I’d like to point out that I am not taking a side on this issue.

I am restricting myself to the decision of how Israel handled the aid flotilla situation.

Israel treated the aid flotilla as a military exercise instead of a PR action.

The entire situation was ready for the news media. You can just see the headlines: “Unarmed, peace-loving activists who are trying to help are instead attacked and killed”.

Israel should not have boarded the ships  that made up the aid flotilla, especially with armed soldiers. Given the amount of animosity towards the Israeli military, it is highly unlikely they would receive a cordial reception. I mean,  did they think the activists would just sit and welcome them? Offer them some biscuits and hummus maybe?

If you send armed soldiers on board a ship full of disgrunted, angry, passionate people, you have to prepared for the eventuality of a firefight, one that could get very messy.

Here is what they should have done, if they did not want the ships to reach Gaza:

1) Israel should have disabled the propellers of the ships in the aid flotilla, and let them just drift around in the Mediterranean. If the people on the ships wanted to get off, they would have to board a ship provided by the Israelis-which would take them back to Cyprus. Israel should have insisted on a neutral party towing the ships back to a non-Israeli port.

2) If there was a need to an assert control, they should have tried nonlethal means. Israel should have fired hundreds of tear-gas shells at the ships, sickening those onboard until they voluntarily agreed to board a ship provided by Israel-to take them back to Cyprus.

3) Israel said they would take the aid supplies brought on the ships to Gaza. This is a miscalculation because it allows the activists to claim that they succeeded despite the Israeli action. Israel should have said that the ships in the flotilla, all of which are now disabled, would be left to drift unless the ship owners made arrangements to have the ships towed back to a neutral port. The aid supplies would stay on the ships.

The point is that Israel should have thought of this as PR exercise, not a military exercise.

Israel handed the activists a tailor-made, read for TV PR victory. All of the activists and soldiers who were killed – a tragedy, because none of these people needed to die in order for Israel to successfully accomplish an interdiction.