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In US law, if you are committing a felony, and if the course of that crime someone dies, then you are charged with felony murder.If you decide to take a gun and rob a jewelry store, and if someone struggles for the gun and it goes off and someone dies, you are held responsible and charged with felony murder.
This seems to be the same case here. Israel acted illegally in boarding a peaceful ship at night in international waters. There is no legitimate claim of Israeli self-defense because the ship was of no immediate threat. There was no reason for Israel not to wait and try a more peaceful option in the daylight.
Israel claims the deaths are legal because the people on board struggled for a gun or otherwise sought to defend themselves. But this is exactly the same legal case as when someone struggles for the gun during a jewelry store robbery.
If Israel had not committed the illegal act of boarding this peaceful ship on the high seas, those people would be alive and unwounded right now. Israel is guilty of at least felony murder. The only question now is whether it was it premeditated murder.
The right wing in the US believes in the death penalty for premeditated murder. We always hear of Israel's right to exist. Is there a point where a state loses its right to exist for premeditated murder? After all, if a kid with a gun could lose his right to exist for premeditated murder, why not a state?
I'm not normally a proponent of the death penalty. But the one time it seems almost plausible would be when you were dealing with an insane serial killer who'd killed 15 people.
If Israel had a good attorney, they'd be advised to quickly plead out to felony murder and accept the very long prison sentence that comes with it. Because at least that way they'd avoid the death penalty that would come if from an American jury convinced that they had planned in advance the murder of some 20 people.
The activists say the Israelis came on board firing. I have no idea if its true. The Israelis seem very anxious to avoid anyone seeing the ship, or any photos or videos that they don't control. I wonder if the patterns of gunshot impacts on the ship might for instance make it obvious that they did indeed board the ship firing.
I'd love to get a CSI team on that ship. And that seems to be the one thing the Israelis want to avoid at all costs. That seems to say a lot.
