The Israeli Palestinian ball game

Yes ladies and gents the biannual Israeli-Palestinian conflagration is upon us. Once again our papers and TV stations have been jammed full with scenes of overtired Israeli spokespersons being verbally assassinated in interview after interview, and of muslims and Communists burning their grandmothers in the town centres around the world to signify their ‘outrage’ at this latest Middle Eastern Tiananmen Square.

Yet amongst the usual humdrum of media nonsense, arises an altogether new and exciting form of boring the average news consumer to death. The Facebook group page, ably assisted by its scrawnier cousin, the status update. Many of these have bombarded my Facebook feed as of late, and it is always amusing to see how quickly intelligent people march to the drum beat of nationalism and unquestioningly tow the party line in a way that would bring a tear to the eye of Dvariche Stalin, and make Orwell turn in his grave. Such loyalty, such nobleness...ignorance is strength

My friends (said in a John McCain voice) please do not delude yourselves, for you are not deluding me, anybody with an IQ above 70 is able to realise that the videos you post of the incident either do not show the savage beating dealt to the soldiers by the so called ‘peace activists’, or conveniently stop just at the moment the Israeli soldiers begin to open fire on their attackers. In short the videos are a reflection of the media conflict itself; half explanations to far deeper questions.

I liken such behaviour to a football final played in Spain. Two teams, followed by two sets of passionate fans take to the field, each knowing the game can only be won or lost. The leisurely pace of this epic battle (as anyone familiar with Spanish football is all too aware) is frequently interrupted by fouls which seemingly appear from the tiniest collisions. On the occasion of each foul the fouled player rolls around screaming in a manner which suggests that his leg has been reversed over by a Russian T-72. His fans stand to attention, screaming, booing and hissing at the other side for this apparently horrendous transgression; whilst both they, and the player keep their eyes firmly fixated upon the referee to see what punishment will be doled out to the offending party.

He awards a free kick...both sets of fans now rise to their feet screaming and hurling insults at the referee for slighting them, their anger seethes and boils seemingly indicating their diehard passion for their team and their hatred for the mediator in the middle. That is until the next foul occurs 90 seconds later.

If a winner emerges from the game, you still both lose. Why? Because about 70mins into the game the neutral viewers get bored of the rolling around, play acting and diving and switch the channel. In short they care not about your seemingly epic battle because it seems so petty, so contrived and fake. Wave your flags all you like ladies and gentleman, your skull and crossbones will not convince me the Israeli navy is somehow comprised of Jews descended from Blackbeard, nor will your Magen David convince me that your ‘Warriors’ are darling angels who were set upon by big nasty boogy-monsters armed with chainsaws.

Let me be clear. I am Zionist, I have a strong attachment to the State of Israel and the Jewish people, and will never argue against its right to self defence. But this game was lost 3-0 the moment the soldiers opened fire. Hamas streaked home with the cup, and the plaudits.

What needs to happen now is for the losing team to stop the excuses, and stop attacking the winners by name calling, and instead question itself. Where did we go wrong? Why did we lose? And most importantly, who is to blame?

Conveniently there is a very simple answer, it is the one person who has remained out of the spotlight throughout this whole fracas. He is of course none other than Mr Ehud Barak, Israel’s minister of Defence.

But why blame him?? Some of you scream, ‘the boat was filled with anti-semitic radicals, intent on conflict with us’. Yes you’re right it was, there is no doubt that a number of individuals on the sixth ship in the aid convoy, harboured a hatred of Jews and sought to violently confront any Israeli with whom they came into contact...The trouble is, that Israel knew this and did not adapt its blockade enforcement policy accordingly.

In truth Israel didn’t really have a blockade enforcement policy to adapt. Some boats get through it, others don’t. Some are boarded in Israeli waters some are not, whilst others are left alone entirely. There is no consistency of policy, no stated intent, and when problems of blockade enforcement do occur, no backup plan to deal with them.

Mr Barak, I have had the pleasure of renewing my acquaintance with the Cuban missile crisis this week, you should have done the same, except you should have done it three years ago. All that was needed was a half hour examination of Secretary Mcnamara’s exchanges with President Kennedy concerning rules of enforcement and you would have been home and dry. In short you should never have sent the Commandos onto the ship, numerous options were available to you, the most violent of which would have involved disabling the rudder of the Mavi Marmara allowing you to forcibly tow it to the port of Ashdod.

Instead you ignored sensible blockade policy, and ordered the boarding of a ship in International Waters by Commandos who lacked appropriate crowd dispersal weaponry, leaving them no option but to kill civilians. Your ignorance is your strength for it is claimed Israel possessed no other option, but Mr Barak you are guilty as charged for your criminal negligence of history and accordant policy.

To those of you who stand behind Israel, I suggest you look at this man and direct your anger against him, rather than the outside world. He has let you down, and he now lacks the courage to do the right thing which is to resign, and apologise to you and those killed in the raid. The fact that such an action has no chance of occurring is indication of the predicament in which Israel exists. A team on losing streak must sack its manager, or face spiralling oblivion. Which do you choose?