Israeli forces attack humanitarian convoy in intl. waters

[Zed]

Is there any source that explicitly says the activists identify as peace activists, as opposed to humanitarian activists?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The legality of the boarding is less important than the legality of the seizure, which can only be done when war contraband is found, and nobody will believe Israel found it.

However you're all ignoring the most important point--the people on the ships fought back with axe-handles. That's very significant propaganda-wise because that's what Jewish refugees traveling to Israel did against Royal Navy sailors boarding their ships during the blockade of the refugee ships on the verge of the declaration of the State of Israel. This is the ultimate propaganda disaster for Israel because it now unquestionably paints them in the light of their oppressors--they are doing the exact same thing that was done to them just sixty years ago, machine-gunning people armed only with axe-handles on the high seas. Apparently the commandos were mobbed and some of their weapons seized which is where the gunshot wounds come from. Anyway, the legality of the blockade is a rather difficult issue to answer since I doubt the international courts would agree it was legal today even if it would have been legal in the 1860s.


P.S. And just for the record all the remaining Turkish F-4s are upgraded (by the Israelis, no less!) to Kurhass standards and would present a tough nut to crack for F-15s, but that's all I'm going to say because really the military speculation is utterly retarded.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Is there any source that explicitly says the activists identify as peace activists, as opposed to humanitarian activists?

No, that's just boilerplate Israeli propaganda to say "peace activists are really violent extremists so ignore your own peace protestors back home because they secretly want to let the Islamists take over!!!!111!!", right up there with the evidenceless claim they found weapons aboard. They've been learning a lot from the refuseniks it seems, and soon will be able to issue press statements as blatantly disconnected from reality as the USSR's...

[Omega18]

P.S. And just for the record all the remaining Turkish F-4s are upgraded (by the Israelis, no less!) to Kurhass standards and would present a tough nut to crack for F-15s, but that's all I'm going to say because really the military speculation is utterly retarded.

Your simply mistaken, only 52 of the 100 Turkish F-4s actively in service were upgraded to that standard.

While it represents improved capabilities, they are primarily upgraded to focus on the air to ground role, and would be at a very clear disadvantage in the air against the Israeli aircraft. Israel would also have the advantage of knowing precisely what their military capabilities are. I'll freely admit actual military hostilities are extremely implausible.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Actually they're not anymore. Holy fucking shit:

Ankara warned that further supply vessels will be sent to Gaza, escorted by the Turkish Navy, a development with unpredictable consequences.

Article with the source

New Delhi: Turkey has threatened Israel with unprecedented action after Israeli forces attacked an aid vessel, killing 10 peace activists headed to Gaza.

Israel said 10 people died while those on the ship said at least 15 were killed.

A shocked world has responded with outrage. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel and warned of unprecedented and incalculable reprisals.

Two Turkish activists were reported to be among those killed in the flotilla. Ankara warned that further supply vessels will be sent to Gaza, escorted by the Turkish Navy, a development with unpredictable consequences.

Israel has sounded an alert throughout the country fearing rocket attacks by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Arab League has called an urgent meeting on Tuesday to decide on a common response. Egypt is under pressure to end the blockade of Gaza while Greece has cancelled a military exercise with Isreal.

The world is waiting for the response from Washington, how will President Obama react to the provocation from America's closest ally.

(With inputs from Agencies)

Unless the Israelis open fire on Turkish warships, the Turkish Navy will break the blockade--and I have no doubt they will be sending a sizeable part of their 14-strong submarine flotilla into the area in case things really do get hot. And Turkish bases in southwestern Turkey are close enough for air sorties in support. This is an incredible level of escalation which throws the situation wide open, so I'm not even going to believe it's going to come to this from just one source but if I start to see this elsewhere it means in the next couple does the situation in the mid-east is going to change drastically and in ways we cannot predict.

[CBG]

In my opinion that was a succesfull staged event:
-the only resisting ship happened to be the Turkish one
-the Turkish ship happened to have a bunch of passengers where the Israeli personnel was landing
-this bunch of people happened to be experienced troublemakers not giving a shit about light crowd control measures, ang were aggressive (Seen what they were doing with these ropes? Article says they were tying them to an antenna to down the helicopter) even before the first soldier touched the ship
-this bunch of people also happened to be well equipped with melee weapons and other makeshift weapons
-this bunch of troublemakers with melee weapons started to beat the living shit out of any soldier they could reach

Where was the vessel's captain? Why didn't he inform the Israelis that a bunch of his passengers are acting strange? Why wasn't the ship's crew doing anything about it?
Who let them have a cache of melee weapons? Did the crew know about it? Or was the captain and\or crew involved in this? If yes, was the ship's owner aware of this plan?

