Provocation...It is a word which best describes the flotilla of smaller ships that set sail from Turkey seveal days ago with the intention of breaking Israel's sea blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. When last I checked, Hamas was still listed as a terrorist organization.
Aboard the several ships were activists from more than 30 countries, including 11 Americans. Among them Edward Peck, a former career diplomat with the U. S. State Department, who infamously attempted to justify the 9/11 attacks even as the ruins of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon still smoldered. Peck's justification - we had it coming. After all, America dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, killing thousands, "and we (the United States) didn't bat an eye then."
Peck was surrounded on board the blockade runners by many like-minded activists, members of IHH or Foundation for Human Rights and Humanitarian Relief. Such a benign name for a group that is linked to the failed Millennium Bomber plot to take out the Los Angeles airport in 2000; a group which funnels money to questionable Islamist charities; and a group with links to jihadists in several conflict areas, including Afghanistan.
After warning the blockade running ships to turn back, Israeli Defense forces boarded the lead ship and were nearly overwhelmed by IHH members wielding pipes and small arms. Nine of the IHH "peace" activists were killed, several others wounded, as were several Israeli soldiers wounded during the melee.
There was the predictable outrage from the usual sources.
While the world still waits for the United Nations to condemn North Korea for attacking and sinking a South Korean ship with a loss of 46 lives, the UN took only hours to gavel itself into emergency session to condemn the Israeli attack on the rogue ships, a condemnation which most members of that impotent body quickly approved.
At least the United States refused to sign onto the condemnation, preferring to back-channel its stern reproach of Israel's actions.
Israel instituted the blockade to keep arms from reaching Hamas, particularly rockets, which fly forth from Gaza into Israeli residential neighborhoods on a regular basis.
Israel is our lone reliable ally in the middle east. Turkey, a member of NATO, is fast becoming an Islamist state, a far cry from the secular, more tolerant country which aspired to membership in the European Union not so long ago.
Israel already allows humanitarian aid into Gaza, mostly through the auspices of the United Nations, which is the largest employer in Gaza.
Israel has a right to protect itself against its mindlessly naughty neighbor by cutting off the smuggling of arms into Gaza. Thus the need for a sea blockade.
And Edward Peck should be made a guest of the Israeli judicial system. Maybe a little quiet time in a cell would allow Mr. Peck's brain to center on more rational thinking...not only about his rejection of American values, but also the true nature of the groups he supports at the expense of fidelity to his own country.
By the way, Mr. Peck, since you choose to renounce America and its actions, and being the principled activists that you declare yourself to be, I'm sure you would want to reject that generous pension check you receive each month, courtesy of the American taxpayers, at whom you thumb your patrician nose.
You comments on this blog are welcome - email me a aliceajackson@att.net