For no good reason, the Israeli government decided to intercept the Cyprus-Gaza flotilla.
Despite clear intelligence indicating that the boats were controlled by a militant crowd, the government sent Navy commandos rather than anti-terrorist units. The Marines have only basic training in friend-or-foe recognition during anti-terrorist operations. The government’s choice of troops ensured indiscriminate deaths: 16 were killed, only two of whom had firearms.
The Israeli government put the Marines under stupid and dangerous orders to avoid shooting live ammunition. Only because of those criminal orders were the peaceniks able to snatch two shotguns from the Marines.
Only because of these criminal orders were the peaceniks able to attack the Marines with knives and pipes. Had the government not constrained the Marines from defending themselves, a few shots of live ammunition would have stopped the squabble immediately—and caused no casualties.
The government made this confrontation possible by refusing to let the Navy ram the boats on sight. That way—the standard way, tried successfully in earlier encounters with peaceniks—the passengers would have been forced to abandon their boats, and the Navy could have picked them up from the sea safely.
The Israeli government is guilty of unnecessary interception of the boats, provoking the activists to fight by the well-known prohibition of the use of live ammo, and—most importantly—of endangering Jewish lives by enforcing unrealistic rules of engagement. Consequently, two Jewish Marines were severely wounded, and the government failed the halachic test of unresolved murder, “We did everything in our power to ensure that he wouldn’t be killed.”
Many countries commonly kill illegal migrants at their borders, many more kill those who support their enemies. But Israel is assured of a wave of condemnations over the 16 dead Hamas supporters. Even Egypt, which thankfully kills scores of African migrants at our border, condemned Israel, and so will many other countries.
The country which makes a national sport of suing its PM over petty overbilling charges should pause and look for the real criminals in her government.
