George Friedman at the hardboiled realist site, Stratfor (h/t Mark Wauck):
[Exodus author Leon] Uris...used an amalgam of incidents to display the propaganda war waged by the Jews. Those carrying out this war had two goals. The first was to create sympathy in Britain and throughout the world for Jews who, just a couple of years after German concentration camps, were now being held in British camps. Second, they sought to portray their struggle as being against the British. The British were portrayed as continuing Nazi policies toward the Jews in order to maintain their empire. The Jews were portrayed as anti-imperialists, fighting the British much as the Americans had. It was a brilliant strategy....
The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. ..the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel’s increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous...
As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world. In this case, the issue will be whether the deaths were necessary. The Israeli argument of provocation will have limited traction. Internationally, there is little doubt that the incident will generate a firestorm...
Israel is now in uncharted waters. It does not know how to respond. It is not clear that the Palestinians know how to take full advantage of the situation, either. But even so, this places the battle on a new field, far more fluid and uncontrollable than what went before. The next steps will involve calls for sanctions against Israel. The Israeli threats against Iran will be seen in a different context, and Israeli portrayal of Iran will hold less sway over the world.
And this will cause a political crisis in Israel. If this government survives, then Israel is locked into a course that gives it freedom of action but international isolation. If the government falls, then Israel enters a period of domestic uncertainty. In either case, the flotilla achieved its strategic mission. It got Israel to take violent action against it. In doing so, Israel ran into its own fist.
link to alternet.org
here is the text of the alternet piece:
” Our main media organizations have willingly allowed Israeli spokespeople to fill the airwaves with misinformation. Let’s reiterate a few simple facts.
“It is quite astounding that Israel has been able to create over the past 12 hours a news blackout, just as it did with its attack on Gaza 18 months ago, into which our main media organisations have willingly allowed Israeli spokespeople to step in unchallenged.
“How many civilians were killed in Israel’s dawn attack on the Gaza-bound flotilla of aid? We still don’t know. How many wounded? Your guess is as good as mine. Were the aid activists armed with guns? Yes, says Israel. Were they in cahoots with al-Qaeda and Hamas? Certainly, says Israel. Did the soldiers act reasonably? Of course, they faced a lynch, says Israel.
“If we needed any evidence of the degree to which Western TV journalists are simply stenographers to power, the BBC, CNN and others are amply proving it. Mark Regev, Israel’s propagandist-in-chief, has the airwaves largely to himself.
“The passengers on the ships, meanwhile, have been kidnapped by Israel and are unable to provide an alternative version of events. We can guess they will remain in enforced silence until Israel is sure it has set the news agenda.
So before we get swamped by Israeli hasbara let’s reiterate a few simple facts:
“* Israeli soldiers invaded these ships in international waters, breaking international law, and, in killing civilians, committed a war crime. The counter-claim by Israeli commanders that their soldiers responded to an imminent “lynch” by civilians should be dismissed with the loud contempt it deserves.
“* The Israeli government approved the boarding of these aid ships by an elite unit of commandoes. They were armed with automatic weapons to pacify the civilians onboard, but not with crowd dispersal equipment in case of resistance. Whatever the circumstances of the confrontation, Israel must be held responsible for sending in soldiers and recklessly endangering the lives of all the civilians onboard, including a baby.
“Israel has no right to control Gaza’s sea as its own territorial waters and to stop aid convoys arriving that way. In doing so, it proves that it is still in belligerent occupation of the enclave and its 1.5 million inhabitants. And if it is occupying Gaza, then under international law Israel is responsible for the welfare of the Strip’s inhabitants. Given that the blockade has put Palestinians there on a starvation diet for the past four years, Israel should long ago have been in the dock for committing a crime against humanity.
“Today Israel chose to direct its deadly assault not only at Palestinians under occupation but at the international community itself.”
I don’t like his characterization of this entire issue. The claim that the flotilla achieved its strategic aim by provoking violent action is ludicrous.
