Talk:Gaza flotilla raid/Archive 16

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UNHRC report

I'm a little surprised (well, not really) that the people adding information from the UNHRC report [2] neglected to mention that the fact finding mission said that the flotilla's primary objective was political rather than humanitarian (paragraph 80) and that the mission also said that where video evidence released by Israel conflicted with eyewitness accounts, they preferred the eyewitness accounts (paragraph 20), which is not exactly how jurists usually treat evidence. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 11:45, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The flotilla's primary objective was admitted by the organizers and participants to be political. That's not a surprise. And "the Mission was obliged to treat with extreme caution the versions released by the Israeli authorities" isn't the same as "we prefer the eyewitness accounts." If this were a common law court the IDF would have had to introduce all of the confiscated recordings into evidence; only introducing select portions of the original and suppressing the rest would run afoul of the best evidence rule/evidence disclosure. I don't think adding either of the proposed (?) changes is necessary although it would be helpful to see your sources. Sol (talk) 13:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

The source is linked above. I got it from the article. Nice selective quoting, by the way. Here's the full sentence - "In light of the seizure of cameras, CCTV footage and digital media storage devices and the subsequent disclosure of only a selected and minute quantity of it, the Mission was obliged to treat with extreme caution the versions released by the Israeli authorities where those versions did not coincide with the evidence of eyewitnesses who appeared before it". No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Not to the report, to the source analyzing the report in the suggested manner. I like the selective quoting accusation. Sol (talk) 01:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Northern Cyprus

Good day, This occupied part of Cyprus is considered illegaly annexed by Turkey by the international community, i.e. UN Security Council resolutions 353(1974), 357(1974), 358(1974), 359(1974), 360(1974), 365(1974), you disagree? Hope&Act3! (talk) 02:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Off topic. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 02:32, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

UN-backed claims of illegality - absolutely insufficient visibility.

Given the authoritive source and the heavy weight of the statement, the UN-based statement about the illegality of the raid should be acknowledged in the opening paragraphs (e.g., "in Sept. 2010, an Independent United Commission has concluded that the Israeli raid has been executed in violation of applicable Internatational Law", after the raid description.

The illegality determined nder the UN investigation also outweighs any generic or partisan legal opinion. It should be the first opening statement of the "Legal Assessment". Burying it among opinion of random observers taken here and there months ago is absolutely inappropriate.

Sources (dozens) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/world/middleeast/23briefs-Flotilla.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.134.26.82 (talk) 12:10, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the second statement (well, sort of), not with the first. The reason I don't agree with the first is that this isn't the UN fact-finding mission that all the buzz has been about. This is a wrongdoing-finding commission. Its mandate was too narrow and one-sided to produce results worth including in the lead, and even the least scrupulous of readings reveals a clear bias. But, most importantly, the media attention devoted to this report has been very small, especially when compared with THE UN report (with a capital 'U')--the one to be submitted to the Secretary-General, that is yet to have come out. Saepe Fidelis (talk) 08:04, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with unsigned. Regarding Saepe's points, media visibility is not a factor we need to worry about. When the other UN report is issued we should add its relevant findings, but that too is irrelevant to the issue of including the UN report that was issued. I added some of its findings, about "execution" of passnegers but it was removed without adequate objection based on WP rules.--NYCJosh (talk) 02:44, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

There is no valid reason whatsoever to not include the Information on the report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the lead, thus it has just been added with copious amounts of credible sources and thus this article is improved.Mmcitizen101 (talk) 22:54, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

I've reverted your addition for two reasons: 1) it contained technical errors 2) the matter has been discussed already here and here, please read. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 23:06, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Large undiscussed changes / POV check

Hi, I've noticed that there have since early october there have been some substantial changes to this article which haven't been discussed on this talk page. These include removal of a description of the IHH, as well as changes to wording and descriptions which may not be considered balanced. I think it may be valuable for editors to undertake a POV check of the recent changes. Clovis Sangrail (talk) 13:45, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Citation 100 does not match

• Gaza flotilla raid#cite note-100

The webcitation.org does not match the quote nor the original source. I dont know how to fix this.--Metallurgist (talk) 01:04, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

What Was Expected

Did the Activist think they would sail to Gaza? Did the Israelis expect armed passengers ? Why did the passengers attack or resist ? Is the fact it was in international waters a Red Herring neither side disagrees about the ultimate destination ? What does it mean that there had been prior raid with out much struggle? I think that answers to these questions are lacking and need to be answered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.1.115 (talk) 22:55, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Lead section: "large sums of money"

Some of the activists on the Mavi Marmara have had larger sums of money in their possession at the time of the raid. However, there appears to be no reliable source that has provided information on whether these people "carried" the money in the sense of "transporting" it. Also, saying that "the flotilla" carried large sums of money is not the same as saying that some individuals carried large sums of money. 10.000 US dollars is a large sum for an individual to carry, but it is not a large sum if carried as part of the organization of the flotilla. "Large sums" of money, in the context of the current wording used in the lead section, rather sounds like several hundreds of thousands of US dollars, rather than a few people carrying a few thousand US dollars each.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:07, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

These parts should be moved to some other part of the page, it should not remain in the lead. Kavas (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Furkan Dogan- incorrect age cited in article

Hi, Furkan Dogan is cited as having been murdered at age 19, however his birthday is October 21st, 1991, making him 18 in may of 2010. pretty straight forward correction (compared to all the other subjective sparring above me!)- can someone authorized to edit this page apply the proper age?

thanks wikipedia :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.88.88.46 (talk) 01:51, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Lead section: improvised weapons

Tools and materials have been used as improvised weapons. The lead section, however, states that the flotilla carried improvised weapons, thus implying that the weapons would have been improvised and then brought onto the ship(s). Furthermore, "carried" is being used in the sense of "being transported to the destination", while the varios materials that are being mentioned in the lead were simply present on the ships. For the lead, the enumeration of the various items seems to be overly detailed.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm eating supper with a fork and a knife right now at my laptop. Am I engaging in carrying 'improvised weapons'? This is a despicably non-neutral article. Its straight up smear. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.119.175 (talk) 03:25, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

This knife and fork you speak of, how many Jews are you stabbing with them? If it's more than zero, you're using improvised weapons. Use non-violent means to protest their stealing your dinner next time. CoombaDelray (talk) 04:56, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

• The ship cannot have been carrying "improvised" weapons, since the definition of improvised is "made or said without previous preparation". They can't have been improvised weapons before they were used as weapons. Clovis Sangrail (talk) 02:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Date is passed

Seems pretty neutral to me all things considered. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.134.45.100 (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Turkey Islamist goverment supported the raid

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/turkey-denies-offering-assistance-to-gaza-flotilla-organizers-1.320328 This should be added to the article —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.134.102.15 (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

The government initially did what it can do so stop the flotilla (http://www.kanaldhaber.com.tr/Haber/Yasam-34/Mavi-Marmaradaki-buyuk-sir-10168.aspx). However, after the flotilla Erdoğan became a hero in Arabic world and the goverment started supporting the flotilla. Kavas (talk) 22:58, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

To the point that, IIRC, they suggested that the Turkish Navy would send warships to escort future Gaza relief flotillas. 75.76.213.106 (talk) 09:45, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggested merge

I suggest we merge the "IDF accounts", "journalists' accounts", and "passengers' accounts", as they largely correspond with each other. The understood sense is that an initial Israeli boat assault was repulsed, a second attack by helicopter and speedboat succeeded, the troops were attacked and responded with paintballs and live fire, and three were taken hostage. Its better than a bunch of contradictionary accounts to confuse the reader.--RM (Be my friend) 23:54, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The only problem is your language.

"Boat assault" - you mean the attempt to board from a small boat?

"Attack by helicopter" - this is where the military personnel rappelled from the helicopters?

Lets try to use encyclopedic rather than journalistic language in the article

Support:

• Support - assuming NPOV language use. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 00:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
• Support This should be easy enough. Some accounts will receive less weight. This will read better.Cptnono (talk) 06:15, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Oppose:

• Oppose (for now) Many reliable sources still refer to the different sources when reporting about details of the event. Of course, we may migrate those aspects on which there are factual statements supported by a majority of reliable sources to the top of the section.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

You make a valid point, and it may be that source reliability needs to be re-evaluates at the same timeKoakhtzvigad (talk) 03:34, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

• oppose There are key differences in the accounts. This article has moved more and more into accepting the Israeli account of affairs, already, so there is no need to try to give the impression of some kind of agreement across the parties. ValenShephard (talk) 04:01, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

One of the problems is that few civilians accepted the invitation to appear before the Turkel Commission. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 22:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose The accounts from the different sides are indeed somewhat conflicting, better to leave that clear rather than present some glossed over version. un☯mi 15:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

They are not conflicting in many major details, just minor ones such as whether there were summary executions, when there was firing, etc. The general outline of the flotilla raid is agreed by both sides (IE the IDF was met with resistance, three soldiers captured, and the troops responded with live fire.) Its much less confusing to have it in one section summary.--RM (Be my friend) 19:54, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

You state that there is not agreement on when the firing started, yet then state that there is broad agreement that the troops responded with live fire, some of the journalist accounts would disagree. un☯mi 21:42, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Although you won't find anything in the sources, my information is that many initial reports to journalists were confused, with people hit at close range by paintballs reporting as being injured when "fired on". In hind sight this would be correct because although this ammunition is non-lethal, anyone who has never been hit by a paintball, and hit without wearing protection, at close range, is certainly going to get bruised. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 22:35, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

There is also disagreement on what kind of "paintball" munition has been used, and at what range this munition would need to be considered potentially lethal.  Cs32en Talk to me  01:24, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Disagreement between who? I'm unaware of any paintball ammunition being lethal even at point-blank range Koakhtzvigad (talk) 07:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that IDF infrared footage as well as footage from the ship clearly shows troops being attacked as they descend onto the ship's deck. We can put that whether they fired from helicopters is disputed. Once they rappelled down, they were attacked, and responded with paintballs (reportedly filled with skin irritants according to Ron Ben-Yishai or shards of glass according to Espen Goeffing), stun guns, and according to activists with rubber bullets, and eventually live fire (most activists and journalists agree that the live fire came later).--RM (Be my friend) 18:59, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

name

Why is this called a raid if the captains of the vessels had prior warning? Koakhtzvigad (talk) 01:27, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

The name comes from the terms that reliable sources tend to use, here is one example. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 18:21, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

It is self-evidently NOT a reliable source.

I quote, "The military operation severely strained relations with Ankara - a long-time ally of Israel." - Since it is acknowledged as a military operation, it needs to be examined as such. It further says "The 300-page Turkel Committee report found the actions of the Israeli navy in the raid and Israel's naval blockade of Gaza were both legal under international law." It therefore acknowledges that the military operation was a naval blockade. Now the article you pointed to quotes the Türkel report, which makes clear even if you only read the Summary that "on January 3, 2009 Israel established a naval blockade off the coast of the Gaza Strip as part of its armed conflict with Hamas." The Blockade runners approached the coast on May 31, 2010, i.e. well over a year later. "IDF forces intercepted and boarded the Mavi Marmara during an operation to enforce the naval blockade against the Gaza Strip." There was nothing sudden about the intercept. Firstly intercepts at sea are performed according to certain military procedures. It is almost impossible to raid a vessel at sea in daytime, because one of the duties of the crew is to ensure it is not boarded, for example by pirates. The crew at least were very aware of the rules of the sea in a blockade. However, public statements made by the people on board the vessels before they sailed suggest that they were aware of the Israeli intention to stop them, therefore no element of surprise can be claimed to justify the operation being called a raid. The fact that approach by the IDF inspection teams was made by a helicopter made it even less of a surprise unlike the pirate boardings made from small boats.

Besides that it says in the article that IDF naval vessels communicated with the blockade running vessels "...ordering the ships to follow them to port or otherwise be boarded." This constitutes a warning, so there can be no suggestion of a surprise.

Clearly therefore this was not a raid.

So why would you use the BBC snippet news story, and ignore the entire report it was based on that included two foreign experts who were also appointed to act as observers: Lord David Trimble and Brigadier-General (ret.) Kenneth Watkin? Koakhtzvigad (talk) 22:18, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, have a look at WP:POVTITLE. Other sources that use the term "raid" include these: 1, 2, 3 and 4. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 22:30, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

However, the labeling of the operation as a raid didn't come from these sources, but from the 'activists' that were interviewed following the operation. The journalists will invariably use the more sensational phrase in titles as a rule, and this should not have been used by Wikipedia editors, that should have known better. This IS an encyclopedia article, and not a 'front page' one. Just because journalists coin a title does not make it so. Moreover, it is so described in the article, where as clearly the POVTITLE does not encourage restating the POV in the article. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 22:48, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Multiple reliable sources have characterized the operation as a raid. This is their own choice of language, they do not refer to statements of activists in this context. A raid does not need to be sudden or would necessarily need to happen without warning.  Cs32en Talk to me  06:46, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

We may differ on what constitutes a 'reliable source'. This is because journalists write to sell their publications, or at least to be noticed, which are not the prerogatives in encyclopedic writing. Please read raid (military) or even Police raid Koakhtzvigad (talk) 08:05, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course we may differ, but when editing Wikipedia we'll both have to use Wikipedia's definition. If most reliable sources, according to Wikipedia's definition, referred to the incident as "Zimbabwe Christmas Tree", then that would be the title of this article. For example the Boston Tea Party wasn't really a "tea party", but that's the term that most sources use of it. --Dailycare (talk) 16:24, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The lead section of the article raid (military) says that raids are being executed to "finish with the raiding force quickly retreating to a previous defended position prior to the enemy forces being able to respond in a co-ordinated manner or formulate a counter-attack". While there may be some miscalculation on the part of the Israeli military with regard to the level of preparedness on the flotilla's ships, this appears to have been their intention, and this is probably reflected in the choice of the word "raid" in reliable sources. That's also why the whole event happened during the night. Were it not for the element of surprise and confusion, an attacker in possession of overwhelming force would choose to attack in plain daylight.  Cs32en Talk to me  18:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

My Oxford concise dictionary calls a raid "a rapid surprise attack on peoples or premises", the action by Israel was rapid and had elements of surprise (as noted above). ValenShephard (talk) 19:53, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

The military raid article is incomplete to say the least.

In fact the IDF purpose was an inspection of the vessels' cargo for contraband, and not for a "quick retreat". A heli-borne insertion of inspection teams is standard practice, as was the case during the blockade of Iraq. Confusion was created by the people on board that were definitely ready and waiting, and used violence against the inspection teams. This is just another proof this was not a raid. How do you suppose one intends to quickly retreat via a single ladder onto a helicopter off a deck of a ship? This is why the sources you call "reliable" are completely fraudulent by using a vast exaggeration of the insertion in a purely sensationalist way.

My point was that the element of surprise is suppose to eliminate the ability of the opposition to resist (some was expected) in any significant and organized way. Where the raid is in an area that includes civilians (a known), to minimise on any civilians being injured, the raid may be a pre-dawn one when most people are asleep.

However, the IDF announced blockade months and months before, and the stated intention of the flotilla organizers was to run the blockade, resisting inspection in the process, therefore there could be no element of surprise for the IDF, as indeed the images showed at 4AM.

There was no rapidity as the article clearly states that the IDF vessels shadowed the flotilla, communicating with the crews for some time, and only later the heli-borne insertion was commenced.

