The "Peace Flotilla" Was Never About Peace

Charles Krauthammer details what's really going on with the Gaza blockade and the "peace flotilla":

The world is outraged at Israel's blockade of Gaza. Turkey denounces its illegality, inhumanity, barbarity, etc. The usual U.N. suspects, Third World and European, join in. The Obama administration dithers.

But as Leslie Gelb, former president of the Council on Foreign Relations, writes, the blockade is not just perfectly rational, it is perfectly legal. Gaza under Hamas is a self-declared enemy of Israel -- a declaration backed up by more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israeli civilian territory. Yet having pledged itself to unceasing belligerency, Hamas claims victimhood when Israel imposes a blockade to prevent Hamas from arming itself with still more rockets.

In World War II, with full international legality, the United States blockaded Germany and Japan. And during the October 1962 missile crisis, we blockaded ("quarantined") Cuba. Arms-bearing Russian ships headed to Cuba turned back because the Soviets knew that the U.S. Navy would either board them or sink them. Yet Israel is accused of international criminality for doing precisely what John Kennedy did: impose a naval blockade to prevent a hostile state from acquiring lethal weaponry.

Oh, but weren't the Gaza-bound ships on a mission of humanitarian relief? No. Otherwise they would have accepted Israel's offer to bring their supplies to an Israeli port, be inspected for military materiel and have the rest trucked by Israel into Gaza -- as every week 10,000 tons of food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are sent by Israel to Gaza.

Why was the offer refused? Because, as organizer Greta Berlin admitted, the flotilla was not about humanitarian relief but about breaking the blockade, i.e., ending Israel's inspection regime, which would mean unlimited shipping into Gaza and thus the unlimited arming of Hamas.

There's more at the link.

Charles will be dismissed because he's Jewish, but Israel today seems to be the only civilized population that does not have a right to defend itself.

Except, of course, for Arizona.

Israel, like Arizona, doesn't really seem to care much what others say and they'll do what's in their best interest. There's won't be any "peace flotillas" getting into Gaza as long as that strip of insanity is ruled by a terrorist regime bent on the destruction of their neighbors.  The latest attempt was stopped yesterday when Israelis seized the Rachel Corrie, a ship named after a wacko American woman who attempted to stop an Israeli bulldozer with the force of her moral superiority.  Didn't work out well for her.  Let's see a picture of Miss Corrie in full righteous outrage as she burns a makeshift America flag.

Any ships bringing humanitarian aid can get their materials to Gaza if they simply play by Israel's rules.  It's not that hard to figure out.

And in a related story, Gateway Pundit tells us the reason Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his visit to see Obama was because Obama told him to go home.  He didn't want Netanyahu to be able to use the White House as a prop as he explained Israel's side of the confict.  Some of Obama's best friends and biggest fundraisers are part of the organization trying to break the Gaza blockade.

Remember the good old days when the President of the United States was on OUR side?