Essentially, this article, disguised as an introspective, Jewish tell-all confession is merely echoing the same failed propaganda peddled by the Israeli government and Avigdor Lieberman who in recent days have claimed that the flotilla is a aimed as an act of provocation to further delegitimize Israel.
A slightly subtler way of saying the exact same thing Kershner pushed, of the event being a “propaganda coup for Hamas.”
I find Altermann obnoxious. The man still blames Nader for Gore having his election stolen from him.
this is all theory presented as fact.
Wait. I thought Goldstone was the “game changer” after which, Israel could no longer carry out its atrocities. Now it’s the flotilla.
If anything, the Goldstone report simply challenged Israel to outdo itself in terms of viciousness and depravity.
GodsChosen, why were you banned?
If it was blatant trolling, I don’t see any reason why it should be removed.
I have no idea really why I was banned, other than that the moderators seem to want people to stay on message, and I don’t buy the message any more.
I have great respect for the moral integrity of the movement as well as of its tremendous courage. But I don’t think the movement is rational or pragmatic. I’m being urged for example to write to Mark Regev in Israel, voicing my complaints! I find that suggestion surreal and preposterous. It would be like asking Jews to write to Josef Mengele complaining about Nazi policies. This isn’t getting us anywhere. let’s look at the matter honestly.
Calls for violence concern me, but I have a hard time arguing that GodsChosen doesn’t have a point.
Although I would argue that the only way to address military actions by Israel, is to answer it with military action. Clearly, international law won’t work — they break it openly and flippantly — diplomacy won’t work — Avigdor Lieberman — and peaceful activists are being mowed down like dandelions underneath the treads of a Panzer.
I think its time for the world to defend itself, in point of fact.
I concur. I don’t think anything he has said is “out of bounds”. I for one feel that brutality can’t be reasoned into civility. It only responds to power and force. This leaves us in a quandry that needs to be examined.
RE: “It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy…”
ALSO SEE – Gaza Flotilla: This is What Smart Strategy Looks Like | By Ira Chernus, CommonDreams.org, 05/28/10
(excerpts)…Now the Israelis say they’ll take the most confrontational approach — using their Navy to prevent the ships from reaching Gaza, by any means necessary. The Israeli peace group Gush Shalom points out the obvious danger for their government here: “The State of Israel has no interest in flooding the international television screens with images of Israeli sailors and naval commandos violently assaulting hundreds of peace activists and humanitarian aid workers, many of them well-known in their countries.” That would call attention to an ongoing Israeli injustice that has largely been ignored in the world media, and it would dramatize the violence Israel uses to inflict its injustice….
…Nonviolent resistance always raises tensions. It’s supposed to. But as Martin Luther King, Jr., explained, the resistors do not create the tension. They merely shine a light on the tensions that are already there. They “seek so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. … A community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”
In another sense, though, nonviolence is a calming act. King called it “an object lesson in power under discipline.” This is the genius of nonviolence, as described by the great feminist writer Barbara Deming. Nonviolence resistors “have as it were two hands upon [the oppressor]-the one calming him, making him ask questions, as the other makes him move.”….
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to commondreams.org
Israel ran into its own fist
principle of tai chi, only you’re not supposed to get killed. i was commenting about this on saturday.
“Israel ran into its own fist.”
Ian Black from the Guardian says essentially the same thing: “Flotilla interception looks like a disastrous own goal for Israel”
Obviously this was a botched operation. Poorly planned and executed. But the upside of this horrible event is that the Gaza siege is essentially over. There is no way the governement is going to keep up the blockade after today. I don’t think this will blow away. The EU and the Americans will extract some concessions. Barak is going to lose his job. Livni will join the coalition. And Obama will finally have Netanyahoo by the balls.
I have been in a state of shock since I turned on the TV at 12:30 PM and heard the breaking news on BBC. As an Israel supporter, I feel sad and horrified.
