Israel opens fire on Gaza aid flotilla; at least 10 dead, 60 wounded

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/31/gaza.flotilla.aid/index.html

The cargo consists of food, medical aid and other supplies including cement, prefabricated housing and educational equipment, the group said.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid#Ships_in_flotilla

 

The Gazze ("Gaza") is a Turkish-flagged cargo vessel owned and operated by the Turkish Islamic charity IHH.[57] Its cargo consisted of 2,104 tons of cement, 600 tons of construction steel, and 50 tons of tiles.[39] It also carried 13 Turkish crew members and 5 activists.[57] It left Antalya on 22 May to rendezvous with the flotilla, along with the Mavi Marmara and Defne Y.[55]

[mooeypoo]

I have information that two truckloads of cement went into Gaza from the flotilla ship. I'm trying to corroborate this information.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

2,104 tons of cement + 600 tons of steel = 2700 tons of stuff. Given a practical load limit of 45 tons or so, you'd need 60 truckloads.

 

Of course, you can't expect 'em to send 60 truckloads in a day or two, but this also means we'll have to wait a week or two before we know if everything's gotten to Gaza.

[mooeypoo]

http://idfspokesperson.com/2010/05/25/overview-of-the-humanitarian-situation-in-the-gaza-strip-25-may-2010/

 

#7 under "Equipment":

 

6 Certain types of materials, such as cement and iron, are more restricted. These products are openly used by Hamas for developing its arsenal, building bunkers and launching sites, and making rockets and mortars.

7 Despite the risk, the transfer of these items is also permitted under supervision, once it has been cleared that these materials are for civilian purposes only. Already in the first quarter of 2010, 23 tons of iron and 25 tons of cement were transferred to the Gaza Strip.

 

I"m still looking to see if there's anything about cement specifically from the flotilla ships, will update if/when I have corroboration.

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2,104 tons of cement + 600 tons of steel = 2700 tons of stuff. Given a practical load limit of 45 tons or so, you'd need 60 truckloads.

 

Of course, you can't expect 'em to send 60 truckloads in a day or two, but this also means we'll have to wait a week or two before we know if everything's gotten to Gaza.

I think the 2 truckloads were in one day, not 2 truckloads in general. But i don't want to say much before I check this out. Let me check exactly how much got in (if I can) and get back here with actual details.

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I'm adding a few vids that were released. We are all asking why weren't these videos released at the time of the operation.

 

bU12KW-XyZE

 

HZlSSaPT_OU

[louis wu]

I'm adding a few vids that were released. We are all asking why weren't these videos released at the time of the operation.

 

bU12KW-XyZE

 

HZlSSaPT_OU

Don't you realise that it takes time and very careful editing to put together propaganda films?

 

I expect that the improved director's cut will be available in a few days.

[ecoli]

Don't you realise that it takes time and very careful editing to put together propaganda films?

 

I expect that the improved director's cut will be available in a few days.

What's your probability estimate that these films are propaganda and what counterevidence would lead you to lower this estimate?

 

Go ahead and make a prediction.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I wonder what proportion of the people on the ships intended to be violent and what number had no intention of harming anyone. There's only perhaps 20 or 30 violent people evident in the videos, vs. 600 on board.

 

I also still wonder about the claims that Israel fired first. It'd be nice if the complete videos appeared somewhere instead of Greatest Hits compilations.

 

Also, in the first video, in the last scene, in the lower right, is that a protester or a soldier who appears to run away and then fall down? I wonder what's up with him.

[Pangloss]

Well I believe that is the accusation, right? I don't think anybody suspects that all of those on board these ships intended to cause violence. The supposition is that a few very bad people (Al Qaeda, if you believe the IDF) infiltrated the activist groups for that specific purpose.

 

That's life in the 21st century, I guess.

[louis wu]

What's your probability estimate that these films are propaganda and what counterevidence would lead you to lower this estimate?

 

Go ahead and make a prediction.

ecoli

 

You are very naïve if you think that these films were not released as part of the PR war of who was to blame over 10 violent deaths.

 

The Israeli authorities apparently confiscated all recording equipment from the 'peace activists'. Do you doubt that this was done to stop the activists releasing their own propaganda movies showing Israeli soldiers shooting people?

 

The activists attempt to influence public opinion by claiming that Israeli soldiers opened fire before they boarded the ship, and by allegations of ill treatment whilst they were under detention. There have been claims activists were beaten up as they waited to leave at Ben Gurion airport.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/gaza-flotilla-survivor-haneen-zuabi

 

Above is a rather different account from the official Israeli one.

