Testimony from a Soldier

Thanks, Hawkeye for this.

From “Jack Bauer” to Biased BBC

“Jack Bauer
Whalid Shoebat (a repentent former Palestinian entity terrorist) has some interesting commentary and an appeal:

“Dear Friends

“For all those that wish to help Israel in the PR war we need you to help now. The Muslims are trying to use the Gaza Flotilla incident to exploit in the propagnada war against Israel.

“The Gaza Flotilla was a deliberate attempt to provoke Israel and the intention was to “kill Jews” in a martydom operation. We have provided a link that was translated by palwatch.org from Al Jazeera TV just before the operation took place as well as another link of video which shows the beating of soldiers which forced Israel to take forceful action.

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2323

http://www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk ”

The relevant article on Biased BBC can be found at http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2010/06/its-all-about-proportionately.html#comments

See legal opinion at http://www.icjs-online.org/prfriendly.php?article=2466

“Israeli navy seals actions are defensible

“When you analyse it, Israel had no alternative but to divert the ships at all costs. If the sea blockade of Gaza is breached, then arms will be delivered by sea.Israeli navy seals actions are defensible”

Hawkeye

There is no excuse for hurting the guy but I dont read small print well. I couldnt see the words ” international waters” . Did I miss them?

peterthehungarian

.

“The Brits sank German ships in international waters – so? ”

I am sorry I missed the bit of news about Israel declaring war on Turkey. BTW I just saw C4 news and Jon Snow reiterated what I have been saying….The Turkish Navy will escort ships soon… lets see if your gung ho heroes will leap on to a prepared naval vessel .

International law… international waters… barrack room lawyers ahoy. Israel – always ‘guilty’ of a ‘breach of international law’.

However, last night’s ‘World Tonight’, interviewed Douglas Guilfoyle, a specialist on the law of the sea (Douglas regularly gives talks on and speaks to the media about law of the sea issues, especially matters relating to high-seas piracy, continental shelf claims and the use of force at sea. He frequently prepares reports for NGOs and government clients on law of the sea issues, and was recently asked to prepare a report on treaty-based jurisdiction over pirates for the legal issues working group of the Contact Group on Piracy off Somalia http://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/academics/profiles/index.shtml?guilfoyle).

And when asked by the interviewer: “So what about the legality…did Israel have any right to board the ship or indeed intercept the others given where they were?” “Yes, yes it probably did….. what we heard in the earlier very precise Israeli legal guidanance

and a blockade must be effective in order to remain lawful

Mindbending legal position, no?

In order to retain the legality of the blockade, Israel has to prevent it being breached. It was therefore crucial to the peaceful activists to breach the blockade – had they succeeded, the blockade would then have become ‘unlawful’ under the various governing laws and Israel would no longer have been acting lawfully if it attempted to stop and inspect further flotillas carrying god only knows what to Gaza. Under the various governing laws, Israel was acting entirely lawfully by boarding the ship in these famous ‘international waters’.

If they intend to breach a blockade they should know that they are subject to a right to capture.

The peaceful activists knew they were subject to a right to capture – so much for the blah blah about ‘piracy’ – and they had set a trap. The Israelis were fools to believe the peaceful activists’ propaganda – viz that they were peaceful – as they sought to exercise their legal right to capture the ship. They boarded the ship via helicopter at night when they hoped that the women and children would be asleep and met with the further catch 22 that they fell into the jaws of the waiting crocodile. In trying to avoid the media circus which would have followed the capture of the ship in daylight – wailing children and women throwing themselves overboard etc ad nauseum all filmed by the Guardian and Al Jaz etc, they found themselves fighting for their lives.