Merged Israel Attacks Palestinian Aid Flotilla, According To Reports

[Mycroft]

It's already been posted at least twice...

http://www.theage.com.au/world/in-their-wake-20100604-xkww.html

Okay then. Randi Kjos says, "Palestinians who asked for anything were belted, pushed around or treated with contempt."

That's one witness. Do you want to wait for confirmation from other witnesses? Or is the one good enough for you?

 

[Mycroft]

Actually, it would. Now if DC means effective in achieving the political goal, that's inaccurate, but if he means effective in terms of stopping ships, that's accurate.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/b/blockade/

That's interesting.

I would assume that "effective" means the blockading nation must have a navy capable of enforcing the blockade and not that the legality of the blockade goes away the first time some smuggler gets a rowboat to shore?

 

[DC]

I'm not sure how to say it more clearly.

People form opinions about the correctness of a governments actions based on their personal beliefs, but this is subjective.

An objective standard is the law. There are laws about the legality of blockades, some of them have been quoted in this thread.

An objective person should be able to set aside their personal political beliefs and make a determination based on the law.

No, effectiveness wouldn't have anything to do with legality.

well in this thread i have already said that i think what Israel did was within the laws.

and effective was aimed at stopping so called paper blockades, wich have been imposed but not been enforced. Also do you have to block all ships, you cannot say, Syrian and Iranian boats are not allowed but greek boats are allowed. as examples.

 

[DC]

but i wonder how accurate the following i found on Wiki is

Since 1945, the UN Security Council determines the legal status of blockades and by article 42 of the UN Charter, the Council can also apply blockades.

^ D'Amato, Anthony A. 1995. "International Law and Political Reality: Collected Papers", p. 138. ISBN 9041100369.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade

 

[Peephole]

Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald sum up the American reaction to the massacre nicely:

...

A country permanently occupying and colonizing a neighboring region, and treating its original inhabitants as dangerous interlopers, is the victim. An elite commando unit attacking a ship carrying toys and wheelchairs in the hours before dawn are those we should feel pity for. A country with 150 nuclear warheads and the strongest military in its region, the victor in every conventional war it has always fought, is somehow also always fighting for its very existence. ... Self-defense requires not civilly disabling and inspecting the cargo of an unarmed ship but raiding it at dawn and killing nine and injuring dozens. Basic human revulsion at a military that can kill over a thousand people - including scores of women and children in a trapped, impoverished enclave - can only be a function of anti-Semitism.

...

And asking that a two-state solution be moved forward by freezing illegal settlement construction and allowing a blockade that, while interdicting arms, doesn't seek to kill civilians and restrict the import of basic necessities is to deprive a country with 150 nuclear warheads of any legitimate form of self-defense.

This is a form of derangement, or of such a passionate commitment to a foreign country that any and all normal moral rules or even basic fairness are jettisoned. And you will notice one thing as well: no regret whatsoever for the loss of human life, just as the hideous murder of so many civilians in the Gaza war had to be the responsibility of the victims, not the attackers.

...

Until the discourse is rescued from the victims of Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israel and America will slowly be drawn into wars they cannot ultimately win, lose every other ally they ever had, and embolden and fortify the very Islamist forces we are seeking to defuse and defeat.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/06/israel-derangement-syndrome.html

...

What this really underscores is that the mentality driving both Israel and the U.S. is quite similar, which is why those two countries find such common cause, even when the rest of the world recoils in revulsion. One of the more amazing developments in the flotilla aftermath is how a claim that initially appeared too self-evidently ludicrous to be invoked by anyone -- Israel was the victim here and was acting against the ship in self-defense --has actually become the central premise in Israeli and (especially) American discourse about the attack (and as always, there is far more criticism of Israeli actions in Israel than in the U.S.).

How could anyone with the slightest intellectual honesty claim that Israel and its Navy were the victims of a boat which Jon Stewart said last night looked like "P Diddy's St. Bart's vacation yacht"; or that armed Israeli commandos were the victims of unarmed civilian passengers; or, more generally, that a nuclear-armed Israel with the most powerful military by far in the Middle East and the world's greatest superpower acting as Protector is the persecuted victim of a wretched, deprived, imprisoned, stateless population devastated by 40 years of brutal Israeli occupation and, just a year ago, an unbelievably destructive invasion and bombing campaign? The casting of "victim" and "aggressor" is blatantly reversed with such claims -- which is exactly the central premise that has been driving, and continues to drive, U.S. foreign policy as well.

