Strange. I never agreed with my late father about Israel. By my early teens I had a large number of Jewish friends and I suppose had absorbed their views. I still harbour a strong sympathy for Israel now.
My father by contrast had been in Palestine after the war and was vehemently anti-Israeli. He even regarded the Balfour Declaration, that there should be a homeland for the Jews in Palestine, as a stitch up.
I asked him once how they had permitted the young state to establish itself. He said that after the war there was no taste for killing innocent people, women and children, particularly those who had been persecuted. They arrived in small boats and were let in.
When I heard of the flotilla of small boats arriving from Turkey I wondered whether the wheel was turning a full circle. I don't know. It appears they were warned not to enter the exclusion zone, that Israel had identified known gunrunners amongst them. Israel says it promised to deliver the aid via the usual channels from Ashdod.
Anyway the Israeli army boarded the ships and several people are dead. The BBC carried a report that some Israeli soldiers had been killed or wounded, but said this was from weapons taken from them. I should like to know more about this: what you have to do to take a weapon from an Israeli commando I'm not sure.
I think we need some independent report on this. I don't buy the business about this being just a humanitarian mission - there are better ways to go about that, which would have assured the aid got through. Aid doesn't seem to have been their principal goal. And we must remember that Hamas is a terrorist group, not a political party.
At the same time this hasn't done Israel any favours. We should let some light into the matter.
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