Flotilla

Look what Israel didn't do wrong
By JOHN PODHORETZ

Last Updated: 9:24 AM, June 3, 2010

Posted: 7:14 AM, June 3, 2010

No matter whom you ask right now, it seems Israel did wrong.

Ask someone unfavorably disposed toward Israel, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because its assassins opened fire without provocation on a humanitarian flotilla intended to relieve the suffering people of Gaza.

Ask a friend of Israel, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because it sent its commandos in the dark into a hostile crowd that did them harm and provoked them into a violent response.

Ask someone who opposes Israel's efforts to contain the terrorist group Hamas within the borders and shoreline of Gaza, and you'll hear Israel did wrong by instituting a naval blockade of Gaza in the first place.

Ask someone who seeks the active destruction of Hamas, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because the blockade is an ineffectual half-measure in any case, so why suffer the slings and arrows of an international crisis because of it?

Ask someone who thinks conflicts between the Palestinians and the Israelis are a never-ending spiral of violence, and you'll hear Israel did wrong because the violence its commandoes found it necessary to visit upon those on the ship will only beget more violence.

Ask someone who thinks the Palestinians and their rejectionist insistence on Israel's destruction are the causes of violence, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because it should have taken the ships out through some means of military stealth before they even set sail from Cyprus.

Ask someone who believes what he is told by media largely hostile to Israel, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because Israel always does wrong.

Ask someone who knows that the media are largely hostile to Israel, and he'll say Israel did wrong because Israel had no business giving the media this kind of ammunition.

And on and on we go. Enemies and friends, anti-Zionists and Zionists and post-Zionists alike, are all in rare agreement that what happened was a disaster, a calamity, a fiasco, a tragedy.

Those are terms appropriate for a world-historical event. Now, what happened aboard the Mavi Marmara wasn't good. It was terrible. But under even the broadest definition of a war crime, it wasn't a war crime. And under the broadest definition of a self-inflicted wound, it wasn't that either.

First, the war crime. The blockade of Gaza has been in place since 2007, when Hamas won its war with its Palestinian rival Fatah and claimed dominion over the territory. The blockade wasn't just imposed by Israel, but by Egypt as well. The purpose is to keep weaponry out of the hands and the control of Hamas.

Blockades are highly visible. They are declared. Their parameters are known to everyone. Israel and Hamas are at war. Israel has followed the terms of international law in establishing the blockade of Gaza, and without question, the blockade as it stands is legal.

The decision to attempt a run on a blockade is thus a decision to put one's life at risk, whether you are a single person or one of 700 in a flotilla. The onus rests with the blockade runner, whether he is Rhett Butler (the most famous fictional blockade runner, in "Gone with the Wind") or a hateful terrorist sympathizer who has decided to put his or her life on the line to front for Hamas.

Now for the self-inflicted wound. In the history of bungled operations, this one doesn't hold a candle to the "Black Hawk Down" incident in Mogadishu in 1993 that led to the horrifying slaughter of 18 US Rangers. There have been dozens of encounters in Iraq and Afghanistan that have spiraled out of control in far worse ways.

Israel faced a blockade run. It was evidently unable to prevent the flotilla jaunt from happening. Failure to act would have ended the blockade and handed Hamas a much larger victory than the media victory it won this week. That too would have occasioned a frenzy, with Hamas trumpeting a triumph and Israelis and friends of Israel around the world wondering how on earth this could have been allowed to happen.

Eventually, we will learn what Israel's military did poorly. But though it may have done what it did poorly, it did not do wrong.

Israel's friends often complain, fairly, that the country is held to a standard of conduct no other nation on earth could possibly meet. One might say in this instance that some of Israel's friends are insisting on holding Israel's military to a standard of performance no military force has ever, will ever, or could ever possibly meet.