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The interesting thing about Helen Thomas’ widely quoted remarks (video here)  is not that she has been revealed as an anti-Semite (or not). And the appropriate reply, much as it may seem unsatisfying to some, is not to bring up the Holocaust.

Why did she say that the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?

The implication is that the Jews came and ‘occupied’   Palestinian land, dispossessing the former owners. The implication is that Israel is illegitimate and the Jews do not have the right to be there. Probably she would also say that “Palestinians should not have to suffer for European crimes,” suggesting that Israel was created to assuage European guilt for the Holocaust. This is a common theme in statements by Hamas and Iranian leaders too.

But a journalist of experience and reputation, as Thomas was, should have a better understanding of history. To coin a phrase, “she who doesn’t understand history is doomed to not understand current events either.”

Did she know that the majority of today’s ‘Palestinians’ are descended from Arabs of Syria and Egypt that migrated to the region in the 19th and early 20th centuries, many in the latter period, when the Zionist presence created economic opportunity? Was she aware that the father of Palestinian nationalism, Yasser Arafat, was born in Cairo, Egypt?

Did she sleep through the class where she could have learned that there were several hundred thousand Jews in ‘Palestine’ at the time of the Muslim conquest in the Seventh Century (Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, Chapter 1)? True, this number was significantly lower until the 1880’s — thanks to the friendly Muslims — but Jews have been there since biblical times.

Did she know that the League of Nations Mandate was approving of Jewish self-determination, understanding it as something which needn’t prejudice the rights of others in the region? And that early Zionists — including both the Labor and Revisionist variety — fully envisioned it this way?

Wasn’t she aware, though, that cooperation between Jew and Arabs during the mandate period was sabotaged by the Nazi-aligned Mufti, who encouraged murderous pogroms? Did she know that at the same time, the Mufti’s family was making buckets of money selling land at exorbitant prices to the Jews?

Did she know that the Jews had built the complete infrastructure of a state long before it was possible to kick the British out?

Did she  know the story of the War of Independence — Karsh does a good job of telling it — and precisely how the behavior of their leadership, the Mufti in particular, ensured that the Palestinian Arabs did not get a state of their own?

Did she skip over the part about how the policies of the Mufti and the Arab nations bear the primary responsibility for the creation of 650,000 Arab refugees?

Did she know how the Arab nations conspired to create a permanently stateless group of nearly 5 million claimants to ‘Palestinian’ nationality, who must be supported forever on the international dole, as a club to beat Israel with?

Didn’t she notice how these same ‘Palestinians’, under the leadership of the aforementioned Arafat, tore apart the nation of Lebanon (from which Thomas’ parents emigrated to the US, incidentally)?

Did she also miss the greatest contribution made by the Palestinian people to human society, the popularization of terrorism as an implement of policy (or sometimes just for fun)?

Did she know that about half of the Jews in Israel are descended from Jews who lived outside of Europe, mostly in Arab countries? And that something like 800,000 of them were kicked out of these Arab countries between 1948 and the early ’50’s?

Whew. There’s a lot of history that Helen Thomas doesn’t seem to know.

Update [8 June 1122 PDT]: Thomas retired after a flood of criticism. But the criticism was almost entirely couched in the inappropriateness of her comments regarding Jews. It crosses the line to talk about Jews returning to Poland and Germany, where they were murdered.

The real thrust of her remarks was that Israel does not have a right to exist. I wonder if the reaction would have been the same if she had simply said that?

Technorati Tags: Helen Thomas, Israel

This is the last thing I’m going to write about the Mavi Marmara  incident (after all, it’s been almost a week).

As a military ‘disaster’, it was a very small one. There have been much bigger mistakes. In the 1916 Battle of the Somme, over 19,000 British soldiers were sent to their deaths in one day as a result of poor intelligence and command incompetence. In 1945, the RAF sank the Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and the SS Deutschland in Lübeck, Germany; the ships had 7,000 concentration camp survivors and (mostly Russian) prisoners of war on board. In 1999, the US accidentally bombed the embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Belgrade, killing three Chinese citizens. One could go on almost indefinitely.

