This past weekend, an event took place that many in the left-wing media only dream about seeing: a ship carrying "peaceful, humanitarian activists" (quote-unquote) headed for Palestine carrying "relief supplies" (wink-wink, nudge-nudge). The Israeli military took the bait, attempted to board the ship, were then attacked by the "peaceful, humanitarian activists" (quote-unquote)--thus giving the left-wing media here (CBS, ABC, PMSNBC) and around the world (BBC, Speigel, etc) the chance to launch another of their patented smear campaigns against the one entity they hate as much as (if not more than) former president George W. Bush.
However, before you open wide and swallow what they are trying to feed you, read these articles. First, from Daniel Pipes (you really need to go to the links in the article):
Israel's command structure, having mastered the old ways of war (the ones that lasted to 1973), has shown utter strategic incompetence at the new ways of war (in place since 1982). The new rules require an agile sense of public relations, which means that a powerful state never physically harms, even inadvertently, its rag-tag political adversaries.
Rachel Corrie has been an albatross around Israel's neck since 2003; today's dead on the seas off Gaza will prove an even worse source of anti-Zionism. Thus did the "armada of hate and violence" achieve its purpose. Thus did the Israelis fall into a trap.
And the UK Spectator (Again, check out the links contained therein):
And this flotilla was but the latest jihadi attack, deploying the Islamists’ signature strategy of violence and media manipulation. Here from MEMRI (via Just Journalism) is a clip showing the hysteria against Israel being whipped up on board before the ships set sail, with the chanting of intifada songs about ‘Khaybar’ – the iconic slaughter of Jews by Muslims in the 7th century which is used as a rallying cry to kill the Jews today -- and threats of ‘martyrdom’. This was not merely a propaganda stunt, but a terrorist attack.Some of this footage is now available on the web but much of it is hard to follow: as ever, the Israelis have been far too slow in making the most telling images and information available in comprehensible form (including in English rather than in Hebrew, for heaven’s sake!). This clip appears to show masked and armed flotilla activists beating Israeli soldiers (although here is the BBC report accompanying that footage, in which the voiceover appears to be claiming, perversely, that the people in masks were Israeli soldiers. That said, the report on Radio Four’s World at One was fair and balanced).
This clip shows an Israeli soldier being stabbed. This IDF clip and this one show attacks on the commandoes including throwing one off the deck, attacking others with a metal pole and a firebomb and an attempted kidnap of another.
