The 19 deaths as a result of Monday's botched raid on a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade looks to have the hallmarks of a massive public-relations disaster for Israel.

Israeli spokesmen are circling the wagons as they try to defend the siege of Gaza. The Deputy Foreign Minister, Daniel Ayalon, said that the flotilla of ships on its way to Gaza:

was an armada of hate and violence. It was a premeditated and outrageous provocation and its organizers had ties to global Jihad, al Qaida and Hamas.Their intent was violent, their methods were violent and their results were unfortunately violent.

Israel is fast losing friends and allies in the world, and the actions by the Netanyahu government in Jerusalem is only accelerating this shift.

I often wonder what will the US do when "two states for two peoples" is no longer possible and everybody is forced to admit it?

If there is no two-state solution, then Israel will become an apartheid state and it will face growing international censure and an internal struggle for Palestinian political rights.

I watched Lateline last night. It's response to the Israeli raid by its military was to give Mark Regev, the Israeli government spokesperson, full airplay. His spin was that the conflict on the aid ships destined for the Gaza Strip was started by terrorists on the ships.

Why was no else interviewed? Aren't there different sides to every story?

Nan,
I wondered the same thing. 7.30 Report and Lateline both did it.

Perhaps Israel has come to the point in public opinion where a negative response is the default position, so there's no need to hear the other side. But they don't help themselves with the kind of hyperbole they use, accusing most of the known universe of being Israel-hating terrorist organisations. It sounds particularly silly when you're describing an 'enemy' armed with deck chairs and packets of aspirin, and your side is the Israeli armed forces.

The AIJAC in Australia, like the AIPAC in the US, continues to maintain its “Israel, right or wrong” stance amidst the rise of blatantly illiberal political forces in Israel and the continuation of the settlement project.

No doubt Israel is counting on the US, once again, to deflect the international furor over its actions and enshrine the principle that Israel can do whatever it wants, legal or not, to the Palestinians and those who try to help them.

The comments about the ABC ring a bell, have just come from the Age online and not ing that covrage of the incident has been dumbed down there, as well.
gutless, gutless, gutless, the lot of them.

What I still can't get over, as to this "activists attacked Israelis" stuff:
The Israelies resisted by people aboard one ship were people being attacked on the High seas, by God knows whom; in fear for their lives.
How dare the pro Israel lackeys use the excuse that it was Israelis "attacked by" activists, when it was the other way 'round; their arrogance surpasses all bounds.

As expected the US is defending Israel. The US has blocked demands at the UN security council for an international inquiry into Israel's assault on the Turkish ship carrying aid to Gaza that left nine pro-Palestinian activists dead.

A compromise statement instead calls for an impartial investigation which Washington indicated could be carried out by Israel.

The US also blocked criticism of Israel for violating international law by assaulting a ship in international waters in the security council statement proposed by Turkey, the Palestinians and Arab nations.

The US representative at the security council discussions told the security council that the organisers of the flotilla had been irresponsible in trying to deliver aid by sea in the face of the Israeli blockade. It's blame the victims.

So Israel can blow out of international waters any and all ships trying to deliver food, medicine and other humanitarian aid to Gaza. At least the US did not say that the pro-Palestinian activists presented themselves as humanitarians but had links to terrorist organizations and had come ready for a fight.However, the Democrats are not going to break with Israel and pick a fight with Republicans on foreign policy.

Paul,
A defence of Israel by Seth Freedman a writer living in Jerusalem in the Guardian says Israel has no choice and makes the following points:

those supposedly bringing "aid" to the people of Gaza have form for using alleged acts of humanitarianism as cover for weapons smuggling – and Israel has every right to defend its own citizens from the consequences of such illicit transfer of arms.

And:

The activists who launched the vicious assault on the boarding soldiers knew full well what they were doing. They had issued threat after threat against the IDF in the days building up to this morning's clash,
According to Seth Freedman the troops did not fire on those on board at first, instead simply trying to go about their business of inspecting the cargo. When they were attacked with venomous force by the activists, they were left with no choice but to respond in kind.

Israel's narrative of self-defence --when Israel seizes ships in international waters and kills anyone who resists (and others standing near them), that is an act of noble, plucky self-defense---depends on demonizing the activists. Any right of self-defence would belong to the passengers on the ship.

Bren Carlill, an analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council, continues to claim that Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007.

"Seized control" is misleading. Hamas were democratically elected. They won 76 of the 132 seats in the Palestinian Parliament in the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections.In May 2006 US and Israel imposed sanctions on the Palestinian territories for voting for Hamas.

In June 2007 renewed fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah. Hamas, pre-empting a Fatah-US backed coup, violently took over the Gaza Strip in 2007 after a brief civil war. Hamas has maintained control of Gaza and the Fatah controlled the West Bank. The Gaza Strip has remained under siege by Israel and Egypt since 2007.

George, their list of fantasies to explain away all that bloodshed over the years is not so worrisome as the realisation that they've come actually to beleive their own narratives, a tendency they share with the USA.
A nutter, Netanyahu, running a government choc full of others of the ilk; secular and religious nationalism gone ga ga.
And they have the Bomb, in spades.
I agree with the point concerning Hamsas' popularity in Gaza having absolutly no claim to the status of an excuse, let alone a reason, in climbing aboard some one else's ship on the open seas and killing ten or twenty people as a salve to a consuming paranoia.

Greg Sheridan in The Australian says that:

By beating Israeli sailors nearly to death as soon as they landed, the protesters made a violent reaction inevitable. You cannot attempt to kill armed soldiers without suffering casualties.

"beating Israeli sailors nearly to death" is an exaggeration. The Israeli sailors were an elite Israel Defence Forces commando group--a naval commando unit that is one of Israel's most elite military forces and its exploits are renowned.

Paul,
the Israeli state is always the victim no matter what it does. Even when it imposes a blockade on Gaza that systematically starves civilians, leaves them to die without medicine, destroys their sewage and power systems, leaves them utterly dependent on international aid delivery which it imposes the most grotesque restrictions on it is still the victim.

Israel, according to its own narrative, is always on the verge of being exterminated by a new wave of Arab Nazis. It has to do what it does because its existential survival depends upon it. It has no choice.