I acknowledge that, and have done so since I started posting in this thread. It is evident from the Ship to Gaza homepage that this is what they stated they would do, what they had in mind when they set out, and what they at all times anticipated that they would do.
I still do not think that there is any reason to murder people when you yourself have put yourself in the position where someone is beating you up.
As tied in with below, that's the catch about retrospective reasoning. Once the IDF units were put into this position, regardless about the 'what's if's..', the non-lethal methods were having no effect, and a number of IDF soldiers were beaten, stabbed and had their guns taken from them and used against them, its legitimate to use lethal force.
The 'what if..' defense can only be used as fix an approach once its been proven to be ineffective. I just find it sad that it has taken the live of 9 people for this approach to be changed.
An honest question:
Could it have been possible for larger Israeli ships to simply try to block the path of the convoy ships, once it was clear for them that they risked being injured or even killed if they boarded the ships because of the way the violent morons of the Mavi Marmara behaved? Could some sort of cruiser or something either just place itself in the convoy ships' path, or try to push them gently out of the way, or would they be outmaneuvered by the convoy ships?
Yes, I think so. But that's the bit about retrospective reasoning, one's usually infallible once you have all the facts.
The fact of the matter remains is that this tactic has been used by the IDF to board ships over the years that this naval blockade has been occurring with positive results without deaths. The other ships in the flotilla were diverted and detained in this exact fashion. But I'm sure with how the events turned out with this dire incident that the approach will be approached differently.
I have no idea what sorts of ships the Israeli have, but if that would be at all possible, then I think that is something that could perhaps be tried when that Irish ship comes. If they can just delay the Irish ship long enough, it will eventually run out of petrol and be forced to either surrender peacefully or return to some other port in the area.
Or is this suggestion entirely unreasonable?
Of course it isn't unreasonable. And I'm sure larger navy ships from Haifa will be employed to blockade incoming ships.
At this point though, if a ship as large as the Mavi Marmara of several thousand tons tries to plow through this cruiser, the possible outcome could be even more dire than that of a boarding crew. Playing chicken with a ship that size isn't going to have a positive outcome either.
I do not necessarily think that the Israeli were unjustified in trying to stop the ships, and as I wrote in an earlier post, I'm guessing that was what the convoy organisers hoped for, as that would give them more publicity than if they were actually allowed to enter Gaza. I also find it utterly despicable that the passengers of the Mavi Marmara, despite having agreed to use only non-violent resistance techniques, attacked the Israeli soldiers. However, the Israeli soldiers murdered several people, and that is even worse. No one should be allowed to hide behind being a soldier when they have murdered someone, even in war.
There's a difference in agreeing to use 'non-violent resistance' and at the same time stockpiling weapons on the decks and arming a mob. The two are contradictory. This was premeditated.
Its obvious that you don't understand the various concepts behind war and ROEs of countries when faced with a life and death situation, regardless if one can look back and approach it differently if there was a magical reset button. You are arguing the morality of killing someone in self-defense and completely ignoring the concept of self-defense. There's no hiding whatsoever. Its standard when faced with such a situation to act in self preservation.
Yes, I would. Unless it can be shown that the police was physically or mentally incapable of solving the problem in any other way. For instance, in the unlikely event that the police was strapped into some Saw-esque contraption that made him fire a gun every time he blinked, I would not count this as a murder. I would also not call it murder if a death happened through an accident or through neglect. In all other cases, the killing of man by man is always murder. Maybe not in the legal sense, but to me, it certainly is in the moral sense.
Then you and I disagree with the concept of murder. Also your definition of murder also disagrees with the standard legal term of self-defense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder#Self-defense
Self-defense
Acting in self-defense or in defense of another person is generally accepted as legal justification for killing a person in situations that would otherwise have been murder. However, a self-defense killing might be considered manslaughter if the killer established control of the situation before the killing took place. In the case of self-defense it is called a justifiable homicide.
Personally, I think you're being disingenuous in not labeling the mob of activists as having the intent to murder the IDF, at which point stabbing and even striking someone with a blunt object over a certain amount of times is considered to be as such, and labeling an act of self-defense after all methods of non-lethal action were exhausted.
Feel free to post your sources whenever you have time.
Here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/03/israeli-flotilla-raid-det_n_598699.html
Israeli officers later displayed slingshots, knives and truncheons they said were found on the ship as evidence of organized resistance. Defense officials also say some activists had military-style gear such as bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles and carried large sums of cash.
And where were they before the hostilities began? Is this known? Where they were afterwards is entirely uninteresting, as I assume the Israeli soldiers were not stupid enough to allow the idiots who had just attacked them to place their metal bars in their special racks, and the knives in their drawers, and the scarves in their boxes after the hostilities had ended. It seems more likely that these would have been strewn about as a result of the peace activists just dropping them where they stood, after the event.
Why are you asking redundant questions when you've seen the videos yourself. The activists were armed with all said weapons during the boarding of the IDF, with bloodied knives used by the activists also displayed. Why do you keep mentioning scarves anyways? I can only interpret this as making the situation look for hurried and innocuous, rather than premeditated as it has been clearly established as such.
You can't defend this indefensible position and downplaying Israeli deaths and how its not justifiable to keep Hamas from getting more and more weapons. But thanks for playing....