Last week, poor planning led to the injury of several Israeli naval commandos and the death of nine Turkish nationals who were either mercenary thugs recruited for the purpose or members of Islamic extremist groups, whose intention was to kill the Israelis. It would have been remarkable if the boarding had been effected without killing anyone given the circumstances, but Israel has carried out similar operations in the past, so I assume that it could have been done given better intelligence, etc.

Put simply, in the process of defending itself against Hamas — do I need to bring up the irony of the fact that Hamas deliberately targets civilians? — Israeli soldiers were attacked by ‘civilians’ who were in fact guerrilla fighters. Every one of the nine killed were among this group: no women, children or ‘humanitarian activists’ were hurt.

Israel officially regrets the death of the nine guerrillas. Personally, I wouldn’t regret the death of someone who was trying to beat my brains out with an iron pipe, but then I’m not a diplomat.

The real ‘disaster’ was the reaction of Turkish PM ErdoÄŸan, the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, and numerous governments, including of course the intrepid Obama Administration. This diplomatic and media frenzy has as yet shown no signs of abating, even as Israel peacefully intercepts additional ships of the flotilla. Its goal is to weaken and demonize Israel, and to strengthen and legitimize Hamas.

It was a double ambush. First, her soldiers were attacked by thugs, and then Israel was attacked by Turkey and her allies diplomatically and in the media.

Israel has suffered a diplomatic and information Pearl Harbor –  a vicious sneak attack which used this incident as a pretext. ErdoÄŸan has been looking for, and finding, pretexts for some time now, but this one seems to be the most effective yet. And he’s found numerous allies, such as the UN Human Rights Council, the folks that brought us the Goldstone Report, for whom ‘diplomatic lynch mob’ is too kind a description.

It’s hard to believe that the Turkish PM did not know in advance that there would be violent resistance to the Israelis:

The group behind the violent resistance, the IDF believes, was hired by IHH, the radical Turkish Islamic group that funded the flotilla. The 50 or so members of this violent group were not carrying identity cards or passports. Each of them had an envelope in his pocket with about $10,000 in cash. One member of the group, who appears to have been the ringleader, it is claimed, traveled to Bursa in northwest Turkey and allegedly recruited mercenaries there.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan is a known supporter of IHH and there are suspicions in Israel that he, or other government officials, may have personally instructed the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara to violently attack the soldiers. — Jerusalem Post

And it is equally hard to believe that the diplomatic pressure now being put on Israel via the UN, the Obama Administration, etc., spearheaded by Turkey, was not also preplanned.

Israel was caught in a trap, probably set at the highest levels of the Turkish government.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Mavi Marmara, ErdoÄŸan, Turkey

Israel does not need enemies: it has itself. Or more precisely: it has its government. The Netanyahu-Barak government has somehow found a way to lose the moral high ground, the all-important war for symbols and meanings, to Hamas. That is quite an accomplishment. Operation Make the World Hate Us, it might have been called. — Leon Wieseltier

Many share his opinion. They say “If only intelligence had been better, if only the soldiers had been better prepared, if only the planning could have been more complete, etc.” Israelis and Jews are very good at beating themselves up.

Today they are doing a better job on themselves than the Turks did on Monday.

Certainly this operation could have gone more smoothly. Somebody screwed up, and somebody didn’t catch it. But the worldwide anti-Zionist hate machine is always primed and ready to go. It would have found something else, maybe next week or next month. Or lacking an actual incident, it would have invented one.

Consider Operation Cast Lead. As I and others (video here) have said, probably never in the history of urban warfare have so many precautions been taken and the actual civilian death toll been so low, especially given the deliberate use of schools, hospitals, mosques and other civilian structures by Hamas. But it didn’t matter — the hate machine ran 24/7 in overdrive and drowned out the truth.

