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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 09:57:16 [Permalink]
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The weblog of Hussein Ibish
Purity of arms: Israel's predictable, historic and ghastly Gaza flotilla blunder:
The whole point of the "Gaza flotilla" was to get a reaction out of Israel and call international attention to the problem of the blockade of Gaza. Israeli officials described it as "a provocation" and I'm not sure that was entirely incorrect: like all other acts of civil disobedience it was designed to provoke a response. I'm shocked but not surprised that the Israeli military, which was determined to prevent those ships from reaching the Gaza port, managed to mishandle the situation so badly that, as present report stand, at least 10 flotilla participants were killed and 60 injured. The Israelis claim that the ships had weapons on board and that their commandos were attacked with sticks and knives and had to defend themselves. I don't think anyone in the world with the least degree of critical rationality is going to take this explanation at face value. It's been rendered even more fatuous by the extraordinary hyperbole coming out of Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, who claimed that flotilla members were connected not only to Hamas, but to Al Qaeda! Next they will be telling us these were members of the Nazi party. It won't wash.
Flotilla organizers are no doubt shocked, horrified and appalled by the way this has turned out. But if they were engaged in classic civil disobedience, their action has actually produced some version of the intended result. If the point is to provoke a reaction, and indeed an overreaction, to make a point, they have succeeded beyond their wildest imagination. This bloodbath is likely to create sustained international attention to the way Israel has treated the Gaza Strip in a way that nothing else has since the Gaza war and possibly since the beginning of the blockade... |
Bolding and underline are mine.
Now I give up... |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
 Posted - 06/06/2010 : 10:58:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
The crew of the ship was trying to move AWAY from the Israelis. |
Are you confusing evasion with escape, now? They were trying to run the blockade.| It was one criminal act after another... |
Yes, it was.| ...and you're excusing those criminal acts by saying the protestors provoked them. |
Baloney. How many times do we need to say that Israel bears responsibility for their actions? That doesn't mean that the protesters were innocent victims. Victims, yes, but not without partial responsibility for the results. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:08:09 [Permalink]
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So how does one protest an unjust action if any protest is basically a provocation? Should Martin Luther King, Jr. have canceled any sit-ins or marches in the 1960s? Granted, the main difference between those protests and the current Israeli blockade is that in the civil rights marches and sit-ins, the protesters did not defend themselves as those in the flotilla incident did.
I'm just a bit unsure about the word "provocation" as it conjures up images like going up to a person, that you know what the reaction will be, and punching him in the nose for no good reason. Both sides knew, or should have known, what the reaction would be.
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“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
| Edited by - podcat on 06/06/2010 13:16:59 |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:18:37 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by Gorgo
The crew of the ship was trying to move AWAY from the Israelis. |
Are you confusing evasion with escape, now? They were trying to run the blockade.| It was one criminal act after another... |
Yes, it was.| ...and you're excusing those criminal acts by saying the protestors provoked them. |
Baloney. How many times do we need to say that Israel bears responsibility for their actions? That doesn't mean that the protesters were innocent victims. Victims, yes, but not without partial responsibility for the results.
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Blaming the victims. You cannot even say that they were running the blockade at the time. They were way out into international waters in the middle of the night. You're spouting the pro-Israeli right wing crap you see on MSNBC. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:22:23 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by podcat
So how does one protest an unjust action if any protest is basically a provocation? Should Martin Luther King, Jr. have canceled any sit-ins or marches in the 1960s? Granted, the main difference between those protests and the current Israeli blockade is that in the civil rights marches and sit-ins, the protesters did not defend themselves as those in the flotilla incident did.
I'm just a bit unsure about the word "provocation" as it conjures up images like going up to a person, that you know what the reaction will be, and punching him in the nose for no good reason. Both sides knew, or should have known, what the reaction would be.
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We don't know all the facts yet, as the Israelis have confiscated the evidence, but there is no question this was an unprovoked attack, and the Israelis went in firing. At least percussion bombs, tear gas and rubberized (not rubber, but rubber coated steel. No one questions any of that, and only the Israelis are saying they did not go in with live fire. There is no provocation which excuses the murders that took place after that. Elite, armed units do not need to shoot people four times in the head to protect themselves from people, even people with iron bars. |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:22:36 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by podcat
So how does one protest an unjust action if any protest is basically a provocation? Should Martin Luther King, Jr. have canceled any sit-ins or marches in the 1960s? Granted, the main difference between those protests and the current Israeli blockade is that in the civil rights marches and sit-ins, the protesters did not defend themselves as those in the flotilla incident did.
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The idea is to bring attention to whatever you are protesting. It's perfectly fine to provoke a response. Martin Luther King was of the non violent school which meant that no matter how violent the police were, he would not answer back with violence. But he did purposely break unjust laws. That's one way to bring attention to an injustice. Of course, it was understood that being clubbed, teargassed, or spending time in jail might be the result of civil disobedience. Sometimes worse things happened. Some civil rights activists were murdered.
