I’ve read some suggestions that the Israelis have been manipulating our perception of the events that took place on the “Mavi Marmarma” by only releasing those images that suit their narrative. Let’s assume that’s indeed what’s going on. However, I haven’t seen suggestions that the material released is faked. At worst it would appear to be incomplete. This being so, it seems impossible to deny that some passengers chose to attack the commandos as soon as they set foot on the vessel and reasonable to suppose that this decision bears some relation to the decision taken by the Israelis to fire on them.

I’ve studied the reaction in the international press to Israel’s intervention with some care over the last few days and, as far as I can see, there has been no questioning of the motives of the passengers who decided to attack the commandos, nor have there been any doubts expressed about the role of the organizers in preparing those on the boat for the sudden arrival of the Israelis. It’s important to note here that it would be easy to maintain a firm anti-Israel position and still be able to do this. Let me improvise a sample of the sort of thing I haven’t read:

The Israelis boarded the “Mavi Marmara” thirsting for blood and the failure of the flotilla’s organizers to plan for their arrival led to some passengers losing control of themselves and in their yearning for justice and liberty to attack the Zionists with their bare hands, thus giving the child killers of Gaza the perfect excuse to murder nine brave peace activists.

Okay, I’ve hammed it up a bit but you could express the same basic argument in a more reasoned tone.

Many commentators have mentioned the right of those on the ship to self defense. I don’t think that argument works because being the bearer of a given right doesn’t oblige one to exercise it in all circumstances and in a reckless manner. If I may be allowed a personal anecdote, I was once held at gunpoint for a number of hours by armed criminals. In the circumstances in which I found myself I thought it best to shut up and be cooperative because I believed that if I did otherwise I would likely be killed. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that Israel had no legal right to take control of the “Mavi Marmara” and its passengers thus had the right to defend themselves that doesn’t mean that they were obliged to launch themselves at the at the commandos. They could have chosen not to.

There may be many reasons behind the lack of comment on the highly imprudent nature of the individual and collective decision taken by some passengers on the “Mavi Marmara” to attack the Israelis. I suspect that the basis of one of them is a subtle kind of contempt, a feeling that the action of the passengers was something instinctive to them, a reflex, a natural impulse that it would be unfair to question because those concerned were incapable by their very nature of acting in any other way. An unvoiced belief, in other words, in their primitive, unreflective and violent nature.