[Wada]

It would appear to me as though Israel puts itself into lose-lose situations like this. Do they bear any responsibilty for their actions commander?

[EyeBrock]

commanderkai commanderkai:

The issue is Eyebrock, there was no wise choice. Israel is commonly put in lose-lose situations like this. No matter what they did, ranging from ignoring the ship and letting it bypass the blockade, to sinking it, would have been bad PR all around. In this case, Israel took the first blows, putting the soldiers at risk to have some justification against both present and future action.

CK, this was a bad decision. A few pages back I suggested a few options.

Israel doesn't live in a vacuum, far from it. They are well aware of the consequences of their actions. The domestic press in Israel has not supported this raid. Israelis are openly questioning this and so they should.

There were options and the one they took was very bad for everybody. I consider myself a supporter of Israel. I can't support this action.

It was bad in every way. Piss poor planning, bad mission aim that resulted in needless civilian deaths that will be exploited by Israels enemies.

Tactically bad, strategically bad. Just a bad decision all around.

[commanderkai]

EyeBrock EyeBrock:

CK, this was a bad decision. A few pages back I suggested a few options.

Israel doesn't live in a vacuum, far from it. They are well aware of the consequences of their actions. The domestic press in Israel has not supported this raid. Israelis are openly questioning this and so they should.

There were options and the one they took was very bad for everybody. I consider myself a supporter of Israel. I can't support this action.

It was bad in every way. Piss poor planning, bad mission aim that resulted in needless civilian deaths that will be exploited by Israels enemies.

Tactically bad, strategically bad. Just a bad decision all around.

I saw them, and, honestly, I see all solutions as causing the same amount of bad PR. You do nothing, and you encourage more blockade runners, and have Palestinian "activists" make this out as some victory of David over Goliath. You stop the ship within Israeli waters and you get the same result as the Israelis receive here. You fire warning shots across the bow and the media makes it sounds like the Israelis are attacking an unarmed ship with intent to kill "unarmed" and "peaceful" activists carrying "aid. You sink the ship and it causes the same result as above.

Israel is always on the bad end of public relations in the media. Always. No matter what they do, they will be attacked for it. So I really don't see this as such a loss for Israel at all. It's a public relations nightmare, sure. But nothing Israel hasn't seen.

Here's what has and will happen another the next episode of the Palestinian Israeli conflict:

1)The Arabs will grandstand and rattle sabers. Turkey, Lebanon, and Syria already has. Another anti-Israel story to satisfy the masses. Egypt opened its border with Gaza, which will end when Hamas thinks Egypt isn't Muslim or radical or too Jew friendly or whatever, and blows up a hotel or a mall. Oh and a few Israeli flags will be burned, and a few Elders of Zion will be sold.

2)The United Nations will send a strongly worded resolution that Israel will hopefully recycle to make newspaper.

3) Europe is going to be all pissy and whiny. Nothing new here. Other countries will too, but Europe is basically the only one with the relatively good human rights record

4)Hamas/Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah will launch a few rockets into Israel. Probably parade a few fake caskets or "bodies" for the media to lap up like the turds that they are.

5) The United States will weakly defend Israel as it already knows nobody will actually do anything major, unless they want a few Israeli jets flying over their Presidential mansion/Royal family's palace.

Was this the best solution from a PR standpoint, in my opinion? I'm not really sure. I can certainly think of other moves, ranging from letting the ship in without checking/boarding/inspecting to sinking the ship outright. The best solution, if Israel cared for PR, was to ignore the ship. Except that's the worst solution for Israeli interests. The best interests for Israel and Israel alone would be to sink the ship, except that would be disastrous from a PR and international relations standpoint.

In the end, from a Western perspective. It's lose lose for Israel. They lose the PR war, or they lose the actual war.

[Lemmy]

commanderkai commanderkai:

You do nothing, and you encourage more blockade runners, and have Palestinian "activists" make this out as some victory of David over Goliath.

David was the Jew.

[commanderkai]

Wada Wada:

It would appear to me as though Israel puts itself into lose-lose situations like this. Do they bear any responsibilty for their actions commander?

Depends on where you draw the line. Do you see this issue as Israel dealing with blockade runners attempting to resupply a hostile government which has repeatedly attacked Israel, or a civilian ship being attacked by the Israeli Navy as it attempts to supply an oppressed population?

I see it as the former. I'll let you choose which one you view it as, or how you view it. If you see it as the former, then Israel doesn't put itself, it's dragged into these sorts of situations. It responds to a hostile government through a blockade. A civilian ship, filled with actively hostile "activists" attempt to run the blockade, and Israel attempts to intercept to A) Inspect the cargo and B) Make the ship turn back or detain the ship.

If you see it as the latter. That means the Israelis are actively engaging and bringing itself into this situations. Now, the question is, why would anybody WANT to enter "lose-lose" scenarios?

