Worst press conference ever?

It is hard to imagine just how you would go about justifying piracy on the high seas, but I don't think portraying hard-as-nails Israeli commandos as victims would cut much ice with anyone. Never-the-less, that's what the Israeli government have decided to do, to explain why their soldiers have just shot dead several people on the Gaza Aid Convoy:

According to a spokeswoman for Israel Defence Forces (IDF), Avital Leibovich, officers aboard its warships gave the activists several warnings before commandos were winched from helicopters on to the deck of the Mavi Marmara.

"We found ourselves in the middle of a lynching," she told reporters in the Israeli port of Ashdod. Around 10 activists attacked commandos, she said, relieving them of their pistols.

"We didn't look for confrontation but it was a massive attack," she said. "What happened was a last resort." (1)

It is surely the most unconvincing bit of PR since the heyday of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf in Baghdad.

Just to re-cap - the Israeli navy sets out to intercept the ships. Though they aren't looking for confrontation, they deploy armed commandos from helicopters to board them against the will of their crew in an attempt to seize control of them, nothing confrontational about that.

And these commandos are presented as the equivalent of the hapless victims of a lynch mob - putting those on the convoy in the position of murderous, racist vigilantes?

Sorry, but really, do fuck off.

1 - "Israel accused of state terrorism after assault on flotilla carrying Gaza aid," by Harriet Sherwood. Published in The Guardian, 1st of June, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/31/israel-accused-state-terrorism-assault-flotilla-gaza)