...

The same is true with any form of oppression. And it's psychologically understandable. If you're crushing and destroying someone, you have to have a reason for it, and it can't be, "I'm a murderous monster." It has to be self-defense. "I'm protecting myself against them. Look what they're doing to me." Oppression gets psychologically inverted; the oppressor is the victim who is defending himself.

Thus, nuclear-armed Israel is bullied and victimized by starving Gazans with stones. The Israel Navy is threatened by a flotilla filled with wheelchairs and medicine.

...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/03/israel/index.html

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

http://gisha.org/UserFiles/File/HiddenMessages/ItemsGazaStrip060510.pdf

Here is a list of goods that are allowed in, and banned by Israel, as of this present day.

Banned goods include such dangerous items as:

sage
cardamom
cumin
coriander
ginger
jam
halva
vinegar
nutmeg
chocolate ​

fruit preserves

seeds and nuts
biscuits and sweets
potato chips
gas for soft drinks
dried fruit​

fresh meat

horses
donkeys
goats
cattle​

chicks

...wow...that's some serious weapons of mass destruction they are keeping out of the hands of Hamas.

Several of the items on that list can be used as masking agents to "blind" bomb sniffing dogs. Sure a box labeled "Concentrated Nutmeg" might actually contain concentrated nutmeg, but it might also contain several pounds of C4 that the dogs won't be able to detect because of the nutmeg.

Livestock can be used as living incubators for biological agents.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald sum up the American reaction to the massacre nicely:

A country permanently occupying and colonizing a neighboring region

Blatant lie on the very first line of your copypasta.

Israel withdrew its forces and its citizens from Gaza back in 2005.

Sully should stick with obsessing over Sarah Palins uterus.

 

[Pardalis]

I'm always surprised when people call Israel "colonizing", or as an "empire expanding"...

A little map to give those people a little perspective:

What a huge and threatening Empire!

 

[DC]

I'm always surprised when people call Israel "colonizing", or as an "empire expanding"...

A little map to give those people a little perspective:

[qimg]http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a154/perdalis/1.png[/qimg]

who in this thread has said any such thing?

 

[Pardalis]

who in this thread has said any such thing?

Peephole's article, try to follow.

 

[DC]

Peephole's article, try to follow.

ah ok sorry, didn't read his article.

 

[DC]

well to his defend, the settlements can be seen as colonizing.

 

[Taarkin]

I think Gaza should have access to all the chocolate and dried fruit they want. Also all the lawn-chairs, sunscreen, medicine, bicycles and so on.

But the way to accomplish that isn't by running a blockade. The blockade is there to prevent Iran and Syria from providing Hamas with real missiles that can do real damage to Israelis.

No, the blockade against cumin, potato chips, and fishing rods is not there to "prevent Iran and Syria form providing Hamas with real missiles that can do real damage to Israelis".

 

[Pardalis]

well to his defend, the settlements can be seen as colonizing.

Have a little sense of perspective, it's not like it's the British Empire.

 

[DC]

Have a little sense of perspective, it's not like it's the British Empire.

didnt say that.

But hamas rockets killing only a few is still terror.
colonizing or building settlements also in small numbers is still colonizing or building settlements.

 

[Pardalis]

colonizing or building settlements also in small numbers is still colonizing or building settlements.

Building settlements doesn't kill anyone.

 

[DC]

Building settlements doesn't kill anyone.

never said that.

 

[quixotecoyote]

No, the blockade against cumin, potato chips, and fishing rods is not there to "prevent Iran and Syria form providing Hamas with real missiles that can do real damage to Israelis".

You're mixing issues. The blockade is to prevent the import of weapons.

Whatever additional economic sanctions Israel puts in place (which we have no good evidence include cumin, potato chips and fishing rods) to pressure Hamas are a separate, though related, issue.

 

[quixotecoyote]

never said that.

You drew a comparison between Hamas rocket attacks and Israeli settlement building than then complained when it's pointed out the rocket attacks are killing people and settlement building is not.

 

[preptic]

how does banning those items defend your home?

Please provide evidence that they are banned. Also, what is the reason for these items being banned in the first place?