Flotilla Fiasco
There's a difference, Earl, between wrong and botched. Israel botched the stopping of the flotilla. This is a terrible set back to Israel politically and a tragedy for those wounded and killed. Tragically, it's a victory for the Turkish Islamists who are fighting Turkey's secularist tradition and trying to move Turkey from reaching westward towards Europe to moving east deeper into the Muslim world.
This halting of the convoy was botched because Israel believed the assertions of the "Peace Activists" that they wouldn't resist. While I don't doubt the idealistic intent of the majority of passengers, Israel under-appreciated the ferocity and agenda of a small, but violent, number of people on the boats. This was a failure of intelligence and imagination.
As for stopping the flotilla in international waters...that is what blockades do. Our blockade of Cuba during the missile crisis in 62 was enforced at sea--not in our territorial waters. They're legal when proclaimed publically against a territory in a state of war. Gaza, under Hamas, with the expressed policy of Israel's destruction, would qualify. Blockades also have to be consistently enforced. Israel knew that this first group wouldn't carry weapons, but if it allowed them in, uninspected, there would be no blockade and Iran and Hezbollah would have a port in Gaza into which they could offload rockets, guns and jihadists.
Egypt also enforced a blockade against Gaza. I wonder why the activists didn't try bringing in their supplies through Egypt? This is more about a struggle for the soul of Turkey than the Gazans.
©2010 Jonathan Dobrer
www.Dobrer.com
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