Israel’s Hole Gets Deeper
It seems Israel isn’t content with being loathed throughout the Arab world. Over the past couple of years, they’ve been taking steps to be despised in the West as well. It’s bad enough that they’ve created a humanitarian crisis with their blockade of Gaza. But now, they have to go and raid a flotilla of ships carrying aid to the blockaded zone, killing several civilians in the process.
The military said naval commandos descending from a helicopter onto the deck of a Turkish-flagged ship were assaulted by armed activists. Military footage showed activists swarming around the commandos as they rappelled from a helicopter one by one, hitting them with sticks until they fell to the deck, throwing one off the ship and hurling what the military said was a firebomb.
Speaking alongside the Canadian prime minister, Netanyahu expressed “regret” for the loss of life but said the soldiers “had to defend themselves, defend their lives, or they would have been killed.”
So Israeli commandos board a ship in international waters, the civilians on the ship defend themselves with whatever tools they have available (maybe a couple of guns?) and the commandos start killing them. Sorry, but you don’t get to claim self defense when you are the one who initiated the assault.
And let’s not forget that America is funding this sort of behavior. The US has 30 billion dollars earmarked for Israel over the next 10 years, and another 250 million recently allocated for an Israeli-built missile defense system.
Of course, it seems no matter what Israel does in the name of “defense”, or how many times they are publicly rebuked for their behavior, I doubt anything will really ever change. In America, at least, political support for Israel is generally taken for granted no matter which side of the aisle you’re on. And there is an element of the right that find this event to be something we should be celebrating. Consider this post over at Right Wing News comparing some reactions from the left and right. The piece starts off by insulting the Palestinian people and dismissing reality (emphasis mine).
Honestly, I don’t find the Palestinian people to be the least bit sympathetic. They’re backwards, genocidal, hyper-violent, sad sack Nazi wannabes led by terrorists who would happily murder every Jew on the planet if they could get away with it.
Then there are the Israelis. They’re a tiny Western democracy surrounded by backwards savages who want to murder them down to the last child because they’re Jews.
Typical of a right wing loon to ignore history and try to make things fit his skewed view of the world. You can imagine where it goes from there. And, as to be expected on such a site, many of the comments are absolutely despicable.
One has to wonder how deep Israel’s hole will go and what it means for world stability.