# 146 – Gaza – 3

June 3, 2010

Yes, I’m still here…

It was Golda Meir who once said words to the effect that the reason she is against the Palestinians (or Arabs, or Muslims – don’t recall which collective noun she used) is not because of what they do to us. It’s because of what they make us do to them.

You think we’re happy to possess one of the World’s best armies? The Jews came to that came to this land (to join those who had been here for Millennia) came with spades, books, money, brains. No guns.

We’ve proven time and time again (at least to me), that we’re a decent people. But despite our 100% right to a tiny part of this area, our neighbours don’t want us here. For over 100 years, they’ve made that all too obvious.  It was bad enough for them when we were just ‘a few strange people in our area’. But when the UN declared the State of Israel, 62 years ago, it was a Naqba – a catastrophe. And this is NOT directly a case of anti-Semitism.

Yes, some of their leaders have been proven to be so, such as Sadat – or the Mufti of Jerusalem, Al Husseini, who tried to work with Hitler. But I believe it would be just as bad for Israel if it were a Buddhist nation. We are a thorn in the Arab Muslim world. We have won wars against them, and succeeded in obtaining a legal right to this land. This, in their eyes, is unforgiveable. They will NEVER accept Israel.

Back to this Gaza thing.

First, some comments from the letter  recipients:

• Seems a never ending saga. So sad how radical forces from any political or religious side manage to constantly disrupt peace the whole world over.

I really do wonder why moderate Muslims don’t band together world-wide to do something against the extremists. Thanks for your letters, they enable us outside of the area to get ein BLICK ins Innern .

I don’t think it is good for Israel that they don’t stop building in areas where it would help greatly if they curtailed it at the moment. I also still wonder why they don’t do something against the nukes in Iran. By the time they decide to do something it will be too late – if it is not already too late! :-/

• The flotilla was  a well planned operation. It was a “win-win” for the anti-semites. If it got through the blockade, they would claim they broke the Israeli “strangle hold”. If it ended, as it did, they claim Israeli brutality. Israel could not prevail. It’s too bad that the Israeli Navy didn’t sink one of the vessels as a warning to the rest. If they didn’t turn back, start sinking the rest one at a time. Of course, the “survivors” would be rescued as a humanitarian gesture. I guess I’m just a softie. .

• Do I detect a slight shift to the right?

  It is without a doubt that the blockade runners knew what they were doing. The flotilla was organized by a Turkish group which supports Hamas.  It is regrettable that the world, including our idiot in the White House, is playing to the muslim audience. The real threat to democracy is the muslim islamo-fascists. Israel is merely the “canary in the tunnel”. If the west doesn’t wake up to the danger we all face, we will all be prostrated on prayer rugs.

• My solution is simple: kill the fuckers!

  Guess I’m too soft, but what the hell?

• My biggest surprise was the decision of the Israeli leaders to dispatch Navy Seals to this flotilla. They are not trained for crowd control, etc. What a sad thing that anyone had to die. Your plan made much more sense. Your comment about the Turks and the Kurds hit right to the heart of things. When I attack you it is good—when you attack me it is horrendous.

As often happens there has been limited information as to the past which would put much of this story in a different light. Allison and I are fortunate that we have a bit of understanding of your country’s history and that of your neighbors. But as you well know we humans pay little attention to the past and not too much to the future.

You and your family are always in our prayers as are all humans.

Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

• Thanks so much for your impassioned communiqués Stephen. I empathize and agree.

However, I fault Israel for not having handled the actual operation in a more cautious manner to avoid this outcome—exactly what our detractors had hoped for.

Handle the operations within Israeli waters (disputed boundaries though they are).

(My response: Half agree. As Israel is almost the only ones at war with Hamas, sticking to Intl rules isn’t always the best path to follow.)

2. Disable the ships and pull them to shore.   

(I agree, and that’s what they did with all but the biggest, which was very big – over 600 on board. Still, they should have been able to do so.)

3. Send on to the boats then, well-trained Israeli Arab women or Druze, or Beduin to ease the p.r. burden, to meet with the agitators; or have them greet them on shore.

(Great idea).

4. Let them all “stew” for a while before engaging (see #3); then tour those who are rational around Israel and send some of the marginal agitators to Gaza, while imprisoning the hardcore.

(Idea gets even better.)

5. For sure there are lots of holes in this plan and there is no good answer; but I am also convinced that we should have been able to pull this off without such loss of life knowing full well that we should have anticipated this violent reaction (provocation).

(True).

And now a couple more comments from me, bringing this up to date:

• That Israel could have handled this better is easy to say. But this flotilla was filled with ‘peace activists’. There were 6-700 of them on all 6 boats. Few deny that perhaps 10% of them were out-and-out extremists, determined – and prepared – to go all the way. Suicide provocateurs. They were on a win-win mission.

• The videos, film footage etc. has proven without question that some of them were ready for battle. We were naïve. After all the warnings, we should have shot holes in the ships and dragged’ em in to Ashdod. But…those guys would have found a way, on sea or on land, to create the worst

• Isn’t strange that I was so timely in my analogy of such a flotilla breaking a Turkish blockade to bring help to the Kurds. Almost ‘minutes’ later, there were 6 deaths. Who cares?

• And who cares about N. Korea? A southern ship is proven to have been torpedoed by the North, with severe loss of life.

• An absolute act of war – no connection with self-defense, no 7,000 rockets falling from the south, no southern government threatening to destroy the North. Did you notice the media reaction.

I rest my case.

So, have I moved to the right? Well, of course I have. But hardly having moved at all. For it is the rest of the World that has moved to the Left. Much of the ‘developed world’ has no idea what is going on, and then it will be too late. (What’s the opposite of ‘Inch’Allah’?)

I am so naïve. I used to think that an academic was neutral, non-partisan. I am today very aware of the fact that knowledge does not automatically mean objectivity. Few academics can remain impartial.

Where am I going with this?

The person whom recently I tried so hard to keep anonymous, who so objected to my views that he (yes, it was a ‘he’) was the first-ever to ask me to take him off my mailing list. I’m sorry, my friend, but HE is the extremist, not I.

Why was that subject so important to me? Not only because of his views, not only for the fact that he was a professor of Middle East studies, was dean of his university and even wrote a book on Lebanon, it was because he was a very close friend. In fact, much against the advice of many, he still is. I have decided to continue the relationship (there are some even deeper personal reasons), and just avoid the subject of politics. We have so many other subjects in common.

Some have said I am banging my head on a brick wall. ‘Give it up’, they recommend.

Not I.

This is  a normal country with all the shit that goes with it – plus 62 years of abnormal pressure from every neighbour. That makes it  a great country, with a wonderful mix of great people.

Perhaps I am a masochist, excited to be watching ‘history unfold’ – 2 countries trying to establish themselves. What would Donald Trump or Alan Sugar have said to them? They each started at ‘go’. They were given the same money, same area, same opportunities, same potential future. One has built a land of milk and honey (come here – I can prove it) and the other has built a tragic wasteland. Many Arab neighbours – and Suha Arafat, are laughing on the way to the bank.

I am not laughing.

Stephen