no, israel

[harborshore]

You do not attack an aid ship on international waters. You do not. That is only permissible under wartime maritime law or when you have been directly attacked. This was an aid ship and it was not going to Israel.

The information varies on what happened after that and whose fault anything was, but the consensus is this: 19 aid workers are dead, more injured. But all of that happened after boarding. You do not attack an aid ship on international waters.

ETA: Official death toll now says nine dead. Not as bad, but still fairly awful.

ETA 2: As this post puts it, the Israeli military-political complex is a far more useful term for the force behind the massacre of aid workers yesterday than the name of the nation Israel. The longer term presents a useful distinction between Israel the country, which it is possible to love even if you don't actually support this action, as it is possible to love other countries whose leadership perpetrates horrendous acts. It's a fairly important distinction.

Comments

[iamsupernova.livejournal.com]

I think that's definitely true of individuals - all the Holocaust survivors I've met have been amazing people, they've just been so clearly exceptional people. But when power is involved in the equation, things can go really bad.

I've never heard the phrase "no right but our right" as something Israel owns up to. Obviously the way they do things exemplifies that, but I've never seen it in such blatant terms before. I'm used to thinking of them as being absolutely unswayable when they think they're right - which, I suppose, are the only occasions we hear about. We don't hear the agonized conversations about whether to attack a mosque because they know Hamas is keeping weapons there, but they also know how badly that situation will be seen. But it happens.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Well, traumatizing experiences can certainly work that way--I'm just saying it shouldn't be required of them, you know? If they are amazing people after what they went through, that's--well, it's completely humbling and amazing, but they have just as much right as anyone else to be bastards. If that makes sense. I've just never liked the implication that trauma victims SHOULD become bettered by their experiences, and I've seen that accusation leveled against Israel before, that they should know better because of the Holocaust. We should all know better because of the Holocaust. You know what I mean.

I was just trying to summarize their stance on this, what the idea of going so flagrantly against international law can be. It IS blatant, isn't it?

[iamsupernova.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sorry, I misunderstood before. I thought you meant you figured the Israeli government would be handling this situation better due to past experiences - my mistake.

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

No worries at all! This is a really complicated discussion (it took me half an hour to write what is a very very short entry because I was rephrasing things a lot)--I added an ETA that might interest you. ♥