Chandni Goel sent me a forward this morning of a mail written by one of her classmates from Radzyner School of Law, Israel. I reproduce the mail below:
From: Ella Ran
Date: Tue, Jun 1, 2010 at 9:59 PM
Subject: There’s two sides to every story.Here you can see up close footage of yesterdays crisis, when Israeli soldiers boarded the last flotilla ship from Turkey. Another thing, you might not see the first time you watch it (and you can see it better in other videos) is that the soldiers are using paintball guns. This is what they board with, and didn’t use their firearms until after they were being beaten with metal rods, chairs, knives, etc. for I don’t know exactly how long.
There’s also another video from the ship where you can see the soldier pull out his firearm and start shooting people in the feet first, so as not to lethally injure anyone as he’s trying to defend himself.
Bottom line: this “humanitarian mission” wasn’t so peaceful to begin with, and the outcome was terrible. Tragically several people on board the Mavi marmara vessel were killed. I’m sure casualties could have been avoided, but this is the reality of the situation, and people everywhere are outraged at Israel. Tragic indeed…
The other version of the story is that Israeli Navy commandos had entered the flotilla with the original peaceful intent of ordering the procession to stop. However on boarding the ships it appeared that the activists were actually armed, and had realy weapons with them. The commandos were only armed with paintball guns, and were taken and beaten up by the protestors. As a result one Israeli soldier got wounded and lost consciousness. The Israeli forces were then – only then – allowed to open fire.
*
Meanwhile Keshav in the Hindu on the attack:
*
By far the most informed discussion of the international law implications of the flotilla attack are Prof. Julian Ku’s post, and the subsequent comments, here. Do have a look.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
You forgot to attach the video which is the essence of the email.