Israeli's Actions...

Having watched the available video - one clip from the Israeli boarding of the vessel filmed by the members of the crew, the other clip from the Israeli Navy - I can only say one thing: this was a deliberate and carefully planned provocation designed to place Israel in yet another untenable situation.

The French would have sunk a ship while it was outside the harbor in Cyprus as a message to not even think about doing what was planned.

The Israeli clip shows what has been reported by other sources as well: that Israel offered an alternative to those on those ships, allowing them to transport the goods the ships were carrying via an Israeli port under the supervision of those on the ships, with no other strings attached. If the people on the ships - I don't want to call them protesters, as they are mostly clearly not - were serious about simply getting goods to a population purportedly in distress, that is the path open to them.

They chose deliberately to ignore this and proceeded on their missions, which was to force Israel to open fire on "unarmed" civilians and "violate international law".

Two things: when you are boarded by the military, you don't answer by swinging fire axes if you are on a peaceful mission. This is clearly visible on the clip from the Israeli boarding, as individual soldiers coming on board via helicopter are attacked immediately. This disqualifies the mission as being peaceful: any discussion of "appropriate force" is sophistic hair splitting and serves to ignore the real question.

What is that?

Whether Israel has the right to defend itself.

This incident - the loss of life is, as always, regrettable - underscores just how far Israel has been demonized. It is the consistent, never ending, hate-filled denial of Israel's right to existence, the cement that keeps virtually all countries in the Middle East from falling apart in an orgy of self-destruction, that is the problem here. There can be no dialogue with people who deepest, most sincere desire is the negation of your existence.

Think of the alien's answer in Independence Day when it was finally asked what it wanted from humans: "For you to die".

There is no difference here. This whole undertaking was a cynical propaganda exercise that will play extremely well to the naive, the ignorant, reinforcing their hatred and denial. Turkey is lost to the West (and membership in the EU will at this point never happen) because of the dominance of religious intolerance in the government there, despite the fact that Israel and Turkey enjoyed good relationships for so many years. Iran's continuing work to transform the Middle East after its own desires continues apace.

The West sleeps.