My Comments Regarding The Flotilla Incident Dear friends, It's not easy to be an Israeli these days.

I see hate from all over the world. I want to speak, to explain, to make people look about it in the other way, but it's hard. I really regret the results, and I wish it was different. If I had known these results I would have opposed the operation. But I didn't. I even thought it was the right thing to do at that time. You'll probably ask me why, so I'll explain. All this mess started 4 years ago when former prime minister Ariel Sharon decided to go out of the Gaza Strip and evacuate all Israeli citizens and soldiers. My party, Meretz, opposed the idea of evacuating Gaza without an agreement with the Palestinian Authority. We said it would weaken the pragmatics and strengthen the radicals. We said it would be an insult to the Fatah movement and will be a victory to Hamas and the other terrorist organizations that used force instead of negotiations. But we had to make a decision: to support Sharon and get out of Gaza or to stay in Gaza. We chose to evacuate the Gaza settlements and return to the international border even without an agreement. The other option of staying in Gaza was even worse. The problem was that all our worries came true. A few months later the Hamas terrorist organization has taken control of Gaza, killing Fatah Palestinian supporters. Hamas terrorists started to attack Israel, even though there was not even one Israeli soldier inside Gaza. Israeli towns and villages around Gaza suffered massive rocket attacks. Civilians were killed, including some children. Israelis living around Gaza had to suffer constant rocket attacks and fear for their lives. Israeli soldiers defending the international border were attacked and killed. One soldier was kidnapped and is being held in Gaza for 4 years without any visits or rights given by the Geneva Convention. In 2009, after a few years of almost no massive retaliation, Israel attacked Gaza. There were a lot of casualties, because terrorists used civil population as a shelter and sacrificed children for their cause. Israel made a mistake and attacked them anyway. I don't run out of responsibility, but what can you do when terrorists fire rockets at your civilians and attack your soldiers? What would you do if instead of neighboring countries you would have a terrorist organization on your border? All these years that Hamas is controlling Gaza Israel doesn't allow free flow of merchandise into that area. Again, there is a reason. We're not sadists. Hamas used construction and agriculture materials in order to build more and more rockets. When we allow metal tubes for construction, they take it and use it as the rocket body. So are other kinds of materials. Food is not included in the blockage. The people of Gaza get food all the time. They're poor, very poor, but not hungry. The blockage can be lifted any minute. They just have to do two things: hand Gaza back to the hands of the Palestinian Authority, the legitimate Palestinian administration, and free the Israeli soldier. His name is Gilad Shalit. He was 19 years old when he was kidnapped during his compulsory military service and he has done nothing wrong. That's inhuman. When they do it there will be no blockage on Gaza. Now back to the recent incident: 6 ships with hundreds of people tried to break the blockage. I'm sure most of them were really good people. They thought Israel tortures Palestinians without any reason. They thought they can do something for the poor people in Gaza. They just didn't thought about the implications of lifting the blockage. They didn't thought about the Israelis that were killed by the rockets. They didn't thought about the fact Hamas is preventing Israel and the Palestinian Authority of

reaching a peace agreement. But I respect them, because they had an ideology and they were willing to do something about it. Israel couldn't allow the ships to break the blockage for the reasons I have described. The government decided to stop it as quickly and clean as it could. They showed the basic plan to the Israeli public. Soldiers were supposed to get aboard the ships and take them to Ashdod harbor in Israel. The cargo was supposed to be checked and transferred to Gaza by land with the inspection of the people who came with the ships. Then the demonstrators were intended to be sent back to their countries. This plan seemed good and human. That's the reason I supported it. But something went really wrong. Israeli Navy called the ships and explained the described plan. They had been told there was no intention of harming them. They were warned to stop heading into Israeli held territorial water, but they proceeded. That's legitimate. They were demonstrating. But they risked the blockage of Gaza that is important because of the described reasons. The Navy decided to take the ships at night, before they enter territorial water. That was a mistake, but the intention was to do it fast under dark and without casualties. 5 of the 6 ships were taken exactly by the plan with no casualties at all. On one ship, the Marmara, things were different. We've all seen the pictures. Israeli commando soldiers came from a helicopter. In order not to risk the demonstrators, they were equipped with paintball guns. They also had pistols, but with a very clear order to use them only in a case of a life risk. They came from the helicopter one by one. Each soldier was taken and brutally hit by 4 people on the boat. Two pistols had been taken from the soldiers and were used against them. One soldier was dropped from the upper deck to the lower one. Some soldiers were stubbed by knifes. The first shots were fired by the people on the ship. Only then the soldiers returned fire. You can see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYjkLUcbJWo&feature=player_embedded The result is very sad: 9 people killed and about 30 wounded, including 7 soldiers. No one in Israel wanted that to happen. I blame the government for not thinking about such a case, but it was not the original intention. Please try to understand Israel's motives. I wish the people of Gaza to be free without the rule of Hamas. I regret this incident and hope for a better future. Ilai