Israel vs The Flotilla

Well the socialist pro-Hamas group Free Gaza is angry. Why? Well it's because CNN and Fox are twisting the violence that occurred when the IHH run “Peace” flotilla tried to run the Israeli blockade of Gaza; the result was 9 dead activists (Israel and Saudi Arabia currently have a blockade of Gaza to stop weapons smuggling). The problem is IHH is a charity front with ties to al Qaeda' and has been caught purchasing automatic weapons for it's smuggling operations. Further it was discovered that rather then being a humanitarian relief operation, the IHH flotilla's stated purpose was to run the embargo to open up smuggling routes through Gaza to Hamas. Also, rather then being the non-violent peace activist they claimed to be, the IHH recruited mercenary al Qaeda' members who were reported ready to martyr themselves for the cause. According to the Israeli Debkafile, when the passengers were later questioned:

(The) passengers attested to more than a hundred members of terrorist organizations aboard acting like a quasi-military group with a command hierarchy, whose leader forced the other four or five hundred passengers to fall into line behind them. The group was split into sub-sections, each in charge of a section of the ship before and after it set sail from Istanbul. Its members were all armed with an assortment of chains, iron bars and knives as well as night goggles and gas masks. Although they appeared to hail from different terrorist organizations from various countries, they were all ordered to say they belonged to the IHH.

When Israeli commandos repelled onto the decks of the ships from helicopters, on 5 of the 6 ships, they were met with non-violent resistance. However on the sixth ship they were attacked by men armed with chains and clubs, leading the commandos to eventually kill 9 of their attackers in self defense. More from Debkafile:

Israel intelligence agencies too have questions to answer - principally, how they missed spotting the terrorist presence aboard the putative aid-for-Gaza convoy and let a naval force undertake the mission to divert the ships to Ashdod, without preparing them for a violent confrontation with a determined, well-organized group of violent men.

When the conversation starts to shift to why didn't Israel prepare better for a higher level of violence, the Free Gaza narrative pretty much falls flat. The entire incident would seem to be the moral equivalent of a flotilla of Islamic terrorist trying to run the security blockade at Guantanamo Bay with humanitarian aid. Hopefully the powers that be would not buy into to some false rhetoric of non-violent resistance, and the Navy Seals would show up with something more potent than paint balls. It is to both Israel's humanity and their discredit, that they disarmed themselves believing IHH intentions were honorable. As the saying goes, if the Arabs would lay down their arms there would be peace in the Middle east; if Israel laid down their arms, they would be annihilated. As always, the argument is ideological and not of facts.

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