I'm not sure why you would think that provocation is necessarily a bad thing? Civil disobedience is almost by definition an act to provoke a response. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:24:07 [Permalink]
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| Kil, civil disobedience is about breaking the law. What laws were the protestors breaking? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:40:39 [Permalink]
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What was the aim of the Gaza Freedom flotilla?
The Free Gaza movement says it was intended to deliver aid to Gaza to get around the Israeli blockade and "to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation"...
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From Ian Black and Haroon Siddique's Q and A on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/31/q-a-gaza-freedom-flotilla |
“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:44:53 [Permalink]
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| Kil: I added something to my post attempting to explain my discomfort with calling it a "provocation". I'm not saying that I disagree with you calling it such. |
“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:47:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Kil, civil disobedience is about breaking the law. What laws were the protestors breaking?
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At the risk of going around and around on this:
As far is the Israeli's are concerned, they were within their legal right to board the ships.
But here is the key. The activists knew that Israel believes that they were within their rights. That's not a friggen secret. So by challenging that belief of Israel's, it was indeed, and act of provocation. It just doesn't matter whether Israel is right or wrong about the law. What matters is how Israel interprets the law, which again, isn't a secret.
You should actually be happy, not about the deaths, none of us are, but the fact that Israel took the bait. They are being almost universally condemned, and rightly so for their actions.
To wrap your head around what happened, you need to forget what you believe is the law, and take into consideration, as everyone else has done, including the activists, what Israel thinks the law is. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Gorgo
SFN Die Hard
USA
5310 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 13:53:44 [Permalink]
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| Kil. Civil disobedience is about breaking the law. What law did the protestors break? |
I know the rent is in arrears
The dog has not been fed in years
It's even worse than it appears
But it's alright-
Jerry Garcia
Robert Hunter
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podcat
Skeptic Friend
435 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 14:06:30 [Permalink]
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| I don't believe we're talking about civil disobedience in this case, civil disobedience involves nonviolence. But it was to protest an unjust command to keep out foreign aid and blocking access to ports in Gaza. |
“In a modern...society, everybody has the absolute right to believe whatever they damn well please, but they don't have the same right to be taken seriously”.
-Barry Williams, co-founder, Australian Skeptics |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 14:11:22 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Blaming the victims. |
And the Israelis. There's enough blame to go around. Why do you refuse to accept this?| You cannot even say that they were running the blockade at the time. |
I don't have to, because they said they were going to run the blockade.| They were way out into international waters in the middle of the night. |
How close would they have to have been? The blockade itself is illegal, right? What does it matter where it happened, then?| You're spouting the pro-Israeli right wing crap you see on MSNBC. |
And you're spouting nonsense which is contrary to reality.
You seem to think, contrary to the evidence provided by the protesters themselves and the Arab media, that these people were just minding their own business and were attacked by the Israelis out of the blue. That's false. They knew what they were doing. They were daring the Israelis to do something. Double-dog daring them. Trying to get them to react enough to get world-wide media attention. Was the Israeli response criminal? You bet it was. But that doesn't justify the provocation.
There's an old saying, "you mess with the bull, you get the horns." The only difference here is that you think that the "bull" can be reasoned with, and thus should be held criminally responsible. I think so, too. But that doesn't mean the victims weren't knowingly playing with fire.
How many more metaphors do you need, Gorgo? We have all these old saying because the situation comes up over and over and over again, throughout recorded history. They are common-sense warnings against doing exactly what the protesters did. They were not innocents who were unaware of what was going to happen, they were poking a known-to-be-rabid dog.
You also wrote:| ...but there is no question this was an unprovoked attack... |
Then the protesters failed, by their own standards, since they wanted to provoke a reaction from the Israelis, to draw attention to the blockade of Gaza. Why do you reject what they were saying before they left port? Do you think they were lying? What reasons would the protesters have to lie about what they intended to do?| There is no provocation which excuses the murders that took place after that. |
You're absolutely right. Nobody is saying otherwise. Is that what your problem is? That saying that the protesters provoked the Israelis somehow "excuses" the Israeli response? That's certainly not the case.
You also wrote:| Kil, civil disobedience is about breaking the law. |
Only in the most-narrow of definitions. Try this one:Civil disobedience is the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands, and commands of a government, or of an occupying international power, using no form of violence. The protesters against the Blockade weren't engaged in civil disobedience, since they prepared themselves ahead of time to fight back. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 14:21:00 [Permalink]
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Dave:
The protesters against the Blockade weren't engaged in civil disobedience, since they prepared themselves ahead of time to fight back. |
I suspect that can only be said of one ship in the flotilla. I think that the people on the other ships were probably engaged in civil disobedience. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13476 Posts |
Posted - 06/06/2010 : 14:29:09 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Gorgo
Kil. Civil disobedience is about breaking the law. What law did the protestors break?
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And you say that you don't have a black and white interpretation of what went down?
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Israeli blockade incident
