Israel Scuttles International Sympathy

Okay, lets start with the facts. On Monday the Israeli military used commandos to storm a floatilla in International waters that was carrying aid and supplies to the Gaza strip. The aid would seem to have consisted of 10,000 tonnes of concrete, glass and other building supplies that were destined to help rebuild Gaza after the numerous Israeli offensives into the strip that had reduced large parts of it to rubble. A lot of this rubble was caused by Israels use of cluster bombs and white phosphorous weaponry on an enclosed civilian population. The other half was caused by the sheer poverty that exists in the strip as any transfers of funds into the strip are illegal and Gazans cannot cross the borders for work.

The floatilla was surrounded by Israeli navy ships and was boarded from the sea and from the air. What happened next is of contention. The Israeli military claims it was fired on first and returned fire and yet MK Hanin Zouabi (Balad) a member of the Israeli parliament claims the protesters were unarmed. In any case, when the smoke had cleared nine of the activists were dead and another twenty five injured for the loss of, no Israeli dead and five lightly wounded. 

The UN went into closed session with four of the permanent security council members wanting to order international sanctions and the US opposed. 

The scramble by both sides to drum up the propoganda machine has started early. Israel claims that it's soilders were only armed with paint ball guns and pistols. 

Here is a quick you tube video that would paint that to be a lie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR2GQQBGTlY

According to this first hand report they were being hit by grenades, tear gas and live ammunition in International waters and completely illegally. Israel was operating outside it's jurisdiction. 

There is no avoiding the heavy bullshit that has come down in the last 24 hours. I have read some interesting logic and arguments that seek to paint the innocent civilians killed as some sort of trouble making rebel rousing terrorists, but in short, for me personally there is no way for Israel to justify the murder, and it is murder of unarmed civilians in international waters. Of course Israel has been murdering civilians for quite some time and it's excuse has been that there is no way to identify Hamas from the civilian territory in which it operates. In it's defense Hamas is pretty adept at murdering Israeli civilians too. However it is quite one thing to employ that flawed logic as some sort of justification to drop high tech weapons banned under international laws to be used on civilians and quite another to storm an unarmed ship carrying innoculous cargo and murder multi ethnic hippies. Israel has isolated a people, bombed them, burned them, murdered them and when an international group tries to bring some aid in it receives the same treatment. Well, it's clear the world doesn't give a perverbial about the Gazans lives, it has shown that in the past the question is does Israel's disregard for ours be allowed fly too and here's the thing, do we value our own lives more than theirs and what kind of hypocrites does it make us if we do.........