Owner:
http://www.shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=9309
Turkish Maritime Lines, unless it is not actual. This is a state owned company.

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Now the military situation obviously gets far more complicated if Turkish ground troops are involved, and Israel clearly would like to avoid a military conflict and may respond according and let Turkey have some sort of "win" in this situation, but your evaluation of the details of the military balance as given was just very badly flawed. (Realistically Israel is clearly not seriously worried about such a military conflict or they would not have been recently involved with significantly upgrading various pieces of Turkish military equipment. The evidence is relations between the sides militarily are far better than the civilian ones.)

Fair enough. As I said, it's conjecture anyway.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And the New York Times picks up on the Exodus Ship comparisons

To some Israeli observers, it was impossible to miss the parallels between Monday’s killing of pro-Palestinian activists by Israel’s military in international waters, as commandos intercepted a flotilla of ships trying to break the Israeli naval blockade on Gaza, and a seminal event in the Jewish struggle for an independent homeland.

Noam Sheizaf, an Israeli journalist who is rounding up reports and commentary on the attack on his blog, “Promised Land,” points to a post in Hebrew by Rafi Man of the Israel Democracy Institute which asks: “Will This Be the Palestinian Exodus?”

Mr. Man was referring to the story of the “Exodus 1947,” a ship filled with Jewish Holocaust survivors who wanted to immigrate to Palestine in July 1947. That month, the British Navy intercepted the ship to enforce a ban on Jewish immigration to the territory, which was then under British control.

As my colleague Margalit Fox wrote in December — in an obituary for Yitzhak Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus 1947 — the violent way the British Navy seized that ship and deported the refugees backfired, creating global sympathy for the plight of stateless Jews. Ms. Fox explained:

The refugees had no legal authority to enter Palestine, and the British were determined to block the ship. In the battle that ensued, three Jews aboard the Exodus were killed. The ship’s passengers — more than 4,500 men, women and children — were ultimately deported to Germany.

The attack and its aftermath, which focused attention on the plight of many European Jews after the war, made headlines worldwide and helped marshal support for an Israeli state. [...]

Captain Ahronovitch was 23 when he took the helm of the Exodus. On July 11, 1947, he picked up the refugees at Sète, in southern France. On July 18, as the ship neared the coast of Palestine, the British Navy intercepted it. Captain Ahronovitch tried to break through, but two British destroyers rammed the ship.

Several hours of fighting followed, with the ship’s passengers spraying fuel oil and throwing smoke bombs, life rafts and whatever else came to hand, down on the British sailors trying to board, The Times reported at the time. Soon the British opened fire. Two immigrants and a crewman on the Exodus were killed; scores more were wounded, many seriously. The ship was towed to Haifa, and from there its passengers were deported, first to France and eventually to Germany, where they were placed in camps near Lübeck.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, when refugees from the Exodus 1947 were forced into displaced persons camps in Germany by the British military:

Large protests erupted on both sides of the Atlantic. The ensuing public embarrassment for Britain played a significant role in the diplomatic swing of sympathy toward the Jews and the eventual recognition of a Jewish state in 1948.

A book by the journalist Ruth Gruber on the voyage, released in 1948 under the title “Destination Palestine,” was later renamed “Exodus 1947: The Ship That Launched a Nation.” In 2007, Israelis celebrated a recreation of the voyage.

On Monday, activists wounded by the Israeli military during the raid on the ships were brought to Haifa for medical treatment. Sixty-three years ago, the world saw photographs and newsreel footage of wounded and dazed Jewish refugees wounded by the British military disembarking the Exodus 1947, under armed guard, in Haifa.

Another parallel between the events of 1947 and those on Monday is a dispute over what might have justified the use of deadly force against civilians. Israeli officials insisted in initial statements that shooting activists in the flotilla was justified because commandos boarding one ship were met with “live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs.” That assertion was called “a lie,” by one of the flotilla’s organizers. In his live-blog post, Mr. Sheizaf wrote that Channel 10, an Israeli television station, reported that the Israeli military had completed a search of the ship and “no weapons discovered except for the two pistols that were taken from the soldiers.”

In August 1947, a New York Times article on the clash at sea the previous month was headlined: “Crew Man From the Exodus 1947 Denies the British Met Firearms; Grauel, on Arrival in New York, Says Naval Boarding Party Shot at Jews Whose Weapons Were Potatoes, Canned Goods.”

