Turns out Obama ultimately did the right thing:

I’m told there won’t be any daylight between the US and Israel in the aftermath of the incident on the flotilla yesterday, which resulted in the deaths of 10 activists.

Regardless of the details of the flotilla incident, sources say President Obama is focused on what he sees as the longer term issue here: a successful Mideast peace process.

“The president has always said that it will be much easier for Israel to make peace if it feels secure,” a senior administration official tells ABC News.

The suggestion is that US condemnation of Israel would further isolate that country, and make further peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians even more difficult.

The senior administration official says that President Obama spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu three times on Monday. Mr. Obama pushed the notion that last night – as the United Nations Security Council met to issue a statement about the incident – was the moment when the US had maximum leverage, that the longer the statement was being debated the worse it would ultimately be for Israel.

Ultimately, as the statement was negotiated over night, the US succeeded in making it more neutral where other nations wanted it to criticize and condemn Israel.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/06/official-us-will-stand-with-israel.html

Obama could go on record with saying that boarding enemy merchant ships is, in fact, not unheard of and has never been against any "international law" and that civilians are, in fact, not protected if they attack soldiers, even soldiers boarding their ship; but that is much better than nothing and certainly better than the silly condemnations.

The Iranian opposition are going nuts on Twitter. Most understand and support Israel's position and, like Saudi-Arabia's official government newspaper (!) see Iran behind the "aid transport". Finally they keep pointout out that nobody seems to care about protesters killed in Iran.

The slam on the UN has always been its inability to do anything because of the veto power of the 5 core members of the security council.  They could not have issued the condemnation without approval of all 5 members, and that could not have been done without direct approval of Obama.  You mistake his cowardice with his complicity.  he is as bad (probably worse) than Merkel.

I am all for an "investigation".

Should be done by Turkey.

It would force Turkey to send more officials to Israel at a time when they want to disengage from their relationship and their verdict can hardly be worse than what the media have already made up about the incident and if it is any better, Turkey will lose the support of their newly-found friends.

Anything that makes the UN unable to do something is good in my book.

Apparently he made sure that the UNSC would not directly condemn Israel.

But we'll see. This is his chance to shine.

Why is the UN council quicker at making a statement about this than the sinking of a battleship?  I am referencing the South Korea ship.  Opps, wait that ship was sunk by the States in order so that we can fight another war.

I don't know how that escaped my memory.  Its obvious, 9-11 was just a smoke screen so we could go into 2 countries and now a third.

Seriously, though why is this story breaking so much wind (pun intended).  Sinking a battleship and killing like 42 people is aggression and provoking.  This was just provoking . 

Leauki, don't you know that Zionist Jews control the mainstream media as well. :-/

 This poses quite a dilemma for Obama. We still don't have any statement of support for Israel from him. My guess is that he will eventually join his Muslim bros @ the UN to condemn Israel.

Do you really think we'll find out the truth of the matter?

Don't get me wrong. I'm sure that the 'peace activist' were violent. We see it here in the States nearly all the time.  I'm also sure that there were more than 2 pistols that the media is saying that was on the ships.

Why is the PA getting this aid? They get a lot of foreign aid.  Now right across the water way is another country, Sudan, that could use the aid.

Wait a minute, Leauki, terrorist do board ships awww opps those are pirates.  My mistake.

I hope not.  I am still dumbfounded as to why Obama was nice to Saudia Arabia.  There are only two things that come from Saudia Arabia and that's Black Gold and Terrorist.  Most of that doesn't look like black gold coming from there. 

Just a note, I know that more then those two come out of Saudia Arabia.  I was just referencing, first full metal jacket (the scene pertaining to Texas) and the fact that nearly all the Hijackers during 9/11 were Saudia Arabian.

Furthermore, when did Saudia Arabia or Iran (post 1979) or for that matter any Middle Eastern country given us any good intel that names DON'T start with Israel or Egypt (Egypt really provides limited intel).

Sinking ships using submarines is legal, boarding them is not.

Just my two cents:

1) The ships were in international waters when they were boarded. The ships were not headed to or about to enter Israeli waters and all were flying flags of other sovereign states.

