When it comes to war a basic rule of thumb is to believe not more than fifty percent of what you hear. So when it comes to the "humanitarian activists" trying to break the blockade of Gaza we all need a good dose of healthy scepticism.
It is immediately apparent that the flotilla was a political propaganda exercise primarily, not a humanitarian aid effort. If it were the latter the ships would have sailed for Ashdod to begin with, docked, unloaded their cargo and allowed the Israelis to enable its transportation into Gaza. So, it was a political stunt cloaked as a humanitarian effort. The latter was contrived to elicit global human sympathy for Hamas and Gaza which it rules.
Secondly, it ought never be overlooked that Israel and Hamas are at war. In a state of war blockades can and do get enforced. Now our fervent wish is that this were not the case. It would be wonderful for Hamas and Israel to reach a state of mutual peace. But alas this is not the case at the moment. Here our sympathies lie with Israel. Much of the Western condemnation of Israel overlooks that it is at war with Hamas. The fact that hostilities do not take place every day does not obviate or nullify the state of being at war. We believe there is no way out of this until Hamas rescinds its policy calling for the destruction and obliteration of Israel.
If the Fijian Government were to adopt a policy that called for the destruction of New Zealand, we would be at war with Fiji whether we liked it or not. Everything from that point on would be different--and rightly so. Being in a state of war would mean that we would need to engage in deeds and acts not allowable or acceptable in peace time. All the hand wringing by other nations would be irrelevant.
Thirdly, the West constantly allows itself to be gulled by very clever and subtle Hamas and Islamic propaganda tactics. For whatever reason the West struggles to recognise that Islamic jihadism is extremely adept and very effective. All too often the West is sucked in. It seems to us that the latest controversy over the "flotilla of humanitarian activists" is a case in point. Andrew Bolt ticks off the evidence.
The Israeli soldiers took over six ships of an “aid” flotilla trying to pierce the blockade that both Israel and Egypt have imposed on Gaza, a territory controlled by the Islamist Hamas.
Only on one of those six ships did the Israelis meet a resistance that clearly - and fatally - caught them by surprise. This was not on one of the ships manned by the Western politicians, aid workers and other useful idiots brought along for camouflage. It broke out instead on the Mavi Marmara, a ship bought and supplied by a Turkish “humanitarian relief fund” known as IHH.
IHH may boast about its good works, but intelligence agencies warn that it is in fact tied to Islamist terrorists. The CIA as long ago as 1996 noted it was linked to “Iran operatives” and gave “support for extremist/terrorist activity”, including in Bosnia.
In 2001, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the prominent French counter-terrorism magistrate, said at the trial of the “millennium bomber” that IHH had played “an important role” in the plot to blow up Los Angeles airport. He said the charity was “a type of cover up” to infiltrate mujahideen into combat, get forged documents and smuggle weapons.
In 2006, the Danish Institute for International Studies reported that Turkish security forces had raided the IHH’s Istanbul bureau and found firearms, explosives and bomb-making instructions, as well as records of calls to an al-Qaida guest house in Milan. The Turkish investigators concluded this “charity” was sending jihadists to Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, where Australian soldiers serve.
IHH has also been a long-time supporter of Hamas, listed in many countries as a terrorist group.
But this time it planned something more effective than an explosion. It decided to destroy Israel’s moral standing among its more fickle friends. Its Mavi Marmara would now head a flotilla to break through the Israeli blockade of Gaza - or, rather, to provoke Israel into stopping it by force.
IHH head Bulent Yildirim gloated that this would be seen as “a declaration of war” against all the countries that supplied the flotilla’s passengers, which is why so many foreigners, and particularly sympathetic journalists such as the Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul McGeough, were on board, having been recruited from Australia, Britain, the US and many other countries that IHH and its allies hoped could be turned into enemies of Israel. . . .
Those on board refused offers by Israel that they dock at an Israeli port so their aid could be checked and forwarded to Gaza. They rejected warnings to turn back. They prepared instead for a deadly confrontation.
Arab television showed one woman on board exulting: “We await one of two good things - to achieve martyrdom or reach the shore of Gaza.” Added another passenger, Yemeni professor Abd al-Fatah Nu’man: “These are people who wish to be martyred for the sake of Allah. As much as they want to reach Gaza, the other option is more desirable to them.” . . . .
They got just what they wanted, then, as did Hamas and its chief backer, Iran. Iran, needing attention distracted from its nuclear weapons program, pumped out instant YouTube footage of this Israeli “atrocity”. Meanwhile Hamas spokesman Samil Abu Zuhri called for a global “intifada”: “We call on all Arabs and Muslims to rise up in front of Zionist embassies across the whole world.”
And in capital cities around Australia, we yesterday saw the new front open as angry demonstrators took the streets. So what, you may scoff. A few of the usual hotheads.
But see this time how many of our politicians, journalists and “thinkers” are on the wrong side of this front. See how willingly they’ve surrendered to an Islamist plot more effective than any Bali bomb.
Could the whole thing have been a cleverly constructed propaganda exercise? It seems highly likely. You just have to reflect on how many journalists were embedded on the boats to see the point. Not that this makes it illicit. Propaganda is a legitimate weapon of war. What is not acceptable is that we would be naive enough to fall for the propaganda, in the first place, and not reckon with its deliberately designed manipulative intent.
Neither is it acceptable to overlook that a state of war exists between Hamas and Israel. Incredibly enough the West largely continues to discount this reality, despite the fact that in the same breath it calls for a Peace Process to go forward. Go figure.
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