If the ship’s crew were beating the Israelis with metal poles and other basic weapons it was simply in self defence against the many Israeli soldiers boarding their boats armed with sophisticated firearms. The allegation being made by Israel that their soldiers killed 9 people on board the boat in ‘self defence’ is simply a desperate effort to explain away a serious mistake by the IDF, I just hope they are made to say sorry and admit their mistake!

As for “If it were our Marines, we would be backing them all the way”, I for one would be just as critical if it were our Marines. As some members of this forum know, I certainly do not shy away from criticising HM’s Forces.

I have not seen any previous part of this debate but here is my tuppence on the whole saga.

I am certainly not against Israel in any way and I respect Israel’s right to defend itself from what is a very real and deadly terrorist threat from the Gaza Strip, in which terrorists can go about their evil ways pretty freely (most of the time). Israel feels the best way to stop the terrorists killing innocent Jews is to enforce a blockade on Gaza to stop any supplies getting to Gaza without first being inspected by Israeli security staff. However I feel that Israel feels it can do whatever it wants and answers only to itself and that the US will back them whatever they choose to do. Let’s not kid ourselves here, if the US were to withdraw all backing to Israel, the state would collapse. However as long as the Americans keep backing Israel with billions of dollars annually Israel simply cannot be militarily defeated, not by Egypt, Turkey, Syria and any other countries combined. Think, Yom Kippur, War of Attrition and especially the 6 Day War where Israel seemingly wiped the floor militarily with the whole of the Arab world. So just going in there and using force is just going to get a lot of Arabs killed.

What needs to happen is for the US to say enough is enough and force Israel, through the threat of cuts to their military hand-outs to sit down with the Palestinians and broker a mutually acceptable deal. I do not think the State of Israel should disappear entirely however the Palestinians must have a homeland over which Israel can exercise no control. It won’t happen overnight but I believe it is possible.

Israel must now answer the difficult questions about how 9 civilians on a ship ended up killed. As far as I have heard the people on the ship were armed with sticks and stones, whilst the IDF boarded with all the latest military hardware (courtesy of Uncle Sam). Surely if the IDF soldiers felt threatened they could have taken them as prisoners and questioned them about their violence towards Israeli soldiers, killing them is an inexcusable over-reaction on the part of the IDF and they now need to have the balls to stand up and say they f**ked up and apologise to the grieving families. Sticks and stones do not pose a threat to heavily armed, well trained soldiers!! Then again there are still 14 grieving families in Derry waiting for an apology from Lizzy’s government and the rabble that passes for her army so we can’t get on the moral high ground!

Anyway I am straying off the point so I shall leave it there!

I wish them all the best of luck. I personally think this project is 100x more worthy of funding than TVOC! Concorde MUST fly again, even if it takes £50m!!

QANTAS have a large fleet and they have not killed a soul yet!

Though in recent years that has maybe been down to sheer luck than a truly safe and incident free operation!

EGPH likes being right for a change

It is amazing what some people will do when they realise they are running late for their flight to Sydney!

R.I.P all those who perished. :(:(:(

Airframe was 5A-ONG and was less than a year old (Sep 09 delivery) so I will eat my hat if it was mechanical failure!! Airbuses just don’t break EVER!!:)