It is sick that a mother would use her own child for political cache in such a manner, even sicker is how well it seemed to work.
All criminals should just start carrying around babies, then they're completely unassailable, THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
"So I was robbing this bank, which is totally OK because it's an
illegal bank, and then this SWAT team storms in and throws me to the floor and puts me in handcuffs, with complete disregard for my one-year daughter on my arm, who is so
sensitive,and should never have to experience anything like this! I was treated like a
criminal!"
Ugh...
B. Yes, they were challenging the blockade and fully expected that the aid wouldn't get through, and if it did that would be an added bonus, the aim was to show the blockade for what it is.
Why? Who, exactly, thought it was there just for show? Did the "Aid Flotilla" people imagine that the international community believed it to be some kind of exceedingly lengthy Israeli blockade festival or perpetual warship parade or something?
But NOBODY expected Israel would respond with quite this degree of violence and kill a yet to be determined number of civilians and injure upwards of 80.
Then they were exceptionally stupid. When you throw yourself at commandos with pipes, knives and axes, they respond with violence. This is kinda a fact of life all over the world, and the level of naivete and ignorance required to assume otherwise is frankly astounding.
C. Clearly it WAS effective, more effective than anyone could imagine
Of course it was effective. The "hey, let's provoke a bunch of armed men to attack us and then portray them as vicious killers!" tactic has been a staple of activists for as long as I can remember. Sadly, it works wonders with people predisposed to condemn the people targeted. But now imagine this: you're a commando armed with a paint ball rifle, rappelling down to the deck of a boat. You're met with tangos armed with axes and knives, trying to kill you. You are badly outnumbered, and your comrades are already getting beaten up. Do you
a) Allow them to lynch you, or
b) Fight back?
No "On the Constitutional Bizzarro Kingdom of Hopping Lamas on Planet X, we dodge the question by babbling about how the blockade was illegal" option. Pick either A or B. Do you fight back or allow them to have their way with you, possibly resulting in your death?
Edit to do some reflecting:
Okay... so I've been following this thread since the beginning (yes, for a full thousand+ posts), and it's been a very interesting and disturbing read. Interesting because it's made me rethink a lot of what I thought about the Israel-Palestine spectacle. Disturbing because it showcases just how quickly people jump to the Israel Condemnation Bandwagon. It's pretty obvious that the people who jump into the thread and declare that "Israelis started killing people for no reason" haven't bothered to look up facts or critically examined the incident in any other way. Not that anyone can blame them, given a lot of media's fondness for reporting the Israel/Palestine conflict with a Palestinian bias.
I must say I am grateful for these people, though. I have two openly anti-Semitic (no, not the well-meaning "Israel needs to get her act together and treat Palestine better" kind, the actually anti-Semitic kind), and their nonsensical rantings about Israel, coupled with the ignorant ravings of the crowd here, has inspired me to look at the conflict with a more nuanced, balanced view. This may not have been the effect they hoped for
D), but for all intents and purposes, I am very, very grateful for their help.