The tender-minded say “We have to be better,” while the tougher prefer “we have to be smarter.” Both types miss the point:

It doesn’t matter what we do or say. We are not witnesses in some celestial court. We are fighting both physical and information wars here on earth with enemies who will do anything they can to get an advantage.

The truth has no importance in the information struggle. What counts is how many sign up on your side and how loud you can be. And yes, as we often see at our universities, how intimidating. The numbers are not on our side.

Sometimes when I hear Israeli officials or diaspora Jews explaining how Israel has a right to self-defense, etc., I am reminded of this scene in “Schindler’s list”:

Reiter: I’m a graduate of Civil Engineering from the University of Milan.
Amon Goeth: Ah, an educated Jew… like Karl Marx himself. Unterscharfuehrer!
Hujar: Jawohl?
Amon Goeth: Shoot her.
Reiter: Herr Kommandant! I’m only trying to do my job!
Amon Goeth: Ja, I’m doing mine.
(Hujar shoots, point blank. Reiter falls instantly)

You see, they are not listening. The UN ‘Human Rights’ Council, dominated by latter-day Goeths, cannot be expected to listen.

Wieseltier describes the PR failures, the slow reaction of the IDF in releasing the videos showing what actually happened, the amateurish way it was presented to the foreign press, etc. All of this is true and it should have been done differently.  But none of it will matter in the long run. Do you think the Turkish PM will call up Netanyahu and say “you know, I saw the videos and I’m sorry?” This is the guy who thinks Americans and Israelis conspired to steal organs from murdered Iraqis.

Yes, Israel should ‘get its act together’ where PR is concerned. And whoever was responsible for planning the boarding operation should be given a different job.

But we should not expect ‘understanding’ from the world. We should simply make sure we get respect.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Wieseltier

NY Times:

JERUSALEM — Israel worked Wednesday to defuse rising international anger by agreeing to a rapid release of all detainees — including those suspected of attacking its soldiers — taken after the deadly nighttime raid of six ships seeking to break its blockade of the Gaza Strip…

The release seemed most immediately aimed at repairing dangerously eroding ties with Turkey, Israel’s main ally in the Muslim world [where has the Times been for the last few years?], as demands continued to intensify around the world to end a blockade that critics say has kept Gazans isolated and impoverished…

Still, Turkey, which withdrew its ambassador to Israel, continued to press for an end to the blockade as a condition for restoring full diplomatic relations.

Why is it so hard to see that this won’t work?

It’s not possible to appease them. In the Middle East — in fact, in life in general — the weak guy loses. When you back down in front of your enemies, they don’t say “you are being reasonable, we’ll be fair to you.” On the contrary, they say “you’re weak, you can’t protect yourself, so we’ll take even more.”

Israel’s soldiers were beaten up, humiliated. Now isn’t the time to let their assailants go free. On the contrary, now is the time to be tougher. Now is the time to humiliate the enemy, to re-establish deterrence.

The Times calls it “a bid to quell anger.” Anger? Israel should be angry that its soldiers were hurt. Turkey should be relieved that its ship wasn’t torpedoed. The Turks should be the ones trying to “defuse anger.”

All the jackals are circling now. The Obama Administration, famously never allowing a crisis to go to waste, is preparing to sink its teeth into the juicy carcass as well.

NY Times again:

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration considers Israel’s blockade of Gaza to be untenable and plans to press for another approach to ensure Israel’s security while allowing more supplies into the impoverished Palestinian area, senior American officials said Wednesday.

The officials say that Israel’s deadly attack on a flotilla trying to break the siege and the resulting international condemnation create a new opportunity [!] to push for increased engagement with the Palestinian Authority and a less harsh policy toward Gaza.

“There is no question that we need a new approach to Gaza,” said one official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy shift is still in the early stages. He was reflecting a broadly held view in the upper reaches of the administration.

