By: Robert D. Onley
PARIS, France -- Imagine living in a neighbourhood where every single one of your neighbours not only hates your guts, but literally wants to kill you. Think about that for a moment. Imagine venturing outside, only to have some of your neighbours' kids immediately throw rocks at you from both sides of your backyard.
And every time rocks are hurled indiscriminately your way, your neighbours' friends from near and afar cheer wildly in the streets, hoping for your imminent death. Now imagine this terrifying scenario practically every single day of your life, and you just may begin to understand how the government of Israel views the world.
Such an 'imaginary' scenario is actually the ruthless reality for Israel today in 2010. No matter what Israel does, good or bad, its neighbouring nations continue to hate her guts, and continue to call for her death. Some of Israel's neighbours' "kids", such as Hamas and Hezbollah, have indiscriminately launched rockets and missiles against Israel, in a blatant attempt to kill, maim and terrify the Jewish people. Yes, there has been calm in recent months, but only because Israel was forced to launch a defensive war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after enduring months of random rocket attacks throughout 2008.
Israel's childish neighbours, always behaving badly and constantly needing harsh correction, are brazenly armed and funded by Israel's arch enemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran. At the helm of this authoritarian state are the "Supreme Leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, two of the most ignorant and malicious national leaders on the planet which Israel unfortunately shares with them. Both men have called for Israel's "end" - a concerning declaration in all its vague, foreboding glory.
More disturbingly, both Khamenei and Ahmadinejad publicly and openly deny the Holocaust -- that is the slaughter of over 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany, and the greatest premeditated genocide in human history -- claiming that it never occurred, and proudly so.
Despite being arguably the most documented, analyzed and irrefutably proven massacres to ever occur, the leaders of Iran are still embraced by other international heads of state and are still welcomed as sane, respected --albeit Holocaust-denying-- members of humanity.
Meanwhile these very same evil men are flipping the bird to the international community by defiantly and blatantly assembling nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to carry them. At the same time, parades are held with enormous missiles draped in "Death to Israel" banners. Yet Israel is accused of warmongering and crying wolf the moment any Israeli official calls on the international community to take action against Iran.
Such an abject, ludicrous circumstance is not part of a plot to an action novel, nor is it a twisted neo-Nazi fantasy tale. No, quite to the contrary, this script is ripped from the pages of real life.
As this article is being written, Iran's uranium centrifuges continue to spin as the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism reaches ever closer to producing the Persian Bomb.
Behind the scenes in southern Lebanon, SCUD missiles, most recently launched by Saddam's Iraq against Israel in 1991, are today being shipped to the terror group Hezbollah by Syria, one of Iran's now closest allies, and another mortal enemy of the Jewish State.
All of which makes Israel's most recent fiasco on the high seas -- involving the deaths of 9 Turkish "peace activists" onboard a "Peace Flotilla" bound for Gaza -- a mere distraction and blip on Israel's foreign policy radar. Sending commandos to drop-in from helicopters was certainly a jarring sight for governments around the world, who all promptly lined up like headless sheep to condemn Israel's actions (ie. no thinking before speaking).
But was what the Israeli government decided to do at sea really all that outlandish? The humanitarian aid ships were sent from the Republic of Turkey. Once an "ally" of Israel, now under the leadership of Recep Erdogan the Turkish government has steered itself east by openly aligning with none other than the apocalypse-inducing madmen reigning in Tehran.
It is therefore wholly unsurprising that the Israeli government was at the least suspicious of the contents of the Turkish "aid" vessels, moreso because the ship was packed and provided by the IHH, the Turkish "Human Rights and Freedom" group. With alleged extremist ties to Hamas and al-Qaeda, the Turkish IHH definitely was not considered by Israeli intelligence as merely a shipping company attempting to do something warm and fuzzy for the people of Gaza. In an area where smugglers manage to get brand new cars into the Gaza Strip through tunnels connected with Egypt, the Israeli government absolutely could not allow uninhibited access to Gaza for a massive vessel loaded up by the questionable figures in IHH.