What you are doing is denying the obvious, and twisting words to seemingly satisfy a very definite desire to present a particular point of view that seeks to suggest some sort of premeditated intention to conduct a raid that is more appropriate during combat operations. However, few combat operations are conducted when armed with paint-ball guns and side-arms. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 10:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, you say the article is incomplete. What do you want to add to it? If you have sourced information to add, please do so. Please stop casting aspersions on other editors. It doesn't help at all to say, as you do above "the sources you call 'reliable' are completely fraudulent". For one thing I don't know which editor and which sources you mean. A source can be reliable and you or I disagree with it. We are talking about a (sort of) military conflict here, and of course there will be wildly differing opinions. We reflect what the sources say. We do not make our own interpretations of politics. It isn't easy, so please give people a break and value their contributions as you hope people will value yours. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:27, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm not saying its incomplete, I'm saying its utterly wrong by being sensationalist!

Why should I value the contributions of other editors when they clearly don't know what they are writing about, but simply take the word of journalist with an entirely different agenda to that of Wikipedia.

I says "fraudulent" with full justification since it is a fraud to misrepresent something, in this case a vessel inspection at sea incident for a military raid.

No, its not a "sort of" military action at all. The repeatedly stated intention of the IDF was to inspect the ships' cargo. Just because it was a military unit performing this inspection task is not unusual. In most cases elsewhere the inspection team would have included either naval or marine personnel armed with their usual weapons, and not paint-ball guns.

Maritime interdiction operations is not a new concept http://naval.review.cfps.dal.ca/archive/4321185-0654948/vol3num4art8.pdf. The Canadians call them Naval Boarding Party Teams (NBP), and the US Navy call them Maritime Interception Operation Teams (MIO), and they do it under the auspices of the NATO Operation Ocean Shield, although they are not faced with looking for vessels such as MV Francop. However, their job is still to visit, board, search and seizure, and the US Navy has 24 such seven-men teams. It classifies boardings as: the common Level I and II armed teams that board compliant ships in nonhostile situations, Level III teams trained to board noncompliant ships with high freeboard, thus the need for helicopter insertion, and SEALs handle opposed, or Level IV, boardings. The IDF sent in their equivalent of SEALs, but virtually unarmed by comparison. Why don't your "sources" know this? How "reliable" are they if they don't know the regulations under which boarders operated? In fact they were in breach of regulations. No other navy in the World carried paint-ball guns during boarding operations, even when operating off own coasts!

And its not like the heli-borne boardings are carried out only to inspect vessels, as Operation Megaphone shows. In any case, naval troops from a variety of states carried out similar routine inspections compliant to the UN resolution in enforcing Iraq sanctions. This is no different. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 14:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Koakhtzvigad, see my comment in this thread timestamped 16:24. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 16:07, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I tried to ignore your reference, but if you must bring it up....the Boston Tea Party was an allegoric metaphor, and a simultaneous satire on the relationship between the Crown and the colonies. It is further communicated in the Revolutionary Tea

There was an old lady lived over the sea

And she was an island queen.

Her daughter lived off in a new country

With an ocean of water between.

5 The old lady's pockets were full of gold

But never contented was she,

So she called on her daughter to pay her a tax

Of three pence a pound on her tea,

Of three pence a pound on her tea.

10 "Now, mother, dear mother," the daughter replied,

"I shan't do the thing you ax.

I'm willing to pay a fair price for the tea,

But never the three-penny tax."

"You shall," quoth the mother, and reddened with rage,

15 "For you're my own daughter, you see,

And sure 'tis quite proper the daughter should pay

Her mother a tax on her tea,

Her mother a tax on her tea."

And so the old lady her servant called up

20 And packed off a budget of tea;

And eager for three pence a pound, she put in

Enough for a large family.

She ordered her servant to bring home the tax,

Declaring her child should obey,

25 Or old as she was, and almost full grown,

She'd half whip her life away,

She'd half whip her life away.

The tea was conveyed to the daughter's door,

All down by the ocean's side,

30 And the bouncing girl poured out every pound

In the dark and boiling tide;

And then she called out to the island queen,

"Oh, mother, dear mother," quoth she,

"Your tea you may have when 'tis steeped quite enough

35 But never a tax from me,

But never a tax from me."

The issue here is that there was a correct term to use for describing the incident, and in any case, the use here is of an analogy (a logical method) and not subtle literary figure of speech. However, the analogy fails on even the most basic level of analysis. Wikipedia is after all supposed to be prose which is not derived from a 21st century version of Yellow journalismKoakhtzvigad (talk) 23:36, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

"Raid" is reliably sourced. It should stay unless you can show that another term is more frequently used in RS. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I wonder which reliable sources are being used in Turkish Wikipedia, because they are calling it Gazze filosu saldırısı - Gaza fleet attack Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Night vision goggles

>as well as ballistic vests, gas masks, night-vision goggles, and large sums of money,[6] according to the reference http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3897667,00.html , there were no night vision goggles possessed by any of the suspects. 67.170.106.201 (talk) 21:05, 11 February 2011 (UTC)

Tipo on the text

"on May 31, 2010 in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea.." should have one period only, and not two. (sorry if this is not the correct way of introducing a suggestion, is my first contributionn). Jorgecarleitao (talk) 15:21, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

See Also link (Bahrain Aid Flotilla)

This link was recently added to the See Also section.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bahrain_Aid_Flotilla

This seems to have been added as a way to promote the Bahrain flotilla, rather than because there is any connection.

I'm removing the link for the time being. If you feel this was in error feel free to re-add it, but please put your reasoning in the discussion section. Zuchinni one (talk) 22:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I find it surprising that this article was modeled in such a pro-israeli manner. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.70.228.78 (talk) 21:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

POV

This article is extremely pro-Israel. --J4\/4 <talk> 16:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree. The sections describing the individual accouns is ok, but other parts are clearly biased.Andraxxus (talk) 12:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The article went full circle, from pro-activist to now pro-Israel, in some respects. I have already discovered sources where information from within them was cherrypicked, where important details were ignored often because they contradicted the Israeli account. I am also worried by the amount of Israeli Government material which is being used to make up key arguments and passages in the article. These primary sources should be substituted. ValenShephard (talk) 04:04, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably this is the effect of Israel having been the only one to complete an investigation into the incident. However, substituted sounds very POV. Every source should be evaluated on its own merits and not substituted because it is inconvenient to someone. Koakhtzvigad (talk) 06:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

We should use primary sources with great caution, per WP:PRIMARY. In particular, primary sources should not determine the weight of different aspects of a topic or of different views of an event.  Cs32en Talk to me  06:49, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

And interviews with "survivors" are not primary sources? I'd say they also qualify for WP:OR if the journalists were Wikipedia editors Koakhtzvigad (talk) 15:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a reason why many of these articles are pro-Israel. Zionist movements are learning their people how to play the system that is wikipedia:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t52LB2fYhoY They are getting courses about how to fight their 'zionist war' on wikipedia, what the rules are and how to find the loopgholes. There is no solution to this until their force is neutralized by people in Gaza doing the same thing. But of course those people have nothing, let alone a computer. --95.96.30.170 (talk) 20:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, PA ranks alongside Hungary and Serbia on the MPI, and it's not unlikely that Gaza is even poorer. But apparently they have internet cafes, so I think they must have a few computers as well :-) http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5424671.ece http://opennet.net/research/profiles/gazawestbank —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ketil (talk • contribs) 04:39, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I came here to point out this youtube video as well. I'm glad someone else has already mentioned it. It is a bit old anyway but has anyone identified the user claiming to make POV edits in the video? Perhaps tracing the other articles he edits would be a good way to counter some vandalism.--27.32.168.222 (talk) 11:32, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

Problematic and suspicious information

This article is utterly on the side of Israel. Especially about the flotilla participants' use of weapons, there are many -actually unconfirmed and proven to be wrong by the recent UN Report on the flotilla- information. And the article is written in a way to make us believe some weapons were exactly leakt in the ship by the participants. The resources given to confirm these are generally also coming from the biased or anti Islamic (which is another problematic issue put forward in the article as if all these actions against the blockade in Gaza were organized by radical Islamic groups ) broadcast. Another idea put forward in this article is that Israel offered the flotilla to hand the humanitarian aid to themselves so that they can transmit them to Gaza. However it is obviously known that Israel forces do not allow all the aid coming from the world into Gaza. Beatrice.rfb (talk) 12:12, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree, there are currently FOUR photographs of IDF soldiers including a repeated photo in the references section of a solider being thrown over board, one injured being 'dragged by activists' one having their wounds tended to and one allegedly showing soldiers being beaten. There is currently only ONE photo of a victim of the raid. There is a great joke from the late Mitch Hedberg that goes something like this: You know when you see an advertisement for a casino, and they have a picture of a guy winning money? That's false advertising, because that happens the least. That's like if you're advertising a hamburger, they could show a guy choking. "This is what happened once." ... That is how I feel about these misleading photographs. It draws visual attention the the IDF "victims" without showing the casualties from the Flotilla Participants who are the real victims. We can't say that in the article though without a citation. I was long skeptical of the jokes about Zionists 'vandalizing' the Wikipedia and changing history to favor Israel. But over the past two weeks I've witnessed this myself (most of it is archived for all to see thankfully, although most will never go looking for it) and have made a couple comments which received deflecting replies. There is a real video on you tube regarding "Zionist Editing on Wikipedia" which interviews Israelis at a seminar regarding editing Wikipedia because it is the largest source of information in the world at this time. Here is a direct quote from the video that is not taken out of context - “if someone searches ‘the Gaza flotilla,’ we want to be there; to influence what is written there, how it’s written and to ensure that it is balanced and Zionist in nature.” ... Now I'm not going to argue with being balanced but the current article is CLEARLY unbalanced in favor of Israel. Nobody wants the article to be Zionist in nature, that would make it biased as it currently is. I personally barely recall the Gaza flotilla incident and what I do remember was that it defied an "illegal" blockade in the name of peace and when IDF troops got involved they were attacked and 'forced to defend themselves'. I believed this because it was presented to me on the news that way. This article mostly supports that Israel side of the story and needs desperately to be balanced with many of the biased sources removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryal-oh (talk • contribs) 18:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

As an immediate measure, I suggest that material sourced to this source name="testimonies">http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/English/eng_n/pdf/ipc_e162.pdf be removed from the text, since that document is released by some "terrorism information centre" in Israel and the text is very much what you'd expect. Secondly, the article is way too long and has too much text along the lines of "then the second soldier grabbed the rope". --Dailycare (talk) 21:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Come on, isn't it enough "Zionist cabal" soapboxing for one week? Gimme a break, I briefly looked through the papers from the famous seminar; it's more or less a copy-paste of 5 pillars. On terrorism-info.org.il: not sure about complete removal, but since it's an NGO it should be, at least, properly attributed. On the article length: I completely agree with Dailycare, may be it's the time for massive cleanup. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 22:44, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this sentence means: "some weapons were exactly leakt in the ship by the participants". And the UN report actually confirms that passengers prepared weapons to be used against the soldiers (paragraph 101). Furthermore, the UN report also confirms that passengers used fists, sticks, metal rods and knives to attack the soldiers (paragraph 115-116). So, I'm really not sure what you're talking about here.

As for terrorism.info.org.il, they are an NGO with a mission dedicated to researching and reporting on terrorism. What's wrong with that? Being based out of Israel is not enough of a reason to remove a source.

But I do agree that the photos have certainly been tilted toward the Israel side. Once upon a time, I complained that the photos were tilted toward the protesters and not showing any of them attacking soldiers. Now, I agree it's gone too far in the other direction. And that should be fixed.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 00:36, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Being an NGO with a mission isn't enough to become a source. If a reliable secondary source publishes terrorism.info.org.il's material then it can be sourced from there. --Dailycare (talk) 20:31, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Dailycare, I don't know where you got that idea. What's the difference between a for-profit group reporting on the news, and a non-profit group reporting on the news?!? Furthermore, the identifying reliable sources page says that "primary sources" should be used with "caution" to avoid original research. But it definitely does _not_ say that they cannot or should not be used. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 02:50, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

One difference is that the other may be known for a professional editorial policy and fact-checking, whereas the other isn't. One reason secondary sources are preferred is precisely because that way we can let them pick and choose from among primary ones. And of course, also primary sources need to be reliable. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center is according to its page "often regarded as being the "public face of Israeli intelligence". That may not be a ringing endorsement of reliability specifically with regard to this raid and the behaviour of the activists and Israeli soldiers during the raid. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Huh, you know that you can't base your argument on something that Wikipedia says :) --ElComandanteChe (talk) 21:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Very pro Israel article, especially the actual raid part.It includes loads of what the IDF said happened and little of what others said happened. Al Jazerra reporter on the ship said that the Israelis fired live rounds before they even boarded from helicopters and hit a guy in the head standing by him.That was reported at the time on virtually every news channel but did not even make it into the raid article.Why is that?I suggest putting it in because at the moment it just reads like and IDF report.Owain the 1st (talk) 12:54, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't see it. The reporter also claims that one person was shot in the head from a helicopter. Where is the body? Have you entertained the notion that the IDF account might be closer to what actually happened, than the sum of all activist accounts? Where are the "terrible injuries" caused by paintball ammo with "glass shards" in them? Who are the missing passengers, allegedly killed and presumably hid by the IDF? Ketil (talk) 12:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You do not see what?Where is the body?There were 9 of them, maybe you missed the news.I suggest you read the UN report into the events as that will tell you that the Israeli version of events is mostly fantasy as usual.Owain the 1st (talk) 13:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

IIRC, here were eight people shot with soldier's side arms, and one killed with a bean bag shot. If somebody was indeed shot from a helicopter, it's most likely with a rifle or mounted gun, and in any case, he should have been shot from above. Now, which of them was it? I have seen absolutely no corroborating evidence of this, and I find it most likely that the reporter is simply mistaken. But if you have specific references, please bring them forward!  As for the UN report (presumably the HRC one?) it just lists a bunch of condemations, it doesn't provide the grounds for making these conclusions. So the only real information in it is that the HRC is very critical of Israel. Ketil (talk) 19:35, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You are incorrect to state that eight people where shot with soldiers side arms for starters.I will quote the Turkish Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul.said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound, to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other victim suffered multiple wounds. "All [the bullets] were intact. This is important in a forensic context. When a bullet strikes another place it comes into the body deformed. If it directly comes into the body, the bullet is all intact."

He added that all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds. Of the other round, he said: "It was the first time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns. It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in the brain."Also from the Turkish report into the incident..Turkey's report said two of the activists killed on the vessel, the Mavi Marmara, were shot from a military helicopter.

