The thing that strikes me most about Mavi Marmara debacle is the apparent lack of foresight on the part of the IDF. What exactly did they expect to happen?
If you drop 15 heavily armed commandos on to a ship of 600 activists in the middle of the night, it’s likely they will view it as an attack and fight back. The isolated commandos will likely fire on the activists when attacked and viola, a failure that makes the Tehran hostage rescue look downright competent. This isn’t rocket science; it’s barely crowd control 101. (The videos above and below give a good picture of how chaotic the whole operation was.)
To be absolutely clear, I’m not saying Israel = evil and activists = martyrs or vice versa. We don’t know enough to make those determinations, and anyone who tells you that they do has an agenda.
What is clear is that if the IDF had waited until dawn and boarded the ship with more, less conspicuously armed soldiers, it’s likely things wouldn’t have gone as badly.
- Evan
If you drop 15 heavily armed commandos on to a ship of 600 activists in the middle of the night, it’s likely they will view it as an attack and fight back. The isolated commandos will likely fire on the activists when attacked and viola, a failure that makes the Tehran hostage rescue look downright competent. This isn’t rocket science; it’s barely crowd control 101. (The videos above and below give a good picture of how chaotic the whole operation was.)
To be absolutely clear, I’m not saying Israel = evil and activists = martyrs or vice versa. We don’t know enough to make those determinations, and anyone who tells you that they do has an agenda.
What is clear is that if the IDF had waited until dawn and boarded the ship with more, less conspicuously armed soldiers, it’s likely things wouldn’t have gone as badly.
- Evan
