Israel looking for troubles ?

The goal is to make Israel look bad in the eyes of the world.

The Israelis seem to be doing a pretty good job of that by themselves at the moment, Mr B.

I think the activists need to change tack and convince Israel to lift the blockade by other means than sending ships thousands of miles to only fall victim of the blockade anyway!

I don’t think that’s their point.
The goal is to make Israel look bad in the eyes of the world.

As mack8 quite rightly said criticism for Israel’s over-the-top reactions to perceived security threats is not anti-Semitism. The very fact that there are Jews across the world who are very critical of Israel and some who even question whether the state of Israel should even exist should blow that theory straight out of the water. I was speaking to a few Free Gaza activists over the weekend at a demo including one activist arrested for taking part in a flotilla and they were saying that they get called anti-Semitic everywhere they go and love to then introduce people to the many Jewish activists fighting alongside them to free Gaza from the blockade and watch the critics retreat in embarrassment!

I do however think that sending more flotillas now is a bit futile. The recent events have gained the cause a lot of media attention and the eyes of the world are now on Israel to apologise for the over-reaction that left 9 Turks dead. Sending more ships to Gaza to only be diverted by Israel to Ashdod is not going to solve the problem. The MV Rachel Corrie made clear they would offer no resistance to Israeli troops but was adamant that they wanted to head to Gaza port. The ship’s captain must have known that his chances of getting to Gaza were nil and that Israelis would board. The only way a ship will get to Gaza is by keeping the Israelis at bay with firearms and that ain’t going to happen. I think the activists need to change tack and convince Israel to lift the blockade by other means than sending ships thousands of miles to only fall victim of the blockade anyway!

why they didnt shoot at the legs ?

:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

One thing i have to say about all this mess…if it is true that the israeli commados were attacked with knifes bats and whatnot ,why they didnt shoot at the legs ? They were never shot at . Why did they shoot to kill ?

But me i would take whatever the israelis have to say with a grain of salt . They were very good at deceiving , thats for sure.

I still think the aid convoy was well-intended ,even if to deliver a message, as despite what the israelis say , the situation in Gaza is appaling , i meen me and you here in the west live very well in our nice houses , driving nice cars and enjoying nice luxuries( like computers ) , but those folks in Gaza actually dont have what to eat and dont have where to live ( after the IAF bombed them) because of the israeli blockade. Do any of you would like to live in Gaza now ?

Oh and i see some folks invariably throw the antisemitism coin around . Yeah right , the whole world is a big conspiracy against the poor jews , bla bla bla …what a load. Get real folks.

The fact that fully justified and real condemnation is made regarding what the israelis are doing in Gaza and Palestine doenst meen that those peoples are the mean evil antisemites. It meens that there is actually something wrong whit what the israelis do.

I see that the commandos that killed the peoples from Marmara are up for medals , funny i would think of a court martial and jail. Unfortunately , i doubt the israelis would really be facing consequences for what they did , because the big US brother is watching them . Just like they do with the nukes .Gotta love double standards…

Oh and again , no , what i said above does not make me an antisemite, despite what some folks might think , or want to think . I just hate human hypocrisy , thats all .

I hope my post here is not over the top …if so sorry , just tried to write down what i think …

Good job you didn’t have to spell Mississippi….:D

My spelling is better than my typing…:D

Night time allows for greater tactical choices for the commandoes landing on the deck. In general the commandoes are going to have better night vision capabilities than the targets will. Were I on the ship I would have known exactly what’s going on. Do you think the people on the ship are stupid? They hoped for and prepared for just this eventuality. No I think you do not give the folks on the ship enough credit at all. The Israelis have a very good intel capability and knew what was going to happen which is why they were prepared with multiple cameras to record the ensuing events.

I’m reading some articles in the Guardian with my morning coffee. IDF insists that it used force when it was attacked and it had no choice. Activists on the other hand insist that the commandos started shooting before they boarded the ships. What I’m saying is, that both versions of the story can be true. If you start shooting at people in the middle of the night, it is hard to tell if you are doing it using paintballs or real ammo. Activists saw soldiers shooting at them with something that looked like guns. You cannot tell the difference between paint and blood in the dark. If they were using pepper balls, you could hear people screaming.

