America in the Balance

The Flotilla Fiasco In Perspective — What’s The Endgame Here? Another Holocaust In The Making

By

Ken Eliasberg

Continuing with our discussion of the fall out from Israel’s recent encounter with the Turkey Trot, i.e. Turkey’s “innocent” effort to provide “humanitarian” aid to the oppressed occupants of the beleaguered territory of Gaza. What’s all the fuss about? One country malevolently set about to run a legitimate blockade of another sovereign nation, gets caught in the act — an act resulting in 9 deaths and several serious injuries — and who gets blamed? Not the country that violated the blockade (a legitimate effort at self defense), but the country whose blockade was violated (by the way, the blockade of Gaza was a joint effort of Israel and Egypt). The irony of this situation, which, but for the existential threat that it poses, would, under other circumstances, be almost humorous. Indeed, a talk show host opened the discussion of the reaction to the Turkey Trot with this bit of dark humor: There are 4 prisoners in a jail cell, 1 is there for murdering 3 people, another for raping 5 women, a third for orchestrating a billion dollar ponzi scheme, and the fourth for having run a red light. The 4th person (the one who ran the red light) gets the death penalty. Query? Who is the 4th person? Israel!! The obvious point is that in a world of monstrous and murderous transgressors, Israel gets dumped on for an allegedly inappropriate act of self defense. There is only one thing wrong with the aforementioned joke — Israel didn’t do anything wrong; it didn’t run a red light — on the contrary, it was hit by a national vehicle that itself had run a red light. Of course facts don’t matter when it comes to Israel; Israel is to be condemned whatever the circumstances. Why is this the case, and why is it getting much worse — and, as a consequence, much more dangerous??

Let’s take a look at what happened, why it happened, the reaction to what happened, and then let’s try to figure out what’s really going on here. At the outset it may be useful to remind the reader of who’s being blockaded and why. Gaza is under blockade because it is run by an admittedly terrorist organization, Hamas, who is dedicated to the destruction of Israel. And Gaza, since Israel’s removing itself from the territory, has been the source of nothing but terror. And, once Hamas took over, there was never even a possibility of peacefully resolving the Gaza situation — ergo an understandable effort to contain the territory and, as a consequence, reduce the danger posed by a more heavily armed Hamas. In this regard, bear in mind that Hamas is Iran’s surrogate in the area (as is Hezbollah in Lebanon on Israel’s northern border), and that Iran has oft expressed its desire (and intent) to destroy Israel. Is Israel not entitled to act in its own defense? And, for present purposes, let’s not argue about whether they could have acted in a different manner — one that might meet with more universal acceptance. Let’s just concede that every sovereign nation — or any individual or group of individuals — has the unconditional right to defend itself. So, for purposes of this column, let’s not split hairs over whether Israel could have gone about enforcing the blockade in a less confrontational manner, e.g. disable the ship’s rudder and tow it to port (by the way, I think that the passengers really wanted this confrontation — why? martyrdom for the dead, and lots of grief for Israel). Why do I say this? Two reasons: (1) The most telling reason being that the flotilla spokeswoman, Greta Berlin, announced to the Agence France Press a week before the sailing that “this mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it’s about breaking Israel’s siege,” and (2) many of the passengers were either in the service of, or linked to. an organization with a direct connection to, Al-Qaeda and were armed with weapons with which they greeted the Israeli commandos, hardly the reaction of passengers on a peaceful mission.

In addition, the commander of the ship made no effort to comply with the commandos request to yield to inspection, making it perfectly clear that it was the flotilla’s intention to run the blockade. Thus, we have a sovereign nation’s legitimate blockade being intentionally violated by another sovereign nation. Who is at fault? Can there be any question — Turkey!! But I assure you that that is not the way the mainstream media, the U.N., and Jew-haters around the world will view Turkey’s transgression. Israel will once again be treated as a pariah. And, in siding with Israel in this instance, I am not for a moment arguing that either Israel is perfect, nor am I suggesting that every attack on Israel is rooted in anti-semitism (although I strongly believe that most are). I am saying that whatever be the merits of Israel’s position in other areas and on other subjects, in this instance she did no wrong. Again, acting in your own defense cannot, under virtually any set of circumstances, be viewed as wrong. Let’s see, North Korea just sank a South Korean vessel (killing some 40 sailors), Iran is hurtling toward nuclear weapons, Sudanese Muslims, under the aegis of their government, have murdered hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of Sudanese Christians, and the world sort of goes tsk, tsk. Israel takes a modest step in its own defense, and the world is up in arms. Why? Serious violations of human rights are occurring all over the world, committed by some of the world’s most powerful countries, and the commission of such is dealt with in a rather tame manner by the community of nations; compare this with any act of Israel, no matter how reasonable in manner and modest in nature, and the result of such a comparison is telling. Toward what end you might ask?

Why the need to constantly criticize, demonize, marginalize, and isolate Israel from the community of nations. The goal of all of this is to delegitimize Israel, leading eventually to Israel’s extinction. What’s really involved here in this intensifying effort to demonize Israel? All these efforts to delegitimize Israel are made with a view to setting the stage for another Holocaust. I suspect that many, including some who may even be among Israel’s friends, may feel that I am taking a much too apocalyptic view of the situation in the Middle East. But, in my opinion, such a dim view of my assessment is to be expected from Israel’s enemies. Also, it may come as too much of a shock for those of Israel’s friends inclined to view world affairs in a more pollyanish manner (these would be the same people who saw Hitler as more silly than dangerous). Besides, I have always felt that to view any potentially dangerous situation with a significant degree of caution is advisable. And when someone says that they want to not just kill you, but to destroy your entire country, it is better to be safe than sorry and err on the side of excessive caution. In this case I would prefer to b a “chicken little” than a pollyana.

The situation was succinctly and compellingly put in perspective by Charles Krauthammer in his June 4th Washington Post column, entitled Krauthammer: Those troublesome Jews (also appearing simultaneously in The Seattle Times, under the title Israel refuses to commit suicide) when, in conclusion, he observed:

“The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million — that number again - -

hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For

which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from

defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists - - Iranian

in particular — openly prepare a more final solution.”

Well and truly put, Charles! What will happen here in the end? In the not too distant future - I strongly suspect that Israel will take an incredible amount of heat, ending in the blockade either being terminated or put in the hands of some ineffectual international body like the U.N. (does it get any more ineffectual than that?). In the distant future — Israel is in mortal danger; it has never been more of an international outcast, with the potentially fatal blow being struck by Obama’s currently diminishing, and, in the future, possibly totally withdrawing U.S. support. U.S.-Israel relations have never been more strained; no U.S. president has ever been less supportive of Israel than Obama (in an apparent effort to curry favor with Islam — an effort that has thus far borne little fruit, if any).