 

So to answer your question, it will take some very solid convincing evidence to convince me that these films have not been released for propaganda purposes. Do you propose to supply some evidence?

[ecoli]

ecoli

 

You are very naïve if you think that these films were not released as part of the PR war of who was to blame over 10 violent deaths.

 

The Israeli authorities apparently confiscated all recording equipment from the 'peace activists'. Do you doubt that this was done to stop the activists releasing their own propaganda movies showing Israeli soldiers shooting people?

 

The activists attempt to influence public opinion by claiming that Israeli soldiers opened fire before they boarded the ship, and by allegations of ill treatment whilst they were under detention. There have been claims activists were beaten up as they waited to leave at Ben Gurion airport.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/gaza-flotilla-survivor-haneen-zuabi

 

Above is a rather different account from the official Israeli one.

 

So to answer your question, it will take some very solid convincing evidence to convince me that these films have not been released for propaganda purposes. Do you propose to supply some evidence?

 

I'm not trying to make any claims, just pointing out that its interesting how certain you are about everyone's intentions, motives and whose evidence you choose to believe.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you seem way more confident than everyone else about what's really going on. I was wondering if you'd be willing to change your position given counterevidence and what type of counterevidence would be sufficient.

 

Since, so far, you've seemed to label all counterevidence as false propaganda, I'm wondering if your confidence is too strong. What counterevidence would you not call propaganda?

[louis wu]

Well I believe that is the accusation, right? I don't think anybody suspects that all of those on board these ships intended to cause violence. The supposition is that a few very bad people (Al Qaeda, if you believe the IDF) infiltrated the activist groups for that specific purpose.

 

That's life in the 21st century, I guess.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/03/gaza-flotilla-attack-turkey-funeral

 

According to this article the Al Qaida link accusation have been dropped.

 

The cynical might think that the original accusation was merely for PR purposes.

[ecoli]

The cynical might think that the original accusation was merely for PR purposes.

The cynic might also be reminded to be wary of analysis made in hindsight

 

What I mean is that, if the Al Qaeda link had proven to be true, would you consider that in support of Israel's PR campaign?

 

ex - You can't use an admission/denial of witchcraft, both as evidence of witchcraft. (If the witch admits it, she's guilty. If she denies it, she's lying and is also guilty).

 

My purpose, in case it's not clear, is to caution against large confidence in weighing evidence differently based on inflated priors.

[jackson33]

louis wu; The first five ships were boarded, expectedly and without incident. Maybe you can visualize this without any evidence and then imagine what happened on the six ship, where the violence had to be premeditated.

 

In the interest of the thread, it might be interesting for you to give an opinion on the embargo itself or the said intended objective of breaking (ending) that embargo which Israel simply can't allow.

 

Anyway you look at this, anything that in some manner won't add to Hamas ability to conduct warfare or terrorism on Israel, will get to the people in need of aid and quite frankly IMO, directly to those people.

 

There have been claims activists were beaten up as they waited to leave at Ben Gurion airport.[/Quote]

 

If so, which I doubt, provoking a Government is one thing, but provoking a group would be quite different and this would be a rather stupid move on the part of the activist in an Airport. Technically, I don't understand Israel releasing everyone including those on the sixth ship that first used violence, in the first place...

[louis wu]

I'm not trying to make any claims, just pointing out that its interesting how certain you are about everyone's intentions, motives and whose evidence you choose to believe.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you seem way more confident than everyone else about what's really going on. I was wondering if you'd be willing to change your position given counterevidence and what type of counterevidence would be sufficient.

 

Since, so far, you've seemed to label all counterevidence as false propaganda, I'm wondering if your confidence is too strong. What counterevidence would you not call propaganda?

You seem to be missing the point.

I have not called anything false propaganda. I have said that both sides are putting out propaganda.

 

Israeli forces stole all the recording equipment from the protesters, so the protesters are unable to release their own heavily edited videos.

 

If the protesters still had their own recordings they would be showing film of Israeli soldiers shooting people. The IDF are naturally keen to avoid such damaging footage.

 

The best propaganda is in fact true propaganda. As PR becomes ever more slick it gets harder to see exactly what is the truth.

 

If you feel I am reaching unwarranted conclusions then please enlighten me as to why, providing a detailed line of reasoning.

[ecoli]

If the protesters still had their own recordings they would be showing film of Israeli soldiers shooting people. The IDF are naturally keen to avoid such damaging footage.

 

This is conceivable, but you haven't proven it to be true. Nor have you shared your probability estimate of your expectations to see such evidence.

