This morning I said Israel attacked the "Dignity," based on Free Gaza's use of that word. Now Free Gaza is reporting that Israeli boats came out of the darkness and rammed Dignity, severely damaging it. The cable shows are going with "collision." I guess because Israel is describing it that way. But if you're on open seas, in international waters, and navy patrols come up and buzz around you, unasked, then collide with you, and you're severely damaged, it's hard to argue that's an accident. It's an apparent attack.
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I watched this report on CNN
Karl Penhaul from CNN, was actually on the boat
… the boat while still in international waters has been rammed by Israeli patrol boats, our vessel has been damaged …there's been some damage to a roof section and to glass windows around the steering area and the captain says that the vessel is taking on a small amount of water, that at this stage is not life threatening but the ship was very severely rammed by one of those Israeli patrol boats, those patrol boats have been following the vessel for the half hour prior to the ramming incident … they rammed the vessel without warning but after the ramming there was a radio message saying the Israeli patrol boat was accusing the Dignity of being involved in terrorist activities.
If you read the story, it's inconsistent. One witness says the Israeli boats came out of nowhere in the darkness; another says they were tracking the boat for 20 minutes.
I detest the blockade of Gaza, but get your facts straight.
Grumpy, their reports are not necessarily inconsistent. Everybody has radar, even dinky boats. The Dignity and the Israeli patrol boats are blue-water seaworthy, even if marginally so. THEY ALL HAD RADAR. The Dignity could have known they were being trailed by looking at their own radar, which they would be doing anyway, with the Israelis just out of visual range at night with running lights off. This is not even remotely a far-fetched scenario. And you can be certain that if the Israelis went in to ram, they did it fast to minimize the time the Dignity had to evade. The last thing they would have wanted was footage of them attempting to ram an unarmed civilian vessel, and miss and have it broadcast around the world. Not only would they get blamed for the attack, but they would look like d-grade circus clowns, the last image they want to send to the rest of the world right now, when one of the primary objectives of their campaign is to 'restore' Israeli deterrence.
Another factor making a high speed approach for ramming plausible is that they would not have wanted to sink the Dignity. They would have wanted to damage it just enough that it had to abort its run into Gaza. Calibrating damage from a collision has to be pretty damn difficult even if your target is not moving. If your prey were accelerating or turning, it could be disastrous. Minimizing the Dignity's response time maximized their chance to collide at the angle and relative speed of their choice. The story we are hearing so far may indeed be wrong, but what has been reported so far does not prove it.
Grumpy, concerning inconsistancies, they are explained by CNN's Ken Penhaul
Norman's link didn't work for me.
The 'facts' seem to be that Israel can lie repeatedly about the situation with no repercussions whatsoever.
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Israel says the Dignity people have taken it upon themselves to interfere at their own risk (just like Rachael Corrie did), and, though the Dignity was rammed in three spots, it was an accident:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/30/gaza.aid.boat/index.html