Ship of fools // By Ben Frankel
Iron, the Israeli operation in Gaza). This being the case, how about publishing the predetermined condemnation of Israel right away, and do away with the tedious process of pretending to gather facts and hear testimonies?
6. Advice to the world: don’t push Israel into a corner
The continuing effort to isolate and delegitimize Israel — an effort of which routine UN-run condemnatory investigations of Israel are an integral part — carries a risk with it. Bergman, to whose WSJ article we referred above, concludes his op-ed thus:
Everything that has happened in the past year — the Goldstone Report condemning Israel’s war in Gaza, the international furor after the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai, even the statement singling out Israel at the recent Nuclear Nonproliferation Conference — is taken [by Israelis] as an indication that any attempt to do the “right thing” is pointless and perhaps counterproductive. One might as well simply give up.
This feeling is shared by a large section of the Israeli population — not merely the right wing of Israeli society. While many are condemning the IDF’s operation on Monday, it is probably fair to say that the majority of the country instinctively understands why these events were permitted to occur.
Israel’s fatigue and deep sense of ostracism is, to say the least, unhealthy. It would be unhealthy for any country at the best of times. But it is particularly troubling when the country in question is at perpetual war, and when it is repeatedly threatened with annihilation by the leader of a country who is actively pursuing nuclear weapons. And, of course, it is profoundly disturbing when the fatigued and isolated country itself has the means to strike pre-emptively and punishingly at its enemies, including in ways from which, realistically, there may be no return.
If you have a powerful tiger in your backyard, you do not want it to adopt a siege mentality, a the-whole-world-is-against me attitude. You do not want it be agitated, feeling increasingly insecure, and with a sense that it has nothing to lose. You do not want it to feel cornered. Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas, in the more immediate sense, and their supporters among both well-meaning do-gooders and the morally lax UN, should realize that they are playing with fire here. To quote Bergman: “…. it is profoundly disturbing when the fatigued and isolated country itself has the means to strike pre-emptively and punishingly at its enemies, including in ways from which, realistically, there may be no return.”
Indeed. It is profoundly disturbing — and worrisome.
This is why the flotilla which was heading toward Gaza and was stopped by Israel on Monday consisted of ships of fools. The well-meaning activists on the ships thought they were engaged in a humanitarian effort to help the wretched Palestinians in Gaza. In reality, however, they were what Lenin would describe as “useful idiots.”
They were manipulated by the brutal and cynical Hamas, aided by similarly brutal and cynical Iranian and al Qaeda operatives, into becoming foot soldiers in an on-going campaign to delegitimize Israel. The clumsy Israeli military operation played into the hands of the flotilla organizers, but this should not conceal — rather, it should highlight — the true purpose behind this flotilla and the next ones to come.
Ben Frankel is editor of the Homeland Security NewsWire
