WHEN DEMONSTRATING OCCUPATION IS A PROVOCATION:

Israel minister sees "scandal" over ship killings (Moira Sidoti, May 31, 2010, Reuters)

An Israeli cabinet minister said he anticipated "a big scandal" following the killing of more than 10 activists aboard Gaza-bound aid ships boarded by Israeli security forces on Monday.

The deaths aboard the flotilla of six boats, including vessels flying the flag of Israel's rare Muslim ally Turkey, drew calls for an inquiry from the European Union, and expressions of shock from France and the United Nations.

"It's going to be a big scandal, no doubt about it," Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the trade minister, told Reuters Insider in an interview in Doha, where he was on a visit to Qatar, one of the few Arab states where Israeli officials can travel.

"The whole thing was a provocation from its beginning. They planned it almost two months ago, and we tried all the way to explain to them: 'Gentlemen don't try to do it because we have all the right to defend ourselves'," he said in English.

You can't argue both that the Palestinians are free to determine their own future but refuse to do so and that interdicting their freedom to trade is an Israeli defense matter. The blockade just gives the Palestinians an opportunity to force the contradiction.

MORE:
A Special Place in Hell (Bradley Burston, 5/31/10, Ha'aretz)

In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.

Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel's own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.

Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel's Vietnam.

Of course, we knew this could happen. On Sunday, when the army spokesman began speaking of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in terms of an attack on Israel, MK Nahman Shai, the IDF chief spokesman during the 1991 Gulf war, spoke publicly of his worst nightmare, an operation in which Israeli troops, raiding the flotilla, might open fire on peace activists, aid workers and Nobel laureates.

Likud MK Miri Regev, who also once headed the IDF Spokesman's Office, said early Monday that the most important thing now was to deal with the negative media reports quickly, so they would go away.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 31, 2010 7:12 AM