Predictable then that as soon as Israeli commandos roped down onto the ship, they were mauled and violently beaten with batons and knives, some even before their boots could hit the deck. It seems the "peace activists" did not want the Israelis to find what "aid" lay inside.
Video released by the Israeli military (which is always careful to record its actions so as to provide the reflexively anti-Israel mainstream media with an objective account of what transpires), shows a raging mob of Turkish "peace activists" viciously attacking the Israeli soldiers, some of whom are clearly only "armed" with paintball guns.
The situation then rapidly spirals out of control after a pistol is torn from one of the soldiers and turned backed on the Israelis. Exactly what happened after that may or may not become clear in the coming days, but 9 of the most violent "peace activists" on earth are now dead.
The flash protests seen around the world in response to these "murders" are emblematic of the broader dilemma facing Israel today. In a world increasingly hostile to even the slightest twitch by the Jewish State, the Israeli government is forced to effectively make the worst possible decision every time a decision must be made.
This ingrained bias against Israel is partly the tragic consequence of our global internet-based news system which can (and often does) disseminate the same false or misinformation around the world in split-seconds via the internet.
Before a story can even be fully understood and accurately accounted, literally hundreds of millions of people have been updated through mobile news alerts, SMS, Twitter and Facebook. Soon the headline "Israeli commandos storm peace ship: 9 innocent activists dead" is all that a generation of skim-reading-know-nothing-protesters need to see. For them, their favourite target, Israel, is back in their crosshairs once again.
Last night while I was walking down the Champs-Elysées in Paris, a hoard of pro-Palestinian "peace activists" seemingly out of nowhere began screaming and chanting slogans in French, English and Arabic, ever so peacefully calling for "Death to Israel". Like a marauding gang, they marched down into the Metro station beneath some of the ritziest stores on earth.
Their chants grew more intense as non-protesters, including myself, began to grow uncomfortable at the tangible anger that was filling the Metro stop. After nearly 5 minutes of continuous chanting, I decided it was time to exit the stop before anything went south. More importantly, it was clear that the Metro trains were not arriving.
After reaching the exit, I realized why: hundreds of riot police were assembling in the surrounding area, as van-loads of fresh troops were being ferried in, sirens wailing, as traffic was redirected away from this section of the Champs-Elysées.
It was then that I realized just how deathly serious Israel's foreign policy predicament is today. With nearly-rioting French Arab youth on the busiest, prettiest street in Paris, Israel's international image problems are not isolated to its local Middle Eastern neighbours, who are well-known to hate Israel regardless of the crisis-du-jour.
Rather, the glaring problem for Israel is the burgeoning populations of anti-Israeli citizens in all the major capitals around the world. In a decade or so's time, some of the crazed protesters from the Parisian Metro stop may be sitting in France's National Assembly. Same too in governments around the world, whether in the British or Canadian Parliaments or German Bundestag.
While today's European governments often make toothless gestures of opposition to Israeli foreign policy to appease their populace, it is their future governments -- filled with potentially anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist activists -- who will be calling for international intervention to solve the conflict in the Middle-East once and for all, whether Israel likes it or not. Perhaps an international military intervention to bring Israel to "justice" will be the EU's first major military foray in the Middle East?
Maybe then, if he's still kicking around, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will see the day when Israel ceases to exist. That's if he doesn't nuke Israel first.
It's only been 66 years since the Holocaust, and the world is ready to wipe Israel off the map.
Robert D. Onley
This article is rather biased and extremely one dimensional.
ReplyDeleteSure Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an idiot who rarely knows what he's talking about and makes ridiculous claims, but that doesn't mean that the entire world is against Israel. I have personally been to Iran and the majority of Iranians do not hate Jews; rather, they disapprove of the often unjust policies of the Israeli government.
As for your claims that Israel's neighbours call for Israel's death...do Israeli's not call for the death of their Arab neighbours? I believe such chants can be heard from the Israeli side as well as the Arabic side during times of great tension.
It is absolutely ridiculous that you equate criticism of the Israeli government's actions and policies to anti-Semitism. This is exactly the kind of thing that makes it impossible to come up with any real solution to the problems in the Middle East.
