Death on the Mavi Marmara

Articles have appeared in newspapers across the world written by or about Ahmet Dogan, an American of Turkish origin, regarding the death of his son, Furkan, aged 19, aboard the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship that deliberately tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in May, 2009, and was stopped. Here is one such article:

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/focus-u-s-a/father-of-teen-killed-in-gaza-flotilla-raid-seeks-american-justice-1.345023

In response to this anti-Israel propaganda campaign, I provide the following comments;

It is a shame that this young man, an American of Turkish descent died on the Mavi Marmara. But, he was not an innocent victim in a long and drawn out struggle by the Arab and Islamic peoples that seeks to destroy the State of Israel and its people. As such he put himself in harms way.
Let us examine the facts.
1. The Turkish Government for political reasons surreptitously aided and assisted the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara to try to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. This was not a purely humanitarian mission, since the Turkish military was involved and in fact a Turkish Navy destroyer guided the ship out of harbor in Turkey. Also, a group of Muslim extremists was trained in assault tactics and added to the ship after it left its original port in Istanbul.
2. There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza, this was something that has been used as a PR campaign to precisely involve "useful idiots" like Furkan, who are prepared to go along and accept things at face value. Israel has been and still continues to supply water, electricity and gas to Gaza, even though Gaza is a self-declared terrorist controlled enemy entity that seeks the destruction of Israel. In addition 800 trucks a week (approximately) enter Gaza from Israel with all kinds of goods. By contrast, no such supplies come from Egypt, where the border is officially closed, although tunnels are used to smuggle almost everything in (including weapons and rockets) for a price.
3. The Israeli blockade of Gaza is legal under international law, since it is an armed enclave considering itself at war with Israel. In the 8 years before Operation Cast Lead in 2008, over 8,000 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel. When the Israeli Government's patience was finally at an end they stopped the firing, although it still goes on intermittantly. A blockade is common in cases where arms and/or men could be smuggled into a war situation on board any ship (a good example is the American blockade of Cuba).
4. Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara only after several warnings, but these warnings were deliberately rejected.
5. The commados were met with violence only aboard the Mavi Marmara, on the other two ships in the flotilla there was no violence. Thus, it was only on that ship that people were killed. The writer of the article fails to mention that the enquiries into the incident all agree that a group of passengers aboard the ship initiated the violence and the IDF commandos only opened fire when their lives were at stake. Anyone putting themsleves in such a situation should expect the worst.

If anyone who considers themselves a "human rights activist" wants to improve the chances for peace between Israel and the Palestinians there are plenty of sympathetic voices in Israel to talk to. But, if anyone wants to help destroy and/or delegitimize Israel by assisting the Hamas rulers of Gaza in a PR stunt, they have only themselves to blame if they suffer the consequences.