"The Israeli soldiers shot from the helicopter onto the Mavi Marmara using live ammunition and killing two passengers before any Israeli soldier descended on the deck," said the report, published by state-run news agency Anatolian.Owain the 1st (talk) 19:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Che, good point. However there are sources on that page that substantially support the gist of the statement. --Dailycare (talk) 19:57, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Well, the issue with the whole article is that it was written up as the events evolved using the press. Most of the references are to mainstream press sources, but some aren't, and should be replaced. I wonder if it is possible now to find some better sources, with more analysis than was possible at the time. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Owain, I'm all for putting back up the reports that a journalist on board the ship _claimed_ that Israel fired live rounds for the helicopters at passengers. It shouldn't have been removed. And it _could_ be true. However IMHO, it should be countered by the UN report on the Flotilla which were "unsatisfied that this was the case". -- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:41, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

The UN report stated that and I quote"However, it has concluded that live ammunition was used from the helicopter onto the top

deck prior to the descent of the soldiers".The line you have posted is about the unsuccessful boarding from the boats. As this is the case it backs up the report from the Al Jazeera reporter that the Israelis were firing live rounds from the helicopter before they descended.Therefore his report that he saw a person get shot in the head from an helicopter should be put back in.Page 26 UN report.Owain the 1st (talk) 19:07, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I have added what Jamal Elshayyal an Al Jazeera reporter stated about the Israelis firing live rounds at people before they even landed on the ship and UNHRC report about Israelis firing live rounds before landing soldiers on the deck with links.I do not know why it was ever removed, it was an eyewitness account.Owain the 1st (talk) 19:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Owain, you're right, I was wrong. It was claims that live rounds were fired from the boats which were rejected by the UN. I have no problem at all with your change, and agree that it should never have been removed. -- Bob drobbs (talk) 21:14, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Note - I also tried to improve the balance slightly by removing the photo of the soldier being thrown overboard, and changing the caption of the other photo from "activists beat soldiers" to "clash between activists and soldiers". -- Bob drobbs (talk) 06:41, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Bob drobbs, in 101. paragraph it is obviously seen that passengers did not use that tools as weapons although there were some, and when they were found they were confiscated not to be used by anyone. It is true that they reacted with some sticks, but this was a reaction to plastic and real bullets. And it is again fixed by this Report that no weapons were allowed into the ship before sailing. My gramatically wrong sentence "some weapons were exactly leakt in the ship by the participants" actually means this.

In Cargo section of the article it says "In addition, the flotilla was found to be carrying ballistic vests, gas masks, night-vision goggles, clubs, and slingshots.[52] " However, the reference for this and many other contributions comes from [The Jerusalem Post] known for its radical defence on Israeli side about this and other issues related to blockade of Gaza. Beatrice.rfb (talk) 10:41, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Beatrice, whatever _you_ may think about the Jerusalem Post, in this case they are right. The UN report makes no mention either way about the less relevant bullet proof vests and gask buts, but it _does_ confirms that activists used knives, metal rods, and slingshots to attack Israeli soldiers. Clearly these things were aboard the ship, if they used them to attack soldiers:

'"A number of the passengers on the top deck fought with the soldiers using their fists, sticks, metal rods and knives. . . At least one of the soldiers was stabbed with a knife or other sharp object. ... The Mission is satisfied on the evidence that at least two passengers on the bridge deck also used handheld catapults to propel small projectiles at the helicopters."'

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 05:55, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Why is Wikipedia hosting pure propaganda? I mean this isn't a slightly "biased" article, its straight props. Why is this article trying to paint a picture of bloodthirsty arab suicide bombers ambushing the gentle loving peace spreading commandos who came to bring them sugar canes and rainbows. I'd like to be constructive and help rewrite portions of this, but you might as well delete this page and start over at this point, its FUBAR —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.118.118.241 (talk) 08:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

What I find interesting is that no matter what side of the fence you are on, the fact is that the flotilla was running a blockade. A declared Naval blockade by the state of Israel. Even this site says about blockade runners "Blockade-runners have always been considered enemy combatants by the blockading party and have been fired upon or captured when detected." So what did anyone expect to happen? What actually did happen? Whether it was bloodthirsty Arab suicide bombers, or whether it was Zionist Naval strong-arming. . there is one, and only one, outcome from a blockade runner getting caught. And that is what happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.60.183.188 (talk) 21:17, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

Reputable sources

I put a link in this article as evidence that the Israelis retracted their claims that there were mercenaries with Al Qaeda links aboard the Gaza flotilla and User:Plot Spoiler has deleted that claiming it is not a reputable source.My link was to [3]Max Blumenthal's website where he has screen shots of the actual Israeli army press office site showing how they changed their story when challenged by reporters.I see nothing wrong with this source as Max Blumenthal is an award winning journalist and best selling author who articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Nation, The Guardian, The Independent Film Channel, The Huffington Post, Salon.com, Al Jazeera English and many other publications.I see no good reason to delete this.ThoughtsOwain the 1st (talk) 02:05, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Use an actual RELIABLE media source -- not the personal website and blog of a highly partisan commentator. Please see WP:RS. Plot Spoiler (talk) 02:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

He is an award winning journalist who has had his articles printed in many reputable main stream media outlets.That makes him a reliable source.Owain the 1st (talk) 02:23, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

"In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication.".Cptnono (talk) 02:31, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Are you trying to say that an award winning journalist and best selling author who has written for many main stream media outlets is somehow an unreliable source?Owain the 1st (talk) 02:55, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Possibly. The guy has done fine when the content is vetted by staff. That does not exist with his personal site. Have you attempted to find the same content in firmer RS and wording it in a way that does not get other editor's hackles up?

Similarly (as in bias in sources purported to be reliable) And it looks like at least one other editor has disagreed with an NGO being used as a source looking at the edit history. So can you note it now?Cptnono (talk) 03:28, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Can you please try and keep on track? You are commenting on two different things in this thread about Max Blumenthal being a reputable source.This has nothing to do with NGO's, that is another page and another article we are commenting on.Anyway I have taken this to the reputable sources page and I will let the people there decide is it is good or not.Owain the 1st (talk) 03:33, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I assume you at least understand my point then.

In regards to the source: Going to the RS noticeboard is an excellent suggestion. While it waits there, have you considered finding a better source and wording it with extra focus on NPOV?Cptnono (talk) 03:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

What are you talking about?Wording what? It is a link.Owain the 1st (talk) 03:42, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Are you using it as a source for a specific sentence?Cptnono (talk) 03:58, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Do you not know what is going on here?You are here commenting but seem to be unaware what is being discussed.Anyway the source is backed up by this from the Guardian. The Israeli army also backed down last week from an earlier claim that soldiers were attacked by al-Qaida "mercenaries" aboard the Gaza flotilla. An article appearing on the IDF spokesperson's website with the headline: "Attackers of the IDF soldiers found to be al-Qaida mercenaries", was later changed to "Attackers of the IDF Soldiers found without identification papers," with the information about al-Qaida removed from the main article. An army spokesperson told the Guardian there was no evidence proving such a link to the terror organisation.Owain the 1st (talk) 04:03, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

The Blumenthal source isn't "backed up" by anything because it isn't a WP:RS. If the Guardian source says the same thing, then use it since it is in fact an RS. And please watch your etiquette and stop insulting other Wikipedia editors. Not cool. Plot Spoiler (talk) 04:09, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I have not insulted anyone so please do not post lies.Owain the 1st (talk) 04:12, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I do. You have not understood the point. "a false claim that was never substantiated, and later retracted." is a POV line. The Guardian is RS. So word it according to that. To be honest, the whole paragraph needs to be reworked but overuse of the word claim and other terms reads as if the paragraph is trying to poke fun at Israel. Instead of bickering over how to rework a broken paragraph, the whole thing should be reworked. It also does not need that much play in the article. Is the point of the paragraph the attackers without paperwork, that Israel originally said something different but amended it, or both? Does that make sense to you? (not a rhetorical question)Cptnono (talk) 04:17, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

I understand fine what is going on, you do not as you were claiming that I should write a link in NPOV language which is very funny indeed.Anyway when I get around to it I will put the link back in from either the original or the Guardian depending on the outcome of the discussion on the RS board.Also I am not bickering over a broken paragraph, I am arguing about a link that I put up that backs up the line in the article and that was deleted by another editor because he seems to think that the source is not reputable.It is clear that the Israeli retracted their statement and I have proven that.Anyway I am done here I will edit it when I can.Owain the 1st (talk) 04:29, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

If you understood my point you would not have said that I was asking you to edit a source. I agree that makes no sense.Cptnono (talk) 06:48, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Problematic sentence

There is this one-line paragraph:

According to some accounts by passengers, IDF soldiers denied medical treatment to several wounded activists who died shortly thereafter.[154][162][163][164][165]

I've looked through the sources, and it's not clear to me what this refers to, most accounts seem to be about people being hindered in the midst of battle. The way it is now, it reads as if IDF was actively letting people die of the wounds in the aftermath, which again seems NPOV. The references point to various eye-witness accounts that are rather chaotic. I'd like this to be more explicit in what it describes, or removed. Ketil (talk) 12:22, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

More explicit?

Yes. Or detailed, precise. I understand that some would prefer blanket statements that confer one side as evil and the other as good, but I'd like to have a more specific information, each fact appropriately sourced. Ketil (talk) 04:23, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Are eyewitness accounts not good enough for you?

The UN report into the incident states that injured activists were made to wait up to 3 hours for treatment, while being tied up as well.From the UN report,

130. The flotilla organisers and other passengers engaged in efforts to request the Israeli forces to provide the necessary treatment to the wounded persons. One organiser used the ship’s intercom to request assistance in Hebrew and persons also communicated directly through the cabin windows or by placing signs, written in English and Hebrew, in the ship’s windows. These attempts proved unsuccessful and it was up to two hours before the Israeli forces took out the wounded persons. However, the wounded were required to leave the cabins themselves, or taken outside in a rough manner, without apparent concern for the nature of their injuries and the discomfort that this would cause. 131. The wounded passengers were taken to the front of the top deck where they joined other passengers injured during the operation on the top deck and where the bodies of persons killed during the operation had been left. Wounded passengers, including persons seriously injured with live fire wounds, were handcuffed with plastic cord handcuffs, which were often tied very tightly causing some of the injured to lose sensitivity in their hands. These plastic handcuffs cannot be loosened without being cut off, but can be tightened. Many were also stripped naked and then had to wait some time, possibly as long as twothree hours, before receiving medical treatment. Medical treatment was given to a number of wounded persons on the top deck by the Israeli forces.Owain the 1st (talk) 13:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Where does that say that anyone died of their wounds shortly after being denied medical treatment? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:47, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Here you go, from one of the links on the line that he is complaining about.From Knesset member

Zuabi said that naval boats surrounded the Mavi Marmara and fired on it before soldiers abseiled aboard from a helicopter. She went below to the ship's hold and said that, within minutes, two dead passengers were brought inside, followed by two more who had been seriously wounded.

soldiers refused her requests for medical assistance for the injured passengers, who died shortly after.Owain the 1st (talk) 13:51, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So the article should say "According to Zuabi, two wounded passengers died shortly after soldiers refused her request for medical assistance". No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 14:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Well no as another link on the end of that sentence in Turkish has evidence from a crew member I believe stating that due to the Israelis not giving medical aid more people died.You have read thru the links before commenting right?Going on the links it looks like the statement that is being complained about is in order and has sources to back it up, therefore there is no reason to change it or remove it Owain the 1st (talk) 14:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't read Turkish. Could you translate the relevant passages? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:27, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Well there you go then, I rest my case.Try google translate.Thanks. Owain the 1st (talk) 20:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Not sure what case you're resting. While google translate might be good for getting the gist of things, I doubt it should be used for an encyclopedia. I gather you don't know Turkish either? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:59, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I rest my case because obviously I have done the research into it.Go read the Turkish official inquiry into the incident, it says and I quote:Numerous testimonies also indicate that at least three of the deaths occurred because Israeli soldiers denied timely medical attention to the wounded. So we have numerous statements that state that the Israelis failed to treat the wounded and some died.Official Turkish Inquiry Owain the 1st (talk) 22:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So we can attribute it to the Turkish Inquiry, which presumably includes Zuabi's opinion as well. Nice web site there, by the way. Not the sort of link I'm inclined to follow. I don't like giving traffic to hate sites. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:18, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Up to you if you do not want to read the report.I am linking to the report not to any so called hate site.It seems to be the only place that has the report that I could find.I will put the link in the article tomorrow and from that site unless you can provide another source. Owain the 1st (talk) 22:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not a reliable source for official reports. If you put a link to that site in the article, I'll remove it. If this is an official report, you should be able to find it somewhere that meets RS criteria. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 22:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Obviously it is the official report.You can do what you want.I see nothing wrong with it.Guess you will have to explain yourself when you delete it and if you continue to delete it then I will report you.Anyway as it happens I have just found another link for it here.[4]Funny how this report does not have a page of its own on this site, I will make one and link it to the Gaza flotilla article.Owain the 1st (talk) 23:07, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)See WP:BURDEN. That site is only reliable for its opinions. "Obviously it is the official report" is not exactly a policy compliant reason to include it.

The new site you just posted doesn't load for me. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 23:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Loads fine here.I will be posting that tomorrow.It comes from this site http://www.turkishweekly.net/ Owain the 1st (talk) 23:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been able to access the PDF at this URL without any problems.  Cs32en Talk to me  23:57, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

For those that can't access it, the passage from that PDF that appears relevant to this issue is:

"Numerous testimonies also indicate that at least three of the deaths occurred because Israeli soldiers denied timely medical attention to the wounded. Sümeyye Ertekin and Halis Akıncı testified that the Israeli soldiers hit those doctors trying to help the wounded with the butts of their rifles. Edda Manga says 'They did not allow the medics to treat the people; the doctors and nurses were forced at gunpoint to leave the wounded.' Ali Buhamd‘s testimony contains a grim mixture of some of the points made above: 'I saw a soldier shooting a wounded Turk in the head. There was another Turk asking for help, but he bled to death.'"

Those sentence reference a half dozen eye witness testimonies in the footnotes, and this article. ← George ^talk 00:26, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Does it look like the official report from a reliable source? It still doesn't load for me for some reason. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 09:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It is the official report and the source looks fine.Report on the Israeli Attack on the Humanitarian Aid Convoy to Gaza Owain the 1st (talk) 09:52, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I was asking George. I've seen what you consider a reliable source. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 10:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

No need to be so nasty.I believe it is obvious that George thinks it is fine otherwise he would have said something.Anyway I have added the link to the article.Have fun.Owain the 1st (talk) 10:42, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

It's 117 pages long, with 375 footnotes, and lists 45 conclusions at the end. It lists the Turkish National Commission of Inquiry as the author of the report, and it does read like something put together by a Turkish commission tasked with submitting a report to the UN. The Turkish Weekly website looks like an ordinary news journal (including national and international news reports, op-eds, and book reviews), so my inclination would be to say that it's reliable. Obviously that doesn't mean it's neutral or impartial, but probably reliable by Wikipedia's standards for Turkish viewpoints, claims, and witness accounts of the incident. ← George ^talk 18:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me how eyewitness accounts from the flotilla can be considered RS? If the political agenda was to runa blockade that they knew would be stopped. And running a blockade makes you a combatant. Then how could a combatant be considered to give any reliable information of what actually happened. Or would it be more likely that they would give an account of what they want people to believe happened? Were the testimonies in these articles taken in interviews? Or were they taken in courts under the threat of perjury? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.60.183.188 (talk) 20:00, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Where are they being used as RS? Your own analysis that "running a blockade makes you a combatant" aside, keep in mind that there's a difference between saying someone said something happend, and saying that something happened as fact. ← George ^talk 20:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

My point being is that the entire two paragraphs in the injuries sections that start with "according to" should be removed. Both the IDF POV and the Passenger's POV. They aren't relevent, nor can either side be considered RS or NPOV. All this adds to the article is a bunch of unverifiable speculation, or "accounts" from both parties "he said, she said" if you will.. I would like to direct you to Wikipedia:Notability (events) and then ask yourself does this section really add to the article, and does it help resolve the neutrality of it? I don't think it does. Both paragraphs are Highly POV to opposite ends, and at the end of the day do not actually add to what actually happened. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.60.183.188 (talk) 20:34, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Photos prove Mavi Marmara passengers had guns

Article claims IDF has pictures proving there were guns on board. And here they are. One oven shows Haneen Zoabi to be a liar. Again and again, Israel is vindicated. I leave it up to the prevailing editors to decide how to incorporate this development, unless my help is wanted. --Metallurgist (talk) 02:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

If those are the pictures that the newspapers used for reporting in that way I think we might have a good case for calling into question their RS status. It looks like the images were taken from cctv, I doubt that a camera man managed to stand that still for that long, I would prefer that they granted access to the full sequence for that period. It looks like the person alleged to be Zaobi is coming down a set of stairs 1 minute and 8 seconds after a guy has passed through the frame. Is that guy passing through holding a rather oddly proportioned firearm in his left hand? My immediate reaction is that the proportions are off, is his thumb insanely long or the rest of his fingers absurdly short? As for the guy with the beard, it seems like he could be holding a range of things. Anyway - unless there are more pictures available I am pretty disappointed with the media at not being more critical in their assessments. un☯mi 05:03, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Link to videos on captions?