From a legal perspective, the IDF had no jurisdiction or right to board any of these ships, therefore technically the passengers were not in the wrong to defend themselves.

In addition to this, the IDF chose the worst possible means of boarding- rapidly deploying off of helicopters in an early morning blitz as a means of trying to exert complete dominance without so much as a "hey, do you mind if we come aboard and look around??"

The fact that no IDF troops were killed and in fact a very small number were injured lends creedence to the fact that the 600 people on board the ships were not armed to the teeth terrorists but were probably more like "hey wtf, imperial storm troopers dropping out of the sky!!!!" and that quite understandably scuffles broke out upon seeing said storm troopers descending.

2) All of these ships were searched by Turkish authorities before departure who confirmed that indeed the convoy carried things like pencils and laundry detergent (interestingly enough two items that don't seem to find their way across very much at the land crossings)

If Israel doesn't trust the Turkish authorities then perhaps diplomatic relations should be severed.

 3) The "criminal terrorists" among the passenger manifests included a nobel peace laureate and holocaust survivor, as well as several elected politicians from other nations and human rights activists from various groups. It will be very interesting to hear their version of events.

4) As a whole, the Israeli blockade of Gaza is both illegal and ineffective. It has been going on for years now and Hamas is still in power. The operation "cast lead" was also ineffective as it did not accomplish it's goal of removing Hamas from power. What it has accomplished is the collective punishment of more than a million people for voting into power a government that Israel does not approve of. The ultimate victims of the blockade are not Hamas, but the people of Gaza who now effectively live in one of the largest open air prisons on the planet.

What should be done? If Israel wants to blockade it's borders into Gaza, well, Israel is a sovereign state so they can do that.

-however-

Israel should not, nor do they have the right, to run a naval blockade as well. So what should happen? I'm sure the UN wouldn't have a problem passing a resolution and deploying a few warships in the area. These ships could stop and inspect all shipping going to Gaza, and so long as no weapons are found they should be able to pass. Since operation cast lead large amounts of goods and technology have not been allowed in to rebuild from the damage inflicted on the ludicrous and paranoid assertion that they could all be -possibly- converted into weapons.

Or, maybe Turkey could send one of their warships with the next convoy of humanitarian ships and see what happens.

You are such an apologist, Arty.  Israel allows and will allow all the humanitarian aid people want to deliver.  Just not directly by sea, which would simply permit large scale smuggling of weapons & munitions.

Get real.  You know perfectly well that this was a mission of provocation from the git-go.  Doesn't matter that it had the 'intended' result - Israel did what it had to do.  The UN hasn't, and won't, do anything to prevent Hamas continuing its war to eliminate Israel.

hhhmm... that's not what the Israeli human rights group Btselem says-

http://www.btselem.org/English/Gaza_Strip/20100531_The_Siege_on_Gaza.asp

Harsh restrictions on imports

Under agreements between Israel and Egypt, the Gaza Strip’s foreign trade must be conducted through Israel. The quantity of goods that Israel allows into the area is less than one-quarter the quantity that entered prior to the siege, and far below the amount required for the population’s needs. The range of goods that Israel allows in is also much smaller: 150 types of goods compared with 4,000 before the siege. Israel refuses to publish the list of products permitted into the Gaza Strip, or the rules used in determining the list. The NGO Gisha filed an action in the Administrative Court demanding this information. In refusing the demand, the state argued that providing this information would harm state security and Israel’s foreign relations. The court has not yet given its decision.

Difficulties in rebuilding destroyed and damaged buildings

Israel prohibits the importing of building materials, including iron and cement. The prohibition has remained in place even after Operation Cast Lead, during which 3,500 houses were completely destroyed, thousands more damaged, and extensive harm caused to infrastructures. Israel’s prohibition is preventing the reconstruction of thousands of buildings destroyed during the operation.

