Israel Against The World - The "Flotilla"

Is there anything that unites the world quite like its revulsion of the Jewish state?  The communal loathing of Israel was in evidence again with the recent "flotilla" incident.  

In this little PR stunt, a number of vessels carrying Hamas (terror) supporters attempted to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza strip.  Israeli Naval commandos rapelling down from a helicoptor to one of the flotilla vessels were violently attacked by the terror activists with pipes, bats, and knives.  The Israelis, armed initially with paintball guns (incredible irony), were forced to open fire with real guns to protect themselves.  Nine of the militants, all from Turkey, were killed.  For Israel bashers everywhere, it was the perfect storm.

As Daniel Henninger reports, the world's reaction was stunningly swift and harsh.  France, Turkey, Spain, Syria, Morocco, Italy, Russia, Pakistan, Sweden, the EU, the European Parliament, the UN, and others quickly lined up to condemn Israel.  The US responded by pressuring Israel to accept international involvement in its own investigation of the incident, to ease its lawful blockade of Gaza, and, to offer an additional $400 million in aid for the Palestinians.  Caroline Glick reports that some 222 organizations endorsed the terror-supporting "freedom flotilla," including Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and secular organizations from around the world, a true ecumenical consensus of Israel-hatred. 

I ask again, is there another cause that brings the world together like its disgust for Israel?

Meanwhile, the enemies of Israel, the ones who actively seek its destruction, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, and others, enjoy the spectacle of an Israel-obsessed world doing its handiwork for them, isolating and marginalizing the Jewish state, demoralizing and weakening it, as they lay the groundwork for the next war, moving ever closer to their cherished goal of destroying the Jewish state. 

And then, God-forbid it should occur, the world will remember Israel and its people, the second Holocaust that it helped to bring about, and did nothing to prevent; it will hold solemn memorials for the Jews as it did after the first Holocaust, and swear that it will never happen again.

In the meantime, the world averts its eyes from other far more notable scandals and crimes for which it has little to say. 

A brief listing:

Muslim fanatics in Iran pursue nuclear weapons and steal elections; North Korea blows up a South Korean ship, shares nuclear technology with other rogue states (Syria, most recently), and fires missiles into the Sea of Japan; China dispossesses Tibetans of their land and culture; Russia invades Georgia and slaughters Chechens; Sudan commits genocide in Darfur; millions die in civil war in the Congo; atrocities and religious strife occur regularly in Nigeria; Zimbabwe becomes a socialist, police state basket case facing famine and starvation; Hamas shoots thousands of rockets into Israel; Hezbollah gathers missiles from Syria and Iran under UN "supervision."

Or consider the more memorable Muslim terror attacks (since 9/11): in Bali, London, Madrid, Bombay, Amman, Taba, Kandahar, Istanbul, and countless other Muslim assaults on the innocent over the last decade.

None of them matter; the world only has eyes for Israel.

And what would happen if the dreams of the those who despise the Jewish state would come to pass and Israel cease to be? 

Would the Arab despotisms end their dark tyrannies?  Would there be an outbreak of freedom and human rights throughout the Middle East?  Would the Arab countries develop an entrepreneurial class with cutting edge technology, research, and innovation like the nation they so ardently sought to destroy?  Could Arab women remove their veil and get an education and choose careers?  Would honor killings of Muslim women end?  Could a Moslem be an "apostate" without fearing for his life?  Would Arabs and Muslims be free to petition their governments without threat, imprisonment, or worse?  Would Arabs and Muslims stop massacaring each other in markets and mosques? Would Muslims end their attacks against Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians?  Would the Palestinians no longer be mired in self pity and rage, their leadership no longer corrupt and brutal?  Would an expansionist Iran end its quest for nuclear weapons? 

As for the left, the purportive champions of human rights, would they wonder why they allied themselves with medieval fanatics who sought to create some mythical caliphate from the seventh century, and undermine the sole legitimate democracy in the Middle East (save, perhaps, now Iraq) whose concern for human rights and civil liberties equals that of any nation's in the world? 

The answer is no.  The world would go on as it always has.  The problems of the world and specifically those of the Arabs and Moslems would continue as they always have.  There would not be more peace, probably much less.  For Israel's presence and strength actually encouraged the more moderate Arab states and constrained the more radical ones and their proxies.  Indeed, it might be recognized, perhaps, that Israel, oddly, stabilized the Middle East, and held out the promise for a benighted region that might someday follow its lead and blossom into a center of freedom, commerce, and prosperity.  Israel would turn out not to have been the source of all the problems of the world, but, rather, one of its best solutions.  Only now the world would no longer have the Jewish state to blame for its misery and psychosis.

And, so, now, the flotilla. 

A so called "flotilla" of Gaza-bound Hamas (terror) supporters attempted to break Israel's blockade on the night of May 31.  It was sponsored by Turkey, a nation that formerly enjoyed excellent relations with Israel but has now, under Islamist Recip Erdogan, thrown its lot in with Syria and Iran with ambitions, perhaps, of reinstating a modern version of the Ottoman Empire. 

Turkey, of course, has its own terrorist problem with the "PKK", or "Kurdistan Workers' Party," a group that seeks to create a separate nation for Turkey's Kurdish minority.  Tens of thousands of Kurds have died at the hands of Turkey's security forces over the last 25 years.  Turkey does not recognize the right of the Kurds to an independent homeland, nor does it hesitate to use military force against the PKK.  All of this sounds oddly familiar.  But Turkey is not Israel and so the world does not care. 

Turkey also occupies Cyprus and has massacared Greeks.  Turkey, for that matter, refuses even to acknowledge the Armenian genocide almost a century ago.  Turkey has its own very checkered history but has become quite pious over percieved infractions by the state of Israel.

