Israel & flotilla

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Deci said:
If what the eyewitness reports are saying are true, the Israeli military is a piece of shit.
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Not News indeed.

But yeah, like you said, what a mess. The extremists in Israel really need to be brought in check. I can't say that the US government's influence has been positive in that regard. Too much leniency is never good in that context.
 
Aazealh said:
I can't say that the US government's influence has been positive in that regard. Too much leniency is never good in that context.
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I think this is where my mind was when I posted this. And honestly, that's really a whole 'nother can of worms, particularly regarding this conflict.... or the whole Middle East conflict in general.

Anyway, I mostly regret even reporting on this, it's not like anyone gives a shit anyway (at least in the US). If the US media can't pin terrorism on someone and make a big news story out of it than it's trash.

My (positive) thoughts are with the families and friends of those who know the activists on the flotilla anyway. Good luck to you!
 
I don't think you should regret posting it, and I don't think it's that we don't give a shit... This is just one of those scenarios where there are powerful emotions and opinions, and as I don't even have a clear cut stance on the over-arching issues I tend to shy away from discussing it. I think a lot of people feel similarly.

The last thing I want to do is come into conflict with someone who feels passionately!
 
Deci said:
it's not like anyone gives a shit anyway (at least in the US).
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That's pretty pretentious of you to say. The Israeli Palestinian conflict has been going on for a very long time, and most people are fed up that it isn't going anywhere or that our government seems to pussy foot around telling Israeli to fuck off.

Scorpio said:
I don't think you should regret posting it, and I don't think it's that we don't give a shit... This is just one of those scenarios where there are powerful emotions and opinions, and as I don't even have a clear cut stance on the over-arching issues I tend to shy away from discussing it. I think a lot of people feel similarly.
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I'm agreeing with Scorpio here, this conflict has far more emotions when brought up in most others. I've spoken to people that have made excellent points arguing for both sides, but the problem is that there is no black or white for this conflict.

An article looking at errors by the Israeli military.
"We did not expect such resistance from the group's activists as we were talking about a humanitarian aid group," one unnamed naval lieutenant told Israel's Army Radio.
"The outcome was different to what we thought, but I must say that this was mainly because of the inappropriate behavior of the adversary we encountered."
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Personally, they should have trained for it regardless. Right before big missions in Iraq we would drill for the worst possible things to the most peaceful outcomes. The fact they were not prepared for a group of activists to give them resistance, for storming the ship in international waters, shows how irresponsible they were, meaning their Commissioned Officers should have to answer for the blunder.

Israel's police quarantine of activists from the Mavi Marmara prevented airing of dissenting testimony. The navy also jammed communications while storming the converted cruise ship.
That did not stop passengers broadcasting a globally viewed video clip that, ironically, helped Israel's case by showing a clutch of activists clubbing and stabbing two marines.
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I can't hold either party accountable. Getting stabbed or clubbed isn't fun, nor is it non-deadly force, it will kill you. So opening fire on the ATTACKERS is justified in that case. The activists should have been aware that you don't pick a fight with people with guns when you're not prepared to get shot in the process.

I personally don't feel bad for either party, because neither party was innocent. The activists should not have attacked and the Israeli's should have been prepared for it. The real problem is the policy of the blockade and Israeli's dicking around of the peace process.
 
Yeah, it's just such a hot-button issue in general. I spent a while talking about it the other day with my friend from Jerusalem; she's relieved to have someone to talk to about this kind of thing who doesn't immediately start calling her a self-hating anti-Israel traitor etc etc just for being critical of the way Israel/the IDF handles things so badly sometimes. We agreed that a huge chunk of the problem is that you (both locals and those following the story from afar) just have no idea how much to believe from each side in these stories because everyone is so gigantically gung-ho biased in these conflicts. For example, there's a report that the boats were carrying slingshots with "Hezbollah" written on them, which if true, I mean, there's no reason at all for that sort of thing but to intentionally provoke retaliation. But how the hell would I go about figuring out if that's actually true or not? Both sides are more than riled up enough to lie like a rug, and I've seen examples from both already.

It gets to the point where I appreciate really dumb liars because at least I know the journalists involved are too dumb to ever listen to again, like those photos of old ladies holding up 'bullets that shot my house/killed my son' etc when it's a freaking unfired piece of ammo, shiny and pointy, case and all.
 
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