Both the captions of the killed passenger and the Israeli soldiers have no links to the videos in question, which seems weird in the age of Youtube. Is there something I'm missing, or should they be added? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.199.159.25 (talk) 01:56, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Rewrites to mature articles

Hi, all. In this series of edits, Reenem just performed what effectively amounts to a rewrite of much of the article, moving it substantially in a more pro-IDF direction. It's my opinion that making such sweeping changes to a highly-contested but relatively mature article is just unproductive, in that it presents a fait accompli of too much change to reasonably discuss. I could revert that, and then just as easily go through and make sweeping changes to move the article in a pro-Flotilla direction, which wouldn't stick, either. So I'm just going to revert his changes, and suggest that he either make them in much smaller increments over a much longer period, or that he try to gain consensus for all of them in a body, here, on talk.  – OhioStandard (talk) 06:22, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a work in progress, there is no such thing as a "mature article" where edits are not allowed. At Wikipedia we encourage bold edits as long as they are based on reliable sources. Specifically, did you see anything factually wrong or unreliably sourced in the edits? The minimum you could do is to give a solid explanation for why you are reverting. It's unfair to the person who obviously spent time and effort. Marokwitz (talk) 06:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

At 6:32, 9 June 2011 UTC, Marokwitz restored Reneem's hour and 1/2 worth of changes, in this edit. - Ohiostandard, 21:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that instead of reverting the text could be re-worked to a mode neutral tone. Unfortunately I personally don't currently have the time to go through this article :( I am, by the way, still of the opinion that what individual "soldiers" did doesn't need to be recounted in this article. --Dailycare (talk) 15:16, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

After Marokwitz's restoration, the next two-hours of new edits were again made by Reneem, in this series, beginning at 16:51, 9 June 2011. - Ohiostandard, 21:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Marokwitz is correct that Wikipedia normally encourages bold edits, but he neglects to consider that "be bold" only works in very controversial articles if the usual bold-revert-discuss cycle is respected. Reneem was very bold, I reverted, and Marokwitz reinstated, after just eleven minutes.

Reneem's 3 and 1/2 hours of changes spanned at least 17 edits, with no edit summaries. If you'll look at that diff, with many passages moved around, and with all the additions and deletions and re-phrasings, it's nearly impossible to see the "forest" view of the changes introduced into the article. And trying to stepping through each discrete edit via individual diffs is an exercise in frustration, in part because the diffs load so slowly due to article size and because of the lack of edit summaries but especially because one can't maintain the continuity of the cumulative effect of the changes, when moving from diff to diff. Without having the benefit of knowing what his (procedural) intention was for any given subset of saved edits, and with no edit summaries, it would be a huge undertaking to carefully evaluate his changes. It would probably take twice or three times as long as it took to make them.

There's simply no realistic way for editors to evaluate article changes of this magnitude, made so quickly, in other words. The only feasible alternative for an editor opposed to the dramatic shift toward the POV of the Israeli military that has been introduced here is to respond in kind, by simply editing in an entirely unilateral way, to perform a massive rewrite in the other direction. Reneem and Marokwitz's actions here may seem gratifying in the short term, but they're both experienced enough to know how provocative those actions are, and how likely they are to result in a response-in-kind.

I'd suggest that they revert to the relatively stable last version by user Iloveandrea, saved at 15:09, 5 June 2011 UTC, and introduce their desired changes either here, first, or at a moderate-enough pace to allow other editors to actually evaluate them. To refuse to do so is simply to invite either an edit war or, more likely, a rewrite in a direction that they'll dislike every bit as much as supporters of the flotilla's goals dislike the version they've now generated.

I repeat: There's no practical way for editors to scrutinize or evaluate or comment upon such extensive changes made over so brief an interval. I'd invite Reneem and Marokwitz to please reconsider, and conform to wp:brd instead of trying to force the article into the shape they want it in.  – OhioStandard (talk) 21:49, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I have to second the request by OhioStandard, on looking through the consolidated diff I see a trend towards 'tight prose' regarding reports putting the IDF in an unfavorable light yet expansion on other issues. That said, it seems like there are a number of 'good changes' - which makes it unfortunate that we need to revert, on the other hand we can easily apply those changes again from the starting position.

I would also ask that any sources which are removed are pasted here upon doing so, I also think that we should require that edits display good use of edit summaries (which my edits admittedly did not). un☯mi 22:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

I think OhioStandard's idea is good too, provided of course that Reenem is willing to go along. Another idea would be, if extensive edits are made, to make them at once so other editors wouldn't need to click through dozens of them which takes too long. In that case, the "edit summary" can be posted here on the talkpage. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 15:16, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Please see subsequent sections for current status about this.  – OhioStandard (talk) 10:23, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed paragraphs

The following paragraphs were removed, and re-inserted, and removed and reinserted.

On the Mavi Marmara, activists violently resisted Israeli commandos with improvised weapons, and allegedly with live fire, including from guns seized from the Israelis, and temporarily captured three commandos. Israeli commandos responded initially with non-lethal weaponry before resorting to live fire. Israeli MP Hanin Zoabi said that the Israeli Navy started firing five minutes before commandos descended on the flotilla. Nine activists were killed, and dozens of activists and seven Israeli commandos were injured. The five other ships were apprehended relatively peacefully, with activists showing passive resistance that was suppressed with non-lethal force. Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said, on the other five ships, "the people got off without a scratch."

Numerous passengers aboard Challenger 1, Sfendoni, and Free Mediterrenean stated that the soldiers used tasers, plastic bullets, stun grenades, and beat up the passengers. A report in El Pais said that several people from other ships had also been wounded. Free Gaza organizer Huwaida Arraf, who herself was on the Challenger 1, said that some activists on the other five ships were beaten so severely they were hospitalized.

References

References with quoted text or translations

I removed them again for the following reason. There are separate sections for raid of each ship. If these deleted paragraphs contain info missing from these sections, then it must be merged into the corresponding sections. Otherwise the article turns into a repetitive mess, if every editor will insert some text wherever he/she likes. Yceren Loq (talk) 15:29, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment to Yceren Loq: Your second removal of this content violated the 1RR (only one reversion per 24 hours) rule in force for this article. Please be careful to obey this in future, as other editors are doing. To passing admins: I suggest no block in this case as YL has clearly tried to initiate a dialogue... --Mirokado (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment This is the second recent failure to respect WP:BRD while editing this article (not a policy or guideline, but widely followed). The cycle is "bold, revert, discuss", not "bold, revert, ..., revert and start a discussion". --Mirokado (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment This discussion is about a disputed change to the current consensus, which has been determined by the established status quo which included the content. Thus a result of "no consensus" will mean that the content will be restored. Let's try to sort out acceptable changes... --Mirokado (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Oppose removal I will oppose wholesale removal of this content which has several references (including CNN and the Guardian with which I am familiar) and clearly acts as part of the summary for the individual boarding subsections. There are two Citation needed tags dated June 2011 which should be addressed (a month is normally allowed for provision of a reliable reference or other suitable response). I would be quite happy with a shorter, still balanced, summary with some content and references moved to specific subsections. Yceren Loq, since you wish to change the current text, perhaps you can suggest a suitable rearrangement? I will try to look in more detail myself this weekend... --Mirokado (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

• Sorry, I did not take in a consideration taht this is a hot topic. I have no objections to the content per se, only to uncontrolled duplication, which may easily lead to "micro-POV-forks". I understand the argument about summary. However IMHO a summary must be the summary of wikipedia's article, not of everything else in the world uttered. In particular, I don't think Liberman's political utterance (about "without scratch") is a valid part of a summary.Yceren Loq (talk) 22:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
• I will be happy to restore the deleted piece, according to the rule of the game at this page, but I will urge you to reconsider the "summary" part. As a first step, I would suggest to remove the mentioned Liberman's qote, since it is clearly does not deliver a precise fact, but rather a metaphor of the fact that other ships had much less drama. Yceren Loq (talk) 22:08, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Comment. A few points to make. (1) I'm too bleary-eyed to verify it right now, but the one ref out of the preceding five that I'm sure is still in the article is the "CNN Autopsies" ref of June 4, 2010. I know that because I had to make this edit to copy the URL from the article to the talk page. (2) As I write this, the above two paragraphs aren't in the article. I didn't restore them because I knew they were under discussion here. (3) If they do go back in, probably the best way to restore them would be to copy-paste from the above, the article has seen many changes have been made in the meantime, since these paragraphs were moved here. Also, I'll try to review this content issue soon, myself, and give my two cents.  – OhioStandard (talk) 09:29, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Trying to avert edit war

In the hope of averting a huge edit war over an article that's likely to see a lot more page views in the very near future, I'd like to point out these facts:

• The departure of a second flotilla is imminent, and Israel plans to stop this one, too. More huge spikes in page views likely.

• Much of the article has just been rewritten by Reenem, the most frequent contributor, with 256 edits currently.

• Three users have asked that Reenem's 3 and 1/2 hours of rewriting be reverted and discussed, or at least introduced in smaller increments, so it can be evaluated by others.

• Reenem hasn't responded to that request, but has made a couple of additional article edits. He evidently doesn't much care for talk pages.

• Editors opposed to the strongly pro-Israeli shift of the sweeping changes made have seen no attempt to honor bold-revert-discuss from either Reenem or Marokwitz, another frequent contributor, with 226 edits at present.

• For these reasons I've reverted a second time to the 15:09, 5 June 2011 UTC version by user Iloveandrea that preceded Reenem's changes.

• Unfortunately, this also means that some subsequent changes have been affected. I've put up an "in use" tag on the article to give myself time to try to manually restore all subsequent changes, except where they can't be restored because they concern text that Reenem added in his 3 and 1/2 hour stretch. I'll remove the "in use" asap.

• My plan and goal is only to manually effect the reversion of Reenem's 3 and 1/2 hour stretch that we need to discuss here; I will not be adding any content of my own in this process.

Since doing so will necessarily be a much more complicated process than if the bold-revert-discuss norm had been followed, I'd appreciate it if everyone would look at the edit history and verify that nothing else has been changed. But once that process is complete, can we all please try the "discuss" part, i.e. can we discuss changes made or proposed in a genuinely incremental way rather than by a massive rewrite?  – OhioStandard (talk) 02:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I've completed the manual revert of Reenem's (essentially) uninterrupted string of 17 edits; plus his two more made beginning at 21:09, 10 June 2011. I've also created a section below, currently collapsed, that we can use to try to actually review those. I think I "put everything else back" pretty accurately; people might like to double check based on the edit-summary comments I left as I was stepping through that "putting things back" process.  – OhioStandard (talk) 09:43, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Sequential discussion of Reenem's 17+2 edits

Suggested protocol

Discussion of one edit in this sequence should not commence until the previous one reaches consensus.  – OhioStandard (talk) 08:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC).

Thanks for preparing this discussion. I have added a section at the end to collect references and started off the first part with a suggestion. I have also limited the collapsed section to the unstarted discussions. --Mirokado (talk) 15:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Following sections will each need to be populated with diffs and timestamps. First one done by Ohiostandard at 08:56, 11 June 2011 (UTC).

Reenem's 1st edit in series

Edit made by Reenem at 4:19, 9 June 18:57, 2011 UTC

• Discussion begins timestamp: --Mirokado (talk) 15:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)
• Consensus reached timestamp:
• Consensus outcome:

Discussion

Suggestion, comments I propose the following for this paragraph:

The operation began with an attempt to board the ship from speedboats. As the boats approached, activists fired water hoses at them, and hurled numerous objects including iron pipes, stones and chairs. When the commandos tried boarding the ship, activists cut their ladder with a chainsaw. The boats then turned slightly away from the ship, but remained close. The IDF later found weapons including slingshots and marbles.

I cannot find "pelted" in the refs. I seems unnecessary to provide a complete list of the "junk" which was being thrown and I could not find all the previously mentioned items. Some events seem to have happened later, thus I have removed "The Israelis replied with paintballs and stun grenades. One stun grenade was picked up and thrown back into a boat." (The stun grenades seem to have been associated with the subsequent helicopter deployment.) If anything else needs to be added, please provide precise references, particularly start time or range for a video. I will start updating the video references in the article to make this easier. Obviously, just because I could not find a mention of something does not mean it is not there, but that illustrates the need for precise references for anything that an author regards as particularly significant. --Mirokado (talk) 15:21, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the exacting review, and thanks especially for noticing the timeline jumble. My only cavil with the text that you propose is with the word "operation". That's what it was from the perspective of the Israeli military, but I'd submit that flotilla participants probably wouldn't use that word, and I dare say that the international perspective would be more likely to call it an incident. Is there some re-wording we can come up with that doesn't describe the whole sequence of events as an "operation"?  – OhioStandard (talk) 09:46, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

There seems little point in continuing the analysis of these edits, particularly since the original editor has changed the above quoted paragraph again without commenting here. If the original editor wished to discuss any of these changes, that would be fine. Otherwise let us forget them and move on. --Mirokado (talk) 20:20, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

subsequent edits through 18:57, 9 June 2011 UTC, and two more beginning 21:09, 10 June 2011 UTC

Reenem's 2nd edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 3rd edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 4th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 5th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 6th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 7th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 8th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 9th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 10th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 11th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 12th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 13th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 14th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 15th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 16th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Reenem's 17th edit in series [ Edit made by Reenem at ] Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion Two more edits by Reenem Comment. Edits beginning 21:09, 10 June 2011 UTC through 2:12, 11 June 2011, inclusive, are fully comprised in these two edits. (A) Edit made by Reenem at 21:09, 10 June 2011 Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion (B) Edit made by Reenem at 21:36, 10 June 2011 Discussion begins timestamp: Consensus reached timestamp: Consensus outcome: Discussion

References

References with quoted text or translations

Citations

• Flotilla Incident Timeline (English: Part 1 of 2). IDF Spokesperson's Unit YouTube Channel. 15 Jul 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2011. Hebrew commentary with English subtitles.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)
• Flotilla Incident Timeline (English: Part 2 of 2). IDF Spokesperson's Unit YouTube Channel. 15 Jul 2010. Retrieved 11 June 2011. Hebrew commentary with English subtitles.{{cite AV media}}: CS1 maint: postscript (link)

Dates

The date formats in this article were a complete mess, with all three MOS-supported styles having been used haphazardly in the body of the article and several other unsupported styles also appearing. Apart from looking horrible, this would have caused problems for anyone using a screen reader where such inconsistencies can be very distracting and it was difficult to edit the article since not even subsections used a consistent format.

