Israeli commando on board/nation.com.pk

EDITOR’S CHOICE:  Israel’s bungled attack on the Gaza Flotilla early last Monday triggered a firestorm in the media. The world’s press, in near unanimity, vented outrage. Even some American news outlets, normally unenthusiastic about criticizing the Jewish state, joined the chorus, although much of that centered on the operation’s ham-handedness, not its morality or lack thereof. The Israel lobby pounced quickly, unleashing a media tsunami of talking points, old standby accusations of anti-Semitism and non-sequiturs. Here is a sampling of  OPPOSING views of the episode:

Jonah Goldberg writes in the National Review of June 6, “And yet the only villain as far as much of the world is concerned is Israel. Always Israel. But none of these facts matter. Indeed, it's tiring even to recount them in an environment where big lies matters more than obvious truths, where self-defense is ‘aggression,’ where restraint is ‘genocide,’ and where the heirs of Gandhi wield steel pipes.”

Rush Limbaugh, quoting Bibi Netanyahu, opines, “’Israel is presumed guilty until it's found guilty,’ which is dead-on right.  The UN can't do anything about the oil spill; they can't do anything about Iran's nukes; the UN can't do anything about what's going on in Korea; they can't stop the ChiComs, so let's focus on Israel, let's focus on the Jews, that's what the UN's doing.  And of course the administration is not far behind.”

 Columnist Joel Mowbary laments in June 2 Washington Times, ”No other nation wears a target on its back the way the Jewish state does. Israeli officials know their every action will be scrutinized and dissected under the media microscope, which makes their failure to plan for angry mobs greeting their soldiers as they entered their boat simply mystifying. Even most Israelis think the situation should have been handled differently.”

The respected columnist Charles Krauthammer would have us believe the world reaction is pure anti-Semitism.. He suggests in the June 5 Washington Post: “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.”

Pat Buchanan takes another view. In the June 6 edition of his magazine, The American Conservative he writes, “And today, President Obama should end his and his country’s shameful silence over the inhumane blockade of Gaza that is denying 1.5 million beleaguered people the basic necessities of a decent life.

That bloody debacle in the Eastern Mediterranean last Sunday was an inevitable result of Israel doing what it always seems to do: going beyond what is essential to her security, to impose collective punishment upon any and all it regards as hostile to Israel.

Israel claims, and film confirms, that its commandos rappelling down onto the Turkish ship were attacked with sticks and metal rods. One was tossed off a deck, another tossed overboard into a lifeboat.

But that 2 a.m. boarding of an unarmed ship with an unarmed crew, carrying no munitions or weapons, 65 miles at sea, was an act of piracy. What the Israeli commandos got is what any armed hijacker should expect who tries to steal a car from a driver who keeps a tire iron under the front seat.

And the response of these highly trained naval commandos to the resistance they encountered? They shot and killed nine passengers, and wounded many more.”

Scott O’Connell writes June 1, also in The American Conservative , “Hamas ruled Gaza has been gradually starved to death,  attacked by the Israeli military, and starved some more—all in an effort to make the Palestinians regret their choice at the polls (voting for Hamas).

Of the many efforts to break the blockade, the freedom flotilla was the most public and most daring. International and interfaith, it was motivated by the simple idea that the people of Gaza should not be starved into submission. And it is a simple fact is that whatever happened as the Israeli “commandos” descended from their helicopter, Israel has no right under international law to be blockading Gaza at all, much less seizing vessels carrying humanitarian aid in international waters.”

Alexander Cockburn editorializes in the June 4-6 Counterpunch Diary, “As the tv networks here give unlimited airtime to its apologists, the message rolls out that Israel is permitted every illegal act in the lexicon of international law, from acts of violence against a civilian population (the people of Gaza, starved under permanent blockade) to piracy on the high seas and the lethal attacks by Israeli commandos on the relief flotilla. The guiding purpose in this tsunami of drivel is that the viewers should be brainwashed into thinking Israel somehow has the right and the duty to act at will as the maddog of the planet.

Israel regrets… But no! Israel doesn’t regret. It preens and boasts and demands approval – which it duly gets from its prime sponsor, the United States government, and most of the press.  As former US senator Jim Abourezk remarked on this site last week  ‘It's very much like the bully who, after punching someone smaller in the jaw, requires the victim to apologize for getting his face in the way of the bully's fist.’”

With more Gaza aid ships promised this, like the oil spill, has no end in sight.