The Turkish "Humanitarian" Armada -- An Italian View

UPDATING 6-14 & 10-17-2010 at bottom

The peace process means peace of mind for antisemites

Fiamma Nirenstein, the deputy chairperson of the foreign affairs committee of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, discerns a slight improvement in the international view of Israel's action to stop the fake humanitarian Turkish armada from breaking the blockade of Gaza, now ruled by Islamic fanatics and bigots. Her piece is remarkable for her real knowledge of what was going on compared to the fashionable, simplistic Judeophobic accounts elsewhere in the world's "news" media.


The Left Is Now Rethinking: Enough Mud on Israel

Il Giornale 9 June 2‏010

After the accusations poured on Israel, now comes the mea culpa of the international press and observers. Even Bernard-Henri Levy condemns the disinformation. Reuters is accused: blood and knives removed from the photos

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Israel is a major subject for discussion in today’s world. It is the apple of discord, the preferred pretext for attacking the West, the best weapon for legitimizing the old striped totalitarian Soviet peace flag. It is the worm that gnaws at the soul of Leftist Jews who adore their narcissistic-diasporic legitimization that exempts them from the hardly elegant experience of being a people, indeed, a nation. Above all, it is the issue that enables the antisemites to express themselves under cover and enables the automatic UN majority to be strong. It is also the best of the red capes to wave in front of the Islamist bull, as Ahmadinejad did in Istanbul, when he promised to wipe out Israel, and as Bashar Assad did in Syria and Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister, did, who is building an Islamist career for his country by threatening Israel.

But excess is deforming and the huge amount of mud poured on Israel lately has disgusted even Bernard-Henri Levy, one of the most active critics of Israeli policy (He and others authored the leftist so-called JCall document against the Israeli government and criticized Israel immediately after the flotilla event). Precisely in HaAretz, a pacifist, hypercritical paper, he condemned the disinformation and criminalization deployed against Israel, while retaining his reservations about the “stupidity” of the operation and of the Netanyahu government.

The world is rethinking, and maybe that is also because the slow realization of reality is weakening the pressure, Israel is showing courage on the issue of a [international investigating] commission. Jerusalem has many good reasons for rejecting an international commission that, according to the UN Council for Human Rights (Italy voted No), is supposed to investigate the behavior of the Jewish State during the unfortunate boarding and takeover of the ship Marmara. The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner considers it a good idea and in order to reinforce the meaning of the commission he requests that Turkey take part in it. That is strange, given the certainly non-neutral role of Turkey in that event and given that Erdogan stokes the fire and threatens, together with Ahmadinejad, to go to the coast of Gaza with his own ships, even personally.

In general, Israel’s experience with investigating commissions, with UN institutions moreover, has been disastrous. An outstanding illustration was the commission directed by Judge Goldstone which used only sources sympathetic to the Palestinians to draw up a devastating report about the Gaza War. In fact, it forbade Israel to defend itself and quoted only activist-witnesses that call armed units and human shields for Hamas “civilians.” Israel, that can judge itself very severely by itself, as demonstrated by the Winograd Commission that was pitiless on the Lebanon War of 2006 and caused the dismissal of many civilians and military men, is planning therefore at the moment two independent investigating commissions, even if Netanyahu is still awaiting American approval for the second: The first, military one, will be guided by General Giora Eiland, a calm personality, admired for being cultured; the second is to be made up of local jurists, expert on international and maritime law and of two international jurists, one an American, as observers. It will not be their duty to interrogate the soldiers, whom Bibi is careful not to let be directly accused. The commission should examine the conditions of the encounter on the ship Marmara, the legality of the naval blockade, the question of “proportion” in the encounter.

In reality, with the passage of the hours, as many international observers, the press, the TV, Bernard-Henri Levy and companions make their mea culpas, the circumstances of the event on the Marmara have become ever clearer. Criticisms have been made by many of the military modality of the attack, but that the “pacifist” ship was transporting armed thugs belonging to an organization that had supplied weapons to Hamas, to the Islamic Jihad and even to al-Qa`ida and that it was sprinkled with persons who wanted to win paradise through becoming shahids, is certain.