Frequent blackouts, sewage flowing into the sea

The siege also severely impairs the supply of electricity in the Gaza Strip. Since September 2007, when Israel declared the Gaza Strip a “hostile entity” following the firing of Qassam rockets, Israel has cut reduced the supply of industrial fuel, which is needed to operate the power station in Gaza. Following a petition filed by the NGOs Gisha and Adalah, the state agreed to supply some 63 percent of the fuel needed to meet all the residents’ needs. In practice, however, it provides less than this quantity. As a result of Israel’s policy, 98 percent of Gaza residents suffer from planned blackouts lasting up to eight or ten hours a day. The other two percent of the population do not receive any electricity at all, in part due to the shortage of spare parts, which makes it impossible to repair infrastructure, or due to the proximity of their homes to the border with Israel.

Until yesterday morning it used to be perfectly legal to board, even sink, enemy merchant ships. Allied forces sank plenty of Japanese merchant ships on the high seas during World War II. Admiral Doenitz did likewise and was acquitted for it based on Admiral Niemitz's statement that Americans did the same to Axis merchant ships.

I find it hard to believe that this has changed or that sinking enemy merchant ships is legal while boarding them is not. Please go into more detail. When did that happen?

Of course, the passengers had the right to defend themselves. But if and when they do they become combatants and the Israelis can use whatever means are necessary to defeat them.

It's no problem sending aid to Gaza. But it has to be checked for weapons. If the purpose was delivering aid, they could have gone through Ashdod, like the UN and Red Cross do. They decided to break the blockade instead, thereby entering the war. And they didn't even pretend to be neutral.

That's one thing.

The second thing is that Israel does have the right to create a blockade. Blockades are a perfectly legal means of fighting a war as long as humanitarian aid gets through (which it does). Building material does not always qualify as humanitarian aid, which is why the Red Cross hand out food and medical supplies but not cement. The idea that this is somehow illegal when Israel does it is quite ludicrous.

Lots of goods enter Gaza all the time, including building materials.

Anyway, you can see for yourself:

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=396434908860&ref=mf

And here is my personal blog entry on the issue, with comparison of how many goods usually go into Gaza and how much of a difference the flotilla would have made:

http://web.mac.com/ajbrehm/Home/Blog/Entries/2010/6/1_A_Tragedy_in_the_Middle-East.html

The flotilla was carrying 10,000 tons of goods. This is less than what enters Gaza on a single weekend. It'd take you some time to find a region in the world that gets as many goods as Gaza! It imports more than most Egyptian cities with greater populations.

Anyway, I am glad you joined the discussion. I was hoping that somebody from the other side could explain to me why boarding enemy merchant ships is suddenly illegal. Seems like the field of international law is a fast-changing world indeed.

Perhaps you can find an example of a country that was in a war and didn't sink sink or board enemy merchant ships because "it's illegal"?

Finally, I'd really like to know if you think that Israel could send a flotilla to land in Iran which goods for the Sunni rebel groups in the south-west without Iran attacking it and firing at the crew if they fight back. Do you think that countries generally let merchant ships deliver goods to countries they are war with? I really don't remember such a case.

The power plant delivering electricity to Gaza is under fire. Sometimes the workers are afraid to go to work. Israel keeps promising that they would send braver workers, but you know how the Jews are... whine, whine, whine.

Is electricity a human right? That would be interesting because the Arab countries have never delivered electricity to Israel or allowed delivery from third parties through their territory. Israel had to produce it herself. I don't remember this coming up as a violation of international law but perhaps it is different for Gaza. My parents told me that when West-Berlin was under Russian blockade (ask the Russians if that was a violation of international law!) Berlin had to build more power plants because for some reason the Russians didn't deliver electricity (they were probably even more scared than the Jews).

Yes, I am sure that would work just as well as the UN troops in southern Lebanon who were supposed to stop Lebanese attacks and instead shared bases with Hizbullah.

They certainly didn't stop the attacks as anyone from the north of Israel can tell you. I'd be surprised if they even tried to stop weapons deliveries.

Yes, we need bigger wars, that's the problem.

Perhaps we can get Israel and Turkey to fight a huge war, then we'd have something.

More war for a better world. Excited times we live in.

Do you have any solutions for this problem that don't involve more war and violence?

Tell that to the relatives of Leon Klinghoffer.