 

For example, frame a hypothesis about "who shot first" and explain how positive and negative evidence would change your framing of the situation. I'd be very interested to see videos of Israeli soldiers shooting first. As for myself, I consider the probability of this being true low, possibly around 25-30%. If it turns out to be true, this would be strong evidence that my general support for Israel's official line is misplaced. I would probably trust the vids showing Israel shooting first, but I don't consider first person accounts very highly. Mainstream news sources would have to vet the videos, because it could be easily doctored, before I revise my priors.

 

I have an opinion, but I don't think I'm unduly confident that Israel official line is the end of the story, nor that the "activists" are blameless.

Edited June 4, 2010 by ecoli

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has an account of how the shooting started:

 

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/israel-navy-3-commandos-nearly-taken-hostage-in-gaza-flotilla-raid-1.294114

 

The fourth commando, K., saw his team leader on the deck, with a Turkish activist holding the pistol he had grabbed from him and pointing it to his head. K. jumped from the rope and managed to shoot the activist holding the gun. This happened 20 seconds after the first soldier landed on the deck.

 

This would seem to fit with the claims that the Israelis began shooting first, although of course in this case they had good reason to. Then the article says this:

 

The head of the naval commandos gave orders by radio to use live fire, two minutes after the incident had begun.

 

Shots had been fired earlier, but Lt. Col. A. later explained that in his orders he wanted to make sure that the troops realized that "the mood of the incident had changed."

 

I wonder what the rules of engagement were. Were the people who were shot just resisting, or did they pose an immediate threat?

 

I expect we'll be getting more details over the coming days and the raid will begin to be pieced together. At this point I don't think either side is blameless. Screwups all around.

[Mr Skeptic]

I wonder what proportion of the people on the ships intended to be violent and what number had no intention of harming anyone. There's only perhaps 20 or 30 violent people evident in the videos, vs. 600 on board.

 

Good question, especially since there was a Nobel Peace Prize winner around.

 

I also still wonder about the claims that Israel fired first. It'd be nice if the complete videos appeared somewhere instead of Greatest Hits compilations.

 

Literally, in this case.

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Israeli forces stole all the recording equipment from the protesters, so the protesters are unable to release their own heavily edited videos.

 

I'd agree with that. The protesters might not be interested in showing the truth. But not everyone understands that heavily edited videos are not evidence of anything, not unless the whole video is also available. They are one-sided stories, and there's no reason Israel would want their enemies making one-sided stories that appear to have a grain of truth (whether they are in fact true or not).

 

I think we should make a law that all confiscated recordings need to become publicly available.

[padren]

I'd agree with that. The protesters might not be interested in showing the truth. But not everyone understands that heavily edited videos are not evidence of anything, not unless the whole video is also available. They are one-sided stories, and there's no reason Israel would want their enemies making one-sided stories that appear to have a grain of truth (whether they are in fact true or not).

 

I think we should make a law that all confiscated recordings need to become publicly available.

 

With regards to the seized video, I can understand why the IDF would do this - they are investigating this matter in depth and those videos are important. If footage shows one of their own officers is lying or shows a specific protester directing others to maximize the violence they can learn a lot.

Granted, people may not like the idea of the IDF doing the investigation, and much prefer all this goes into the hands of a UN investigation, but as of right now they are the ones doing it, so they do have to do their job.

 

Likewise, I do agree somewhat that recordings should be public, but I think it would be better if we could have some sort of "emergency international incident investigation team" from the UN that can immediately go out and collect and catalog these, giving involved parties full access as well as decide to release relevant portions to the public (and not just a person filming their cat acting like people before the trip).

[ecoli]

With regards to the seized video, I can understand why the IDF would do this - they are investigating this matter in depth and those videos are important. If footage shows one of their own officers is lying or shows a specific protester directing others to maximize the violence they can learn a lot.

Granted, people may not like the idea of the IDF doing the investigation, and much prefer all this goes into the hands of a UN investigation, but as of right now they are the ones doing it, so they do have to do their job.

This demonstrates the importance of priors when considering evidence. Padren's and Louis Wu's different analysis of the same evidence. The question, is if they'll admit to changing their minds when/if the evidence comes out?

[ewmon]

I have changed my perspective, and thank you, the San Remo Manual helped. I don't doubt that Israel basically behaved within the letter of the law, and as to Mooeypoo's videos, I don't doubt their veracity and that the protesters were violent.

 

Yet these images are basically "snapshots". What transpired before and after? What's the whole story? People have called for impartiality and transparency.