I have now standardised the article on the "international" format dd Mmmm yyyy for the following reasons:

• a template in the info box already specified use of this format: {{Start date|df=yes|2010|05|31}}
• the bold date in the article lead (which has to stay like that anyway, I think) as well as the repeated date at the start of the second para both already used this format (there was another inconsistent date format in the first para as well.)
• both the UN and Turkish reports from which we have quoted use this format (the Israeli Meir Amit report uses Mmmm dd, yyyy)

Apart from those more technical reasons, I think that using the international format for this article is in some senses the more neutral choice and will provide the best overall reader experience.

Please keep the article consistent in this respect now it is tidied up. --Mirokado (talk) 11:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed content

I have removed two unsourced sentences, tagged since June 2010. No objection to their being restored with a reliable reference.

Injuries

There were reports of scuffles at Ben Gurion International Airport. Ó Luain was injured when a row broke out with Israeli authorities but he was not seriously hurt.{{Citation needed|date=June 2010}}

--Mirokado (talk) 12:33, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Also removed the CNN Türkiye ref, which appears to add nothing to the information of the previous Keinon ref which is in English. Please provide a translation if necessary, automatic translators are still hopeless for Turkish.

Ship passengers

Avrasya'da da, Mavi Marmara'da da aynı eylemci, 20.08.2010, CNN Türkiye.

--Mirokado (talk) 20:09, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've removed Shoval (2010) because it provides the same information as the other two refs (although with what looks like a direct quote from the interview). I'm placing it here with a translation of the corresponding quotation. This reference may be useful for supporting other content.

Investigation for on-board weapons

Shoval, Lilach (4 June 2010). "מצאנו על הספינה תרמילים מנשק זר" (in Hebrew). Israel Hayom. Retrieved 17 June 2011. הקצין הבכיר חשף חלק מהממצאים שנתגלו בחקירת האירוע: 'בין ציוד הלחימה הרב שמצאנו היתה גם כוונת של רובה. לא מצאנו את הרובה אבל יש לנו עדויות שהם זרקו כלי נשק למים. הזיהוי הפלילי מצא על האונייה גם תרמילי כדורים שאינם מתאימים לנשקים שלנו. אנחנו בודקים לאילו כלי נשק הם מתאימים'. [The senior officer revealed some of the findings discovered in the investigation of the incident: 'the extensive fighting equipment found included indications of a gun. We did not find the gun but we have evidence that they threw a weapon into the water. Forensics traces on the shells do not fit our weapons. We're looking into which weapons match.']

--Mirokado (talk) 21:56, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

I have changed this reference since the title and url were revised later on the publication day. Article text updated accordingly and one phrase removed which does not appear in the revised article.

Detention of activists

At least 32 "About 629" activists were detained by the Israel Prisons Service, after they refused to sign deportation orders, including two who were wounded but refused hospital treatment.

Kyzer, Liel (31 May 2010). "Israel detains dozens of Gaza flotilla activists upon arrival in Ashdod". Haaretz Daily. Retrieved 31 May 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

A Turkish mother who had brought her one-year-old child with her agreed to extradition after she was advised that prison conditions were "too harsh" for her baby.

Kyzer, Liel; Yair, Ettinger (31 May 2010). "'The ship turned into a lake of blood,' says activist on Gaza flotilla". Haaretz. Retrieved 24 June 2011.

--Mirokado (talk) 22:53, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Removed a dead link, two other refs already support the same content:

Flotilla motives

"Israeli PM wants direct talks with Palestinians". Nationalpost.com. 27 May 2010. Retrieved 2 June 2010.{{dead link|date=June 2011}}

--Mirokado (talk) 14:26, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I suggest a review of sources as well as some other stuff

There is over 250 odd sources for this article with some of them repeating info that where later clarified or corrected in later articles written by the source. This would be fine and dandy if this was a data dump for anything that matched "Gaza flotilla raid" on Google search, but I feel that it does a disservice to people seeking the actual happenings of the event.

The easiest part of editing this article would be to get rid of sources (as well as information obtained from such sources) that have "spokesperson" in it. The job of a spokesperson is to spin events (propaganda) and is hardly NPOV in any sense. The only place such sources belong to is in spinoff articles detailing the reaction that governments or institutions have towards the event in question. --General Choomin (talk) 11:28, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs pruning and/or splitting (again), it is twice a reasonable size at present at least. It would be difficult to remove all the "spokesperson" refs in a simple way as that would selectively remove reports based on official sources and practically speaking there were no unofficial sources for the Israeli operation itself. Often citations from more than one viewpoint are needed to support the neutral content of the article. A few refs can probably be removed from the places where there are multiple inline refs at the same place in the text, or where several citations are concatenated into a single inline ref. It is probably also the case that there is too much detail in some sections. Anyone removing content should explain clearly why in edit summaries and consider moving it to the talk page rather than simply deleting it. I have been using the #Removed content section for that. It will help if other editors keep to the same format if adding other removals there. --Mirokado (talk) 15:17, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the level of detail is out of hand here, e.g. actions of individual "soldiers" shouldn't be mentioned here at all. --Dailycare (talk) 16:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

I've moved the details about Freedom Flotilla II to that article. --Mirokado (talk) 15:05, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Proposed split - "Gaza Flotilla" and "Gaza Flotilla Raid"

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result was split as detailed below. Closing the discussion to record the clear consensus. Please see #Split to Gaza Freedom Flotilla: implementation --Mirokado (talk) 22:21, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

---

In an effort to both shorten the article and break it into more logical chunks, I propose splitting it -- "Gaza Flotilla" and "Gaza Flotilla Raid". These are individually notable enough to merit their own pages. And, this is consistent with Freedom Flotilla II which has it's own page.

-- Bob drobbs (talk) 18:15, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a natural division. The problem would be retaining enough convoy details in the raid article to make it reasonably standalone. Perhaps move some details into a template which can be transcluded into both articles? Probably Gaza flotilla (2010) would be a clearer title (edit: but see below). Here is a suggestion for how the sections could be distributed:

Gaza flotilla (2010) Gaza Freedom Flotilla

• Overview
• Flotilla organization

• Ships
• Cargo
• Ship passengers

• Flotilla motives
• Initial leg (perhaps preceded by a Preparation section? add after the split)

• Pre-raid sabotage rumors

• Raid and aftermath (main article tag, brief summaries from the other article)

summary of Raid, Casualties, Conclusion of raid, Aftermath, Reactions sections)

• Future plans (rename to Subsequent activities or whatever)
• Film (perhaps need this in both articles?)
• References
• Further reading
• External links

Gaza flotilla raid

• Overview (of the raid)
• Flotilla (main article tag, summary of other article)

• Flotilla organization (detailed summary needed to make this article independent)

• Ships
• Cargo
• Ship passengers

• Before the raid (perhaps a better title for this?, brief summary of rest of the other article)

summary of Flotilla motives, [Preparation,] Initial leg, Pre-raid sabotage rumors

• Future plans (move into the summary, rename to Subsequent activities or whatever)

• Raid (retain current content and sections)
• Casualties (retain current content and sections)
• Conclusion of raid (retain current content and sections)
• Delivery of cargo (retain current content and sections)
• Aftermath (retain current content and sections)
• Reactions (retain current content and sections)
• Film (perhaps need this in both articles?)
• References
• Further reading
• External links

--Mirokado (talk) 22:16, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

(italicised summary sections for clarity) --Mirokado (talk) 22:27, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Bueller? -- Bob drobbs (talk) 20:46, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Since the flotilla was called the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" and there is already a redirect of that name leading to this article, I suggest we use that name for the new article, with suitable hat notes. Updated above. --Mirokado (talk) 04:21, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

You're right, Bob: A split is certainly called for; the article is just far too long. And this proposed division of structure seems pretty sound to me, as well.

I'd like to stress, in the strongest possible way, however, that I think we need to all agree on this or on some modified format/structure for the two articles that will result, before going forward with the split. There will doubtless be tweaks that people will want to make after any split, but at least a broadly-based agreement on structure will help prevent a full-scale dust up, I think. So does anyone have any objection to the "split structure" proposed above? Or any suggestions to modify it?  – OhioStandard (talk) 00:40, 2 July 2011 (UTC) ( Let's leave this open for comment for the usual seven days, please, before going ahead. )

Sounds like a good idea. And it should be relatively easy to do it in a way compliant with NPOV, something like what is outlined above. It's roughly a chronological split, with one article covering everything up to the flotilla being in mid-sea, and the article on the raid covering everything from the start of the raid. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:23, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Split to Gaza Freedom Flotilla: implementation

It so happens that I have time this weekend to prepare the split contents. I will follow the outline in the previous section. I have no objection whatsoever if somebody else would prefer to do this... --Mirokado (talk) 22:18, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

I've started to make the split, but I'm currently being delayed by server errors while trying to save the main update to this article, so for a while the flotilla details are duplicated here and there and I may make the update in several stages some of which would display reference errors. Sorry about that. --Mirokado (talk) 18:05, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Finished the main edits now. Thanks for your patience if you have been being patient. I have left inuse on the new section for a while but I will remove it "soon". I will be making one or two other edits as well, so please continue to edit the rest of the article as normal. --Mirokado (talk) 18:49, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Can Mankell's statements be established or refuted?

Henning Mankell, an eyewitness, says "Israeli commandos fired at will from helicopters" at passengers of MV Mavi Marmara - see http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israelis-cannot-make-the-gaza-reality-disappear-1.373632. What is the status of this factoid? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.70.192.162 (talk) 02:13, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, much can be clearly inferred from the videos, especially the ones from the activists.

The actual helicopter scene taken from the ship with sound and images, can be seen in two videos by the activists, (as opposed to the videos from the Israelis). The shots are heard and are seen with the paintball liquid hitting the wall, and two activists notifying the rest that it is not live ammunition. This strongly coincides with the Israeli narrative. At least one of the two shown wounded activists, dragged into the ship following the roof attack, clearly have a plastic bullet wound from close contact.

Both the Israeli (IDF) and activist (IHH) narrative talk about the stun grenades prior to the first attack, and the Israeli images show the roof-deck before and during the raid, clearly no-one is seen hurt or wounded at that stage.

On the other hand the Israeli video with the soldier yelling "Yes! Yes! I see him, he's holding a gun and using live ammunition" and the recorded command following that: "End all paintball, use live ammunition" are not clearly from the first 5 minutes, and it can be inferred from some Israeli sources (like the timeline video) that there were soldiers that attempted to use their guns including the first three abducted soldiers after being stabbed with knives, and the forth one seeing his friends being beaten and his commander thrown head down.

So, the answer to your question is: Yes, there are many indications (these are only a few) that there was no firing of live ammunition from the helicopter. But that doesn't mean that both side's narrative is completely consistent. both have loopholes and obviously censored parts in the released videos. (the IHH video is cut in some places, and there are people saying: Do not photo this, in several scenes, while the IDF videos stop at a certain moment and do not give the full picture, although obviously they have it.) By closely following the facts, it is possible to reconstruct what actually happened. פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 17:02, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

other issues.

"Ma'ariv": Israel is offering $100,000 compensation per family, provided that Turkey rescinds its demand for an apology.

Should that be moved into the article?

I haven't read this article in quite some time, but I do not remembering seeing the "blockade of the gaza strip" template.

I don't understand why the second intifada is part of the infobox. That is independent of the blockade and flotilla raid right? Wikifan^{Be nice} 08:46, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

UNHRC bias?

Having read the article, this is something that appears somewhat flawed to me: That in particularily the part concerning the independent UNHRC report, nothing is mentioned of the rather heavy critisism for laying undue weight on critisising Israel above more urgent matters that the council has received from high UN officials, UN members and at least one NGO. Seeing as how it's written in the Wikipedia article on the UNHRC, and more importantly puts the results of the fact-finding mission, the very serious allegations made against Israel in the report, the concerns about the report from the United States and the European Union's wish that it be transefered from the council in a new perspective, I think it should be briefly mentioned in the beginning of the "The UNHRC fact-finding mission" part.

Also, in the part of the article mentioned, it is written that "the fact-finding mission [was] headed by three prominent international jurists". Whom are these, and should it be included in the same part of the article?

Feedback? 82.182.76.119 (talk) 22:44, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Who (or which organisation etc) made these criticisms about undue weight? Can you provide a reliable reference here to support the statement? I haven't the time to check for jurists' names now, but I would first look through the report to see if the authors are listed there. --Mirokado (talk) 23:01, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

All this is new to me, but if I may, I'd suggest the following as introduction:

1. HRC lead, 3rd paragraph
2. HRC#Israel
3. CHR#Israel similar story with HRC predecessor

I guess the IP user is referring to these WP articles. --ElComandanteChe (talk) 23:26, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

As I wrote, much of it can actually be read in the Wikipedia article on it. For starters we have Kofi Annan, Ban Ki Moon, Mary Robinson, Doru Costea. The EU, Canada, the US, and from what I gather at least one NGO, UN Watch. I think there are more, but right now I haven't looked up any more.

Looked it up, the jurists are Karl Hudson-Phillips, Desmond Lorenz de Silva and Mary Shanthi Dairiam. Can't say I found much about them that concerns the subject of the article other than their involvment in the writing of the report. Personally I still think that their names should be included, to make the article more complete. ElCommandanteChe, yes, it was mostly that I refered to, but also to the other article which I've linked to above. Does anyone think more research, sources, etc. should be included to back changes? 82.182.76.119 (talk) 00:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The report itself can't be used as a source to say the three are "prominent." I got rid of it, POV. I also filled out Israel's response about why they won't support the UNHRC's mission. It is in the same source used to say Israel won't let the group interview its people. Modinyr (talk) 10:57, 18 August 2011 (UTC)

To quote a fictional Indian shopkeeper from a TV series circulating around the fictional stories of the fictional yellow inhabitants with four fingers on each hand in a rather corrupt fictional city: Thank you, come again! 82.182.76.119 (talk) 23:34, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

Unaddressed issues

• Palmer Report needs to be updated.
• Why the heck is the Gaza blockade template still in existence? Who is responsible for its creation and where can an editor file a petition for a deletion? The template is simply inaccurate. Including events prior to the blockade, such the second intifada, before Israel withdrew its army from the strip makes no sense at all.

