Clear away, for the moment, the repression, the bombings, the rocket attacks, the fence, the religions, the national aspirations and resentments — and just take a closer look at Israel and the West Bank. It’s not hard to do. Open Google Earth and cruise over this conflicted piece of territory, concentrating your attention on signs of human habitation.
Nearly lost in the furor over the Israeli attack on the Turkish civilian aid flotilla is an incredible assessment delivered to the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. “Israel is turning from an asset to the United States to a burden,” testified Meir Dagan, the director of Mossad, on June 1.
Few decisions of the Obama administration have outraged the peace and human rights community as much as its successful efforts to block an international inquiry into May’s Israeli aid flotilla attack. Instead, supported by leading Republican and Democratic members of Congress, the Obama administration has thrown its weight behind an investigative committee handpicked by right-wing Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to examine the incident.
In Congress, Democratic leaders find common ground with their Republican counterparts in their effort to defend the Israeli assault on unarmed humanitarian aid flotillas. In a sharp contrast with the broad international consensus, a number of democratic representatives and senators proclaimed that the murder of nine activists, which took place in international waters, were inevitable and justified as Israel’s “right to self-defense.”
The recent Israeli raid on the flotilla bringing aid to Gaza — which resulted in the deaths of nine civilians, more injuries, and near-global condemnation for Israel’s actions — has brought a lot of attention to Gaza in the past few weeks. Unfortunately, much of the discourse has centered on the specific incident itself (such as who fired first and whether Israeli troops were right to protect themselves), and not about the politics and conditions in Gaza overall.
Countering the broad consensus of international legal scholars who recognize that the attack was in flagrant violation of international norms, prominent Democrats embraced the Orwellian notion that Israel’s raid, which killed at least nine activists and wounded scores of others, was somehow an act of self-defense.
Polls show two out of three Israelis disapprove of the attack on the flotilla, but are the two military men running the Tel Aviv government listening? Or are they about to take advantage of a crisis to launch a regional war that would make the Gaza boat attack look like a glass of spilled milk?
Last year, Lauren Rosenberg was walking across a four-lane highway in Utah when she was hit by a car. Now she’s suing Google for $100,000 in damages because Google Maps told her to take that route.
Gaza flotilla attacks may be a “Kent State moment” that wakes up the American public to Israel’s heavy-handed responses to anything resembling a provocation.
Monitoring Charles Krauthammer on Islam — a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it.