…as Israel’s attempt to enforce the blockade with Paintball guns of course led to actual battle.
You can’t play paintball if the other side wants to kill you.
This story IS the story on the net. Gateway has several posts one with a connection to familiar names:
Barack Obama’s close family friends, terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and top campaign bundler Jodie Evans from Code Pink are top activists with the Gaza flotilla group that attacked the IDF today.
William Jacobson in two posts expands on the useful idiots meme:
The Europeans on the ships were cover, and the placement of an 18-month old child on these ships was the utmost cynical use of a human shield.
If getting humanitarian supplies to Gaza really was the goal, this flotilla was not necessary. The supplies would have been off-loaded in Eqypt or Israel and then shipped in by land after being checked for hidden weapons.
And that is the rub, only sea-based shipping would provide Iran with the mechanism for almost unlimited armament of Hamas. There is a limit to the quantity and size of missiles and other armaments which can be smuggled through tunnels from Egypt. That is why the sea blockade must be broken for Iran to get what it wants.
But the useful idiots (no offense to idiots) in the left-wing blogosphere ignore this reality, and use the incident for their ultimate goal, which is the cut off of U.S. support for Israel.
Powerline has several posts but wins the best title award with this one:
At Least Ten Killed as “Peace Activists” Attack Soldiers
John Hawkins gets to the heart of the matter:
Honestly, I don’t find the Palestinian people to be the least bit sympathetic. They’re backwards, genocidal, hyper-violent, sad sack, Nazi wannabes led by terrorists who would happily murder every Jew on the planet if they could get away with it.
Then there are the Israelis. They’re a tiny Western Democracy surrounded by backwards savages who want to murder them down to the last child because they’re Jews. Moreover, despite all the claims to the contrary, they’re the most restrained people on earth. If you don’t believe that, consider the fact that they could simply drive the Palestinians off their land and take it at any point, but instead, they’ve chosen to permanently live beside of millions of people who make the Manson family look sane. If the Israelis were somehow replaced by Americans, we’d drive the Palestinians off their land at gunpoint in six months tops — and we’d be perfectly justified in doing so.
Mere Rethoric has much to say finishing with the video
This is black letter law. Israel has a right to interdict the vessels if there are reasonable grounds to believe that they intend to breach the blockade. The vessel captains announced that they intended to breach the blockade. Anyone who implies otherwise isn’t so much disagreeing as much as making things up.
Robert Stacy also has several posts:
Not giving Obama another chance to snub him:
That’s bibi he is talking about of course
Ynet bluntly calls it an ambush:
At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness.
Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes.
They’re shooting at their legs? C’mon guys.
Hotair has two posts the latest has this gem:
The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting as I write this, which is interesting since, to my knowledge, it has yet to meet to condemn the North Korean attack on that South Korean ship that’s had the far east inching towards a war footing for months.
Melaine Phillips names the best allies of the terrorists in question:
It is becoming ever more clear that Islamist terror attacks like this are fiendishly staged theatrical events in which the western media – and beyond them, western governments — play an absolutely essential role in the drama. If those media and governments refused to swallow the lies and instead called operations like this and the players behind it for what they actually are, such terrorist operations would not happen. The Islamist strategy of war against Israel is carefully calibrated to deploy the most effective weapon in its armoury in the cause of jihadi violence – the western media. Right on cue, western governments accordingly deliver their own script in condemning the victims of terror for defending themselves. And so, courtesy of the west’s fifth columnists, yet another nail is driven into the west’s own coffin.
Daniel Pipes says the Israel fell into a trap:
Eventually, however, Israel’s enemies realized that they could not win a conventional war. Instead of launching planes, tanks, and ships at the Jewish state, they turned to other means — weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and (most recently) political delegitimization. Delegitimization turns the rules of war upside down: in particular, strength is weakness and public opinion has supreme importance.
Israel’s command structure, having mastered the old ways of war (the ones that lasted to 1973), has shown utter strategic incompetence at the new ways of war (in place since 1982). The new rules require an agile sense of public relations, which means that a powerful state never physically harms, even inadvertently, its rag-tag political adversaries.
The Volokh Conspiracy says this:
Reuters: “Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement that organized the convoy, said: ‘How could the Israeli military attack civilians like this? Do they think that because they can attack Palestinians indiscriminately they can attack anyone?’” Here’s a hint, Ms. Berlin: when you try to run a naval blockade, and then attack the blockaders with weaponry, “civilians” is not an apt description.
Allison Kaplan Summer (via Instapundit): “Israel appears to have stepped directly into a trap of a carefully planned suicide mission dressed up in the clothing of a humanitarian effort.”
Pam Gellar is all over this as you might have guessed
In reality, none of that is true. This was an act of war against Israel. The people in Gaza aren’t starving, and the “humanitarian aid workers” on the flotilla were actually Islamic jihadists who attacked the IDF first. It was a planned attack — by Hamas and the hardline Muslim groups. Hamas supporters planned an armed assault, which included the murder of captured Israeli heroes. They almost succeeded.
The libertarian popinjay puts it very well
These incidents have become so predictable, it’s hard to get riled up any more. “Peace activists” provoke and attack the Israelis, Israelis defend themselves, International community condemns Israel, rinse and repeat.
And in a sign that there is still hope for him: Charles Johnson:
The Israeli Navy boarded a flotilla headed toward Gaza yesterday, leading to a wild melee that ended in several deaths. The IDF is reporting that the “peace activists” planned the violence in advance, and released the following video — clearly showing the “peace activists” attacking the IDF boarding party with a variety of weapons, including firebombs and stun grenades.
His new friends on the left won’t like those quotation marks but I am very pleased to see them.
Of course the best coverage of is going to be at Israellycool just keep scrolling.
And my take. It’s really simple: As soon as Arabs & Muslims stop trying to kill Jews and destroy Israel you will have peace. That’s all it takes, and they will never do it. For Israel, it is also simple. They can end the war at any time by treating the Arabs in the manor that the Arabs claim they already do. Drive them off the land with their overwhelming military might and/or exterminate them. They also will never do it. That is the price of being the chosen people of God.
Update: It’s so nice of Andrew Sullivan to try to help my fund drive (to start in about 3 hours) by making me look so much better than him:
A simple point. The violence by the activists is pretty abhorrent. These are not followers of Gandhi or MLK Jr. But the violence is not fatal to anyone and it is in response to a dawn commando raid by armed soldiers. They are engaging in self-defense. More to the point: theya r civilians confronting one of the best militaries in the world. They killed no soldiers; their weapons were improvised; the death toll in the fight is now deemed to be up to 19 – all civilians
How dare those sneaky Jews not let those “activists” kill them. This is serious Robert Fisk territory.
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