So? Wikifan^{Be nice} 06:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Unencyclopedic language in lead

I have removed the phrase using the word "fizzled" in the lead. This is a clearly pejorative, unencyclopedic word which should only appear in a directly attributed, qualified, quotation and is thus unsuitable for the lead of a Wikipedia article. The reference used to support it has a grammatical error in its title: I'm sure we can find a competently written piece to confirm the current (final?) status of the flotilla as necessary. If somebody wishes to restore "fizzled" somewhere else in the article, by all means do so in a suitable context. Please take the trouble to provide a fully complete citation if you do, there are plenty of examples of what is needed. --Mirokado (talk) 21:12, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

Man.. what's with all the passive voice? Who's writing this article? Whoever you are, would you please write it better with a more encyclopedic tone and style? - M0rphzone (talk) 05:28, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Problematic edit on the UN report

In this edit, an editor has presented the opinion of Joseph Ciechanover, the Israeli member of the UN commission, as a fact. However, as Ynet news, the source, only refers to the opinion of Ciechanover, and Ciechanover is not an independent expert with regard to the report, the assessment must be presented as Ciechanover's opinion. Furthermore, neither Ynet news nor Ciechanover uses the term "flotilla problem", and the specific wording of the edit thus either mixes Ciechanover's views and the editor's views, or an original interpretation of Ciechanover's views.

As I have already reverted some other content during the last 24 hours, I am asking other editors to address this issue.  Cs32en Talk to me  00:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I see a direct quotation. "It is the opinion of the Israeli government, blah blah blah." "in dealing with the flotilla problem" is possible editor language and could be tweaked to "flotilla incident" or simply "flotilla raid." We can't plagiarize sources. Wikifan^{Be nice} 01:58, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Which direct quotation are you referring to? Neither the article nor the source (the Ynet news article) contain the phrase "It is the opinion of the Israeli government". Nobody has advocated plagiarizing sources, by the way.  Cs32en Talk to me  02:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Okay I'm just a bit confused. You are stating an edit is showing an opinion of the Israeli government or person as fact, right? Here is the edit:

The only major area of disagreement between the Israeli government and the Palmer report's findings is that the Israeli government rejected the claim that Israel used "excessive and unreasonable" force in dealing with the flotilla problem.

What's the issue specifically? Wikifan^{Be nice} 02:39, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The issue is that this is an opinion that is presented as a fact. Ciechanover does not speak for Israel, and even if it were a statement by the Israeli government, we would need to attribute it, as we cannot know whether the Israeli government (as all governments, individuals, companies etc.) has presented its own thoughts truthfully. In addition, the presentation of Ciechanover's opinion is not following the source. I can't see any statement in the source that would support the wording "flotilla problem", nor do I see a statement characterizing the disagreement as the "only major area of disagreement". These appear to be original interpretations of the statements contained in the source.  Cs32en Talk to me  04:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

So do you suggest a rephrase or a whole-sale deletion? Wikifan^{Be nice} 04:14, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

The observation that the assessment of the use of force is a major disagreement between the UN commission and Israel is probably correct. This should have been reported on by multiple sources. So my approach would be to look for a more appropriate source (a fact-based news article rather than an article based on an interview), and then replace the current content with content based on that source.  Cs32en Talk to me  12:19, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

I rephrased the text so that it says exactly what the article says. I don't think this changes the basic meaning, but it should eliminate your complaints about OR wording. Benwing (talk) 09:36, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting the text! My main concern were assessments like "the only" that are original interpretations of the source. While I think that there are better sources around, this is what we can write based on that particular source.  Cs32en Talk to me  10:32, 5 September 2011 (UTC)

Unexplained removal

I removed the balance tag a second time after no reasoning was provided here. Article has improved substantially since July, and any neutrality issues can be resolved through collaborative editing. Wikifan^{Be nice} 03:24, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

• Sourcing concerns remain. I've tagged many unsourced claims. A substantial amount of material displayed as fact is attributed to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. That's the equivalent of citing information in the Turkish National Commission's report (which has also been listed but not attributed to any material) and presenting the information as fact.
• The lead is blatantly one-sided. It goes into extraordinary detail about attacks on Israeli soldiers while the mention of civilian casulaties is limited to pure statistics in less than ten words. The opening paragraph gives an assertion by the Israeli government about what the event was, but omits a counter-claim or a claim of any other kind whatsoever. The next paragraph goes a step further, presenting Israeli opinion as fact without any attribution (even to the Israeli government). It also makes vague allusions to unnamed "others" and omits basic information unfavourable to that perspective. Nightw 06:37, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

So the lead is your concern?

Let's break it down:

Copy of lead for reference
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation by Israel against six ships of the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" on 31 May 2010 in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The flotilla, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH), was carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, with the intention of breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip. The government of Israel and others[who?] have alleged that the flotilla was organized as a provocation or media stunt.[text 1] On 31 May 2010, Israeli Shayetet 13 naval commandos boarded the ships from speedboats and helicopters in order to force the ships to the Israeli port of Ashdod for inspection. On the Turkish passenger ship MV Mavi Marmara, teams of prepared, trained and uniformed[not in citation given] IHH activists armed with metal rods cut from the ship fences and dressed in protected clothing from the construction materials[1] prevented Israeli boats from advancing by throwing broken plates and metal chains.[2][non-primary source needed] Commandos attempting to land on the top deck were attacked with knives and steel bars by IHH activists. Two commandos were thrown to the lower deck, one of them head down, and abducted along with a third commando. One of the commandos had his gun taken from him and used by the activists.[citation needed] Nine Turkish activists were killed and dozens were wounded.[3] Seven Israeli commandos were wounded, one of them seriously. [4] The five other ships in the flotilla employed passive resistance, which was suppressed without major incident. The ships were towed to Israel, where all people aboard were detained and deported.

First paragraph

• First sentence is neutral and basic. Second sentence explains the parties involved and their intentions. Third sentence tag can be supported with this opinion.

Second paragraph

• First sentence is clean, not seeing any neutrality issues. According to Israeli security interrogators, teams of Turkish activists were spotted and if I remember photographs of body armor found on the ship are available. Sentence could be modified with, "According to etc..."

• Not sure on the rest. A lot of the information from the lead is taken from content in the body. Wikifan^{Be nice} 06:52, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

An Israeli ambassador is Israel. I don't think you can effectively separate the two. With the second paragraph: yes, it could be modified, or it could just be reduced to the known facts otherwise counter claims will also have to be represented. The lead is not the place for these things. Nightw 07:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, nice catch. I didn't even bother to read the author. I am quite certain other groups/nations other than Israel described the flotilla as an act of provocation or publicity stunt. If sourcing is an issue no doubt references exist, it's just a matter of finding them. Some might already be in the article. I don't think the lead is in conflict with NPOV, but it is bloated. It should simply summarize the flotilla. We could cut out the last two paragraphs in the lead, merge them into the body, and simply add a little to the first paragraph. Wikifan^{Be nice} 07:16, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

What about reducing the lead to a simple summary like:

---

The Gaza flotilla raid was a military operation by Israel against six ships of the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" on 31 May 2010 in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The flotilla, organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Turkish Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (İHH), was carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials, with the intention of breaking the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the Gaza Strip.

On 31 May 2010, Israeli Shayetet 13 naval commandos boarded the ships from helicopters in order to force the ships to the Israeli port of Ashdod for inspection. On the Turkish ship MV Mavi Marmara, boarding has faced resistance of about 40 of "hardcore" IHH activists, armed with iron bars and knives. During the struggle, 9 activists were killed, and many were wounded. Ten of commandos were also wounded, one of them seriously. The five other ships in the flotilla employed passive resistance, which was suppressed without major incident.

---

? Ipsign (talk) 11:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

That would be a significant improvement since it sticks to the raw facts. Unless anyone objects, I will replace the lead with Ipsign's version now... Nightw 14:51, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

"Hardcore"? Who says they were? What differentiates a "hardcore" activist from a... er, "softcore"(?) activist? Suggest removal of this POV term. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The term has been used in UN "Report of the Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry": "The majority on board were “peace activists” but a “hardcore group” of about 40 IHH activists boarded the Mavi Marmara separately without any security checks in the port of Istanbul. These passengers marked themselves out throughout the voyage as a separate group, and made preparations to resist any boarding of the vessel by the IDF".[5] Certainly, if you prefer "hardcore group" to "hardcore", it is possible to rephrase it to use "hardcore group" instead. Ipsign (talk) 15:28, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

In addition: I've used the word "hardcore" merely to emphasize an (AFAIK undisputed) fact that not all passengers of Mavi Marmara were involved in the struggle (and implying that all passengers were involved, would be misleading). If there are ideas about other ways to say the same thing without going into half-page explanations - let's discuss. Ipsign (talk) 15:34, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the reference. I'd suggest, then: "On the Turkish ship MV Mavi Marmara, boarders faced resistance from about 40 activists - described in a UN report as a "separate hardcore group" - who were armed with iron bars and knives." Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:39, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

No objections from my side, thanks. Ipsign (talk) 15:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Issues with the lead resolved, mostly, although there is still gives an assertion by the Israeli government about what the event was, but omits a counter-claim from the other party involved. The attribution of material to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, presented herein as fact, will also need to be addressed. As Wikifan notes, this can probably just be fixed by adding "according to..." Nightw 15:48, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

What about dropping the last paragraph of the lead completely? Ipsign (talk) 16:03, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm fine with Ip's suggestion, but would be okay with cutting out the last paragraph because that info is already represented in the body. Wikifan^{Be nice} 17:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. Or add a competing claim by the Turkish organisation about what the flotilla was supposed to be. Either one. Nightw 21:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm cool with either. The lead could be reduced even more if editors are concerned about the length of the intro. We could cut it at the first two paragraphs and move the rest to the body. Just a thought. Wikifan^{Be nice} 00:47, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking it was getting a bid too short... Nightw 09:56, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Israeli ships identified

In the introduction to the "raid" section, it says that "two missile boats and the Sa'ar 5-class corvette INS Lahav left Haifa naval base..." However, there were actually two Sa'ar 5-class corvettes: the INS Lahav (Israel Defense Forces) and INS Hanit (Ynetnews, Belfast Telegraph). When the section Mavi Marmara boarding was divided into sub-sections for accounts by activists, journalists, and the IDF, the journalists accounts contained part of a piece by veteran Israeli correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai, mentioning that he was on "the Israeli missile ship INS Victory. After researching, I have discovered that the ship is the Sa'ar 4-class missile boat INS Nitzachon (meaning "Victory" in Hebrew). Could someone please change the intro to the raid section to mention all three ships? I can't from being temporarily topic-banned from the A-I conflict following a little dispute. Thanks!--RM (Be my friend) 20:47, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

INS Hanit (Sa'ar 5) and INS Nitzachon (Sa'ar 4) took part in the 'raid' for sure. Don't know about INS Lahav Flayer (talk) 22:11, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Removed ref

I have removed the ref entitled "Bloody Israeli raid on flotilla sparks crisis" from the history section. It was a dead link but the corresponding AP content seems to be still available from multiple sources and does not support the sentence after which it appeared. I have also removed the Katz 2010 ref from the same sentence, it was also irrelevant there. That ref is still used elsewhere in the article. We still have the press release ref which was also a dead link but it had already been archived. --Mirokado (talk) 11:31, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Inacurrate sourcing

I found a sentence it's source doesn't back up.

"However, a BBC documentary concluded that Israeli forces had acted in self-defense against a premeditated attack by a group of hardcore IHH activists.[17]"

The source is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/02/world/middleeast/02flotilla.html

Does anyone ever read the word BBC in here? This is the first source I've checked so far, so this article might as well be as spotless as an overripe banana... I can't remove it as this page is 'protected'. Who can? — Preceding unsigned comment added by DenDelhaize (talk • contribs) 13:04, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

I will have a look now. --Mirokado (talk) 15:24, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The reference is to http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=185381 "BBC's flotilla film slammed as 'biased'", so no problem. The NYT ref you mention is number 250 from elsewhere in the article... --Mirokado (talk) 15:35, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Wow, my bad. Must've been extremely tired to make a mistake like that... Sorry. DenDelhaize (talk) 15:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Ha! Don't worry, it happens to most of us from time to time. --Mirokado (talk) 16:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

joking, right?

This is not the place for racism Darkness Shines (talk) 14:47, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
a zillion photos showing activists preparing to fight soldiers (with broom sticks etc), yet the peaceful soldiers offering detainees "fruit"...you must be fucking kidding us. HAVE SHAME! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.73.191.176 (talk • contribs) 19:16 2 October 2011 (UTC) There are many Jewish editors on Wikipedia, so it can't be helped. Jews gonna Jew. Check out other articles on the Israeli-Arab conflict or Jewish related topics for more blatant bias. --DarklyCute 07:59, 15 february 2012 (UTC)

Very one-sided documented

This article looks like a joke. If you want to document this conflict with pictures, there should be at least pictures of injured activists. Wait, Israeli stole all video material from activists and journalists and never gave it back. I wonder why. The IDF has "nothing to hide" about this raid I thought? Either way, showing pictures on this page of only injured Israeli soldiers and activists "attacking" potrays this raid wrong. As for the activists "attacking" (according to the dictionary: "to begin hostilities against") the smuggled video of Lara Lee clearly shows the IDF sniping from helicopters before they entered.Also, mentioning this video in the article seems necessary because it's a good source that shows what happened. Waiting for feedback and other Wiki-users to get a consensus, and edit this page. Because now it looks pretty much like it's written by a spokesman of the IDF. Tijs schelstraete (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

It does, doesn't it. My experience of this area is that it's very well protected by some very zealous pro-Israeli sympathisers who wouldn't know NPOV if it ran over them in a tank. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 13:17, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. And reading your comments here I see that NPOV is not your intention. MathKnight 18:31, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

And, dear MathKnight, is NPOV your intention? Who do you really expect to believe that after reading your user page, especially the part praising Israeli bulldozers that "have saved many lives". (Rachel Corrie anyone?) Apologies, but you really fit the description of "very zealous pro-Israeli sympathiser". But you won't admit it here even if a bulldozer runs you over.--Noblivion (talk) 20:33, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Please AGF. If the article is neutral, why is there a caption saying "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to attack IDF soldiers" rather than "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to defend themselves from a boarding by IDF soldiers", or even just "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the ships activists"? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 00:57, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Haha, assume good faith when you talk about the "zealous pro-Israeli sympathisers" destroying the page? Such base hypocrisy... Plot Spoiler (talk) 06:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm talking about my impression of this and related pages in general and not naming or attacking any specific editors. Now, would you care to actually answer my point above, or just call me names? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 07:25, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Why there is a caption saying "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to attack IDF soldiers"? beacuse it is the most accurate description to the picture. The activists attacked IDF soldiers boarding the ship. In other ships, when IDF soldiers boarded them in order to take control of the bridge and redirect them to Ashdod port, and they were not attacked by activists, the soldiers didn't have to defend themselves with force and therefore none were injured. In the MV Maramara, soldiers encountered lethal violence from Islamist activists, attacking them with rods, clubs, knives and slingshots. They first used only paintball guns (non-lethal weapon) and resorted to their sidearms (i.e. pistols) when they were under life threat from the activists. MathKnight 09:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

It is just as accurate to say that the picture shows activists preparing to defend themselves from a boarding action while in international waters. And more neutral again to mereley state that the picture shows activists... Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:54, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Not, it is not. The boarding itself is not a violent action and is legal under international law (when IDF commando boarded upon ships smuggling weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah, none of their crew thought of resisting the boarding with violence). Therefore, the "defense" claim drops. Would you say a criminal shooting a policeman is defending himself from an arrest? The second suggestion, omitting the part that they are holding weapons and prepare to use violence against IDF soldiers, is removing relevant information. When they are holding rods and knives, and wearing gas masks, it is clear they are not there for a social encounter or a pep rally, they gathered wqeapons and gear to prepare for a violent engagement. The fact is that the activists prepare themselves to attack the boarding soldiers, this is what the photo shows, and this is what the caption says. MathKnight 10:07, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Sources disagree about whether the boarding was legal or not - as is stated in the article, so no, the defense claim does not drop. See, for example, the UNHRC report, compared to the UN Palmer Report. Even the Palmer report, which agrees that the raid was legal, says excessive force was used. Regarding the picture - are we looking at the same one?