 

In 20/20 hindsight, of course, did the UN have observers there? It would have been nice to have their cameras, telephoto lenses, parabolic mikes, infrared sensors, etc capturing (and showing) an impartial history in high-tech.

 

Also, does the UN monitor the aid coming off the ships and going into Gaza to the proper recipients? Am I making too much sense here?

[louis wu]

This is conceivable, but you haven't proven it to be true. Nor have you shared your probability estimate of your expectations to see such evidence.

 

For example, frame a hypothesis about "who shot first" and explain how positive and negative evidence would change your framing of the situation. I'd be very interested to see videos of Israeli soldiers shooting first. As for myself, I consider the probability of this being true low, possibly around 25-30%. If it turns out to be true, this would be strong evidence that my general support for Israel's official line is misplaced. I would probably trust the vids showing Israel shooting first, but I don't consider first person accounts very highly. Mainstream news sources would have to vet the videos, because it could be easily doctored, before I revise my priors.

 

I have an opinion, but I don't think I'm unduly confident that Israel official line is the end of the story, nor that the "activists" are blameless.

 

That the activists had recording equipment is indisputable. Mobile phones these days can record very detailed video files, and modern video cameras are very compact. The IDF indisputably shot people so I would expect footage of the shootings to 95%+ probability. My expectations of seeing the footage are small.

 

As to who shot first, I have no way of knowing. The two sides have diametrically opposed versions of the event. But as I have said earlier the Israeli authorities have all the video of the event; they could release all the video and show what happened. Instead they release limited heavily edited versions. It appears that the Israeli authorities may have something to hide. After all several activists were shot to death.

 

It seems you do not start from the neutral position but have an inbuilt assumption that the Israelis are more likely to be honest. Perhaps you can give your reasoning for this position.

I take the view that the video shown so far could possibly be misleading as it is so heavily edited.

 

As to the Al Qaida allegations we talked about earlier I hake the view that it was a reflex smear put out in the manner that two politicians smear each other. Any political campaign manager will tell you that the initial smear gets big headlines, the retraction gets 2 inches on page 92.

[mooeypoo]

Good question, especially since there was a Nobel Peace Prize winner around.

Was he on the Mavy Marmara? I thought he was in the other boats.

 

In any case, the people who fought back are the people who got hurt; the soldiers responded to the attacks. They didn't go to the lower decks and started shooting people who waited there.

 

Literally, in this case.

Yeah. We all do. And sooner.

 

I'd agree with that. The protesters might not be interested in showing the truth. But not everyone understands that heavily edited videos are not evidence of anything, not unless the whole video is also available. They are one-sided stories, and there's no reason Israel would want their enemies making one-sided stories that appear to have a grain of truth (whether they are in fact true or not).

I'm not sure how fair it is to say the video is 'heavily edited' though. It might be a piece of a larger video, but there are no cuts in what we saw - so the portion itself wasn't edited, it seems.

 

Besides, the entire incident took 75 seconds overall before the soldiers started shooting back, as far as I understand. We're not talking about 2 hours worth of video.. the entire incident was very short, and we should probably expect a short video.

 

I do agree that we should just get all of it instead of the bits they release.

 

I think we should make a law that all confiscated recordings need to become publicly available.

Agreed.

[louis wu]

I have changed my perspective, and thank you, the San Remo Manual helped. I don't doubt that Israel basically behaved within the letter of the law, and as to Mooeypoo's videos, I don't doubt their veracity and that the protesters were violent.

 

Can I ask what relevance you think the San Remo manual has?

[ecoli]

 

It seems you do not start from the neutral position but have an inbuilt assumption that the Israelis are more likely to be honest. Perhaps you can give your reasoning for this position.

 

My assumption is not that Israelis (military) are more likely to be honest, but that (at least some) the activists on the boat probably did something to provoke the soldiers into going into attack mode.

 

It's possible that Israelis are covering something up, but it seems likely that they are waiting for further analysis to release the video. The longer this takes, the less likely I will consider this to be likely.

 

As to the Al Qaida allegations we talked about earlier I hake the view that it was a reflex smear put out in the manner that two politicians smear each other. Any political campaign manager will tell you that the initial smear gets big headlines, the retraction gets 2 inches on page 92.

That's true enough, but who originally made this claim, if your intending to say that the IDF is making the smear, it's important to establish the source.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Can I ask what relevance you think the San Remo manual has?

 

It's a good idea to point out that the San Remo manual is not international law. It's more of a guide to the law as it is understood by the experts who drafted the manual.

 

But it should give us a good idea of what international law says about blockades and such.