That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said on this website. Welcome to the rest of the world.
About keeping up the blockade, I doubt that it’ll be over quite so soon.
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said on this website. Welcome to the rest of the world.”
Don’t get your hopes up. I am not changing sides! But I can tell right from wrong. And this was a very bad course of action. Anyone who cares about Israel can recognize that.
I’ll take what I can get. If you really love Israel, you’ll try to divert it from it’s current course.
Gee..I wonder if Israel’s claims about the “terrorists” of Gaza and their “right to self-defense” are as putrid and phony as their lies about the “terrorists” aboard this humanitarian aid flotilla??
Nah—Israel is generally very reliable, right?
Sure.
And I’m Erwin Schrodinger.
“If you really love Israel, you’ll try to divert it from it’s current course”
I don’t think I have the power to do much!
Yes, you do. You absolutely do. If you’re Jewish, Israel does what it does in your name. Get out on the streets and tell them you don’t want them to do that. Call the Israeli embassy, register your complaints. It’s people like you who can change Israel. You’re actually gutsy enough to come back to the site after cowards like Witty and yonira have headed for the hills, you’ve got balls and compassion. You CAN make a difference. Sorry if it sounds cheesy but it’s true.
Good luck!
She’s got a pretty good sense of humor too.
It might just come to that!
UN Security Council members urge Israel to lift Gaza siege
link to haaretz.com
That’s been going on forever. What they really need is for the US Congress to grow a spine and stop shielding Israel from valid criticism. I’m trying to find the article that states that in the closed-door meeting, US is already trying to find ways to get Israel out of this. Unbelievable. If I can find the link again, I’ll post it.
I agree. Lifting the siege will be blood money.
No, this will only make them harden their position. Their choice of spin strategy demands it. Giving up the blockade now will mean they have to right to enforce it, which would mean they had no right to board the ships, which would mean the passengers were entirely in the right to defend themselves with force.
“Giving up the blockade now will mean they have to right to enforce it”
There are 2 schools of thought in Israel. The hawks do not want to give up the blockade because it will signal Israeli weakness and loss of its deterrent capabilities. Others in the governement feel that Israel should let Egypt do the dirty job of blockading Gaza all by itself.
rachel,
“will signal Israeli weakness?”
The hawks dont get what they did today. Just dont get it.
I dont know if it’s a national holiday in Canada, but today is Memorial Day, like Nov 11 in Canada. Everyone is home. Everyone is watching TV. It’s barbecues and flag-waving for the military. And the vets remember the USS Liberty that Israel bombed.
Israel could not have picked a worse day of the year to do this. It has now sunk into the American consciousness that Israel is a dangerous, volatile piece of business with no moral standing and a vile soul. It doesn’t matter whether the occupied country is Gaza or Greenland. Israel completely miscalculated what it did.
Why? Because there’s one thing you dont do in America, p.h.u.c.k.i.n.g period, not ever. You dont kill aid workers. You dont slaughter Salvation Army people. You dont kill Red Cross personnel, we invented the Red Cross. You dont persecute Peace Corps volunteers.
Nobody in this country cares what the political issue is, but if they hear some country has done these things, they get an instant hate on, and all the profoundly illogical horseshit about what their soldiers were subjected to, which doesn’t have an ounce of logic to it, doesn’t count for anything. There is no excuse. You dont kill nuns. You dont kill aid workers.
Israel is now a terrorist country, a North Korea, to Joe Six-Pack, and this will be coming up in their churches, all the non_Christian Zionist, down homey ones. It’s like Israel went to Boy’s Town and slaughtered all the counselors.
And they are so stupid in Israel they dont understand what they just did.
Fair enough.
The truth is the truth. Everyone had far more optimism about the chances for meaningful change when Israelis were regularly getting blown up in pizza parlors and city busses. Now, no one believes anything can change. There is a direct relationship between violence against the Israelis and progress toward peace. That is what the record plainly shows.