"When they are holding rods and knives" - one of those pictured is holding a rod of some kind. One is holding what might be a broom. None are holding knives.

"and wearing gas masks" - none of the four people whose faces are visible are wearing gas masks?

As per the Foreign Press Association quoted in the article, "Israel is validating its own account by selectively using the seized video and equipment from reporters on board". The photo shows nothing more than 5 people on the deck of a ship and nothing more can be read into it. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 11:04, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Other pictures show activists with gas masks, rods, slingshot and knives. Even in this photo, it is clear that they are not cleaning the ship with broomsticks. As for the UNHRC, it has lost credibility by many, including the UN Secretary Generals, so its report doesn't prove anything and no one (maybe other than Turkey, Hamas, Iran and their supporters) takes it seriously. The Palmer reports clearly states that the boarding was legal. The activists had no right to attack the soldiers, as criminals don't have the right to shoot policemen, even if the policemen are trying to arrest them. Had the activists not attacked the boarding soldiers - no violence and no injuries would occure, as seen in other boats where the boarding ended peacfully and without violence. No one has claimed that the IDF forged these photoes (FPA only claimed it shown certain photoes and not all of them). This photo and other photoes, as well as the photoes and videos showing activists attacking soldiers with rods and knives, prove that the activist did prepare to attack the soldier and did attacked them. So the caption is correct - they did prepare to attack the soldiers. MathKnight 12:38, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

"Other pictures show activists with gas masks, rods, slingshot and knives." This one doesn't. "Even in this photo, it is clear that they are not cleaning the ship with broomsticks." No, they're not. They're standing/moving about a deck. That is all that the picture shows, nothing more, nothing less. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 09:48, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Waving rods with anger is not a recreational or peaceful activity. After waving the rods in an aggressive manner they used them to beat the soldiers. MathKnight 11:05, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

You're able to discern emotion and movement from a camera still? Good trick. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 15:57, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

@ MathKnight. I think shooting somebody in the head from a few inches distance can't be considered "peaceful" either. A video you can watch yourself of the execution of Furkan Dogan Dogan shows this clearly on youtube. There was also SNIPING before they entered as you can see on the Lara Lee footage. A handful of people responded with slingshots, kitchen knives,.. which is peanuts compared to what the IDF did. I'm not saying the activists their resistance was non-violent, but it was defense. This article and the pictures portray the attack as if the activists were the agressors. Don't forget passengers of others ships also were wounded by the agresisve way the IDF boarded.

I also want to address this: The IDF stole all the videos and pictures they could from journalists and activists who were on the ships, and very few got leaked. Most of the pictures used on this Wiki-page come directly from dubious IDF propaganda sites. This wikipedia article doesn't portray neutrality at all. There are plenty of allegations some of the pictures and short movie clips the IDF releases were forged. I'm talking about f.e. about the picture which is used on this article with the quote: "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to attack IDF soldier". Tijs schelstraete (talk) 22:17, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

IMHO, both sides on this talk page exhibit too much emotions (which is perfectly understandable, but inappropriate when one is wearing a hat of Wikipedia editor). On the question of the caption "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to attack IDF soldiers" - I think both "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to attack IDF soldiers" and "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists preparing to defend themselves from a boarding by IDF soldiers" are equally incorrect, and not because of partisan opinions, but because both are invalid WP:SYN. If some WP:RS has called this video or picture "preparing to attack" or "preparing to defend" - we would be able to refer to it as "such as such source has named it 'preparing to...'", otherwise all the analysis (would there be a loss of life if...) is invalid WP:SYN (essentially violating WP:V, which is fundamental to Wikipedia: "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth"). As I understand, the only non-disputed fact about that video is that it is activists shortly before the boarding, so I would suggest to change wording to "Footage taken from the Mavi Marmara security cameras showing the activists shortly before the boarding". Ipsign (talk) 08:33, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Do we know the material originates from the Mavi Marmara, as opposed to a studio? This "footage" was released by the IDF. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:49, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I have removed the statement [6] with the edit summary "someone must cite a source to support the statement then restore it. WP:V compliance is mandatory. it shouldn't be difficult to source if it is true". People, please, this article is covered by sanctions. Statements must have sources. The statement has been challenged so someone needs to provide a source. Surely the IDF said something along these lines about this footage which could be used and attributed to them. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:36, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

This is more silly than I thought. The photo is from the official IDF flickr site. The caption says "Mavi Marmara Activists Prepare to Attack IDF Soldiers" so that is a suitable source right there that can support the statement as long as the statement is attributed to the IDF. I shall add the citation. Sean.hoyland - talk 18:41, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Editing Suggestion

The article on the Gaza Flotilla raid contains lengthy in depth analysis of the raid of the Mavi Marmara and its aftermath. By contrast, the MV Mavi Marmara article itself, surprisingly has almost no content on these events. I suggest a more general paragraph in this article and the current content to be transferred to the MV Mavi Marmara. AnkhMorpork (talk) 20:55, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for posting this suggestion. The MV Mavi Marmara article is about the ship itself and summarises both of the Gaza events in which she was involved, with main-article links to the full articles for each. If we describe the GFR involvement in detail there the article will be out of proportion. The events on board, are central to much of the rest of Gaza flotilla raid and belong, I think, in that article as at present.

Having said that, it is certainly true that GFR loads slowly and is about twice the "nice recommended size" of 60kb, so we should continue to look for possibilities to split it. The last split produced a 30k article but only saved about 20k from the original, because of the remaining summary and shared references, so we don't gain as much as we might expect. An advantage of splitting within reason is that each new topic has room to grow naturally. --Mirokado (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

2011 diplomatic crisis

Why is there no mention of Turkey giving Israel a deadline to apologize and lift the Gaza blockade after the Palmer report? Turkey actually recalled its ambassador and threatened to send Turkish warships on escort missions for future flotillas. I would think that this diplomatic crisis is a noteworthy topic to put in the article.--RM (Be my friend) 04:35, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

I wanted to add the additional ongoing consequences of this raid, including the exclusion of Israel in NATO Summits (blocked by Turkey until an apology agreement has been met), but haven't been able to edit. Fancynancywhy (talk) 22:23, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Added a local reflist... --Mirokado (talk) 23:48, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

For further reading

I would suggest the addition of another source under "Further Reading":

"Drawing a Line in the Sea: The 2010 Gaza Flotilla Incident and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict", edited by Thomas Copeland, Alethia Cook, and Lisa McCartan. Published by Lexington Books, 2011.

PoliProf (talk) 15:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC) PoliProf

"Expired Medicine"

The picture of the "Expired Medicine" in the cargo is misleading. Medicines are effective as long as 15 years after the expiration dates printed on the packages, and the earliest expiration dates I've found for any of the medicines in february 2009. Take the image off as it is misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evan2718281828 (talk • contribs) 06:29, 22 June 2012 (UTC)

Inaccurate citation

As it is written now, allegations that there was a "hardcore" group of IHH Islamists who were preparing to engage in active resistance to Israeli commandos is quoted as being from the Palmer Report, yet the source itself only logs that as an accusation by the Israeli government; it does not agree or endorse this claim. — Preceding unsigned comment added by APairOfDocks (talk • contribs) 09:21, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the Palmer report quotes the Turkel Committee report. I'll update the references accordingly and perhaps the content needs changing too. Thanks for commenting. --Mirokado (talk) 11:16, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

The Palmer report cites one or other of the national reports quite often, it may be better to make the origins of what it is saying a bit clearer. I've updated the refs for "hardcore" straight away since that was mentioned prominently in the lead. I (if nobody else) will have a look at the other Palmer refs when convenient. --Mirokado (talk) 12:37, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Gaza Flotilla Massacre

"Gaza flotilla massacre" would seem to me to be a more appropriate title for this article. "Raid" does not convey the brutality or utter lack of regard for human life displayed by the Israelis during this "incident". It was a massacre. Let's call it what it was instead of trying to be politically correct in order not to hurt people's feelings. AnAimlessRoad (talk) 13:44, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Nine idiots dead does not equal a massacre. If people are stupid enough to attack trained men with guns using no more than metal bars and sticks they kinda get what they deserve. Darkness Shines (talk) 13:52, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Maybe we should leave this popular opinion out of the discussion all together. 107.7.55.19 (talk) 21:33, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Darkness Shines, I'm sure in your mind those goyim "idiots" deserved to be murdered for being "stupid" enough to resist a violent attack, but that is not the general international consensus in regards to the Gaza flotilla massacre. Perhaps it is the consensus in zionist circles, but not elsewhere. In any case, such sentiments as yours have clearly crept into this article, and it is quite inappropriate. AnAimlessRoad (talk) 16:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Sentiments such as yours have no place in a civilized society. But lets put your claim to the test anyway shall we? "Gaza flotilla raid" 1,100,000 results. "Gaza flotilla massacre" 264,000 results. Were exactly is that consensus you mentioned? Darkness Shines (talk) 16:49, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

What's the issue here? It was indeed a raid, but it was also a massacre. The media are bound by political correctness when it comes to reporting Israel-related issues, but wikipedia, being an encyclopedia, should not be. I think it's about time people start calling the "Gaza flotilla raid" what it was rather than whitewashing the massacre in order to avoid damaging fragile zionist egos.

I don't know what your individual definition of "civilised society" constitutes, but, as far as I'm concerned, in a civilised society all unlawful killings should be condemned equally... regardless of the ethnicity or religious affiliation of the killers. Judging from your comments, I'd assume that you do not agree. AnAimlessRoad (talk) 18:15, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Read WP:INDENT. Again, not a massacre going by the Google results above. When I am attacked I respond with deadly force, does this make me a murderer? Killing people in self defense is not unlawful. Perhaps you ought to reread WP:NPOV instead of whining about "fragile zionist egos" Also review WP:NOTAFORUM and WP:SOAPBOX while your about it. Darkness Shines (talk) 18:23, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Google results do not a reliable source make, my friend. :-)

I honestly have no idea why you are directing me to WP:NPOV when your argument is basically that humanitarian activists deserved to be brutally murdered, including wounded activists being tossed overboard to drown according to eyewitnesses, simply for resisting a violent attack. Perhaps you should take a look at WP:NPOV yourself. But in any case, I agree that we are both veering somewhat off topic, and should try to remain on the issue of the Gaza flotilla slaughter. So educate me... If the deliberate, calculated, illegal slaughter of at least nine innocent people does not qualify as a massacre, what does qualify, pray tell? You're telling me it was self-defense because the activists were armed with frying pans? Give me a break.

Sincerest apologies for the lack of indentation, though it has absolutely no relation to the issue at hand. I am new to editing wikipedia, and haven't gotten the hang of every quirk. Practice makes perfect though, I'm sure you'll agree. AnAimlessRoad (talk) 18:55, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

I doubt you are as new as you say. But lets try this "The assault on the Gaza flotilla refers to the Israeli military operation against six humanitarian ships carrying aid bound for Gaza on May 31, 2010" Does not call it a massacre. "The international outcry in response to Israel's raid on the Mavi Marinara was immediate." Nor does this. It appears the academic press does not think it a massacre. Darkness Shines (talk) 19:56, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Please refrain from making baseless accusations.

I think a compromise is in order. It's clear that, while the massacre is most frequently referred to as a "raid" (not in the least bit surprising, as it was indeed a raid) it is also frequently labelled a "massacre".

Hakan Albayrak, Yeni Safak Daily journalist, stated:“It was an outright massacre what Israel did out there. They attacked us in international waters. We protected our ship. We had no weapons." http://www.todayszaman.com/news-212103-israel-killed-more-than-9-threw-wounded-into-sea-witnesses-say.html

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, stated: "This bloody massacre by Israel on ships that were taking humanitarian aid to Gaza deserves every kind of curse." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/gaza-flotilla-raid-turkey-prime-minister-israel

Mahmoud Abbas said: "What Israel has committed on board the freedom flotilla was a massacre." http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/31/israel-kills-activists-flotilla-gaza

Venezuelan foreign minister Nicolas Maduro: "You have to classify this as a massacre..." http://www.adl.org/main_Anti_Semitism_International/Venezuela_Gaza_Flotilla_Affair.htm?Multi_page_sections=sHeading_2 < (labelled by the ADL as an anti-semitic comment rofl)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phyllis-bennis/from-istanbul-outrage-ove_b_596158.html

Etc etc. Do you want more examples? Because I can provide them. Using the term "massacre" to describe the flotilla attack is not exactly radical. Indeed, it is widespread.AnAimlessRoad (talk) 22:53, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the current title is the most NPOV one we'll probably find, though a redirect from "... massacre" is also probably in order. However, I find Darkness Shines's form of argumentation utterly clownish. "nine idiots"? "no place in a civilized society"? Laughably biased, not to be taken seriously. Homunq (talk) 23:06, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree with what user Homunq as it most neutral title--Shrike (talk) 06:39, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

Who will take the time to fix the error in: 'The members well-trained and equipped with gas masks and bulletproof vests.' There's a verb missing and I can't seem to find the edit button... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.35.112.206 (talk) 01:38, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

@AnAimlessRoad - This is what I understand from both the long video put out by the flotilla people with reports from the Turkish media and the videos from the Israeli army along with reports from Israeli newspapers (sometimes giving out a bit more than was intended by the military): Both sides edited and pulled out some parts, but it seems most parts are there and it is not hard to reconstruct a valid image by connecting both sides of the story into one coherent image. My conclusion is that it was NOT a massacre. Please bear with me, even if at first you do not agree.

First a "timeline" of what happened. Then a short summary:

Although the "activists" (who called themselves "soldiers" in the movie made during the flotilla and aired by their organization) attacked the Israelis with crowbars and knives, and although they abducted 3 Israeli soldiers and held them in custody, thinking they had one killed, and another deadly wounded (it turned out that the killed one was unconscious, and the other only badly, but not deadly, wounded), still, the Israelis were not aware of the abductions, and continued the "paintball" attack using plastic bullets (for crowd dispersion), so that live fire was only authorized when one of the Israeli's abducted handguns was used by the "activists" with live fire against the Israelis, 2 minutes after the beginning of the action.

The last landing Israeli "seal" who's commander was the first to land and was thrown overboard now unconscious and in custody, and two others badly wounded from stabbings, and stripped from their uniform, weapons and personal communication system, was able to call the Israeli command and he is heard in the Israeli movies yelling: YES YES! I'M SURE. THEY ARE FIRING LIVE! At 2 and half minutes from the landing, (on the flotilla movie you clearly hear the helicopters and even see them once, after the paintball liquid hits the walls), two wounded activist soldiers (clearly seen beforehand preparing with the soldiers) are carried to a "doctor". They are seen "treated" (or more correctly mistreated) by American activists who obviously have no medical training, causing their death, as real doctor, who treats them later in movie points out. They have been hit with "plastic bullets" and could have been saved. The real activist doctor, for the first time stripping the wounded of their clothes as medical practice calls for, shows and even taps the bullet wound and says: "Plastic". This means that there is no "bullet" entrance or exit just a very bad tearing wound where it hit.

