re: #170 darthstar

No, I said they should have tried sending small inspection teams to verify the cargo. Verify.

That is exactly what would have happened if the boat had heaved to when first ordered to do so. It is what happened with the other vessels in the convoy, in fact. The boarding party would still have to exercise due dilligence against the possibility of an attack once aboard. This is customary in all such operations on the high seas and would be especially necessary given the history of this conflict.
Here in Texas, the state police have set up seatbelt and drunk driving checkpoints everywhere this weekend. They don’t do even that without being armed. They are actually more heavily armed than the Israeli boarders, in fact, since they augment their pistols with shotguns rather than paintball guns.

If that didn’t work, then blow the props off their boats and tow the fuckers in…certainly that could have been done without concern about return fire.

That isn’t technically feasible. Ship propellers are metal, usually phospor bronze, and very strongly made. Any charge powerful enough to disable or remove them would risk severe damage to the adjacent hull, ie a good chance the vessel would sink immediately. The exception is to have divers attach shaped charges to the shafts, but that is not possible with a moving prop on a moving vessel.
The same is true of shooting through the hull to disable the engine, with the additional risk of a massive fire.