Thursday, August 28, 2008
Ron Prosor, Israeli ambassador in London, steps in to the lion's den of the Guardian's opinion page: Showboating over Gaza
Israel last Saturday permitted two boats of protesters to land on the shores of Gaza. This disappointed the more aggressive agitators in the party, as they hankered for a confrontation with the Israeli navy that never came. Yvonne Ridley, on board making a documentary for an Iranian state-funded broadcaster, must have been particularly frustrated.
Having thoroughly assessed the security risks, Israel granted the ships safe passage. The protesters came ashore with enough hot air to fill the 5,000 balloons they'd brought for the children of Gaza. They also delivered 200 hearing aids. Yet their silence regarding Hamas's abuse of its own people, let alone Israeli civilians, has been deafening.
Ironically, while the protesters tub-thumped their way to Gaza, just three weeks earlier, scores of Palestinians were at the Israeli border, fleeing for their lives. Eleven Palestinians died and more than a hundred were injured in fierce fighting between Hamas and its Fatah rivals. Facing slaughter by Hamas forces, nearly 200 Fatah members fled to Israel for refuge. Bilal Hilles, one of the wounded, described his fear at the prospect of returning to Hamas rule. "It would be like a death sentence for me," he told the Jerusalem Post.
Hamas's enslavement of Gaza continues, as does the silent complicity of the protesters.
Observers should be wary. The portrayal of Israel as pantomime villain and as sole cause of conflict in the Middle East is jeopardising the search for real solutions to complex problems. Sections of liberal society risk sleepwalking into the service of those who represent the antithesis of liberal values, namely Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas...
Indeed. But they'll never care. It's not about peace, it's about victory for the forces of reaction, as some of my friends on the left might say (that's destruction of Israel and the overthrow of the West for the rest of us). Israel should take a lesson. It's about victory.
This boat thing is really cheap. Hamas is the one blowing the crossings to prevent actual humanitarian aid sent from Israel to reach the population in Gaza.
I blogged about it here:
When you rush to a place where you expect to find severe humanitarian crisis, do you bring Tylenol, Advil, penicillin, baby food, flour, rice, oil, eggs? Or do you bring 200 hearing aids and 5,0000 balloons?
And are we allowed to deduce from the incongruity between the declared mission with the actual cargo, that the activists had never really been seriously worried about humanitarian crisis, but were using this grim terminology to incite hostility and resentment towards Israel?
http://contentious-centrist.blogspot.com/2008/08/liberation-of-gaza-tale-of-sea-chapter.html
Good post!
This mirrors those who were quiet or found reason to apologize for Russia recently. A bit different, but some of the same rationalizations, myopia, psychologies, etc. Do what's easy, rather than engage a more problematic analysis and rather than making difficult choices.