The situation around Israel is just a mess. But here's something I don't get. The news agencies are reporting that Egypt is opening its border the Gaza, as though this is somehow generous. But Israel closing the border is heinous. What's that? If the surrounding countries really support Gaza, why isn't the border to Egypt always open?

Answer: Because they don't care about Gaza, except as a source of political pressure on Israel. Unfortunately, the western media is apparently too stupid to understand this.

Second thing I don't get. The Israelis declared a blockade, which is legal as long as they are prepared to enforce it. So: why didn't they:

1. Turn on the high-resolution video cameras (not the crappy stuff they did use), to document whole process.

2. Warn the ships off, with a shot across the bow of the lead ship.

3. When is was ignored, sink the lead ship.

4. Then sink any other ship that did not turn around and go home.

Skip all of the pussyfooting around. Israel is going to be criticized anyway: acting decisively might at least prevent the next iteration of this idiocy.

Bradley, you are absolutely correct in that (1) the whole thing was a setup, and (2) Israel will face condemnation no matter how it responds -- that's pre-programmed. I think one reason Israel doesn't respond more strongly is because a percentage of its own citizens are still peaceniks, and they put pressure on the government from the domestic side. It's a situation I'm not totally up on, but I take it from what I've read that there are some in Israel who advocate an ostrich response -- ignore the whole thing and maybe it'll go away.

Israel is and has been the most patient country in the history of the world. Any other country, USA, Russia, China etc... would have obliterated the arabs by now.

I have watched Israel for over 50 years. I was raised on Anne Frank, and that had some effect on me as you can imagine.

Before Israel was formed, an attempt was made to buy part of Northern Mexico, this was told to my by a friend here. It was rejected.

As best as I can tell, they took the absolute worst, most uninhabitable part of the Middle East where almost no one lived. As soon as Israel made it fertile, everyone wanted it, sort of like the Panama Canal.

The day they were granted freedom, there was an attempt to come in and slaughter them, out-foxed by hiding large quantities of weapons. Their enemies announced they would never stop until they kill the last man; woman; and child in Israel. Perhaps Egypt has apologized, but most haven't. They are still trying to kill them all.

When a nation attacks Israel, soon enough they get their butts kicked, and call for a truce, under international pressure, Israel agrees to a truce.

The enemy instantly starts re-arming for the next attack.

Under pressure Israel surrendered the Gaza, and instantly it was prepared for an attack against Israel.

When they commit an attack, and Israel rises to the challenge, the attackers rush back to the nearest kindergarten, which gives Israel the choice to commit suicide or bomb the kindergarten. Then, everyone screams, bad Israel, Bad, bad Israel.

Those egg-sucking cowards are willing to sacrifice their little kids to help discredit Israel...

I may be wrong on all this; it is just my personal opinion. Which is hundreds of millions of people have sworn to destroy Israel, and as long as they take this approach, Israel has the right to do whatever is needed to defend itself. The ball is in the Muslim court.

"Prepare to repel boarders" is one of the oldest lines in maritime lore. If you send soldiers onto a ship armed only with paintball guns, well, you should not be surprised at the unpleasant results. It is customarily not considered aggression to throw invaders off of your ship while on the high seas.

As far as the comment from irlandes -- I understand Israel has a great deal of myth built up about "A land without a people for a people without a land" and how Palestine was desolate desert before European Jews moved in. But, you know, that simply is not true. The land is NOT that terrible and not uninhabitable. We aren't talking about the Empty Quarter. Hell, we aren't even talking about Jordan. Arid, sure. But as far as the Galilee and Judea, though, it isn't desert. Just because Britain (and later the European powers under the guise of the UN) decided to regrant the land (after the collapse of the Turkish empire), one should not expect grateful natives. And natives there were.

No, I have no illusions about Hamas or the Islamicists. If Israel wants to go clear itself a "river to the sea" country it has the means to do so. But I wish that Israel would stop commenting on how peaceful they really are while doing so.

On the situation in Nigeria, it is hardly about Islam and Christianity. Those are just recent badges pasted onto the groups fighting. Muslim groups in the north have been building empires and trying to grab land for centuries, and they were doing it long before they were Muslim. This has been happening ever since the Sahara started drying up 5,000 years ago.

Right now it's about northerners moving into the Plateau region and a resulting fight about land and water. That fight spills over into other areas where these groups are in contact. It's a mess in general because the whole country is an artifical contrivance.

On the ships - Israel is damned either way when it comes to assigning blame, so why not hang for a man as much as a sheep? The whole discussion is about how stupid it was to let themselves get used as stunt props for a propaganda action.

Leaving aside whether Israel's blockade of Gaza is an effective tool in persuading the people of Gaza to turn against Hamas (though history is rife with examples of collective punishment not turning people against their governments), it is undoubtable that Israel's handling of this incident was unwise and played into the worst anti-Israel narratives in the media - that of the Israelis as aggressors, using disproportionate force under dubious legal justifications, against poor unarmed humanitarians.

While clearly intended more as a provocation than humanitarian mission, the flotilla could have been stopped by many other means than dropping people onto the decks of its ships (an very poorly-considered tactic that makes me question the judgment of the IDF commanders), and it should have been done after the ships reached Israeli territorial waters to give Israel greater legal protections for its actions.

Jeffrey Goldberg, writing from Israel, made a great point about whether Israeli leaders are being truly wise:

There is a word in Yiddish, seichel, which means wisdom, but it also means more than that: It connotes ingenuity, creativity, subtlety, nuance. Jews have always needed seichel to survive in this world; a person in possession of a Yiddishe kop, a "Jewish head," is someone who has seichel, someone who looks for a clever way out of problems, someone who understands that the most direct way -- blunt force, for instance -- often represents the least elegant solution, a person who can foresee consequences of his actions.