These days, of course, it does not take a month for a dispute over which version of events the world should accept to break out. Hours after the video of the raid shot from on board the ship by the Turkish news agency DHA was posted online and distributed to channels around the world, two posts appeared on the official blog of the Israel Defense Force Spokesperson with video shot by Israel’s military, showing, it said, “today’s incident in which IDF naval forces were met with extremely violent resistance on board the Mavi Marmara.”

Here is some of the video from Turkish television:

[Elfdart]

It'll be interesting to see the US government's reaction to this crisis; their reaction to the last one (the announcement of the expansion of Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem during Netanyahu's visit to Washington D.C.) was decidedly not pro-Israel in the least, so there's hope for stern words from Obama yet.

I can tell you exactly what Uncle Sam's reaction will be. He will get on his knees, jaws agape, waiting for a hot, sticky facial from Israel. How do I know this? The same way I know the sun will set in the west this evening: that's what it has always done before and there's no reason to think this time will be any different.

Actually they're not anymore. Holy fucking shit:

I'll believe it when I see it. The point is, it would have never come to this if the Turkish government had made it clear that it would not tolerate attacks on these ships*. Ditto for the EU. Now, even in the unlikely event that they follow through and provide armed escorts, they are placing not only relief workers but their own sailors in harm's way when the bullshit should have been nipped in the bud weeks ago.

* A simple message of "We will defend the rights of all our ships in international waters, using force if necessary. If you have reason to believe there is war contraband aboard one or more of the ships, we will gladly inspect them and confiscate any weapons immediately." would have done just fine.

Now the Turkish state either has to follow through and escort the next set of relief ships, or they deal with the consequences of being seen as Israel's bitch, or throwing their own people and ships under the bus, or both.

[MKSheppard]

So you find nothing wrong with the disproportionate violence used against an unarmed humanitarian convoi?

Summarization

1.) First rope that the Israelis toss down to fast rope to the deck of the ship is tied to an antenna/railing by the protesters; so the helo can't move off/is in danger of crashing unless the rope is cut.

2.) The Israeli troops that land on deck are armed with paintball guns as primary weapons; with pistols as secondaries, with orders only to use the pistols in life threatening situations. Upon landing, the protesters suddenly pull out baseball bats, crowbars, etc.

3.) At one point, one of the peaceful protesters grabbed an IDF trooper, grabbed his gun, and then threw him from the top deck to the lower deck, some 30 feet. As you might imagine, the trooper lost consciousness then and there, and sustained a serious head wound.

After the guy was tossed 30 feet; Flotilla 13 (the commandoes) asked for permission to open fire with the pistols; and this was of course approved.

Of course, left out is that if this had been anyone else; like for example, the Chicago Police Department under Mayor-For-Life Daley I and II; the first time someone tried to take a serious swipe at one of the troopers, things would have massively and disproportionately escalated with unlimited force being approved to beat the hell out of anyone who resisted.

But of course, don't believe me, go to the videos on youtube:

Video One

Video Two

In those videos, you can see a solider being grabbed, and tossed 30 feet down onto another deck -- people attacking israeli troops with 10-15+ foot long poles, etc.

The problem here; is that in todays modern warfare, there are two battlefields:

The Physical -- where people get killfucked, things get blown up etc. Israel is always dominant on this.

The Psychological -- where propaganda etc is disseminated. Israel has been losing this battlefield since about the 1980s.

[ShadowDragon8685]

So what you're saying is that this is a complete and total clusterfuck. An actual, governmental navy intends to forcibly ram ships through a sovreign nation's naval blocade?

This could concievably end well, but damned if I can see how.

Isreal could completely capitulate (fat fucking chance) and let the Turks land whomever and whatever they want. Cue immediate cries for the severing of all contact and claims that Turkey is supporting terrorism, which wouldn't be that far from the truth.

Isreal could mount a standoff and physically maneouver it's ships to prevent the Turkish navy and their escorted ships from approaching. Cue a tense standoff that some jackass with a grudge could intentionally escalate into a shooting war.

What else? Scuttling the port so that ships can't make dock? Performing a land blocade of the port and refusing to allow anything or anyone on the ships to make landfall? I can't see how any good can come of this; Isreal almost certainly will not, and probably cannot afford to, let a sovreign nation ram unwanted vessels into it's ports. If they attack the Turkish ships, Turkey could invoke the NATO treaties and demand the rest of NATO immediately declare war on Isreal. If the Turks attack the Israeli ships, everybody will say "Isreal provoked it" by trying to enforce their blocade.

Can anybody think of a way this could be salved without a major, major incident?

[MKSheppard]

However you're all ignoring the most important point--the people on the ships fought back with axe-handles.

And 10+ foot long poles. See the video I posted.

If that had been happening to one of my teams; I'd have withdrawn my troopers and then proceeded to rake the ship in question with three inch and five inch (if I could have it) gunfire, until it was a burning wreck in the water. Then I'd apply a coup-de grace with an under the hull shot from a torpedo.

[Psychic_Sandwich]

I can tell you exactly what Uncle Sam's reaction will be. He will get on his knees, jaws agape, waiting for a hot, sticky facial from Israel. How do I know this? The same way I know the sun will set in the west this evening: that's what it has always done before and there's no reason to think this time will be any different.

I can think of something that's different. Namely, Turkey. The US actively needs Turkey, even if it wasn't a NATO member. They need a balance to Russia on the Black Sea. They need a friendly nation in control of the Bosporus. They need Turkey as a base to supply Iraq and Afghanistan. If Turkey withdraws it's permission, there's a fair chance that the US and it's allies might be forced to withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan or run out of supplies. Turkey is vital to US interests in central Asia in a way that Israel could never hope to be.

If it comes down to a choice between the two, in the current situation vis a vis Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is almost certain to chose Turkey, because they simply need them more. I rather suspect that the actual option will be to wash their hands of the entire mess and support neither side, thus avoiding the terrible headache that would result from intervention.

[Zed]

However you're all ignoring the most important point--the people on the ships fought back with axe-handles.

And 10+ foot long poles. See the video I posted.

If that had been happening to one of my teams; I'd have withdrawn my troopers and then proceeded to rake the ship in question with three inch and five inch (if I could have it) gunfire, until it was a burning wreck in the water. Then I'd apply a coup-de grace with an under the hull shot from a torpedo.

Congratulations - you just won a battle against civilians armed with improvised weapons. Unfortunately, you've lost the war even more horrifically than the Israelis are losing now.

[MKSheppard]

Congratulations - you just won a battle against civilians armed with improvised weapons. Unfortunately, you've lost the war even more horrifically than the Israelis are losing now.

Improvized weapons can fuck up someone for life. So why risk my troopers in a situation like that? If I try to fast rope from a chopper or board via a caving ladder; my troops are horrifically vunerable in that moment in time, as I can only add one or two guys at a time on that location. So why should I play into the hands of a bunch of "peace activists" by feeding my men into their hands one by one? Only idiots play to their enemies strengths.

[Zed]

Congratulations - you just won a battle against civilians armed with improvised weapons. Unfortunately, you've lost the war even more horrifically than the Israelis are losing now.

Improvized weapons can fuck up someone for life. So why risk my troopers in a situation like that?

Good question. Just leave the flotilla alone, or ask for an inspector to board the ship, rather than demanding the ship be handed into Israeli hands so they can take away all dangerous goods - like chocolate.

If I try to fast rope from a chopper or board via a caving ladder; my troops are horrifically vunerable in that moment in time, as I can only add one or two guys at a time on that location. So why should I play into the hands of a bunch of "peace activists" by feeding my men into their hands one by one? Only idiots play to their enemies strengths.

Proof that they call themselves "peace activists"? They seem to me to be people who sympathize with Gaza, and that hardly implies that they must be peace activists. Why would they be?

[ShadowDragon8685]

If it comes down to a choice between the two, in the current situation vis a vis Iraq and Afghanistan, the US is almost certain to chose Turkey, because they simply need them more. I rather suspect that the actual option will be to wash their hands of the entire mess and support neither side, thus avoiding the terrible headache that would result from intervention.

"A pox 'pon both their houses" is a good reaction to this.

The problem is what happens if Turkey claims it has been attacked and the rest of NATO agrees. That puts the US in the position of actually having to wage war on an ally (Isreal) or else be in flagrent violation of the NATO treaties... Which frankly is a complete and total clusterfuck.

Then again, it might work. If we pull a fast and unsubtle 'regieme change' and Isreal gets completely occupied by outside troops. It might shake things up enough to restore order...

That, or it could get the outside troops drawn into the messy fight that's already going on. I, for one, would find it deliciously hilarious if Turkish troops got attacked and in response slaughtered those poor, defenseless terrorists they want to ship supplies to at gunpoint, following a complete pounding of the IDF into submission and now in the position of being forced to provide protection for all those damn Jewish civilians who didn't convienantly die in the initial attack.


