Daily View: Israel convoy raid
Commentators respond to the Israeli army's raid on the flotilla of Gaza-bound of aid ships.
Israel is under attack from the world's left-wing and Islamist activists. She says that, in order to win the "information war", Israeli leaders must be stronger with their responses to the storming of the flotilla. They must counter with the "unvarnished truth":
"Israel is the frontline of the free world. Its ability to defend itself and deter its foes is the single most important guarantee of international peace. A strong Israel is also the most potent and reliable guarantor of the US's continued ability to project its power in the Middle East."
in an analysis piece that while everyone expects Israel to do badly in terms of of world public opinion over its actions in Gaza, it should not have done so badly in the technical aspects of the operation:
"Israel is concerned with eminently good reason about the smuggling of weaponry into Hamas-controlled Gaza. It may have felt it had no choice but to intercept a flotilla carrying it knew not what to the Hamas terror state. Why did it not anticipate that the activists and supporters of 'a violent, extremist organization that supports terrorism' would act precisely according to type?"
As news came out of the Israeli Defense Forces' action, the Jerusalem Post reported that it was under what it called a :
"Thousands of abusive e-mails were sent to newspaper staff members and general department addresses in an attempt to crash the system. The spam filter, used to separate junk mail and protect the network from viruses, showed 4,000 e-mails received in a matter of seconds. There were also attempts to hack the firewall, which can flood the network with useless data and allow entry to the newspaper's online operating system."
the damage to Israel's image and diplomatic relations is "the price of a flawed policy" in its blockade of Gaza:
"Someone must be held responsible for this disgraceful failure. There is no way to convince Israel's citizens and its friends around the world that Israel regrets the confrontation and its results, and is learning from its errors, other than setting up a state inquiry committee to investigate the decision-making process, and to decide who should pay for this dangerous policy."
"a fiasco on the high seas" and says the Israeli government has failed to learn the lessons of its own independence struggle from the British. Mr Shavit recalls the British army's attack on the Exodus, a boatload of Jewish refugees, shortly before the mandate crumbled in 1948:
"With a single foolish move, the Israeli cabinet cast the Muslim Brotherhood in the role of the victim and the Israel Navy as the villain and simultaneously opened European, Turkish, Arab, Palestinian and internal Israeli fronts. In so doing, Israel is serving Hamas' interests better than Hamas itself has ever done."
For Reuven Pedatzur in Haaretz, the raid was :
"The inefficiency and the panic that overwhelmed the commandos, leading to the deaths of so many, raises worrying questions about their skillfulness and operational capability."
his support for the Israeli action on his blog, Rabbi's Reasons. He says the US administration should also announce its support for the IDF's raid:
"The violence on board the ship theoretically carrying non-violent protesters was instigated by the passengers, not by the soldiers who boarded out of a legitimate concern for Israel's security."
the US should turn its attention to the growing crisis in the Middle East:
"If history is a guide the Israeli military will conduct a thorough review of this morning's massacre before clearing itself on all counts and accusing any contradicting investigations of anti-Semitism."
the action has done terrible harm to Israel:
"This is a day of disgrace to the State of Israel, a day of anxiety in which we discover that our future was entrusted to a bunch of trigger-happy people without any responsibility."
for what he calls a failure:
"Barak has caused a worldwide public disaster, perhaps Israel's worst. Only time will tell what damage to the State he has caused. He has handed a propaganda gift on a silver platter to Hamas and all the hostile world media. Will Barak now resign? Will he be fired?"
why British politicians are so reluctant to say anything about what happened:
"[I]t is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events. Our politicians are too spineless, too cowardly, to take decisions to save lives. Why is this? Why didn't we hear courageous words from Messrs Cameron and Clegg yesterday? For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage."
that the the organisers of the flotilla were aware of what Israel's reaction might be:
"For it is clear this escapade was less about aid than about PR. Indeed, on board one of the aid vessels was Swedish novelist Henning Mankell, who wrote the Wallander detective novels. He was primed to discuss his humanitarian odyssey with newscaster Jon Snow at this weekend's Hay Literary Festival. It is hard to imagine a more contrived form of 'debate'."
comments made by Foreign Secretary William Hague:
"[T]he Tories are now in coalition with the Israel-bashing LibDems, who would blame Israel even if jihadis were to sail a flotilla up the Thames and take the entire LibDem leadership hostage."