What I know already makes me worried for the future of Israel, a worry I feel in a deeper way than I think I have ever felt before. The Jewish people have survived this long in part because of the vision of their leaders, men and women who were able to intuit what was possible and what was impossible. Where is this vision today? Israel may face, in the coming year, a threat to its existence the likes of which it has not experienced before: A theologically-motivated regional superpower with a nuclear arsenal. It faces another existential threat as well, from forces arguing that Israel's morally disastrous settlement policy fatally undermines the very idea of a Jewish state. Is Israel ready to deploy seichel in these battles, rather than mere force?

In a contest of pure force, it's Israel has no rivals in the area. But this situation requires more than that. I'm not sure their present leadership does.

Christopher, history clearly shows that there is nothing Israel could have done that would have produced a different result. If there's a danger, it is not that Israel will "overreact", but that it will find itself so isolated by the international community that it will face a "use it or lose it" situation with regard to its nuclear arsenal. If Iran succeeds in nuking Tel Aviv, will "seichel" be able to undo the damage?

Cousin Dave, history shows us nothing of the kind. If Israel wanted to both enforce their control over cargo entering Gaza and win the PR battle, they had that option. Israel's military could waited until the ships reached her territorial waters, disabled the ships, towed them in, unloaded their cargo, and sent the "humanitarian workers" back home without killing a bunch of them. Then sent the cargo in to Gaza with the usual weekly shipments they allow in. This course of action would have put fewer of their people in danger, and would have been a clear victory and denied their enemies the PR coup they were seeking.

Instead, they chose brute force, killed a bunch of people their enemies can claim as "innocents", and put a bunch of their own soldiers at risk. Not the wise choice when they had alternatives.

Iran will be a nuclear power. That is a done deal at this point, and anyone who thinks otherwise deceiving himself. But they won't nuke Tel Aviv or anyone else - nothing they have done suggests they are suicidal.

So now that the dust has settled:

Israel successfully asserted/maintained its right to blockade a terrorist enemy, and prevented further delegitimization of that rightful policy.

Joe Biden's statement today was unequivocal in its support for that right.

Israel successfully parried attempts to divert the language used to describe the situation – from a focus on terror and self-defense to a focus on “humanitarianism”. This is the same tactic that turned a security fence into an “apartheid wall”.

It revealed the cynicism of Muslim thugs under cover as "peace activists" - severely damaging the credibility of the "peace camp". The self-righteousness of the blockade-bangers has been reduced to anxious reassurances from the Irish that THEIR boat will not resist Israeli inspection.

It also countered Turkey’s gambit to increase its regional profile/influence. Read Charles Krauthammer and others on that angle.

And although my heart goes out to those ambushed soldiers, the way things played out confirmed the belief of Israel's supporters in her good intentions.

Internally -
The fiasco and revelations of Islamic thuggery have solidified Israeli opinion against the blandishments/excoriations of the "peace camp".

In particular, it visited shame and public ire upon the upper-echelon of PC "laptop generals" who rose through the ranks during the Oslo years - the people responsible for the craven half-measures, pulled punches, and betrayal of our legitimate self-interest that got Israel into this mess.

It is now very clear to most Israelis that caving and currying for favor have only invited further pressure. Valuable clarity, although it came at a price.

Considering what a "lose-lose" situation everyone said this was... the result is not as bad as initially thought.

Yes, Israel managed another of its recent trend of embracing illegal acts, in this case, piracy against a NATO-flagged vessel in international waters, generating condemnation from many people including supporters. Following up on the heels of Mossad agents stealing the passports of citizens of its purported allies to carry out the assassination of alleged terrorists in a neutral country. Which succeeded the attack on Gaza, and the disastrous war in lebanon. The U.S. continued its reflexive support of israel, but what other allies remain? If thhese things are israel winning, what is losing?

"Cousin Dave, history shows us nothing of the kind. If Israel wanted to both enforce their control over cargo entering Gaza and win the PR battle, they had that option. Israel's military could waited until the ships reached her territorial waters, disabled the ships, towed them in, unloaded their cargo, and sent the "humanitarian workers" back home without killing a bunch of them."

Christopher (and your sock puppet, Yes), this is so completely and utterly ignorant that I can't figure out if you are a paid Media Matters troll, or you've just been asleep for the past thirty years. Here some facts, that is, things that are actually, you know, true:

(1) Turkey created the flotilla specifically to generate a PR incident.
(2) al Queda operatives were on board.
(3) The protesters brutally attacked the first wave of soldiers, who were armed only with crowd-control weapons (paint-ball and sandbag guns). The second wave had to use live fire to cover the first wave, which was overwhelmed. Video from the scene proves this.
(4) There were arms on board. Again, there is video that proves this.
(5) The "international community" response was pre-scripted and was going to be the same no matter how Israel reacted. Had Israel somehow succeeded in taking the ships without casualties, a few of them would have committed suicide and then that would have been blamed on Israel, a la Rachel Corrie. There is absolutely nothing that Israel could have done that would have changed the response one iota. Israel could have given the flotilla a pass to Gaza with free beer and all the ice cream they wanted, and there still would have been a massive international condemnation, just as there was when Israel agreed to give the child molester Arafat everything he wanted at the Oslo summit, and Arafat responded by turning it down and initiating the intifada. The Palis are sick, perverted monsters who want Jews wiped from the face of the earth, period. There is no rebuttal that will withstand objective scrutiny, and I've looked at them all.

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