I don’t know how I would react if I believed that I’ve been shot at. How would you react? It is only valid to assume that some of the activists, just attacked the soldiers they believed were shooting at them Things just escalated after that.

That was my point. Using paintball guns was a brilliant idea. When someone throws rocks at you, shoot him with a paintball. You can have minor injuries (in both sides) but it has great sense of proportion. You send your message. Look what I could do to you, if I wasn’t showing restrain. You just need to do it in a way that avoids any possible confusion of whats really going on.

It is tragic that people died and I think that if better tactics had been used that could have been avoided, but who knows? we weren’t there.

We are in full agreement here. The tragic thing is that people lost their lives. We just sharing opinions and points of view. What else can you do in a forum.

How to spell it isn’t the problem.

How to stop spelling it, that’s the problem.

If I remember my school days, we covered them in Phyiscal Geography.

Good job you didn’t have to spell Mississippi….:D

Not sure which forum the subject of rivers would come under….

If I remember my school days, we covered them in Phyiscal Geography.

Not sure which forum the subject of rivers would come under….

Naval Aviation????

Erlindur you wrote,

Instead some wise guy, decides to have the whole operation in the middle of the night with commandos dropping on the ships out of the sky. Tell me Gary, what would you have thought it is going on, if you were on that ship. Soldiers dropping out of nowhere, at night and shooting people with something that looks like a gun? The element of surprise and confusion in enemy ranks are valid military tactics. Using those tactics when the “enemy” is civilians and you want to minimize all casualties, is plain STUPID.

Night time allows for greater tactical choices for the commandoes landing on the deck. In general the commandoes are going to have better night vision capabilities than the targets will. Were I on the ship I would have known exactly what’s going on. Do you think the people on the ship are stupid?
They hoped for and prepared for just this eventuality. No I think you do not give the folks on the ship enough credit at all. The Israelis have a very good intel capability and knew what was going to happen which is why they were prepared with multiple cameras to record the ensuing events.

It is tragic that people died and I think that if better tactics had been used that could have been avoided, but who knows? we weren’t there.

Not sure which forum the subject of rivers would come under….

Cry me a river…..

You can’t please everyone. 😎

But a discussion on a theoretical war between Israel & Turkey is fine.

That’s quite enough, Aspis.

We do not need a Greece vs Turkey flame war.

No more, thank you.

GA

Where is the Greece vs Turkey in what i wrote???

Don’t you find it odd that:

a) Israel boarded the ships at international waters, while it could have easily waited to enter Israeli ones and act in full legitimacy.

b) That all the killings occured only in the turkish ship with IHH members and not in the other ships of the convoy?

Fine. I will leave you to your “realistic” theories, like “I switch on my computer game and today i choose Israel vs Turkey”.

I ‘ve had enough too, thank you and goodbye.

Moderator Message

That’s quite enough, Aspis.

We do not need a Greece vs Turkey flame war.

No more, thank you.

GA

-1) No weapons usable by Hamas have been found on the ships

This to the Israeli point of view, is irrelevant. They didn’t want that organization to operate freely on their soil, had warned Turkey that they won’t permit it, they did it.

-2) No one on board the ships was a “terrorist”

A greek activist who was taken in the prison camp, tells instead that the Israelis had a name list about each one of them and some were taking “particular treatment” (not in a positive way). No greek was tortured in the prison camp for example, while there were muslims taken away and returned visibly beaten, according to him. So whether you or i think they were terrorists, doesn’t count much. It counts what the Israelis suspected or considered them to be.