The situation about 3 minutes after the initial deck landing: 2 badly wounded activist soldiers in ship internal, being treated by non-medical staff. 3 badly wounded Israelis in "activist" custody (one thought to be dead), two "seal" teams on deck under knife and life threatening attack, while themselves in non-lethal "crowd dispersion" mode.

Live ammunition is authorized, "Were finished with the paintball, no more games" (heard in the Israeli movies), and the last seal from the first team shoots and kills one of the four attackers who has been trying to stab him. (the others were with crowbars, they worked in teams of 8 to 10, four or five throwing the landing "seals" off balance and the rest dealing with toppled seals). He then returns fire towards the shooter, wounding him. The three attackers begin fleeing as this seal shoots at another nine attackers engaged with two of his team, killing one and wounding two (according to Israeli news leaks) The rest of the seal teams whip out there guns at this point wounding another two, and the attackers flee, going down into the ship taking their wounded and leaving the dead.

By now there are 7 wounded activist soldiers (all with reason, none in a "massacre"): two from plastic, one after shooting from a handgun and still holding it, four while beating or stabbing - as can be proven from the other cases at this stage, in an attempt to kill. (The wounded are seen in the "Dont photo this!" section of the flotilla movie, where they are getting close to the room with the Israeli soldiers by mistake)

There are also 2 dead activist soldiers (the attacker with the knife, and one of the other attacker teams), and 7 badly wounded Israeli soldiers - 3 in custody of the activists.

Around 7 minutes after the landing the newly arrived Israeli teams are ready to raid the internals of the boat. They have taken the bridge and the boat is now heading towards Ashdod. Now aware of the abducted soldiers they call for the activists to open the doors but are answered with defiance. The locks are shot after warnings to move away (as seen on the flotilla movie).

This part is missing from both sides filmed accounts - purposefully (because the rest continues). According to Israeli newsmen (actually newswomen) during the raid the activist soldiers realized that this was a raid with live ammunition. They abandoned the Israeli soldiers thinking they were mortally wounded. Two of the Israeli soldiers fled and jumped deck into the water. The third was recovered by the team that stormed the ship internals.

The activists where now closed in a barricaded section of the ship (including the newsroom). The Israelis stop the raid, and call in medical teams. They call the activists to open for the medical teams. They know that there are wounded activists and wish to treat them. The medics plea with the activists but are refused.

Summary:

Preparation: Activists call themselves soldiers, pray together before the religious holy war, prepare for combat,

Action:

• They abduct 3 Israelis, killing one and mortally wounding two (only later to find out that they were not killed and not mortally wounded, but that was their intention and what they thought).
• They Open fire with abducted gun and refuse to accept medical attention. (Perhaps in order to die as martyrs).

Results:

• 2 Activist soldiers killed from documented mistreatment of "crowd dispersal" wounds.
• 5 Activist soldiers killed from wounds not treated, received during active combat - probably could have been saved.
• 2 Activist soldiers killed directly by Israeli soldier during active combat.

Massacre? פשוט pashute ♫ (talk) 10:03, 1 May 2012 (UTC)

If the Itamar killings were a massacre, then so was this. The Fogel family were armed members of an illegal settlement, against whom resistance is specifically sanctioned by the UN. FRom every angle the deaths of these activists was a more serious crime. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.116.71.0 (talk) 12:39, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

To editors from both sides of this argument: let's not make Wikipedia a forum for discussing the truth, it is not for us as Wikipedians to decide (not to mention that apparently at least in this case the truth clearly depends on point of view). In Wikipedia it is as simple as that: if no WP:RS calls it 'massacre' - it is not the one for Wikipedia purposes; if 100 WP:RS call it 'raid' and 1 WP:RS calls it 'massacre' - it is still 'raid'; if it is 60 'raid' - 40 'massacre' - article should be named 'raid', but 'massacre' point of view should be represented per WP:WEIGHT; if it is 60 WP:RS naming it 'massacre' to 40 naming it 'raid' - it should be named 'massacre' and 'raid' should be mentioned per WP:WEIGHT and so on. So instead of describing 'the truth' (which will be different depending on the side you're on) - please mention WP:RS supporting your wording (but the wording you're arguing for, should be from the source, making conclusions that it was 'massacre' or 'raid' based on factual findings source is invalid WP:SYN, unless source explicitly uses words 'massacre' or 'raid'). In short - while I may disagree with opinions represented in sources (and I sometimes do), when I put on my Wikipedian hat, I must rely only on WP:RS, regardless of my personal opinion on the subject, that's it. (afterwards I may write personal letters / articles / ... ) to support my point of view, but this is a different story) Ipsign (talk) 13:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

"The raid drew widespread condemnation internationally and resulted in a deterioration of Israel-Turkey relations." this is erronous and should change

3rd paragraph, first sentence: "The raid drew widespread condemnation internationally and resulted in a deterioration of Israel-Turkey relations." should be modified to: "The raid drew widespread condemnation internationally and escalated the deterioration of Israel-Turkey relations." as the the relations were well deteriorating prior to the incident. can't find the edit button. What happened to wikipedia?84.111.204.51 (talk) 12:33, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

Do you have sources that say the raid escalated the deterioration? Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 19:53, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

There is a timeline well established in news articles of the period. 1) Dec.28, 2008 - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemns Israeli attacks in Gaza as crime against humanity. 2) jan.01, 2009 - the davos incident, Erdogan accused [olmert] of "back-stabbing" and "hurting Turkish national pride.". 3) jan.01, 2009 - slamming Israel's policy of boycotting Hamas in Gaza. 4) jan.01, 2009 - Turkey's attitude toward Israel is changing 5) jan.01, 2009 - Israel rebukes Turkey over brutish TV portrayal of IDF. So far I hope I've established that relations were already strained prior to the mavi marmara incident. However, Ankara had upped the ante by expelling the Israeli ambassador - something that didn't happen after cast lead, but only after the marmara incident. Diplomats expulsion is an escalation of deteriorating diplomatic relations. Some basic logic applied to well established time-line and well documented historical events should be a minimum for an editor of such a subject in an encyclopedia, me thinks. 84.111.204.51 (talk) 21:09, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

One must be careful to not engage in WP:SYNTHESIS using disparate sources. Instead, one could just say it damaged Israel-Turkey relations. (By the way, people without accounts cannot edit certain contentious articles, this being one.) Abductive (reasoning) 21:16, 7 September 2012 (UTC)

In that case, I would like to chalange the original on the same basis - which source uses the exact phrase "resulted in a deterioration of Israel-Turkey relations"? It is not referenced, or offered as an outside link anywhere in the article. 84.109.18.151 (talk) 15:36, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

We don't need to use the exact same phrases as sources do, in fact paraphrasing sources (maintaining the meaning with different phrasing) is considered to be good editing. The difference between "damaging relations" and leading to a "deterioration of relations" is insignificant as far as I can see. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 20:34, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Opening 'graphs selectively mention injuries

The opening summary paragraphs mentions the death and injury of passengers. Wouldn't evenhanded treatment of this issue require the same opening summary to mention of the serious injury of the Israelis caused by passengers? 70.89.4.9 (talk) 15:00, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Pictures under the "Mavi Marmara boarding" title

These pictures for the article are extremely biased. They imposes only one-sided idea which is totally unacceptable for an encyclopedia. There are four pictures about the event:

1. Mavi Marmara passengers attack IDF soldiers with metal rods

There is an illegal occupation, and these people are fighting back,there is a defense, but the word 'attacking' is offensive. Besides sticks against guns?

2. An injured Israeli commando captured by activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, and a knife-wielding activist

Okay, if you put this picture while there are many peopled killed by the Israeli soldiers, I would think there is certainly a malicious intentions.

3. Activists throw a stun grenade into an IDF speedboat

This is ridiculous. Activist did not have grenades, this is the grenade that was thrown to Mavi Marmara. One of the activists picks the grenade and throw it back.

4. Slingshots found Aboard the Mavi Marmara

Oh okay, they should have planned to save Gaza with the slingshots. No comment.

As summary, I'm not good at editing Wikipedia articles, but this is so wrong. I'm not saying put the dead bodies of the people who was murdered, I'm just saying make it more balanced, more objective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.120.150.217 (talk) 12:54, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Blocked user's interpretation of a you tube video re-added to article

A (now blocked) AHJ sock puppet added [7] his own personal interpretation of a you tube video (Gaza Flotilla Activist stabs soldier in the back UNBELIEVEABLE!) to the article, using the you tube video as the cited source.

The material is totally inappropriate for a serious encyclopedia article on the topic, the addition is not consistent with Wikipedia policy (see WP:NOR) and the user who originally added the material is blocked from editing. Dlv999 (talk) 15:03, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

WP:OR description of a primary source, removed until a secondary source can be provided. Given the recent RS/N threads initiated by the user in question, where academic papers by noted scholars are challenged for being "self-published" and "unreliable", color me shocked at the abrupt about faced. Really, I am soooo serious, no sarcasm. Shocked I say, shocked. nableezy - 15:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The footage released by the IDF are reliable sources with attribution. They were referred to extensively in the press and featured in the Panorama documentary. Ankh.Morpork 17:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

You restored [8] an editors OR description of a video created by a youtube user using some footage from a Fox news report and other footage of unknown origin spliced together and editorialized with the youtube users own commentary and soundtrack. This video is nowhere near reaching RS standards and you should explain why you restored it into the article given that it was originally introduced by a sockpuppet of a blocked user. Dlv999 (talk) 18:05, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The footage that you describe is not an RS. I confused this with what was released through the IDF's official channel. Ankh.Morpork 19:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Proof by assertion isnt generally something that I feel necessary to respond to. nableezy - 19:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

The uploader is not RS and it is contributory copyright infringement with the video's use of copyrighted material. The content could be added but it needs a different source. (Really? This was an easy one without even arguing over it.)Cptnono (talk) 03:24, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The use of "attack" and "defense" words

Search for the words attack or defense/defend in the article. Most of them suggest that Israeli soldiers were defending themselves against Turkish activists attacking them, which sounds hilarious in the general context. Generally the article focuses more on how the poor IDF had to defend themselves (again!) and less on the fact that their attack was illegal and involved excess violence. We have to work on that.--Emesik (talk) 01:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Recent revert

I have reverted here as I am quite sure .intifada-palestine.com does not meet RS. Darkness Shines (talk) 09:03, 30 March 2013 (UTC)

Some 629 activists were detained by the Israel Prison Service, after they refused to sign deportation orders. A Turkish mother who had brought her one-year-old child with her agreed to extradition after she was advised that prison conditions were "too harsh" for her baby.

jail, not prison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.250.90.77 (talk) 12:03, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

International Criminal Court - CORRECTIONS / ADDITIONS

The article is incorrect under the 'reactions - turkey' section.

It incorrectly states that Turkey is a member of the Court. It states that the vessel was registered as being from Comoros, and that Tukish citizens were onboard, and goes on to mention that both Turkey and Comoros are members of the Court. Comoros is, Turkey is not. The article also neglects to mention that Comoros referred the situation to the ICC very recently.

This should be fixed asap. All the information can be found on the ICC website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.67.184.106 (talk) 14:39, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Organized POV editing

I don't know if any Wikipedia staff is aware, but this article is specifically mentioned in a video that reports on organized Zionist POV editing of Wikipedia articles. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t52LB2fYhoY — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.151.197.231 (talk) 15:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

You couldn't make it upOxr033 (talk) 03:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

I too came here after seeing http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/wikipedia-editing-for-zionists/ an article outlining 'Zionist editing of Wikipedia' classes being held by a religious group to help agenda push so that if someone searches for ‘the Gaza flotilla,’ we want to be there; to influence what is written there, how it’s written and to ensure that it is balanced and Zionist in nature.”[9]

I need not stress the implications of this, and ask that due diligence be afforded to watch out for this new religious agenda pushing type of astroturfer. This isn't the first religious group to band together to teach their constituents how to agenda push on Wiki and sadly I'm sure it won't be the last. However this seems to have flown under the radar since the opening comment was made. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

This is news? The Gaza blockade, this particular article, and related articles all seem to be under watch and owned by a very dedicated group. I contributed at one point to the MV Rachel Corrie and associated articles but the tag team editing drove me away. Between this article, Gaza journey of MV Rachel Corrie and MV Rachel Corrie, I see they've managed to whittle down the very well documented allegations of sabotage to a single line, immediately followed by "there was no evidence" - everywhere else in the three articles its stated as gospel that the ship suffered mechanical problems, with no mention whatsoever of the allegations of sabotage. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 23:05, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

NPOV / RS / Images and video

User:Michael Zeev removed a link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp5rtfPWtqA - saying it was "Not RS; copyright". I restored it. Mr Zeev removed it again saying "An unclear video uploaded by anonymous Youtube user "Sadigov" is not a reliable source to include in the "Activist response" section. See WP:RS)" Granted, the link could be better placed. However, what is the relevance of WP:RS here? We are allowed to include unclear still photos uploaded to Flickr showing alleged violence and attacks by flotilla participants against the IDF; but we are not permitted to link to unclear videos uploaded to YouTube showing alleged violence and attacks by the IDF against flotilla participants. Include all, or neither, in the interests of WP:NPOV. Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 14:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

On the issue of reliability, images, and by my reading related media, do not need to come from "reliable sources". The Manual of Style says the following in MOS:IMAGES: Reliable sources, if any, may be listed on the image's description page. Generally, Wikipedia assumes in good faith that image creators are correctly identifying the contents of photographs they have taken. If such sources are available, it is helpful to provide them. I see no reason why material from the IDF should be the only allowed media on this page, and I can see several reasons why they shouldnt. The IDF is no more a reliable source than the IHH when it comes to this issue, and if that is the objection people want to make, invalid though it is, they should be applying it evenly. nableezy - 15:13, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

If you have a video of IHH showing alleged violence against flotilla passengers, I have no objection if the material is included in the proper section (just like images taken by official IDF). However, a video uploaded by an unknown Youtube user is not a reliable source. Both the creator and publisher of the work can't be verified.--Michael Zeev (talk) 19:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for completely ignoring the point that media need not come from a reliable source. I linked to and quoted from the policy that says so. Anything else? nableezy - 19:21, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

What are you talking about? There is no media in that video and it is not an image. You don't know anything about who created the video except for Youtube user "sadigov". It isn't reliable nor can be verified. If you have a video of IHH, it's fine by me. But not this.--Michael Zeev (talk) 19:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

You are now edit-warring, and further have given me the needed motivation to look into a few things. Ill deal with that later. nableezy - 20:31, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

• May I remind that RS/verifiability doesn't apply here at all. Wikipedia:External links does.TMCk (talk) 20:59, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

So the consensus would seem to be for the inclusion of the link - though admittedly with better context than it had been included with? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 18:42, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The Mavi Marmara boarding Section shows one-sided violence.

The Mavi Marmara boarding section has a very one-sided collection of images. For example the section mentions that IDF soldiers threw stun grenades at the ship and a few where picked up and thrown back at the soldiers. Yet an image sums the whole incident up as "Activists throw a stun grenade into an IDF speedboat". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.116.54.63 (talk) 05:11, 25 August 2013 (UTC)