By PHYLLIS BENNIS [Huffington Post] – Israeli commandoes murdered nine humanitarian aid workers in international waters. Nine were Turkish citizens; one a U.S. citizen. They wounded scores more. They imprisoned hundreds, and impounded the ships they hijacked on the high seas. Someone asked me the question: will they get away with it? So far, I answered, they HAVE gotten away with it. And if history repeats itself, if nothing changes, they will continue to get away with it.
Our job is to change history.
And this time, Israel’s savagery may just have made our job a lot easier. When the histories are written, it is certain that Israel’s Flotilla Massacre will be remembered as a key battle in what Richard Falk, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Territory, calls Israel’s “war of legitimacy.” And this battle, Israel has already lost.
The Israel’s [sic] global propaganda machine had swung into full gear even before the massacre itself, when the Israeli military invited certain foreign journalists to embed with the commandoes at they headed out to sea towards their targets. The talking points were clear, the propagandists were disciplined and stayed on message: The passengers were not humanitarian aid workers but armed al Qaeda operatives. The activists on board the ship were armed and the soldiers were “lynched.” The attacking commandoes leaping onto the deck of the civilian ship from assault helicopters hovering above naturally had the right of self-defense. Israel has the right to impose a blockade on the Gaza Strip and therefore has the right to forcibly board and hijack civilian ships headed in that direction in order to “check for weapons.” The goal of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was not humanitarian but was – gasp! – to break the blockade, so obviously it was a legitimate target. And most important, Israel’s U.S.-backed blockade of Gaza has not created a humanitarian disaster for the 1.5 million ordinary people, half of them under the age of 18, who live in the besieged Strip.
But within the first days following the assault, Israel’s much-vaunted PR operation was collapsing.
Conitued at The Huffington Post | More Chronicle & Notices.
