On The Contrary: Flotilla Megilla

OK, it's time for me to put in my own $.02. I'll try to stay away from what has already been beaten to death.

Shockingly, Israel has yet to be condemned by Haiti.
There have been a bunch of comparisons between the flotilla and the Exodus, pointing out that the roles were reversed 63 years ago, with Jews running a British blockade of Mandatory Palestine. Interestingly, not (yet) much discussion of Turkey's ongoing - for almost 20 years now - blockade of Armenia (it's not a naval blockade as Armenia is landlocked). Without justifying or vilifying Israel's current actions, I think we can agree that Israel has a long, long way to go before it even gets into the same league as the Brits in the 1940s. Their blockade caused the death of 1,600 Jewish Holocaust refugees and the deportation of over 50,000 to prison camps. A small minority of Jews trying to enter Palestine illegally actually made it. And the UN (UNSCOP) watched it all happen.
There are 2 distinct but related issues, as many are beginning to note: the blockade in general and the handling of the flotilla in particular. Someone who thinks that the blockade is illegal and/or idiotic obviously will have a very negative reaction to the flotilla business. Obviously, a good many people around the globe were strongly opposed to the blockade for various reasons. Those who explicitly or implicitly recognized the legitimacy of the blockade - and this includes the US, the EU, and Egypt, inter alia - can take a much wider variety of positions. I am in favor of the blockade for the same reason that VP Joe Biden is - it allows Israel to inhibit the flow of arms into Gaza.
This would have looked very different before the Disengagement, when Israel could inspect cargoes after they docked.
It is definitely ironic that both the flotilla fiasco and Cast Lead, the two issues for which Israel has faced unprecedented criticism, are the direct result of the Disengagement, which was essentially a PR move to improve Israel's international standing.
In hindsight, Israel's best course of action - in my opinion - would have been to let one boat through as a "goodwill gesture" - not the Mavi Marmara - and force the others to Ashdod for offloading. There's a reason it's called "hindsight," though.
There's a certain disrespect to the Gaza boat people when we focus on what Israel did wrong. They won. They beat us. Given the cards dealt, they played their hand much better than we played ours, lulling Israel into thinking that the boat was populated by peaceniks and then putting Israel in a situation where it would be forced to open fire (the fact that the body count was in Israel's favor is due, in my opinion, to superior training, not superior weaponry). I agree that it's a bit disingenuous for Israel to say that they were "ambushed," but the soldiers were completely surprised, taken off guard, and unprepared. Let's tip our hats to the Turks here and say, you beat us. I don't like it when the favored team says at the post game press conference "we beat ourselves." In this case, the underdog visiting team clearly outprepared and outplayed the home team. So Israel should stop acting like the Yankees.
That said, it seems that Israel is really starting to understand the power of YouTube. Several videos have gone viral in a big, big way, each generating over a million views. That has been lacking in the past.