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well, the rocket thing is wildly exaggerated, both in terms of the number of attacks and in particular their effects. this is not to say "yay rockets!" or anything like that. rather it is to say that everything about these attacks have been inflated and manipulated to justify continued brutality visited upon the population of gaza.
second, it's a matter of record that the reason for the blockade is regime change---the israelis made what turned out to be a stupid and brutal tactical choice when hamas won elections in 2006 (i think) & israel decided to undermine hamas by choking the civilian population. so the blockade has been outrageous illegal and brutal from the start--but it's never been about these rocket attacks. it's about trying to starve the population of gaza into no longer supporting hamas politically.
third, if the arms smuggling is a problem that would be a reason to clamp down on the tunnels into sinai that enable gaza to survive at all. and over the past few months egypt has been doing exactly that. i'm not sure of the status of that (they were basically building an underground metal barrier through the tunnel area) but if it's completed or close that would really increase the pressure on the **civilian** population of gaza. which may well be a motivation behind the flotilla. but the idea that the flotilla itself would have arms is patently absurd. the ships are chock-a-block with well-known political figures including egyptian members of parliament, novelists, peace activists, etc.
so i don't think any of these justifications holds any water.
but even if they did this raid is still a remarkably bad idea. consider for example the implications for relations with egypt.
it might be that some of this goes back to a quite famous exchange between the turkish prime minister and olmert (i'm not sure...it mighta been perez) during the gaza atrocity...um...incursion. i can see maybe some sense of fuck you from israeli conservatives aimed at turkey for that. so it's possible that the raid is more about the prominent role of turkish organizations and interests in organizing it than any nonsense about weapons.
just a thought.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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