NYC Junta

So frustrating reading about the Israeli raid on the flotillaoff the coast of Gaza. While I think the Israelis did a relatively poor job of operational planning (they expected to catch the people on the ship asleep and not particularly violent) and weren’t exactly nimble in terms of their PR response to the deaths on board, the outcry is part of the continued hypocrisy of how Israel is treated internationally.

Turkey has been the most strident in its criticism, but the reasons why are a bit more complex than what Prime Minister Erdogan would have you believe. Erdogan is from an Islamist party that has challenged–successfully–the secular establishment that has ruled Turkey since it become a modern country. He has slowly eroded the ties with Israel (the closest of any Muslim nation) and this current imbroglio (the ship raided was flying  a Turkish flag) has given him the pretext to whip even more anti-Israel sentiment to burnish his religious and nationalist credentials ahead of an election that will take place approximately a year from now. Anyone who has seen the footage of Israeli commandos being hammered with metal rods as they landed on the deck, or thrown overboard, might disagree that deaths on board, however unfortunate, were not a “bloody massacre”. That’s just one of the many virulent statements he has made in the last 24 hours that make him sound less like the statesmen of a country that aspires to join the EU and more like Ahmadinejad. Erdogan is taking his place in a long line of Muslim leaders using the Palestinians as pawns to both advance their own parochial political interests and distract attention from problems at home.

Even more frustrating is watching Euro-liberals posturing like revolutionaries over this. I was watching the BBC when Bangkok was going to hell recently and they had an interview with a Brit who was hunkered down with the Red Shirts, dude fancied himself a modern Che Guevara and obviously had little understanding of the nuance of the local situation, it was easier to say it’s rich versus poor than really understand the complexity of what was going on. Similarly, the mingling of latent anti-Semitism and guilt over both colonialism and historic anti-Jewish feeling colors the Left in Europe and the people who were on board those ships and protesting in European capitals. They should look in the mirror and understand that the legacy of their country’s colonialism is the root of most modern conflicts. Similarly, they can avoid remembering what actually spurred Zionism and the establishment of the state of Israel (European anti-semitism) and continue to revel in seeing the Israelis acting like fascists if that’s how they want to view it, but they are deluding themselves. There is no humanitarian disaster in Gaza, no one is starving and food and medicine flows into Gaza. If the people there want a better life they should get rid of the terrorist organization that they have put in power and who are responsible for their misery and isolation. And if the clueless lefties want to do something real to help people who are actually suffering they should go to Darfur or Congo.