Illumination and the Blockade

From a woman who helped to send the latest aid vessel to interfere with international law, one Greta Berlin of the Free Gaza movement (and safely in Cyprus) - “What Israel needs to understand is that nothing is accomplished with force.” What a stupid comment from an obviously stupid woman. “What Israel needs to understand...”? For decades Israel has met belligerency, kidnapping and random murder with restraint. Only in the face of death does Israel respond.

In fact, the Rachel Corrie was boarded today. All was quiet. “The different outcome we saw today underscores the difference between peace activists who we disagree with but respect their right to express their different opinion and flotilla participants [on the Mavi Marmara] who were violent extremist supporters of terrorists," said Netanyahu. Oh, heck, that’s no fun. The Turks and the Hamas chumps can’t make hay out of that. Come on.

We can sense tension at the nursery. They simply can’t stand it. “We’ll wait till the facts are in,” one quipped, meaning we hope the facts cooperate. Indeed, it is a known fact that the vessel Mavi Marmara was sponsored by an Islamic aid group from Turkey, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief. Israel outlawed the group, known by its Turkish acronym IHH, in 2008 because of ties to Hamas.

How inconvenient for the chatterers.

And where is BO? Why have the world’s outlaws grown emboldened so suddenly? Why not? There are no consequences. Notes Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post, “As for the US, in the year and a half since Obama took office he has fundamentally restructured American foreign policy in a manner that rewards US enemies at the expense of US allies. From Honduras and Colombia to Britain, Poland, and the Czech Republic, to Japan and India to Israel, Iraq and Afghanistan, Obama has treated US allies with contempt and hostility. At the same time, his repeated bids to woo US adversaries have rewarded the leaders of Iran, Venezuela, Russia and others for their aggression.”

Thank you Caroline. As BO continues with faculty-lounge style diplomacy, his anchor is that since US support for Israel is/was the root of the Arab and Islamic worlds animus towards the US, let’s punish Israel and woe its worst enemies. This Obama guy looks to appease Iran and Syria; by doing so he humiliates Egypt and Jordan, those that signed a peace treaty with Israel. Heck, the Arabs see that and know the best way to inflate their power is by attacking Israel.

And the American left fall perfectly into line. They should be ashamed of themselves for their lack of scholarship, for their susceptibility to group thought. This vacuity of intellect - almost amusing is it not?

Robert Craven