excusing Israel's actions during December of 2008 when they attacked hospitals, UN schools and humanitarian workers."

I don't claim to know the details here, but typically when such things happen there is at least the claim that militants are using these facilities as a base or otherwise hiding in their vicinity. God knows it's happened to US forces before in Afghanistan and Iraq. If they were just blowing these places up for the fuck of it, then yeah, they're assholes. If they did so because they had some reasonable suspicion that there were bad guys there, then fuck the bad guys for hiding there to begin with.

I don't know which, precisely, it is, but it's entirely too easy to say "They blew up a hospital!" while leaving out some key facts.

6/1/2010 2:21:35 AM

watching the news you would think SESTAK WAS FRYING A TURKEY IN OIL/GREECE

6/1/2010 3:03:08 AM

LOL@GrumpyGOP's defense of everything Israel.

There must be a good reason why Israel would attack innocent civilians, they would never act like monsters.

6/1/2010 3:23:26 AM

I know you'd like me to be an unflinchingly pro-Israel mouthpiece, but it's not the case.

I've already said the blockade itself is unwarranted.

I've already admitted that their previous military actions may have been bullshit, and that I can't claim that they are or aren't when every media source has a different angle on matters.

And plenty of times in other threads I have made it clear that both sides act like monsters more than often enough. And yes, that emphatically includes Israel.

I frequently think that you want me to sniff two different assholes and declare that one of the assholes is unbelievably rank while the other asshole smells like roses. Or perhaps this is just what you are accusing me of doing. Either/or, you're waaaaay off.

6/1/2010 4:01:09 AM

Quote :

"The US has used blockades before -- notably with Cuba -- that didn't get run."

Are you saying that Russian didn’t run Cuba blockade? and that Iraq blockade before wasn't run with every nation on earth including those US organization/citizens!?

Quote :

"It's hard to conduct a blockade in territorial waters, because that takes something that is probably an act of war and turns it into something that is definitely an act of war."

The only difference that Gaza is part of Israel, the fact that we don’t like to mention, which makes Gaza blockade as a Genocide, while it is current attack against other countries ships in the international water a break to international laws and an act of war against those nations!

Quote :

"Who else would you recommend sending to stop, board, search, and possibly detain a ship?"

Riot police, coast guards or forces that is trained to deal with angry civilians! That just gives you a sense how Israeli forces are trained to kill and not to contain violence. You could stop the ships in the middle of the sea! You could send your coast guard once the ships inside your domestic water! You could do a lot of stuff but guess what Israel don't care to decrease violence!

Quote :

"We use special forces when we go after Somali pirates"

I hope you are not comparing Somali pirates with international aid effort to send food and medicine to blockaded people, and who are unarmed (unless you count metal bars as weapons!). If you really think like this then no wonder that you are saying that Israeli attacks on UN and Red Cross facilities/personal during the last major attack on Gaza is also to defend itself against .....

Quote :

"Well, I haven't seen all that much outrage out of Europe. As for the Arab countries"

I think you still don't get the picture. The main outrage here is coming from Turkey and Greece who are Israeli allies and who had contributed the most to this campaign, and got their own people killed. European countries already in anger of what Israel did against their own citizens and holding their breath to know if any was killed or injured during this. This has nothing to do with Palestine (yes there is still a blockade to Gaza, and still no food and medicine allowed to be there), it is about ships and people of several countries being attacked/killed by Israeli forces in international water!

Quote :

" I don't think you are giving much credit to the particularly vulnerable position that Israel is in. I mean, even a little bit of acknowledgment from you regarding this would be welcomed. Of course, you're blinded by your antisemitism .... "

I guess it is true that many will keep defend any act of Israel to it is vulnerability and describe anyone disagree to be anti-Semitism, but it is also true that all the international laws we have today are in place after world war II to prevent another holocaust from happening. Sorry but I don't see how Israel breaking those international laws that were in place to prevent another mascara to happen to Jewish people and/or Israel would be helpful to it. Israel keep prove to be illegitimate state by keep breaking the international law!

Stop killing Palestinian in Gaza everyday by stopping human/relief aid for reaching out! Be human!

[Edited on June 1, 2010 at 5:43 AM. Reason : ]

6/1/2010 5:27:07 AM

Can't read that. The Engrish is excruciating.

6/1/2010 9:00:34 AM

Quote :

"They are surrounded by mortal enemies who daily proclaim their wish to wipe Israel out of existence."

They surrounded themselves. What the fuck do you expect? Israel is completely unsustainable.

Quote :

"but if I was israeli, the world would demand that I sit there and get thrown overboard or take an axe to my chest"

No, they'd demand you allow vital supplies to be sent to people who desperately need it. THE FUCKING ANTI-SEMITIC HORROR OF ALLOWING CONCRETE INTO GAZA: IT CAN BARELY BE IMAGINED.

[Edited on June 1, 2010 at 9:39 AM. Reason : .]

6/1/2010 9:36:54 AM

they might make a bomb out of the concrete (or worse a school)

6/1/2010 10:06:09 AM

So can we all agree that you guys are outraged at the blockage then, and stop this charade of horror over the "peace activists" that attacked soldiers with axes?

6/1/2010 10:19:41 AM

Im only outraged over our support of israel. If the middle east imploded i litterally would not care.

6/1/2010 10:21:05 AM

Quote :

"So can we all agree that you guys are outraged at the blockage then, and stop this charade of horror over the "peace activists" that attacked soldiers with axes?"

Israel should not be throttling and ruining Gaza --> Israel should not have boarded the aid boat --> The protesters should not have attacked the soldiers

6/1/2010 10:30:10 AM

Quote :

"Im only outraged over our support of israel. If the middle east imploded i litterally would not care."

From an archaeological standpoint I'd be upset.

6/1/2010 10:37:51 AM

The middle east is kind of like texas in that its a big flat desert with a ton of oil and it would be a kinda cool place if it weren't for all the religious crap.

6/1/2010 10:44:22 AM

Egypt opens Gaza border,

Israel Kills 5 Palestinians

Also, the US endorsed a strongly worded UN letter. They made sure it was watered down first though.

[Edited on June 1, 2010 at 12:24 PM. Reason : .]

6/1/2010 12:19:10 PM