Israel Vs. Ireland

Israeli marines have boarded the ship Rachel Corrie, which was registered in Ireland. One of the 11 passengers aboard was Nobel peace laureate Máiread Maguire.

Apparently, officials in Ireland had already sent Israel a sternly worded memo asking the Israelis to show “restraint” if they stopped the ship. “There can be no justification for the use of force against any person on board the Rachel Corrie,” the Irish foreign minister had said. I take it this meant Israel would have Ireland to reckon with if anyone on the Rachel Corrie came to harm. Fortunately, it seems no one did.

Already there are protests against Israel in Belfast. The Deputy First Minister of Ireland, Martin McGuinness, has called the boarding “unacceptable.” “This is an attack on an Irish flagged vessel and it demands a strong response by the Irish government,” McGuinness said.

I wonder if Sean Hannity or Bill O’Reilly will have anything to say about this. Several rightie bloggers are commenting on the boarding of the Rachel Corrie already, but not one mentions, or seems to know, that the boarding could be construed as an act of aggression against Ireland.

Israel says the marines did not board the ship until they had the passengers’ permission. However, this account has not been verified with the passengers, because the Israeli military jammed satellite and radio communications on the boat.

Here is some raw video of today’s boarding being distributed by the Associated Press.

[Video no longer available]

The boat is being escorted to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Israel says it will inspect the cargo and send all humanitarian supplies on to Gaza.

Elsewhere — Liz Cheney has been babbling about the Turkish-Syrian-Iranian axis. Now will it be the Irish-Turkish-syrian-Iranian axis? The Irish managed to avoid getting themselves killed (they were “amazingly cooperative” chuckles Doug Powers at Michelle Malkin’s blog), so they are less likely to draw the full Wrath of the Wingnuts.

Powers implies that the Rachel Corrie crew behaved because they’d been taught a lesson by the deaths in the earlier raid. But maybe Israel doesn’t want to mess with the Irish.