Quote Originally Posted by miles View Post
There was no need to board the boat at that point. They were a long way from the coast and the waters are not those of Israel. Boarding that ship was illegal. Too right if you are being assaulted illegally by the military arm of a dubious state that you will try and defend yourself. The Israel's backed by helicopters, planes, armour and advanced weaponry knew exactly what they were doing and chose to affront a group of people who sought nothing more than to gain access to a sovereign and abused nation. The fact that Israel continues to blockade illegally and act like pirates is the problem here.

Why not let the ship dock, search the aid packages and then send the aid workers back on their merry way? Was that not too much to ask? It is not a crime to want to dock in Gaza, despite what the Israeli's wants us to think. And as for stealing all of the film and locking them all up? That's outrageous. Israel has essentially kidnapped and gagged them.

Israel has over the past couple of years been on a slippery slope and gradually more and more people are beginning to sit up and take notice. It is losing allies one by one and continues to infect the region with poision. These are precarious and dangerous times for the state of Israel.
You can't be serious? I would imagine letting them dock in Gaza where they would be greeted by thousands of angry Palestinians would be an invitation to an even bigger bloodbath.

There is no question the landing was bungled to say the least but it wasn't the fault of the soldiers on the ground, but rather the commnanders who sent them into a situation that they completely misread.

I also saw on the news site that in 1947 British troops boarded a Jewish refugee boat to stop them reaching Israel and shot dead three resisters. We also gassed the curds under Churchill as well of course.

These kind of incidents do happen and it's not necessarily because a group of soldiers are trigger happy. Conflicts can be hard to control.