I am working on a full-length analysis of the situation in occupied Palestine and the Middle-East, and I hope to have it ready for publication here in a couple of days. But in the meantime, I want to share some initial thoughts I have had after following the events in the eastern Mediterranean this night.
* The Israeli government has, yet again, proven itself totally incompetent. The likes of Ayalon, Netanyahu, Lieberman & Co. have totally mismanaged the Freedom Flotilla issue. It appears that blinded by their infinite arrogance they are simply unable to appreciate the consequences of their decisions. The war in 2006 was a disaster, the massacre in Gaza was a disaster, and now this latest act of piracy is also turning into a disaster.
* The Israeli military performance in this latest fiasco is one of absolute incompetence. We know from the Turkish customs service that there were no weapons on these ships (all the ships had been searched and X-rayed). We also know that the passengers were peacenicks a la “blue jeans and backpacks”. But even if we accept, for argument’s sake, the Israeli lie about “attackers with batons, knives and firearms”, the performance of the Israeli commandos is laughable. Truly professional assault units (such as marine commandos are supposed to be) can easily control and overpower a civilian mob without resorting to their assault rifles.
If we accept the Israeli theory that they Israeli commandos were “surprised” by the attack, this shows a total failure of intelligence too. How hard is it to infiltrate and international crowd of over 700 people? How hard is it to monitor their communications?
So which was it? A mind-boggling display of incompetence or an equally mind-boggling display of murderous arrogance?
My guess is probably both. On one hand, the Israelis are incompetent, there is no doubt about that in my mind, but they are also murderous criminals, who have absolutely no issue with shooting civilians as long as they are “goyim”.
What most likely happened is that the Israelis gave this entire operation very little thought, they rapelled unto the first ship and were confronted with furious protesters screaming that since they were in international waters they had no right to be here and they were committing an act of piracy.
Now remember that Israeli Jews are mostly cowards. They are absolutely terrified of Palestinians and being surrounded in the darkness by screaming Turks and “internationals” probably freaked them out and they simply did what they always do: they opened fire.
And now the Israeli government, which is totally disconnected from reality, is making all this into an even worse PR disaster by acting with the trademark arrogance of Netanyahu, Lieberman or Ayalon.
What happened this night is nothing new, really.
Just a typical day in the never-ending nightmare called “the Jewish state of Israel”.
The Saker
My guess, nay, my conclusion of which I’m certain, is that Israel fully intended for there to be bloodshed and death. It was meant to be a demonstration to Iran, to Hezbollah, to Hamas. Not a demonstration of brutality, with which the three are quite familiar, but a demonstration of how the US/EU media will come to rationalize everything Israel does. That Ghandi style passive resistance wont work, because, unlike the British, the Israelis have no qualms about killing Ghandi.
The fact that it coincides with the London Times report of Israeli nuclear armed subs entering the Persian Gulf is certainly notable. Together they are part of a psyops campaign intended to show that Israel really would do anything.
I am still in shock over this. I would imagine the Israelis would block the way of the ships, or would capture (bloodlessly) the ships and take them to Israel, but I never thought they would open fire indiscriminately and kill so many unarmed people.
In Argentina’s most read newspaper, Clarin, appeared a quite harsh editorial against this act:
http://www.clarin.com/mundo/Israel-ataque-ayuda_humanitaria_0_271773006.html
Interesting, because Argentina has a large (and actively pro-Israeli) Jewish community.
In the second most read Brazilian newspaper, the correspondent on Middle East wrote a “balanced” article on this, arguing “I wasn’t on the ship, and it is too early to tell what really happened”:
http://blogs.estadao.com.br/gustavo-chacra/da-europa-a-gaza-assassinato-de-dez-deteriorara-ainda-mais-imagem-de-israel/
The fact that the flotilla was flying the Turkish flag as well as being in international waters means that this is not only an act of piracy but an act of aggression against a member of NATO. Since NATO is supposed to give military assistance to any of its members that come under attack I look forward to the contortions from Washington as they try to excuse this latest Zionist stunt.
@Robert: The fact that the flotilla was flying the Turkish flag as well as being in international waters means that this is not only an act of piracy but an act of aggression against a member of NATO
Correct. And, God willing, this event will also further degrade NATO’s credibility as a “defender of Europe” and show it for what it is – a tool of US imperialism.