FEOS wrote:
Under international law, a sovereign nation can legally enforce sanctions and blockade another with whom it is engaged in a hostile action. Hamas-governed Gaza would qualify as such, would it not?
Hostile action is a pretty vague term... and anyway tbh I wouldn't claim to be a connoisseur of international law. It just seems to me that Israel is using the law only where it suits them, while at the same time it quite openly and provocatively proceeds to ignore it when it doesn't. In the case of the Gaza strip it just seems unfair that 2 million people be kept hostages for the actions of a few.
FEOS wrote:
Those activists were given an opportunity to offload their supplies elsewhere and transport said supplies overland to Gaza. They refused and instead chose to run the blockade to make a political point. When you run a blockade, you will get boarded by those who are operating the blockade. That's sort of the point of the blockade. When you attack the people who board (who you knew would board because you purposefully ran the blockade), you now open yourself up to response from those people. It's not like the Israelis came in with guns blazing. The activists attacked first.
They were in international waters. There can be no blockade in international waters. That's sort of the point of them being international. Unless of course you're Israel and you can fuck with international law as you damn well please because you know that no action will be taken against you.
FEOS wrote:
Israel could certainly have figured out a way to stop the ships without resorting to the tactics they did. Perhaps dispersing the crowds on deck with CS first, or some other non-lethal means to keep them away from the boarding party if they were bound and determined to board. Certainly heavy-handed.
Yeah, and also the activists could have refrained from attacking the soldiers boarding their boats... But apparently some people don't know when to stop when they know they're right. In a sense though, I do understand why this had to make the news. But certainly not with bloodshed.
FEOS wrote:
Israel has not signed the NPT. Iran has. What's the double standard?
The double standard is that Iran is being sanctioned for the fourth time I think for their nuclear program, and sure enough they'd be sanctioned - or it would be met with even harsher treatment - regardless whether they'd signed the NPT or not. On the other hand Israel is under no pressure whatsoever to drop that ridiculous stance of neither admitting nor denying the existence of their nuclear arsenal. And don't anyone tell me that Israel is a more reliable government and that sort of crap because the whole story with South Africa proves exactly the opposite.
