He may or may not be aware of it, but our President has reached one of those crystal-clear moral choice points. Today it’s possible to make a decision that will either put him squarely on the side of the angels, or … the other side.
Today the president can show that America stands up for the truth (and incidentally for Western civilization), he can equivocate and temporize, or even take the dark side. What will he do?
There are reports, which the White House denies, that the Administration intends to support an international investigation of Israel’s actions in intercepting the ships of the “Free Gaza Flotilla.”
The facts of the case are about as black and white as anything could possibly be. The information is out there for the world to see even without the massive resources of the US intelligence services at the president’s disposal. And this information shows that Israel’s naval commandos were caught in a surprise ambush by a group of organized thugs connected to the Turkish IHH organization, and needed to fight their way out to avoid being killed or taken hostage.
This is not a complicated issue where there is prima facie evidence on both sides of an issue. This is not a question about which people of good will who have the facts can differ. It’s not a question of policy, it’s simply one of what happened aboard that ship on the morning of May 31, 2010.
And that information is available in the form of videos of the boarding itself and of the preparations made by the thugs, testimonies taken from the captain and first officer of the ship, and testimonies of the Israeli commandos. Look at these videos and conduct your own investigation.
What will the president do? Will he support the next pseudo-forensic lynching of Israel that is being plotted by the UN ‘Human Rights’ Council? Will he support some other ‘international’ investigation which will blame Israel? Or will he issue a statement like this:
The US calls for an impartial investigation of the attack on Israeli Navy personnel on May 31. The investigation should be charged to determine how the attackers were allowed to board the ship with inadequate or no security checks, who organized, trained and paid them, who commanded them during their vicious attack, and whether elements in the Turkish regime knew about the plan in advance or even initiated it. We must not shrink from asking, “What did ErdoÄŸan know and when did he know it?”
And he could add something like this:
The Hamas occupation of the Gaza Strip is unsustainable and should be terminated immediately. Hamas violently overthrew the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, killing members of the opposition. It committed and continues to commit murderous aggression against Israel, a UN member state. Hamas is a terror organization, dedicated to genocide, which violates civilized norms by its anti-democratic, racist and misogynist policies. I condemn those who support or supply the Hamas regime and call on all the civilized nations of the world to work to end this regime.
Today we are in the midst of a struggle between the West and the forces of radical Islamism, led by Iran. Their short and medium-term goals are to destroy Israel, to remove all US influence from the Mideast, to take control of much of the world’s oil resources, and to establish a new Caliphate in the region which will challenge the democratic nations of the world for leadership. Their long-term goal, quite seriously, is to bring about a world entirely dominated by radical Islamism.
Israel, almost surrounded by Iranian proxies, is on the front line of this struggle. This incident represents Turkey’s entrance into the fray on the side of Iran, in an attempt to hand a double victory to Hamas — a tactical victory by forcing Israel to weaken its blockade, and a diplomatic one by legitimizing Hamas in the eyes of the world.
Which side is our president on?
Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza Flotilla investigation, Hamas, President Obama
President Obama will certainly not make the kind of true and forceful statement in regard to Turkish actions this article calls for.
But he may by and large back the Israeli position against an international investigation. There are a number of reasons for this, including pressure from the Congress, Abbas’ indication that he does not want the Gaza blockade lifted, his desire not to alienate more Jewish voters in the November elections.
But for him to be honest in regard to the Turkish action is too much to expect. That would after all indicate how great a failure is ‘appease the Islamic world’ policy has been.
I expect him to do pretty much the worst. I expect him to back the investigation.
His rationale will be that with U.S. participation, the investigation will be more “honest”, and this will “bolster the credibility” of his favorite “country”, the UN.
Propping up the UN is one of his core foreign policy objectives. This even goes beyond appeasing Moslems (a very close second). Also, his “realist” foreign policy advisors believe Turkey is key to U.S. foreign policy, and he’s not done kissing their butts. This would represent an all out “French kiss” in that direction.
Going to be a very rough two and a half years, people.