Israel had basically two choices here: 1. End or renegotiate the blockade. 2. Prevent the ships from running the blockade. They chose to do #2, which isn't p

Israel had basically two choices here: 1. End or renegotiate the blockade. 2. Prevent the ships from running the blockade. They chose to do #2, which isn't particularly surprising. Letting ships run the blockade for any reason effectively ends the blockade. This doesn't get into rightness or wrongness of the matter, but the Israelis are very tough people and a little less concerned about newspapers than most developed countries. I have to think the organizers knew this was the inevitable outcome, and that they must be trying to get sanctions, reprimands, or otherwise lower Israel's international standing. And again, not looking at rightness/wrongness, it seems to be working. This seems to be a major focus of modern warfare and strategy - Israel has overwhelming military superiority, so its opponents only have two options - asymmetrical warfare ("terrorism", I hesitate to use the word because of how often it gets thrown around) and this sort of international public relations, which is proving remarkably more effective than anyone could have imagined 100 years ago.