But that's never going to happen. I think the situation of being forced by treaty to attack an ally would make the U.S. have a collective brain siezure and stop operating on a higher level of consienceness long enough for the rest of NATO to decide they don't particularly care to have a war, even with all the justification in the world, without the U.S. spearheading it. And with any luck, the Israelis will come up with a way to prevent the ships from landing and/or unloading that won't involve giving Turkey justification to call for NATO to zerg rush them.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

And 10+ foot long poles. See the video I posted.

So what if other weapons were involved? The details are irrelevant, the public perception is everything. You know that.

If that had been happening to one of my teams; I'd have withdrawn my troopers and then proceeded to rake the ship in question with three inch and five inch (if I could have it) gunfire, until it was a burning wreck in the water. Then I'd apply a coup-de grace with an under the hull shot from a torpedo.

Which would certainly bring about a war with Turkey. And Greece--there was a Greek ship in the convoy which was also in fact taken under fire, the Sfendoni, and Greece has also summoned the Israeli ambassador while already cancelling military exercises.

[MKSheppard]

Good question. Just leave the flotilla alone, or ask for an inspector to board the ship, rather than demanding the ship be handed into Israeli hands so they can take away all dangerous goods - like chocolate.

Nice that you leave out the reason why some of the material they were bringing in -- like Cement, is banned, unless it's specifically linked to a specific building project -- because Hamas/Hizbollah/etc like to divert that kind of foreign aid into their own coffers to build fortified bunkers and other fun things for their schutzstaffel.

What do you think would be the reaction of anyone else in the world to their troops boarding ships for searches of the cargo they contain (it's a regular evolution, happens all over the world); being attacked violently? Hint: it would be a much more quick and immediate reaction.

[Omega18]

Isreal could completely capitulate (fat fucking chance) and let the Turks land whomever and whatever they want. Cue immediate cries for the severing of all contact and claims that Turkey is supporting terrorism, which wouldn't be that far from the truth...

Can anybody think of a way this could be salved without a major, major incident?

The obvious alternative is a few creditable members of the Turkish military perhaps with additional backup from other inspectors go over the aid shipments with a fined tooth comb while looking for weapons and make sure nothing gets on the ships after these inspections are performed. It means the current blockade gets ended in certain respects, and some additional things are allowed through, but it doesn't represent an actual sources of weaponry to Hamas in Gaza.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Poor widdle Israel being assaulted by improvised weapons maintaining a blockade of illegally occupied territories under international law. As usual, reflexive defense is offered for their brutality and violent behavior. Sadly, the U.S. will certainly stand up for its Zionist dependency.

[Zed]

What do you think would be the reaction of anyone else in the world to their troops boarding ships for searches of the cargo they contain (it's a regular evolution, happens all over the world); being attacked violently? Hint: it would be a much more quick and immediate reaction.

Why do you think they'd guess that it's just a search, when a helicopter is dropping in armed soldiers?

[The Grim Squeaker]

What do you think would be the reaction of anyone else in the world to their troops boarding ships for searches of the cargo they contain (it's a regular evolution, happens all over the world); being attacked violently? Hint: it would be a much more quick and immediate reaction.

Why do you think they'd guess that it's just a search, when a helicopter is dropping in armed soldiers?

The fact that they were notified in advance? That it's been made clear for a long time in advance that the Israeli government would stop the flotilla's attempt to violate the blockade and send the protestors back on the first available flight to their home countries?

[Zed]

It seems to me that this means that they're not just being searched, but diverted. Slight difference, there: the first of them allows them to continue the mission if no weapons are found, the second of them means the people in Gaza don't get their aid.

[MKSheppard]

Why do you think they'd guess that it's just a search, when a helicopter is dropping in armed soldiers?

Because you know, US Navy search and seizure teams are armed and equipped likewise?



080507-N-2735T-275 PERSIAN GULF (May 7, 2008) Members of the helicopter visit, board, search and seizure team assigned to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) participate in a small arms qualification on the flight deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Nassau (LHA 4). Lincoln and Nassau are deployed to the U.S. 5th Fleet area of responsibility supporting maritime security operations. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Coleman Thompson (Released



U.S. Navy Lt. j.g. Jonathan Greenwald, the boarding officer aboard the forward-deployed amphibious dock landing ship USS Harpers Ferry (LSD 49), climbs from a rigid-hulled inflatable boat onto the Philippine navy Bacolod City-class auxiliary ship BPR Dagupan City (LC 551) during a joint, board, search and seizure exercise in the Philippines March 13, 2010. (DoD photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Andrew R. Smith, U.S. Navy/Released)