“Increased engagement with the Palestinian Authority,” of course, means things like extending the construction freeze and humiliating Israel further by damaging its sovereignty in Jerusalem. And “a less harsh policy toward Gaza” means empowering Hamas, politically and physically.

This is precisely the opposite of the approach that Israel should take.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that the academics of the Obama Administration don’t understand this, but surely Netanyahu and Barak, who live in the real Middle East should.

Here is what is supposed to be an old Bedouin story:

There once lived a rich and powerful man. One day, bandits stole a water jug; but instead of taking it back and punishing the bandits — which would have been easy, since he had many sons — he said “it’s only a jug, it’s not worth a fight. Anyway, I have more jugs.” Then they took  a goat. “Oh well, I have more goats, and after all the bandits were hungry,” he said. One day he woke up to find that they’d killed his sons, taken his camels, his tent and his wives to boot. Then, since he had no goods, no sons and no honor, they killed him.

The moral of the story, of course, is this: do not allow your enemies to humiliate you, because it weakens you and strengthens them. And always maintain a credible deterrent.

Technorati Tags: Israel

The IDF Spokesperson reports that 20 truckloads of aid taken from the captured flotilla ships was taken to the Keren Shalom crossing into Gaza.

But Hamas has refused to accept it, in keeping with their philosophy that it is always more important to hurt Jews than to help Arabs.

Here are some photos from the IDF of some of the ‘aid’ that was not transferred to Hamas:

Bulletproof vests, also worn by attackers

Gas masks

Night vision equipment and rifle scope

When the IDF naval commandos landed on the deck of the Mavi Marmara, paintball guns ready, they were met (video here) by a large number of thugs wearing face masks, bullet-proof vests and swinging various weapons including metal pipes cut from railings, etc.

Several cut-off saws used by the ‘peaceful aid workers’ were found on the deck. Here is a photo of how some of the weapons were prepared:

How railings, etc. were converted into weapons

A pile of the metal pipes used to club the commandos

They also used slingshots to shoot marbles, bolts, etc. These can be deadly.

The ‘humanitarians’ also had numerous knives and other tools that they used in the attack:

Knives and tools used as weapons on Mavi Marmara

So who were the gangsters that lay in wait on the deck? They did not include the 80-something Holocaust survivor, or any of the other celebrity dupes on board:

On board the Mavi Marmara ship that arrived as part of the flotilla to Gaza was a group of approximately 40 people with no identification papers. This was disclosed by the Israeli Security Cabinet, which gathered on Tuesday evening (June 1) for a special meeting.

According to intelligence disclosed during that meeting, these protesters wore bullet-proof vests, and carried with them night-vision goggles, weapons, and large sums of cash.  Each person in this group had the exact same amount of cash in his pockets.  While the rest of protestors [sic] was sent to the lower deck during the Shayetet Naval Special Force’s interception of the ship, the group divided into cells and remained on the upper deck in order to attack the soldiers. — IDF Spokesperson

So far there’s no hard information, although we do know that at least four out of the nine dead — we can assume that the passengers who were shot were most likely among those who attacked the Israelis — were Turkish. MEMRI has an interesting piece about some Arabs who were on board the ships, but it does not mention the Turks.

It seems to me that the violent reception given the Israelis was carefully planned and well-organized.  Here the thugs are getting ready. Note the vests, life jackets, and helmets — in addition to the poles, slingshots, etc.:

Usually, when ‘civilians’ are ‘martyred’, the anti-Israel forces go to great lengths to generate pathos. But in this case there is total silence about who they are and what they were doing. This is because they are not humanitarian activists.

They are terrorists and should not be released until they have been interrogated and it’s discovered who organized and financed them. And Israel should demand an accounting from Turkey if it is determined that the Turkish authorities had any knowledge of the plan.

As I wrote yesterday, Israel’s operation was totally legal, and Israel’s only mistake was in not understanding that their naval commandos were being sent into combat.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Gaza, flotilla, Mavi Marmara