Does Israel bear some responsibility? Of course. But so do the blockade runners, who actively and purposely attempted to run a blockade of Israel to supply an actively hostile government. And, on top of being whiny and pissy, they aggressively attacked commando units and attempted to bring down a helicopter. The fact only 10 died after this incident astounds me.

[commanderkai]

Lemmy Lemmy:

commanderkai commanderkai:

You do nothing, and you encourage more blockade runners, and have Palestinian "activists" make this out as some victory of David over Goliath.

David was the Jew.

Ironic, isn't it? I'm not sure if there is a secular version of the story though to use.

[N_Fiddledog]

[N_Fiddledog]

[HyperionTheEvil]

Israel killing people again?
The more distance that Canada puts between them and that rump semi-democracy the better. that last thin i want is to see Canada turned into another tail that figurative Israeli dog wags

[tritium]

HyperionTheEvil HyperionTheEvil:

Israel killing people again?
The more distance that Canada puts between them and that rump semi-democracy the better. that last thin i want is to see Canada turned into another tail that figurative Israeli dog wags

What the fuck do you expect from Israel, surround by a bunch of fanatic nutjob Muslims that want to wipe them off the map...

Palestinian dogs trying to break the Gaza blockade, got what they deserve. Just wish they killed a few more..

[Zipperfish]

commanderkai commanderkai:

Israel is always on the bad end of public relations in the media. Always. No matter what they do, they will be attacked for it. So I really don't see this as such a loss for Israel at all. It's a public relations nightmare, sure. But nothing Israel hasn't seen.

To me, blaming the media speaks to an impoverished argument. It's like the losing team blaming the refs. I read the editorials in both the Globe and Mail and the National Post--Canada's two national newspapers. The Globe adn Mail's criticized Israel, though also crticized the activists who attacked the soldiers. The National Post endorsed Israel's actions. Blaming the media also belies the fact that many Israelis themselves are upset.

Personally, I'm not all that outraged. Fact is, if you get pulled over for speeding by a cop and you assault the cop with a weapon, you could well end up dead. And in the final analysis, it won't matter if you were actually speeding or not--your fate was sealed by the decision to bring a knife to a gun fight.

However, this all happens within the context of the Gaza strip blockade, which has made people uncomfortable for years. That's where a lot of the negative reaction comes from in my opinion.

Israel has siad that it will act again in the same way. However it's also worth noting that the incident has resulted in Egypt easing its Gaza blockade, and the actions have been widely perceived in Israel as a military blunder and put the government on the defensive. Netanyahu has cancelled his visit to the White House so now Abbas get some Obamam face-time and Netanyahu doesn't. So quite apart from perception and the media, this has harmed Israel's interests, at least in the short term.

[Zipperfish]

tritium tritium:

What the fuck do you expect from Israel, surround by a bunch of fanatic nutjob Muslims that want to wipe them off the map...

Palestinian dogs trying to break the Gaza blockade, got what they deserve. Just wish they killed a few more..

they weren't Palestinians. Most were Turks.

[martin14]

commanderkai commanderkai:

2)The United Nations will send a strongly worded resolution that Israel will hopefully recycle to make newspaper.

good one !

[HyperionTheEvil]

tritium tritium:

HyperionTheEvil HyperionTheEvil:

Israel killing people again?
The more distance that Canada puts between them and that rump semi-democracy the better. that last thin i want is to see Canada turned into another tail that figurative Israeli dog wags

What the fuck do you expect from Israel, surround by a bunch of fanatic nutjob Muslims that want to wipe them off the map...

Palestinian dogs trying to break the Gaza blockade, got what they deserve. Just wish they killed a few more..

Aside from the fact that they are as fanatically batshit as they people they claim to be trying to destroy them, no to mention that there are pelnty of jewish terrorist groups who atively seek out to destroy any non-jew They claim to be a "democracy". Time they started acting like.

Other than that Canada gains nothing from supporting Israel and stands to lose a great deal. We already looked upon as near clones of americans do we really want to reinforce that image?


Here have a look

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/israel/

[martin14]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

Israel has siad that it will act again in the same way. However it's also worth noting that the incident has resulted in Egypt easing its Gaza blockade, and the actions have been widely perceived in Israel as a military blunder and put the government on the defensive. Netanyahu has cancelled his visit to the White House so now Abbas get some Obamam face-time and Netanyahu doesn't. So quite apart from perception and the media, this has harmed Israel's interests, at least in the short term.

Gotta ask yourself why is Egypt blockading Gaza ?

I never get any answer to that question, never mind a decent one.




It looks to me like the Israelis dont really give a hoot about PR anymore,
they know they are going to get kicked no matter what they do.

If you want to talk about aggressive actions, hows about the first hostile act
of the ship leaving port in the first place ?


Anyone remember 1962 ? Wanna guess what would have happened if a ship had run
the blockade around Cuba while the US was watching ?