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Originally Posted by Willravel
Hold on just a second, I think we may be operating with different information. The civilians captured, taken to Israel, and released have started to give their eyewitness accounts of what happened, and all of them, without exception, say IDF opened fire before landing on the flotilla... not just with teargas and smoke grenades as I previously posted, but with suppressive fire that hit some of the humanitarians.
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I don't know what happened and the truth may prove elusive because even eye witnesses may not know the whole story. I stand by the points in my post. I acknowledge that there may have been innocent victims. I acknowledge that people on both sides may have over-reacted given their SR's. But, the simple questions remain on the table in my opinion and I still come to the same conclusions.
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There's already been write-ups about this in the NYT, Guardian, and elsewhere, starting about mid-day yesterday. IDF naval forces opened fire with live rounds before anyone on the aid ships could have possibly done anything to instigate violence other than sailing for Gaza, which isn't an instigation of violence but belligerence.
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Why go in guns blazing on this one ship? If what you share is true, we are talking cold blooded murder. Do you think the Israeli government authorized this act of potential murder as described or was it a case of individuals over-reacting?
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While I suppose it's certainly possible some people on those aid ships are the third type you describe (though, seriously, as someone relatively active in the Palestinian freedom movement, these people are exceedingly rare), I'm not entirely sure it matters in this specific instance. The violence on the flotilla as the IDF forces foolishly repeled into a crowd was a direct response to the shooting of unarmed civilians, not the other way around. If that wasn't bad enough, the IDF commandos that landed also opened fire. This is when the American citizen from Turkey had 4 shots to the head and one to the chest all from short range.
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Again, a fundamental question is why would they take the high risk of challenging trained military (trained to kill), in the dark, with a radio response of defiance, with innocent people on-board (aged and children), and not be prepared for a potential violent response? They had to be prepared for this, or they expect us to accept the unbelievable. Why would they expect a reasoned response from young people in the military? Again, at this point, you will never make me believe they did not know or expect that there would be violence.
I am not arguing the politics of the issue, I am just stating what I now see as obvious given the information made available to me. The motivation has to go beyond food and aid. And if so, what was the motivation - I think I know - but do you insist that it was only food and aid?
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With all due respect, I cannot see how anyone could be trying to justify the actions of the IDF under orders from Israeli officials given the available information.
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My questions are simple. I have not read clear responses. Hell, you could even say they where just foolish and reckless. Even if the other party is wrong or responds with excessive force, they should have known the risk and I expect that they did. There was clearly another agenda outside of food and aid - we may disagree on what that is, but how can you honestly take the position that food and aid was the only thing on the agenda?
---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:04 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by roachboy
staged. you mean organized as an act of civil disobedience?
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I personally know people who actively engaged in civil disobedience both in this country and in African nations. There was never, according to their accounts, any pretense of the risks involved and they were fully aware of what and why they did what they did and where willing to accept the consequences. They would not allow participants to not know and understand the risks, nor would they put children on the front line. There was honor. In this case, why does it take so much effort to get to what is obvious? Why didn't/don't they say what is obvious from the very beginning? I think I know why, do you?