The flotilla affair: does the Israeli government owe anyone an inquiry over what went wrong in what looks to have been a seriously-botched operation? If the answer is
Yes, then to whom does Israel owe an inquiry (and why), and to whom it doesn’t?
Here is what Norman Geras has to say about this whole issue (an enlightening read).
UPDATE 7:30 pm
This is what may be written without a blush in the contemporary liberal press: a column by
Fintan O'Toole in yesterday’s Irish Times, as an example of the filth that has poured out upon Israel’s head during the time since the flotilla incident (via
normblog, again).
An enlightening read, indeed...
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly agree with this point of view.
ReplyDeleteThis is what common sense suggests.
ReplyDeleteHas one even the right to judge the operation as 'seriously botched'? After all, it's hardly the Israeli government's fault that the Israeli soldiers weren't welcomed aboard the 'Mavi Marmara'. Considering the organised reception, the 'pacifist militants' were lucky to lose only nine of their members. If one so relativises it could be judged as a show of considerable restraint on the part of the Israelis.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the victims. They must have been fully aware of the choice they were making and how it would effect the media. For many it was thus another 'victory' for the obscure yet still bellicose Palestinian cause, at least for a little while.
But one ends up asking the obvious question, if those on the 'Mavi Marmara, financed by Iran and Turkey, really wanted to help the Palestinians of Gaza, they had a strange way of going about it, for the first thing they should have done was to simply inform Israel of their intentions in order to try to obtain the necessary access.