Also, being a terrorist isn’t something you have written on your ID card nor is it necessary to be Palestinian in order to be considered a terrorist threat by someone as Israel. If the Palestinians think that you use an NGO as “cover” to fuel your local terrorism, you ‘re as good as a terrorist. May i remind, that during the US invasion in Iraq, US border patrols arrested about 10 Turkish SF men, disguised as humanitarian volunteers in an aid convoy? Their real aim wasn’t humanity, but boost insurgency of Turkmens in N. Iraq against the Kurds. US military expelled them. In a second incident, US forces raided a turkish liaison station in Norther Iraq, again with the accusation that they were there to destabilize the region in order to prevent the autonomisation of a “Kurdistan” inside Iraq. Did you see the US military provide proof about that? No. But they were tied up and sent back to Turkey anyway.

And a thing to remember. Turkey, uses military force offensively, only when she is convinced about very big gains, with little damage for herself. Although this was particular true for the Kemalists and probably less for the Islamists, the internal political situation in Turkey doesn’t allow for anything else than “walk in the park victory”. In the case of Israel, we can’t seriously expect a land invasion through Syria. US would intervene to guarantee the survival of Israel.

So it would end up an air-naval operation. To what end? Strike targets inside Israel as “punishment”? IAI would have the huge advantage of operating inside her home and inside its own air-defence umbrella. And no navy can survive forever in hostile waters once its air support grows thin. This leaving aside types, numbers of aircrafts, trainning and tactics that may change things of course.

This is no proper time for Turkey to do anything like that. In a better occasion in some future, maybe. Now, no way.

Right now, the turkish PM is simply trying to ride the wave of international outrage to gain some political support from his local electorate and get “arab popularity points”. Show of flag, “Turkey is here” are fine for PR, but the substance doesn’t change. Israel didn’t want the IHH ship to unload its cargo to Gaza and that happened, in a way or the other.

If the book of the current Turkish FM Ahmed Davutoglou ever gets translated in english, do buy it. You will discover a whole new world in geopolitics.

There won’t be any military confrontation. This is just “PR” for the hegemony over the muslims of ME (Turkey wants to put Iran into shade).

As for the Israelis, obviously they miscalculated the use of force they would need, but it was also a statement towards the new turkish policy, that Israel won’t tollerate intrusive policies towards her.

Israel has a very precise opinion about IHH and had warned Turkey not to sent the ships. Israel wanted to make clear its point.

Israeli opinion on IHH:
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/html/hamas_e105.htm

Danish Institute opinion on IHH:
http://www.diis.dk/graphics/Publications/WP2006/DIIS%20WP%202006-7.web.pdf

Bad mouths say that it is implicitely supported by the turkish islamist ruling party and follows a proislamist political agenda coherent with the gov’s goals.

Interesting video from FYR Macedonia and IHH’s charity program, where it seems they have a soft heart for UCK (if you ask the local’s gov opinion they ‘ll tell you they ‘re terrorists, while of course they ‘re heroes for the ethnic Albanians (who are muslims, hence friends for the IHH).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Ehj_FnRHo&feature=player_embedded

Oh, by the way, in the neoOttoman doctrine of Mr Davutoglou, Turkey must become an internationally recognised geopolitical pillar in the Eurasia. It’s a revamped theory like the one already proposed in the 80s, which was calling for turkish sphere of influence, the area from the Adriatic to the Chinese Great Wall. In Mr. Davutoglou’s theory, 2 Balkan countries are instrumental in the success (becoming turkish satellites): Albania and Bosnia. By coincidence in these days the turkish navy inaugurated her new base in Albania, from where now turkish units will operate, and a regiment of infantry will be hosted.

This isn’t the end of the turkish-israeli relations either. In Turkey a poll for the first time showed the Kemalist ahead of the islamists. If the Kemalists
return to power, it is likely that Turkish-israeli relations will be restored.

There’s also a political analysis of a Kurdish journalists, that makes a theory about Iran, Turkey, Israel and the PKK, but it’s too long and complicated to explain. According to him, the victim of the story, is Erdogan, the apparent victor of the case, while Israel, although mediatically appears loser, in reality pays a low price, compared to the gain (return of Kemalists in Turkey).

As for international law, this exists only in the extent that you have the power to enforce it. So, Israel violated it. Cry me a river… Like if it was the first time…