Gaza Flotilla: Rush To Judgement?

Three videos (scroll down) show that a group of people aboard the Mavi Marmara "aid ship" were armed with steel rods, broken bottles, nunchucks, slingshots, knives and incendiary and explosive weapons. The videos also show that this group of people prepared their weapons in advance and were waiting for the IDF commandos when they came to board the ship, and that when the Israelis did arrive the armed group put up a vigorous fight.

In fact, one of those aboard, Kevin Ovenden, a former George Galloway staffer who spoke to the British leftist paper Morning Star, revealed that the ship's Turkish crew abducted two IDF soldiers who had been wounded in the course of the melee and held them captive:

Mr Ovenden praised the Turkish crew of the vessel as "truly heroic in their attempts to prevent further loss of life," saying they had taken two injured Israeli soldiers inside the ship to prevent them being hurt further in the panic and chaos.

From the reports I've seen there was only serious violence on board the Mavi Marmara (there were five other ships boarded and seized by the IDF at the same time), which indicates that there was something different about this particular ship -- probably the people on it.

Here is a video of the fighting onboard the Mavi Marmara:


And here is a video that shows preparations on board the Mavi Marmara just prior to the beginning of the IDF boarding:


Here is a third video showing the greeting given to the IDF by the "peace activists" aboard the Mavi Marmara: