Thanks for sharing images above. really interesting. There is no question that we need a new approach to Gaza,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy shift current political news is still in the early stages. He was reflecting a broadly held view in the upper reaches of the administration.

The organizers of the Palestinian aid flotilla have achieved a stunning victory over Israel in the international court of public opinion. It is a victory that Gandhi would well have understood. By pitting unarmed protestors (okay, so a few wielded kitchen knives when their ship was attacked) on a humanitarian mission against a government steeped in the logic that the best defense is a strong offense, the flotilla achieved the inevitable outcome: the martyrs won, Israel lost. 108r00605 Gandhi understood that the ability to wage superior violence was the coin of oppression, and that to combat that violence with violence was a dead end. It could only provoke an endless tit-for-tat in which the advantage was on the side of the oppressor. As Gandhi knew, a terrorist or a guerilla fighter is a legitimate target of state violence. Masses of unarmed citizens are not. From this insight, Gandhi perfected his nonviolent revolutionary strategy of staging well publicized mis-en-scenes of civil disobedience as a means of exposing for all to see the violence that was latent in British domination. 108r00606 The whole world is now watching Israel. The international composition of the protestors on the flotilla, which included pro-Palestinian activists, humanitarian do-gooders and news reporters, has insured outrage from citizens and governments around the world. Belatedly realizing it had a public relations' fiasco on its hands -- a humanitarian relief flotilla in international waters is not the same thing as impoverished Palestinians trapped in the Gaza enclave, Hamas or not -- Israel wisely decided to repatriate some 700 flotilla participants rather than continue a spectacle in which its image could only go from very bad to worse.