Still, we should not lose sight of the fact that the Palestinians of Gaza are such a primitive species that Israel has determined they need only 100 items on a “complex and ever-changing list of goods” for a “good and stable” life as opposed to the 4,000 types of goods allowed in before the severe blockade imposed in June 2007 or the 10,000-15,000 items that can be found in a large Israeli supermarket. It may be true that “Israeli officials had long made clear that the blockade was a strategy of ‘economic warfare’ against Hamas, aimed at squeezing the civilian population of Gaza.” But we should avoid the obvious conclusion that Israel is engaged in state-sponsored terrorism because we already know it is a “peace-loving society.”
In any case, “concern for Gaza and Israel’s blockade is so out of balance,” counsels Thomas Friedman, who excels in his role as the third grader explaining how the world works to the second-grade lunch table. He suggests we focus concern instead on the bombings of mosques of an Islamic sect in Pakistan, the killings of activists in Iran and the trashing of a children’s summer camp in Gaza.
But noble-minded Israel still shows concern. Just as it is always seeking peace with hostile Arab neighbors bent on annihilating it, Israel was willing to deliver supplies that are in abundance in Gaza in spite of the “Gazan terrorists [in charge] who proclaim their goal is to destroy Israel.” So “if anyone goes without food, shelter or medicine, that is by the choice of the Hamas government.” “The likely outcome” will be that the people of Gaza “will be abandoned. … to be ruled by the ruthless and undemocratic Hamas regime without the international community's protests or objections.” Therefore, we can see how the aid flotilla will make things worse for the people of Gaza – whom Israel is trying to help – by leaving them in the hands of the “ruthless” terrorists.
It’s another example of how Israel is victimized, like when it selflessly disengaged from Gaza in 2005. But Israel’s generosity, including firing more than 7,700 artillery shells into northern Gaza in less than a year after its withdrawal, was met with Hamas rockets, which is why one senior Israeli official had to threaten Palestinians with a “bigger shoah.” Some claim “Israel remains the occupying Power as technological developments have made it possible for Israel to assert control over the people of Gaza without a permanent military presence,” but this is the view of terrorist sympathizers like former U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories John Dugard. Then there are “Hamas sympathizers” who ask why, if Israel disengaged from Gaza, does it still control its coast, airspace, borders, commerce, fuel, water and electricity;
why have Israel and the United States rejected Palestinian and Arab offers of a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders for some 40 years; and why has Israel sabotaged virtually every ceasefire Fatah and Hamas have agreed to in recent years, even unilateral ones.
These misperceptions persist because they fail to grasp the postulate that Israel only “responds” to attacks from the sub-human Arabs. Dugard and his ilk claim, “History is replete with examples of military occupation that have been resisted by violence – acts of terror,” and while “such acts cannot be justified, they must be understood as being a painful but inevitable consequence of colonialism, apartheid or occupation.” The Hamas apologists even include current Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who once said, “If I were a Palestinian, I would join a terror organization.” This talk should not lull us into seeing the Palestinians as victims because they do have rights. They “have the right to remain silent while Israel starves them, kills them and continues to violently colonize their land.”
Now we can correctly perceive the confrontation between Israel and the “hateful terrorist sympathizer[s]”. Because Israel only ever responds to attacks, its right to defend itself is paramount, which the U.S. and U.K. understand. So it must have been responding to an attack on the Mavi Marmara, which means the question we should be asking is how naïve, little Israel was outsmarted by “Islamists and their useful idiot fellow travelers,” who were responsible for and welcomed the bloodshed. The flotilla “aimed to provoke a confrontation” and was intended “‘to break’ Israel’s blockade of Gaza,” noted Leslie Gelb, the dean of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, echoing the line from Fox News to the Washington Post. The paper of record indicated that organizers wanted to provoke a “violent response from Israel,” agreeing with the Jerusalem Post, which stated the “‘peace militants’ … attacked the soldiers who boarded the ship with guns, iron bars and knives and led to the dire results they were looking for.” This fact did not escape the Obama White House, with one “senior” official saying, “the organizers of the flotilla were clearly seeking a confrontation – and tragically they got one.”
Ever restrained, the Jerusalem Post connects the dots. Because the “peace militants … hatred towards Israel knows no bounds,” and “wanted to cause some damage, no matter the cost for them,” they are like suicide bombers because “the aim justifies the means.” If the lesson is still unclear, Max Boot, Leslie Gelb’s colleague on the Council of Foreign Relations, spells it out in the Wall Street Journal.
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