(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANIEL CAMERON, ISRAELI DEPUTY U.N. AMBASSADOR: What kind of peace activists use knives, clubs, fire from weapons stolen from soldiers, and other weapons to attack soldiers who board the ship in accordance with international law?

ALEJANDRO WOLFF, U.S. DEPUTY U.N. AMBASSADOR: The United States is deeply disturbed by the recent violence and regrets the tragic loss of life and injury suffered among those involved in the incident last night aboard the Gaza- bound ships.

AHMET DAVUTOGLLI, TURKISH FOREIGN MINISTER: No state is above the law. Israel must be prepared to face the consequences and be held responsible for its crimes.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRET BAIER, "SPECIAL REPORT" HOST: Part of the emergency U.N. Security Council meeting about the Israeli commando raid that happened on six ships trying to break the blockade around Gaza. The Turkish vessels, the Israeli navy seals went onto these ships. We have video of some of that provided by the Israeli Defense Force.

As they went on, you can see the movement here, they were caught off guard and overwhelmed. Some of the demonstrators on board according to the Israelis attacked them with steel bars and knives. There's video of this.

The navy commander then gave an order to open fire after several of the Israeli seals reported their handguns were taken from them and were being fired by the activists. Nine demonstrators in all of this were killed and four Israeli seals wounded by the gunfire and stab wounds.

What about all of this, the international reaction? Let's bring in the panel, Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.

I should say Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to postpone his trip to Washington. He has gone back to Israel to deal with this situation and not meet with President Obama tomorrow. Charles?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: The fundamental deception here is the use of the word "humanitarian." As we saw, humanitarians don't realign the clubs, and they would have killed the Israelis had the Israelis not drawn their pistols in self defense.

But there is a larger issue here. What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. No one is starving in Gaza. The Gazans have been supplied with food and social services by the U.N. for 60 years in part with American tax money.

Second, when there are humanitarian needs, the Israelis allow every day food and medicine overland into Gaza. The reason that it did not want to allow this flotilla is because, as the spokesman for the flotilla said herself, this was not about humanitarian relief. It was about breaking the blockade.

And the reason the Israelis have a blockade is because they only want to allow humanitarian supplies and not weaponry. The proof of that is the fact that if you look at a map of Gaza, you'll see that Israeli's only control three sides of this rectangle. There is a fourth side on the Egyptian side. So it is an Egyptian-Israeli blockade.

The Egyptians have the same problem with Gaza. People accuse the Israeli of having a blockade because they're racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab. The Egyptians are Muslim and Arab and that have gone to war three times on behalf of the Palestinians. So why do they have the same blockade? Because Gaza is run by Hamas, a terror entity that wants to import weaponry and resume the war against Israel.

The man who made the announcement we saw earlier explaining the commando raid is the defense minister of Israel. He is not right winger. He is not Likud. He is Ehud Barak, the leader of Labor, the party of Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meier, the party of the left, and the man who ten years ago this summer offered the Palestinians a peace agreement that would have had a Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem, and an end of the conflict.

The Palestinians said no. Gaza two years ago declared war on Israel. That's why you have a blockade. And the flotilla was not about humanitarian needs. It was about smashing the blockade.

BAIER: A.B., the U.S. representative in that emergency meeting said that the United States is deeply disturbed and wants transparency. What about the administration's response to this and where this goes from here?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE HILL: I thought it was interesting the American ambassador also condemned Hamas for interfering with shipments into Gaza, again, trying to sort of be cautious, saying we need more facts here, condemning the violence but also trying to stay on both sides.

The question now is what is happening with the U.S.-Israeli standoff, the very tense relations. The prime minister was not able to have this very important meeting, face-to-face meeting with President Obama tomorrow. He is returning back to Israel, although Obama now has this meeting scheduled with President Abbas to discuss among other things next week a Palestinian state.

Where does this leave U.S.-Israeli relations which, are in deep trouble right now? I think that becomes the central question. How will the Obama administration respond to this in the hours and days to come? Will they actually at any point show solidarity with Israel, which is claiming that it was acting in self-defense? Or will it continue to put more distance between the two countries and complicate the strained relations further?

BAIER: Bill, the rhetoric is obviously going through the roof here. Turkish foreign minister said it's a murder conducted by a state, and Palestinians say it's a war crime. You could see how it could escalate dramatically by this incident.

BILL KRISTOL, EDITOR, THE WEEKLY STANDARD: You could. I was struck by the U.N. Security Council meeting just now that ended without the adoption of a resolution. It strikes me that perhaps the U.S. is refusing to endorse a one-sided resolution.

Perhaps everyone has said you know what, this was a mischievous, to say the least, malicious effort to tempt the Israelis and lure them into a trap where something bad would happen. And that's happened.

I think grownups in Europe, however much they want to posture as anti-being Israel, know nothing is to be accomplished here by passing a resolution or letting the rhetoric to get out of hand. So I rather suspect after a day or two this dies down in the chancelleries and foreign ministries of serious countries.

Hamas runs Gaza. That's the problem. And Iran has been trying to consistently supply Hamas with arms. Israel got out of Gaza. Israel would love to have nothing to do with Gaza ever again. They'd love to build a 30-foot war around the borders it has with Gaza and pays no attention to the place ever. Let the Egyptians worry about it and let those Arab states who care so much, allegedly, about these refugees, worry about it.

But the trouble is from Gaza they launch rockets into Israel, so Israel has to care what goes into Gaza and they can't leave the seacoast open. So I actually think this might die down. The one place with serious implications is Turkey. Historically a friend, or at least a country that has had good relations with Israel, a NATO ally of ours, that permitted this ship to leave from Turkey. European countries would not permit this flotilla to leave. They knew it was a troublemaking effort.

As Charles said, they can get plenty of humanitarian aid in Gaza. If they want more aid, airlift in five million tons of nice goods and the Israelis will just take a look and make sure they're not arms and let it go through the checkpoint. This checkpoint is open, stuff goes through it every day. Turkey is the question to me. Does it mean a real continuation of a turn against Israel by the Turkish government?

BAIER: Quickly, Charles, the prime minister has put off his trip here. There wasn't a lot of optimism about the peace process as it stood now, but does this change the equation?

KRAUTHAMMER: In the absence of the incident, you would have had meeting tomorrow between the prime minister of Israel and president of the United States. It would have been a make-up, a nice photo-op. The administration is intent on warming relations after it was in a deep freeze, probably in part because of upcoming elections, and that now is off.

But I am somewhat encouraged by the fact that the U.S. has not joined the lynch mob at the U.N. attacking Israel and has thus far held off. I hope it will exercise the veto if it has to, because Israel clearly is a victim here.

If these people wanted humanitarian aid, Israel offered to take the ships into Haifa, peacefully, unload all the stuff inside and allow all the humanitarian aid immediately into Gaza, all the food and medicine. It was refused because it was meant to be a provocation and to create an incident.