What has not been well clarified, however, is the role of Turkey, that launched the fleet although warned of the danger that that entailed; that knew who the men of the IHH were, and that allowed them to embark anyhow in conspicuous numbers from a different port without checking them, that now rides the event in the most blatant way, using Istanbul as a launch platform for bellicose operations. Turkey acts enthusiastically in every domain: It was reprimanded by Angela Merkel by her defining herself as prime minister for the Turks who live in Germany; it raised eyebrows when it sought de facto to save Iran from the sanctions by offering to enrich Iran’s uranium itself; when a radar station within Turkey collapsed unexpectedly while NATO is supposed to have needed information on Georgia, obtained by radar.

Standing out is the fact that Abu Mazen went personally to Erdogan to explain to him that what he is doing gives Hamas an advantage over its worst enemy, Fatah. A fire like the one that Turkey is threatening to kindle to Israel’s detriment can spread even to the detriment of the arsonists.

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It may well be that world public opinion is turning away from the lies of Erdogan and of his Western comrades in the "Free Gaza movement." After all, there has been too much real information that emerged before and after the boarding of the Mavi Marmara about the thuggish character of the IHH operatives on the boat who attacked Israeli commandos who came down one by one from a helicopter, thereby facilitating the endeavor of the Turkish thugs to seize and beat and stab them. That was an Israeli mistake of intelligence evaluation and of command. But the thuggish character of the "peacemongers" was obvious for all to see in many videos and audio recordings and still photos. So even many of the usual anti-Israel hypocrites had to step back and reconsider what went on.

What is disappointing in the article above is that Israel's govt and prime minister seem to be giving in to a hypocritical demand by certain Western govts and the UN, etc., that an "international invesigating commission" be set up to investigate only Israel and not Turkey, an investigation that would supposedly be "transparent" and "impartial" and any other suitable adjective that the reader may care to add . Meanwhile, Erdogan and Ahmadinejad's open incitement to war and threats of war against Israel are not openly or directly condemned by the West, including the USA. Israel should take its case to the so-called International Court of Justice at the Hague where of course, Israel will get no justice because of the inherently political structure of the ICJ and the UN as a whole, but it would be helpful to raise the issue, to make the accusations anyhow, to accuse, in my opinion. The UN "human rights council," which is dominated by tyrannies and, in particular, the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC] (its chairman a Turk named Ihsanoglu), should not be allowed to be the party making accusations and demanding investigations. The role of the Islamist Turkish govt of Erdogan in instigating and executing this affair should be exposed to the whole world.
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UPDATING 6-14-2010
Eve Garrard, a writer, points out some of the widespread hypocrisy deployed against Israel, especially on account of the Turkish armada incident [here].
Leon de Winter, Dutch novelist, perceives the international Left's hypocrisy over the Turkish armada [here]
UPDATING 10-17-2010 The important Italian daily, Il Giornale [which Fiamma Nirenstein writes for] of 1 June 2010 judged that "Israel did right to shoot" at violent jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara [here]. "With the excuse of pacifism, a fleet of ships wanted to violate the sovereignty of the Jewish state and bring aid to Hamas." The novelist Amos Oz disagreed with the Israeli government decision to stop the "aid convoy." But he adds, "I don't know them, these pacifists. Many of them cannot be defined as such. They are Islamic militants sympathizing with Hamas. They have ties with terrorist organizations. I believe that they were looking for a provocation. This is a fact. Among them, to be sure, were pacifists in good faith. . ." Here's a problem. Can pacifists in "good faith" sympathize with Hamas? Were they so ignorant as not to know what Hamas stands for? That their convoy was making publicity for Hamas? Were they 100%, sincere and consistent pacifists?