Ambush at Sea

Earlier today Israeli naval commandos of Flotilla 13 attempted to board the Turkish ship Marmara. Armed with only paint-ball guns and sidearms for self defense, they repelled from their helicopters in an attempt to seize the bridge of the ship. Their mission was to stop the Marmara and the other five ships which were trying to break a joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza. The ostensible reason given for this voyage was to deliver medical supplies and other urgently needed items to the oppressed people living in Gaza. The activists aboard the ships refused the Israeli order to dock at an Israeli port and the supplies would be delivered after inspection. So was set the stage for today's events.

As the commandos rappelled from their helicopter, these 'peaceful' activists attempted to tie one of the ropes to an antenna hoping to crash the chopper. And from there the kinetic event turned even more kinetic as the activists aboard the Marmara attacked the Israeli soldiers with bats and knives. Even iron bars. It was not until after the second load of troops from another chopper dropped to the deck and met the same fierce resistance was permission sought to use deadly force. Even then the Israelis tried to use the least amount of force to protect themselves by shooting at legs of their attackers. Meanwhile more forces tried to come aboard from the stern, they too were met with physical resistance. At this time it seems at least ten of the unlawful combatants on the ship are dead along with seven Israeli soldiers suffering stab wounds and various forms of trauma.

This event is already being spun as blatant Israeli piracy in Arab media. And it seems others in the Western media are following the same tactic. So lets dissect it from what we do know.
1. Egypt and Israel have imposed a blockade on Gaza in order to prevent the smuggling of weapons into the region. In the past the Arabs of Gaza have used bulldozers to break down the concrete wall that separates them from Egypt to loot the Egyptian side. Then there are the tunnels that run from Egypt into Gaza. Israel imposes the sea blockage to prevent Hamas supporters from smuggling in things like Kassim over-sized bottle rockets to shoot at Israeli civilians. So there is abundant reasons for a blockade.
2. Like St. Pancake meeting that messy end with a bulldozer, this again shows the cynical manipulation and use of credulous Western tools by Arabs to advance their agenda of destroying Israel and the Jews. For this cause, Westerners are perfect props. People talk of the practice of being shang-hai'd and shudder in revulsion. This was an old practise of nabbing drunk sailors and tossing them on ships short of crew. Here the Arabs promised these foolish Westerners a spring break cruise in which they would get to speak truth to power by flaunting their beliefs before the oppressive Israelis. Some of them just might have bought the farm along with a cruise.
3. It seems the leader of the peaceniks was not aboard any of the ships, in fact she is in Cyprus and has denied categorically there were any weapons aboard the Marmara. I have to ask her, since she was not aboard the ship how can she say that. Obviously she can't. But weapons don't fit her narrative and she can't admit to being used by the Arabs, so she screams denial.
4. Finally if they truly were peaceful as the other five ships turned out to be then they should not have resisted. Passive resistance would have been a better tactic since then the Israelis would have looked like brutish thugs. But that was never in cards obviously when some aboard were singing about the massacre of Jews that occurred centuries ago in Saudi Arabia.

Further reading
Powerline
Ynet
Haaretz
Gaza Flotilla Spring Break
So a bunch of stoners