In Support of Israel
When you pick up a metal rod or a knife, and you start whacking on soldiers with them, you lose your right to whine, "But I'm a civilian!" This also tends to make them cranky. Making soldiers on an op cranky is generally regarded, among people in the know, as a Bad Idea.
If you shoot at soldiers, and they shoot back, and you die, you lose your right to breathe and others have no legitimate grounds to whine on your behalf that you're "a civilian."
If you are a civilian, and soldiers board your vessel, and you want to retain the protections of being a civilian, do not fight with the nice armed men. Put your hands in the air, follow instructions, let the governments sort it out. This is what civilians do. This is what makes you a civilian.
(Soldiers, OTOH, generally do not consider it a hostile act if you covertly admire the results of having to pass PT tests.)
Geez Louise--if their intent was to get food and medicine to other civilians, they would have pulled into port, allowed the Israelis to inspect the shipment for weapons, and deliver it to said civilians. If they didn't trust the Israelis to deliver food and medicine, they could have asked to have a small delegation accompany the goods.
How do I know the people trying to run the blockade didn't counter-offer to the Israelis to include a minimal delegation to make sure the food and medicine actually got delivered? Because if they had they would have been trumpeting it to the skies. Why didn't they counter-offer? Because if the Israelis had accepted the counter-offer, then the Palestinians in Gaza would have actually gotten food and medicine and the people trying to run the blockade would not have gotten their manufactured incident.
And no, I don't think most (if any) of the people trying to run the blockade expected that the result of them attacking boarding troops with metal rods, knives, and guns would result in deaths on their own side. I don't credit them with that much common sense.
"What were they supposed to do? Just let soldiers board and take their ships, their stuff, and them prisoner?"
Yes, that's exactly what they were supposed to do. C-I-V-I-L-I-A-N-S.
Even if it was some government I hated doing this, their soldiers were in the right and behaved properly as far as I can tell. The next proper thing that would have happened, and will happen with the survivors, is that the Israelis will discuss terms for turning them over to their respective governments. If some of the survivors have specific criminal charges against them, the Israelis will negotiate out those issues with the relevant governments, as well. That's what governments that are behaving properly are supposed to do.
Preaching to the choir, I know.
If you don't want your civilian vessel boarded, don't try to run a blockade. If the blockade is "illegal" or "in international waters," then you don't get to deal with that as a civilian. You complain to your government, and it's your government's responsibility to choose a national response to the issue and how they wish to act on that response. If your government isn't doing anything about it, that's still between you, the other people in you country, and your government.
Try to run a blockade. Get warned off repeatedly. Get boarded. Attack the soldiers. Get dead or injured during the process of being taken down, hard. What part of this progression from action to consequences is not obvious? Duh?
If you shoot at soldiers, and they shoot back, and you die, you lose your right to breathe and others have no legitimate grounds to whine on your behalf that you're "a civilian."
If you are a civilian, and soldiers board your vessel, and you want to retain the protections of being a civilian, do not fight with the nice armed men. Put your hands in the air, follow instructions, let the governments sort it out. This is what civilians do. This is what makes you a civilian.
(Soldiers, OTOH, generally do not consider it a hostile act if you covertly admire the results of having to pass PT tests.)
Geez Louise--if their intent was to get food and medicine to other civilians, they would have pulled into port, allowed the Israelis to inspect the shipment for weapons, and deliver it to said civilians. If they didn't trust the Israelis to deliver food and medicine, they could have asked to have a small delegation accompany the goods.
How do I know the people trying to run the blockade didn't counter-offer to the Israelis to include a minimal delegation to make sure the food and medicine actually got delivered? Because if they had they would have been trumpeting it to the skies. Why didn't they counter-offer? Because if the Israelis had accepted the counter-offer, then the Palestinians in Gaza would have actually gotten food and medicine and the people trying to run the blockade would not have gotten their manufactured incident.
And no, I don't think most (if any) of the people trying to run the blockade expected that the result of them attacking boarding troops with metal rods, knives, and guns would result in deaths on their own side. I don't credit them with that much common sense.
"What were they supposed to do? Just let soldiers board and take their ships, their stuff, and them prisoner?"
Yes, that's exactly what they were supposed to do. C-I-V-I-L-I-A-N-S.
Even if it was some government I hated doing this, their soldiers were in the right and behaved properly as far as I can tell. The next proper thing that would have happened, and will happen with the survivors, is that the Israelis will discuss terms for turning them over to their respective governments. If some of the survivors have specific criminal charges against them, the Israelis will negotiate out those issues with the relevant governments, as well. That's what governments that are behaving properly are supposed to do.
Preaching to the choir, I know.
If you don't want your civilian vessel boarded, don't try to run a blockade. If the blockade is "illegal" or "in international waters," then you don't get to deal with that as a civilian. You complain to your government, and it's your government's responsibility to choose a national response to the issue and how they wish to act on that response. If your government isn't doing anything about it, that's still between you, the other people in you country, and your government.
Try to run a blockade. Get warned off repeatedly. Get boarded. Attack the soldiers. Get dead or injured during the process of being taken down, hard. What part of this progression from action to consequences is not obvious? Duh?