Israel and the whole flotilla situation

So I'm sure everybody's heard by now about this flotilla that was boarded by Israelis and ended up with 9 activists dead. Someone wrote a letter to the editor today defending Israel, but I am skeptical. There are different statements coming from both sides; Israel saying that the activists started to get violent (but were they armed?) and other activists saying that the attack was unprovoked.

So - without really knowing what happened on that flotilla, any thoughts or gut feelings as to who's right? Personally, I find it hard to believe that what I believe were unarmed activists were behaving so badly it required shooting them. An autopsy (performed by Turkish coroners, mind you) showed that five were shot in the head; at least one at near-point-blank. I readily admit I do not know what exactly happened, and so leave a final judgment on the situation until then (if ever).

As a side note, I saw one of the activists had a dual American-Turkish citizenship - and so I am guessing there is a lot of pressure mounting on Israel to investigate just what happened.

No one can tell exactly what happened either. I suspect that all of us would be surprised at the things Israel does that we don't hear about... like when they used forged Australian passports to assassinate a Hamas leader...

The other edge of the sword is that if the Palestinians would try to take some sort of moral high ground they would have a Palestinian state.

from what i have heard, the flotillas are required to go to a certain dock to be searched for weapons, and the aid packages are then ok to be given out. the folks on the flotilla were aware of this and intentionally defied the requirement just to make their point with some press. a lady involved from flotilla aid group in question was on npr. she said it wont stop them, they will repeat what they did just to show what evil bullies the israelies are..so i suspect both sides were itching to do a little battle. i can see israel wanting to make sure no weapons get thru. i can see why the folks on both sides are angry. the thing is the un agreed to supporting the flotilla checks for weapons. its a mess that it would be nice to get resolved. it wont happen long as israel keeps building and pushing folks out of the zone those people were promised in the past....messy messy.

Pez wrote:No one can tell exactly what happened either. I suspect that all of us would be surprised at the things Israel does that we don't hear about... like when they used forged Australian passports to assassinate a Hamas leader...

I forgot about that. The whole "we didn't do that" (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) thing.

floridafun wrote:from what i have heard, the flotillas are required to go to a certain dock to be searched for weapons, and the aid packages are then ok to be given out. the folks on the flotilla were aware of this and intentionally defied the requirement just to make their point with some press.

If this is true, then this was pretty stupid on the activists' part. By no means does that necessarily exonerate the killings, but sheesh - were they actually trying to help with providing aid to Palestinians or was this for their own gain?