Now that more info has been released, I began investigating more into Israel's boarding. I came across this link (
What’s the Right Way to Board a Hostile Ship? - By Joshua E. Keating | Foreign Policy). It basically explains it for people (like myself) who aren't familiar with boardings. A good article ".
When I heard the initial reports of the incident over the radio (it was an NPR station), I clearly recall the announcer reading off his report and part of that was a statement from the IDF indicating that they had considered trawler nets or other non-kinetic prop disabling techniques, but the Mamara's displacement exceeded what they had on hand.
Edited to add - couldn't find the NPR transcript, but a passage from the New York Times article on 01-June backs it up:
Deadly Israeli Raid Draws Condemnation - NYTimes.com
An Israeli official said that the navy was planning to stop five of the six vessels of the flotilla with large nets that interfere with propellers, but that the sixth was too large for that. The official said there was clearly an intelligence failure in that the commandos were expecting to face passive resistance, and not an angry, violent reaction.
The intelligence failure seems to be a bit far-fetched. Although it was only one out of five ships that seemed to actively resist boarding, this isn't the first time at the rodeo for either party. They've faced each other before in the camps at Gaza and other areas, so the idea that there wouldn't be at least one passenger who wouldn't go quietly is simply naive.
Firing at the ship might be worse. Remember, this is as much an Information War as it is a physical war. The option to fire a shot even traditionally across the bows would have been spliced and cut into a damaging vidclip by the IHH or whoever is behind the organized resistance.
Assuming an intelligent opponent, they've seen the IR videos and now know that the next confrontation point, likely on the Rachel Corrie, *should be* below decks. Taken into face context, the IR footage painted the Mamara passengers in a very negative light. It's hard to argue when you can see the fast-roper hit the deck and immediately get jumped by at least 4 passengers. However, the helmet cams and the vids from the passengers as found on Youtube and elsewhere are more easily manipulated and spliced, thus changing the context. No, I suspect the deck will be relatively empty on the Rachel Corrie, and the conflict will happen inside the skin of the ship.
