The Jerusalem Post was allowed to interview members of the Sh-13 Navy commando unit which raided the Marmara.
Only 15 Marines took over the ship. Even with the best training, they wouldn’t have been able to prevail against the alleged 100-150 highly motivated, axe-wielding guerrillas—guerrillas who allegedly had military training.
According to S., his comrades formed a wall to protect the wounded. That would leave next to no Jews to take over the Marmara.
S. says that immediately upon landing he spotted two comrades with gunshot wounds. As a commando, he would have no trouble distinguishing gunshot wounds from those inflicted by bats. Yet, the IDF is still uncertain whether the guerrillas used firearms.
T. says he fired warning shots as he descended from the helicopter. In such a scenario, he would have continued shooting upon landing, and the situation would have improved by the time S. reached the ship.
S. says he started shooting because a guerrilla held a pistol to a Jew’s head. Yet he also says that immediately upon landing he was attacked with axes, bats, and pipes. It is unlikely that he could have survived such an attack, let alone looked after his comrade.
If S. saw a guerrilla pointing a firearm at a Jew, he wouldn’t have shot at the feet, as the official story about the first shots goes.
A wall of Marines allegedly faced a crowd of a hundred guerrillas with axes, pipes, and some firearms. The guerrillas wore ceramic vests. Yet the Marines, acting in the open, gunned down dozens, while suffering only a 30% casualty rate themselves. S. is credited with killing six guerrillas, thus the rest of the detachment killed only three.
Our preliminary conclusion is this: the guerrillas’ numbers, their military training, and their equipment are greatly exaggerated. The Marines’ leader acted in rage, killing six. Others followed suit with some reluctance. The affair was not exactly a safari hunting of peace activists, but it definitely exceeded the norms of riot control.
Israeli Marines were right to kill anyone who threatened a Jew. The government was exceedingly wrong to send a totally unsuitable type of troops to intercept the ship.
