Just wanted to point out what a deceiver you are.

The actual quote.
"The flotilla was attacked in international waters, 65km off the Gaza coast."

You use that article as a "source" but then pretend it wasn't international water.

BBC says 40 miles (64 km). Also BBC says international waters.
So it doesn't really matter what Israel signed. The rest of the entire western countries and UN recognize fucking laws unlike Israel. Also Israel's claim to territorial waters is NOT 65km. So really, you are wrong.


>> ^demon_ix:

Few points:
- joedirt: The attack occurred 65km (~40 miles) off the coast, not 90 miles. Source.
- While a nation's territorial waters extend for 20km off the coast, what's called International Waters starts some 200 nautical miles off the coast. Source.
- Neither Israel nor Turkey are signatories to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

You don't have to agree with the video to upvote - I think all the Fox News clips show that.

>> ^Hybrid:

Here, here. There's been a few videos like that recently, where I object to the content and want to down-vote it. (i.e. a woman getting hit by a guy for not giving him her number), but also upvote it to make sure it's seen and raises awareness. Tricky.
>> ^ponceleon:
I feel like videos need a "push" button... a non-upvote-non-downvote. Abstain, or something like that.

@Pprt The ships were running a blockade, they were surely expecting to be boarded. The Israelis had to board the ships or else the blockade would be moot. Whether the blockade is just is another (bigger) argument. The issue here is that the IDF fucked up. They should have been expecting resistance like they experienced and prepared as such. They didn't and people died. That is the fuck up and regardless of all others issues surrounding the incident and the IDF should be ashamed.

Here, here. There's been a few videos like that recently, where I object to the content and want to down-vote it. (i.e. a woman getting hit by a guy for not giving him her number), but also upvote it to make sure it's seen and raises awareness. Tricky.
>> ^ponceleon:

I feel like videos need a "push" button... a non-upvote-non-downvote. Abstain, or something like that.

I don't understand why they didn't just wait until they were out of international waters and inside israeli waters and simply torpedo the whole thing. Or, like slightly more normal people, just wait to raid it until they were in their own water, then it could be justified unlike now when IDF is the aggressor.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

IMO, this title should be changed to something like "Passengers defend themselves from IDF boarding party".

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

If your ship is boarded in international waters by armed intruders - do you not have a right to defend yourself? It seems to me that's what these people were doing. The IDF are trespassing.

fuck you assholes for spreading IDF propaganda.

You are literally releasing and spreading a military edited video.

Anyways, the people on that ship did appear to use slingshots and marbles and sticks and pipes against a fucking billion dollar military who illegally boarded their vessel 90 miles off the coast.

If somali pirates boarded a boat with guns and shot people would you be sticking up for them? THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME THING. Illegal pirates with guns taking over a vessel in neutral waters.

Well, it's pretty accurate, but it's also awfully exaggerated.
It seems to assume that every Israeli that goes through the IDF will either be in a combat or a command role. In reality, the majority will be in non-combat units, and a lot will be in units that are just bureaucratic or logistical.

My own army experience was in an IT support unit. I wasn't in a command role, and I mostly went in the IT direction both because it was something I was good at before, and because I really didn't want to be in a combat unit. For me it was basically a crappy job that paid ridiculously low and had a 1.5 hour commute in each direction.

Still, though. There were positive aspects. It gives you training in fields that you might otherwise not know at all, it puts you with people from social groups you would otherwise not know (melting pot, etc), and it gives you discipline. Silly teenagers coming out of high-school are suddenly made accountable for their actions, required to make decisions that shape their future, take orders from people their own age, etc. It tends to change your priorities.

So, while it exaggerated on the whole leadership experience front, I hereby declare this article to be mostly accurate

In reply to this comment by chilaxe:
Hey DemonIX, is this really what it's like?
Soldiers of Fortune: How the Israeli Army became the most prolific innovation engine on earth
http://www.newsweek.com/id/222793/page/1

Alright. Let's start with a few facts:

- Israel doesn't have the separation of church and state the US has. We study bible since elementary school, we learn a lot about Jewish history and so on.
- There have always been Rabbi in the IDF. Just like there are priests in the US army, the UK army and so on.
- Some Jews pray every morning (Sha'harit, or prayer of dawn) and every evening (Ar'vit, or prayer of evening). Some will put on a Ta'lit and T'filin during that prayer. Those prayers can be performed alone, but when possible, they would prefer to pray in groups of 10 or more, to have what's called a Min'yan.

Now that the scary Jews wrapped in weird shawls rocking back and forth look less intimidating with the cannons in the background, I'll concede a few points:

- Israel is a racist society. There are many ways this is expressed, but it's usually vs Israeli Arabs and Palestinians, which many Israelis regard as the same group.
- There are many "factions" in Judaism, not unlike the differences between Catholics, Protestants, Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons and any other faith that can still call itself Christian. Some of these factions in Judaism will take the bible very literally.
- The population in the settlements is extremely Jewish. They sort of have to be, to want to move to a place you have to hold by force, with the constant threat of being removed from your home by a government treaty. For those who already forgot, read a bit about the Disengagement plan of 2005, where the Israeli Army forcibly removed residents of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

--------------

Now that that's all out of the way, let's move on to the video at hand.

