The Blockade - An Update

Let’s take a second look at the recent “mission of humanitarian relief” tragedy. How about table talk tonight, right here in Marin County? Want to chant party slogans tonight at dinner time, or want your kids to respect you when they get older? Interested in a grounding, or just falling for party fashion? Read on.

We’ve already presented a quick and accurate snap shot of the recent violence. We could do that because we’ve followed Hamas for the past 5 years. Primary forces remain in place. Now to more background.

Recall that Israel gave up land originally taken as a buffer to protect their populations, southern Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in ‘05. Big mistake. Ok, to continue. What did they get in return? An intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side, multiple kidnapping, cross-border attacks, and, from Gaza, years of unrelenting rocket attack. (Naturally.
These people don’t want land or equality; they want Israel eliminated. And, we know why.)

So Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, forcibly uprooting 8,500 Jewish settlers and evacuating all soldiers. The Palestinians were left free to form their own government and run their own affairs. But recall that in 2007 Hamas gained political control of Gaza. These clowns occupied themselves by raining 10,000 missiles on Israeli cities, sending kidnappers and suicide bombers across the border. Too much!

So Israel imposed a blockade to prevent Hamas from receiving weapons or the materials from which to make weapons. Food, medicine, and other humanitarian relief flow to the inhabitants on a daily basis through Israel. Why bother? There is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza for goodness sake. As the Washington Post reports, "Gazans readily admit that they are not going hungry ... (but they) used to be earning $100 per day, smoking Marlboros and going to Egypt every two months on vacation." They are just spoiled little thugs.

So there is no need of “relief.” Oh, but weren’t the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? The answer to any but the willfully blind is “No.” Otherwise they would have accepted Israel’s offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military material, and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza — as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza. But Lenin’s “useful idiots” take the bait every time Hamas claims victimhood. Israel naturally imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

In World War II, with full international legality the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded (“quarantined”) Cuba. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.

Oh, that. How inconvenient for the left.

Conclusion: The big winner from this week's incident are the leaders of the Turkish organization. Their first declarations this week played up the killing of the civilians aboard the Marmara by the IDF, which many international media outlets described as a massacre. In the weeks to come, IHH will construct the myth of how its brave activists humiliated fighters in the IDF's most hallowed unit. Their brothers in Hezbollah have made huge capital out of less.

The big loser is Israel. In live footage from the ships on the way to Gaza, broadcast by Al Jazeera, participants in the flotilla sang inflammatory songs calling for a massacre of Jews. Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, from the Islamic Movement in Israel, delivered fiery harangues. One broadcast showed a Turkish activist brandishing an Arab dagger. The IDF did not translate those images into intelligence insights about the nature of the adversary.

Next time Israel, inject a great terror into the hearts of these bandits.

Robert Craven