re: #779 goddamnedfrank

It is possible and reasonable to think both that Israel was entirely in the right, and that boarding the ship at night via helicopter was a mistake. It makes the video look too tactical. It’s harder to sympathize with masked men in body armor dropping down from the darkness above than it is to sympathize with sailors boarding ship to ship in broad daylight.

Again, I’m talking about the psychology of human perception, it is a given that Israel had to board the ship and that the ship’s crew initiated the violence.

However, the real damage of this video is that it continues the slow erosion of the IDF’s most important asset, its reputation as an invincible fighting force. Honestly, that video reminded me a little bit of the video of the ATF’s initial bungled raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. The IDF didn’t gather any new sympathy in getting beaten by pipes and tossed overboard, it pains me to say this but they looked somewhat inept, which is really the last thing they can afford.

The recent action in Lebanon also closed with conditions that allowed Hezbollah to claim to have weathered the IDF’s wrath largely unscathed. Even though this is far from true they have regenerated much of their capability due to foreign support. Israel needs to choose the time, place and strategy of its engagements very carefully if it wants to avoid losing the aura of invincibility it spent half a century building. Winning each engagement has never been enough for Israel, they have always needed to make their enemies confront the absolute futility of initiating violence against them. That sense of futility is what’s at stake. That’s the PR problem that people are talking about.

And that is another argument to have just sank the bastards and have done with.