Israel is a state, like any other, whose actions will and should be criticized when they surpass the boundaries of international law. If Iran or any other country's troops had intercepted a vessel in international waters as Israel did, then there would be extreme backlash yet, you are suggesting that disapproval of Israel's actions in this matter are founded on anti-Semitism? I most definitely cannot agree with you.
As for the matter of nuclear weapons, perhaps Israel and Iran should BOTH put aside their nuclear weapons programs.
It's time for the double-standards and defence of Israel solely on the grounds of "anti-Semitism" to come to an end.
I suggest that you "set aside your preconceptions" and attempt to look at the picture from a more balanced point of view which would include both, the struggles of the Jewish people and the Jewish state, and the struggles of the Palestinians and the injustices they have suffered.
On a final note, I suggest that you wait for the independent report to come out on the matter before you jump to your prejudiced conclusions about what happened on board the vessel. Then, perhaps, you will have stronger evidence for your defences of Israel.
Mihan,
ReplyDeleteYou may be correct that some Israelis have chanted for the death of Arab neighbours, I really have no idea. But as far as I know, there has never been an Israeli leader (President or Prime Minister) who has openly called for the destruction of an Arab nation, nor have they ever called for the “end” of “Arabism”.
On the other side, are brutally anti-Zionist men such as Khaled Meshal, Hassan Nasrallah, Bashir al-Assad and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, each of whom has publicly called for Israel’s “end” – whatever that word so deviously implies. Either way, never has Israel’s official government policy been to eliminate the Arab people. Quite disturbingly, if you read Hamas’s “Covenant/Charter”, their first official principle is: “"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it…”
With respect to my equating criticism of Israeli government’s actions to anti-Semitism, I can accept that the two are not always one and the same. In the context of my argument, what I was suggesting is that immediately following the flotilla raid, I was witness to a mob of French Arab youth chanting “Death to Israel”, and as such I was indeed equating their legitimate right to protest Israel’s actions with their equally obvious and blatant anti-Semitism. I know there is often a very fine line between the two, and I recognize that in many cases it is difficult to differentiate, but in the case at hand, I believe I was correct to equate the two closely-interlinked concepts.
I am indeed suggesting that the world’s reactionary disapproval and consternation of Israel’s actions in this matter are founded on anti-Semitism. Nothing else can explain why so many people, particularly Arab youth, were so quickly enraged after learning so little about the events on the flotilla. Not only has it become clear that the commandos were attacked immediately upon landing on the vessel, but video recently released shows the “peace activists” actively preparing their weapons to “peacefully” engage the Israeli troops well before they landed.
What else but anti-Semitism/anti-Zionism can explain how the world (I’ll admit I am using the term ‘world’ very broadly) reacted so vociferously against Israel despite the reality that the violence was clearly a premeditated decision by the “peace activists”? Moreover, when has the media (aside from perhaps FoxNews) ever “reacted” in favour of any Israeli policy decision?
As for nuclear programs, I believe that today, in 2010, in the context of Middle Eastern stability and promoting peace, the most important goal is to get Iran to immediately cease uranium enrichment, completely expose its nuclear program to proper inspections, and to “come clean” about its nuclear weapons program.
Indeed it is a laudable goal that the entire Middle East become a nuke-free zone. However, given the double-speak, the lies and malicious language emanating from Tehran directed specifically against Israel, there is clearly a need to address Iran’s nuclear weapons program FIRST – once again, Iran is the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world and is actively equipping Hamas and Hezbollah with all forms of arms and missiles.
I believe this is so because Israel absolutely will not give up its unacknowledged nuclear weapons unless and until Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program is resolutely neutralized and removed. Remember: Israel has been repeatedly and openly threatened by Iran’s current President, who you acknowledge is despised and recognized by his own people as an idiot.
I fully acknowledge your point about the injustices the Palestinians have suffered. I simply did not address that in my article as I was already over 1400 words. Certainly the injustices form a significant argument against Israel’s policies, I completely agree with you there.
ReplyDeleteFinally, I could have waited for an independent report, but I believe the videos speak for themselves.
Thank you for your comments, they are much appreciated, and I take your suggestions/criticisms seriously. Only discourse will truly solve this crisis one day. Do you have your own blog?