Taking a knife to a gun fight

Over at the Israeli Defence Force Propaganda Mouthpiece Spokesperson blog, they’ve put up pictures of the dangerous tools weapons and knives used by activists to defend themselves against attack by Israeli naval commandos.

Here’s a devastating collection of stuff you would need on a boat use to overthrow one of the most heavily armed states in the world. You can see such weapons as hammers, spanners and pliers that could never have a single peaceful use on a ship that sails the sea. Also, note that these deadly terrorists must have seen Shaun of the Dead, and noted the potential for records and CDs to be used as deadly shurikens.

Here’s a close up of the six-boat flotilla’s collection of kitchen and pocket knives deadly swords. These could easily be used to devastate a loaf of bread Israeli commando, and whip up a nice wee sandwich stab them to death.

The thing is, this pile of knives, to the casual viewer, looks kind of scary. If this were a street fight in Glasgow, the guy that owned that collection would be someone to worry about. Unfortunately for the propaganda blog, this wasn’t a knife fight in a scheme. The aid workers on the boats clearly actually just had these knives for practical purposes on a boat. If they were really intending to get in a fight with Israeli special forces, you’d think they’d prepare a little better. Especially when you have a look at what they would be up against.

This is the IWI Galil MAR, the standard issue weapon used by Israeli naval commandos. We don’t know for sure this was the rifle used to kill unarmed aid workers, but it probably was. It’s a sub-machine gun designed for close quarters combat and “crowd control”, rather than real military operations against other armies, as evidenced by the fact it’s not much use for penetrating body armour. The reason for this is it’s meant to be used against people who won’t be wearing any, in this case peaceful people trying to bring aid to the people of Gaza.

Here’s a picture of the highly trained, expensively equipped Shayetet 13 naval commandos. If the picture of the knives above gave you any sympathy for these guys, we hope we’ve dispelled that. These men boarded a boat carrying aid by helicopter, and conducted a completely unprovoked assault on a group of aid workers trying to bring help to the people that other Israeli soldiers have kept under a military siege in Gaza.

They used weapons that the Israeli government can only afford because of generous military and economic support from its western allies, including Britain, to murder at least 19 people in cold blood. At least three of the people who were on the boats,  were from Scotland. One of those, Hassan Ghani, a Stirling Uni student from Glasgow, remains unaccounted for, and his father spoke to the demo this evening in Glasgow.