Israeli naval commandos boarded one of the ships, the Mavi Marmara, with some 600 Turkish activists, sponsored by an organization known as the "Humanitarian Relief Fund," or IHH, a violent, Jihadist front group for the Turkist Muslim Brotherhood with ties to Al-Qaeda and Hamas.  Five other boats were taken peacefully to the Israeli port city of Ashdod, where its cargo was unloaded, inspected, and allowed to pass into Gaza.  No incidents. 

But on the Mavi Marmara, the Israeli commandos who rappelled down from their helicoptor armed with paint ball guns were attacked viciously with bats, pipes, and knives (as the video seen around the world demonstrates) in what can be described as an attempted lynching.  In the ensuing melee, nine terror activists were killed. 

Why?  Because the terror activists on board wanted to kill Jews and attempted to do so. 

If the interest was in providing aid for the long suffering Palestinians of which we hear so much of, why not go the way of the other five vessels, and make the standard-issue lefty, activist point, demonstrate their heartfelt sympathy for the "plight" of the blameless and tormented Palestinians, and quietly go to Ashdod to unload the supplies?

The reason, of course, was not aid but provocation - to create a PR/propaganda nightmare for Israel, which, quite frankly, takes almost no skill, given existing prejudices.  Again, there is nothing that galvanizes the world so much as righteous chest thumping against the Jewish state.

More broadly, though, this should be understood as an overarching strategy to deligitimize and isolate Israel.  It is warfare at the ideologic or propaganda level.  It is the opening salvo of the coming real war against Israel.  Its purpose is to marginalize and demoralize Israel, to damage it in the court of world opinion and economically where possible, and make it impossible for Israel to defend itself. 

Why does Israel maintain a blockade around Gaza?  The same reason that Egypt does on its border with Gaza.  Because Hamas controls Gaza.  It is a terrorist organization that denies Israel's right to exist and actively seeks its destruction.  The blockade ensures that Hamas does not recieve contraband with which to harm Israel. 

Israel has allowed 1 million tons of humanitarian aid into Gaza in the last 18 months or more than one ton for every man, woman, and child living there.  Only an individual, group, or nation that promotes Israel's demise would question Israel's right to defend itself through this entirely lawful blockade.

The Gaza strip is also no more impoverished than any other large, overcrowded Arab city such as Cairo or Amman.  Their markets are full and there is no starvation.  They certainly fare better than many other parts of the world including in Africa or Asia.  The Palestinians are also the recipients of more international aid per capita than was given Europe by the Marshall Plan after World War II.  Incredible, really. 

And to what purpose?  Embezzlement by its corrupt leaders and terrorist infrastructure.  Wonderful.     

Israel, we should mention, abandoned Gaza in 2005.  Every last Jew, living or dead was evacuated, leaving behind advanced commercial and industrial infrastructure that the Palestinians promptly - destroyed (Why does the world love these people? Nevermind, we know the answer.).  Hamas took control in 2007 after murdering hundreds of Fatah members (no world outcry there). 

Since then Israel has been treated to a regular diet of Kassam missiles fired by Hamas into civilian centers in Israel.  Israel eventually responded with Operation Cast Lead in 2009; most nations generally would be expected at some point (try immediately) to defend its citizens from daily rocket attacks from across its border.  But not if the nation is named Israel. 

For its efforts to defend itself, Israel was "Goldstoned," which is to say accused of war crimes by a UN report issued by South African Jurist Richard Goldstone (a Jew).  Probably no nation in history had gone to the lengths that Israel went to to minimize civilian casualties during the Gaza campaign by warning civilians of impending attacks through the distribution of leaflets by air, phone calls, emailing, using non-lethal explosives, and others.  It is actually unprecedented.  But it is Israel, so nothing it does matters, no efforts to conduct its military affairs with an unstinting eye to minimizing collateral damage matter.

Similarly forgotten was the reason Israel went to war.  Because of unrelenting attacks on its citizens by Hamas for more than two years.  That Hamas and its operatives wear no uniforms and deliberately place themselves and their munitions in civilian centers or in mosques, schools, and hospitals were similarly overlooked.  When it comes to asymetric warfare against the state of Israel, as judged by the UN and the court of world opinion, the terrorists will always win.

From Goldstone and the Hamas flotilla incident, the next spasm of Israel-aversion came at the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference on May 28, in which 189 out of 189 nations that are signatories of the NPT passed a resolution singling out Israel, condemning it for its nuclear program (Israel is not a signatory to the treaty) while neglecting to mention Iran or North Korea (both of whom are signatories). 

Here, for the first time, the US did not use its veto power to prevent the effort to denuclearize Israel.  That the US, under Obama, has agreed to the savaging of Israel, and participated in the campaign to deligitimize Israel and make it impossible for it to defend itself, is only the latest, but most significant of actions undertaken by the Obama administration in its abandonment of the Jewish state. 

Efforts to attenuate it or express regrets by US officials over the harsh treatment given Israel by the conference review could not conceal the reality that the US teamed up with the other 188 signatories of the NPT to toss Israel under the bus. 

What is unsual is not that the other 188 nations did so, but that for the first time the Obama-led US joined in.  That the US and the rest of the conference could target Israel while ignoring the fact that North Korea already has nuclear weapons and Iran  is actively seeking them (both signatories), should make it clear that the NPT regime is a farce.  But this is mere global theater; another world stage for institutional anti-Semitism.

With the abandonment of Israel by the US under Obama, it is now truly the world against Israel.  A shrinking number of American Jews and an increasing number (thank God) of conservative Christians are all that an ever more isolated Israel has left.