Here’s my perspective on the Israeli-vs-Aid Shit:
Both sides are wrong.
There, happy? 
FYI describing something as “Orwellian” isn’t name-dropping, it’s an adjective which is commonly used to describe the political manipulation of language.
Like your statement that boats loaded with 10,000 lbs of medical supplies, generators, and water purification equipment were “not attempting to deliver humanitarian aid” … actually that’s not an example of Orwellian language, it’s just a plain old lie.
If this really was an attempt to just delivery humanitarian aid, why did the people not deliver it through the existing aid institutions? Furthermore, why did they violently resist the Israelis?
The reason? They’re protesters. Not aid givers. There’s no doubt that they were trying to deliver aid, but they were also trying to make a statement. One that went horribly, horribly wrong.
You’re twisting yourself in circles trying to justify this. Why is it so difficult to explain what you are defending in a straightforward manner? Why is it necessary to twist the literal meaning of words like “They’re protesters. Not aid givers.” in order to explain why you think murdering unarmed civilians is an appropriate response to the violation of an aid embargo? Is murder ok if the victims are “protesters” but not if they are “aid givers?” I’m baffled as to what the actual logic is here.
What I meant to say was that they are not aid givers in the sense that UN Humanitarian Aid workers are aid givers; they’re protesters with a political agenda. Furthermore, how exactly is this aid?
My justification is that the protesters could have done two things differently; firstly, they could have donated the aid through the UN like everyone else. Secondly, they could have let the Israelis take it and redistribute it to the Gazans, which is what they’ve already done (probably, though I don’t know how they’ve done it, through the UN). Also interesting to note is that the aid was of a type that wasn’t in short supply. Given that, why were they so desperate to get the aid through? Because it was a political statement, not a humanitarian mission.
And these people were neither unarmed, nor were they civilians. They were political antagonists; whether or not their cause was just is completely extraneous to the fact that they weren’t UN employees and they weren’t sanctioned to be in the area, and that the Israelis repeatedly told them to turn around. Furthermore, how do you reconcile the fact that they attacked Israeli commandos as they tried to board the ship? Or did that never happen?
Dismissing Israeli accounts of the incident as ‘propaganda’ and completely ignoring the facts in the scenario doesn’t help your argument. Yes, the crisis in Gaza (and Palestine in general) needs to be solved, but that isn’t enough reason to be completely ignorant of what went on.
Israel needs to learn to not let itself get trolled, in international waters of all places.
The “unarmed civilian” bit annoys me. They were armed. Maybe not with the same kind of weapons as the soldiers, but they were armed nonetheless. At that point it doesn’t matter whether they’re protesters or aid givers or the frigging pope. They were armed and they attacked. The soldiers struck back (and the entire world knows how triggerhappy the Israeli soldiers are). People died.
Too bad for the loss of lives, but oh well.
The Israeli’s offered to truck the supplies in for them, after checking them.
They refused. Why? Because they were trying to stir up shit. Like Tiki said, they were trolls, and Israel go trolled bad.
Actually, they were fighting back against an invading Israeli force in international waters.
As for the “weapons” that were recovered, it appeared that none of them were actually weapons but parts of a working ship that were USED as weapons against the invasion.
Israel got trolled, son, and they fell for it. The probably rushed the blockade to both get the aid through as well as highlight the blockade so that a discussion about it can begin.
So, my question is: Why is the blockade there at all?
But why did the ‘fight back’? Why would a peaceful, unarmed aid distributor fight back? The reason? He’s not a peaceful, unarmed aid distributor. They were told repeatedly to back off; they refused. They were advancing on the Israelis, and they refused to back down; regardless of legality, that’s tantamount to antagonisation, particularly when their ‘goal’ could have been achieved in a completely different way, with no violence (i.e. give it to the UN or Israel to distribute, rather than trying to stir shit up).
Furthermore, why did Israel attack the flotilla? Are they just evil? Or is it, perhaps, that they were just responding to a threat. The initial threat was low, so they used paintball guns, tazers and smoke grenades. The threat then escalated, and, by necessity, the force did too.
“IDF photos displayed knives, metal and wooden poles, flares, wrenches and slingshots with marble projectiles allegedly used against the soldiers. The IDF later reported that its searches of the ship uncovered a cache of bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles and gas masks.” – Wikipedia
It doesn’t take blind Freddie to see what when you drive a ship into Israeli controlled waters, they’re going to fight back. Ergo, they anticipated the attack with weapons.
Because Gaza is currently controlled by a self-proclaimed terrorist group called Hamas. Aside from the fact that this party was democratically elected, they have proclaimed the desire to destroy Israel and kill all of its citizens. Hence, they have a blockade to stop them getting the weapons required to actually bring that goal about.
Terrorists? Heh! You don’t know a fuck about the world do you? In fact you don’t even know what’s going in the middle-east. The Palestinians are suffering a lot. Terrorists don’t give israel the right to invade aid ships. You know why? Because there were no fucking weapons on the god-damn ship!
So you’re saying that if you were on a ship in the middle of the ocean, and suddenly you had pepperspray in your eyes, electricity in your ass, and smoke in your lungs, you wouldn’t try to defend yourself?
Also, all the “weapons” in that photo just look like tools and random objects that were used as weapons by necessity.
are you serious? if someone attacked you, wouldn’t you defend yourself?
why would they have to follow the orders of backing off when they were in fucking international waters!!!
And the threat was…?
they weren’t in israeli controlled waters!
Yes, because knives and sticks are weapons of mass destruction. :rolleyes:
Jesus Christ, for the love of god! It was said hundreds of times now: IT HAPPEN’D IN [COLOR=‘Red’]INTERNATIONAL WATERS!
i lol’d so hard 
also:
basicly
If this was an adequate solution, why is Gaza starving? Because Israel is intentionally limiting the amount of aid that they allow into Gaza, in order to punish the population for electing Hamas. The perpetuation of suffering in Gaza is the entire point of the embargo, and that is why they are willing to kill anyone who attempts to bypass it. The right of Israel to take any action whatsoever in order to insure Palestinians suffer for electing a government they don’t like is what you’re defending, and what you refuse to admit you are defending for obvious reasons.
I haven’t said a word about “Israeli accounts.” What I’m describing as propaganda is YOUR choice of language and framing. If what you’re doing is repeating “Israeli accounts” verbatim, that makes my case even stronger that you are engaging in propagandization rather than discussion. When you twist the literal definition of words like “civilian” in order to justify military violence against civilians (“civilians aren’t civilians because the are doing something a military force doesn’t like!”) the only accurate way to describe what you are doing is propagandizing the issue.
Yeah. I don’t think Israel and Palestina even know anymore what the conflict between them is about anymore. They sure ass hell don’t act like it.
The embargo exists because of terrorists.
The boat was trying to break this embargo.
There were no weapons on the boat.
However, the embargo still has to be enforced. If they allowed this one boat to pass, they would have to allow others, and the embargo would effectively not exist.
Analogy: Speed limits exist because driving too fast means you might crash. If you break the speed limit, but don’t crash, it’s still illegal.
Jesus Christ, for the love of god! It was said hundreds of times now: IT HAPPEN’D IN INTERNATIONAL WATERS!
Jesus Christ, for the love of god! I’ve said it hundreds of times now: I DON’T FUCKING CARE IF IT WAS IN INTERNATIONAL WATER, THAT IS A LEGAL DEBATE, I AM ARGUING ETHICS, AND IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE TO THAT!