Quote:
Originally Posted by myrrh
I can.
If you read the info on the video it says:
Since the end of August, fishermen from Gaza - frequent targets of the Israeli navy - have been accompanied out to sea by members of the NGO International Solidarity Movement. On 5 October, the pro-Palestinian activists filmed the boats getting fired at with machine guns and water cannons.
Just one round and the bullets ricochet across the water to this huddle of fishermen. Next, a high-powered water cannon scours the deck for several minutes, damaging the vessel. This footage was filmed on 5 October by an NGO that supports Palestine's "demand for freedom". For almost two months, six international volunteers from the International Solidarity Movement have entered the daily lives of Gazan fishermen. They report that the same event regularly repeats itself: Israeli navy ships aim at Palestinian fishing vessels with machine guns and water cannons.
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I read that, but frankly, I know nothing about who posted the video, and all the provided reports mentioned are from "pro-Palestinian" sources. I typically look for more objective sources before reaching any confident conclusions myself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by myrrh
Now whether or not this was in Israeli waters (are there Palestinian waters?) or if there has been boat terrorists is another issue. This clearly points, at least to me, that Israel is once again over the top with it's way of dealing with the Palestinians. Surely after shooting live rounds, then water cannoning the boat, then repeated shooting is uncalled for?
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"Whether or not this was in Israeli waters or if there has been boat terrorists" is
not "another issue" at all. It's absolutely tied to the issue at hand.
If the fishing boat is in restricted waters, and
if there have been incidents of fishing boats being used to launch surprise terrorist attacks, then that would explain why the boat in the video is being harassed by the Israeli gunship. But we have absolutely no idea what happened to cause this incident. If you're right and it's just unmotivated aggression, then I'm totally on board with condemning it, but we simply don't know from what you've provided.
Quote:
Originally Posted by myrrh
I don't see how they could not tell this was civilians.
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That's exactly the catch. I mean regardless of where your sympathies lie in the Israeli Palestinian conflict, you must realize that it's virtually impossible to be certain who's a civilian and who's got hostile intent when terrorists have employed such vile tactics as
strapping mentally retarded people with explosives and sending them off as suicide bombers. When you keep that in mind, it's quite simple to see how a fishing vessel in restricted waters could be viewed as suspect. But again, we simply have no context for this video with which to reach any clear conclusions.
You may be comfortable make sweeping assumptions about it, but I'm not.