The video says the army is (or, was) "proudly secular". That's quite simply false. Every soldier who wants to can go to prayer every morning, even if it disrupts the normal schedule. Every base has a Rabbi and a synagogue. It's been that way since the IDF came to existence.

The video then goes on to show Rabbi going through a lecture during an officer training course. The video goes as far as calling them an "elite unit" within the IDF. By that logic, since I went through basic training and fired a rifle on about 5 separate occasions, I'm now a part of an elite commando team trained to fix computers behind enemy lines.
There are many courses at the officer training school (called Bahad 1). These men are going through a standard non-combatant officer training. It is required to get any form of officer rank.

The video loves showing you clips where the guys are either handling their rifle, or where the rifle is very visible. That doesn't mean anything regarding the training they receive. I had a rifle for the entire duration of my army training. I took it home every weekend, had to think of where it was all the time, and my greatest worry was "what if someone steals it". If I ever had to shoot it in a real situation, I'd probably drop the clip, get it jammed and throw it at someone before I actually managed to use it to shoot at them. Even if I had, I wouldn't hit anything.

The story of Masada isn't very proud, as far as I'm concerned. Read about it yourself, and make sure you notice the part where they commit mass suicide at the end. Masada in an army context is usually a site where a training course comes near the end of the training. The climb up from one of the sides is physically challenging, and there's a story of a small bunch of Jews standing up to the Roman army at the top. The ending is usually glossed over.

-------------

Now, Cast Lead. The one-year-old atrocity.
I wasn't in the Army at the time, and I don't know anyone who was called for reserve duty for it, so I can't speak from experience on that one. It is surprising to me that the army Rabbi actually went with the combat units into action, and I find it very hard to believe that it was the case with every combat unit. It would simply disrupt their combat operation too greatly to have someone with that little training there. It seems more likely that they went together during the initial entry to Gaza, which was mostly logistical, with very little resistance, and then stayed behind at the actual fighting. Again, though, this is pure speculation on my part.

As for more and more religious Jews joining the army, that's actually a stated goal, not "something the army is ashamed of and is making headlines in Israel". There's a law in place (known as the Tal law) that gave religious Jews an exemption from the three year mandatory army service. This created a great deal of resentment among the secular population, since they're now "carrying the load" for the religious ones.

-----------

That's basically it. The video gets lots of facts right, but some of the contexts wrong. It starts out with the premise that the army wasn't Jewish before, and is becoming Jewish now, and mixes irrelevant pieces of data to "prove" that. I'm just left wondering where the "Shocking news: Hamas is becoming more Islamic, if that was even possible" video.

Disclaimer: I'm an Atheist Jew living in Israel. I served for 3 years in the IDF as a non-combatant.

>> ^jmzero:
don't forget the IDF is the most moral army in the world!

The IDF have done a lot of things, but I don't think they deliberately executed this baby (or purposefully fired a missile at a single person).
If you believe that an Israeli soldier shot a baby, on purpose, and that that would be seen as acceptable or normal in the Israeli army, you are delusional. Could it happen?

Its one of the oldest stories in the book. The victim, becomes the victimizer.

jmzero has come from the Land of Fog.

Haaretz: Dead Palestinian babies and bombed mosques - IDF fashion 2009 http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072466.html

Essential reading for those wishing to understand Israel and its genocidal pathology- Diagnosing Benny Morris- The Mind of a European Settler: http://dissidentvoice.org/Jan04/Ash0126.htm

don't forget the IDF is the most moral army in the world!



The IDF have done a lot of things, but I don't think they deliberately executed this baby (or purposefully fired a missile at a single person).

If you believe that an Israeli soldier shot a baby, on purpose, and that that would be seen as acceptable or normal in the Israeli army, you are delusional. Could it happen? Sure.. but I think it's much more likely that, if a child died, it died in an explosion or other attack not targetted at a 6 month old.

This program makes no attempt at balance or describing what happened in any even vaguely objective way. Some public record on how the attack went down and what came before it would help a lot.

And I think it's fairly clear the girl is scripted, and the scenes are staged. You think there's just clean clothes left there lying on top of the rubble? I think it's fairly clear someone went and arranged them before this shot. I realize this is editorial, but they should have some basic journalistic standards that prevent them from doing this kind of smearing propaganda piece.

All in all, this kind of programming doesn't help anything I don't think - it perpetuates the dangerous myth (on both sides) that the other side is inhuman, and it's that myth that is the biggest barrier to any kind of understanding or long term peace.

The reality is that both sides are humans. The Israelis are desperate for their own security, and will displace and kill people in their attempts to attain it. (But they won't deliberately execute babies! Or drink their blood!) The Palestinians, driven by fear and by a belief that their enemies are inhuman, will fight however they can and support a government that will never bring them the peace and life they need. (But they would, given the right agreement, live in peace!)

pah lies. war crimes? deliberately targeting civilians? don't forget the IDF is the most moral army in the world! the terrorists are on the other side of the fence / wall. the IDF is only reacting and defending freedom. and yes, the sanctions are necessary to protect the people. the israeli people that is. and of course it is fully justified to avenge the death of 13 israelis by killing hundreds of palestinians. the great old man in the sky that we pray to showed us how to do it.

yes, sarcasm.

seriously, as shocking as this is it won't change anything. if the "I" in IDF would stand for any other country, the united nations would at least install sanctions, more likely invade the country to stop a genocide. but being at it is...