B.S.D.
Mark Davis
Dallas News June 8, 2010
Every time I have directed some principled mockery at the squirrelly concept of “world opinion,” responses to me suggest the arrogance of such criticism. Isn’t it the height of narcissism for anyone to suggest he has a better moral radar than wide swaths of the globe’s population?
Not when the world is as screwed up as it is right now.
Well, there I go again. But this time I have one of the best examples in years – the reaction to Israel’s boarding of a ship attempting to pierce its blockade.
A democratic nation, surrounded by terrorist forces seeking its violent eradication, is fighting for its life. And from the to the cafés of Europe to the befuddled tinhorns and tyrants who guide vast additional pockets of global attitudes, Israel deserves scorn for defending itself?
It should come as no surprise that Israel is under such rhetorical siege, often from the same critics who have condemned the U.S. for the war that has prevented additional 9/11s for nearly nine years.
When terrorists are offered excuses and justifications and vilification is reserved for those fighting them, the world has genuinely gone crazy.
Gaza is blockaded because it is a launching point for terror against Israel. Unfettered access to its ports would guarantee waves of fresh weapons for those who dream of Israel’s extinction.
That dream flourishes among members in Gaza, the sliver of Palestinian territory along Israel’s Mediterranean coast. Sadly, Hamas is Gaza’s duly elected governing authority, which is all the evidence anyone needs of how unprepared the Palestinians are to govern themselves.
Which is not to say Gaza’s leadership is wholly inept. What it lacks in skills to provide decent lives for its citizens is more than outweighed by its talent for attacking Israelis. Dozens of rockets per day often sail over the heads of Israeli citizens, launched by people sworn to destroy the region’s only genuinely free democracy.
So a ship loaded with armed “aid workers” intentionally provokes the blockade, leading to an Israeli response, and Israel is the villain? Such is the inverted morality of “world opinion.”
Being wrong is one thing. Dishonesty is another. Both are true of those who ignore the obviousness of what this ship sought to do.
If it was truly on an aid mission, there would have been no problem accepting Israel’s offer to inspect the cargo and deliver the contents to Gaza (just as Israel regularly delivers massive amounts of humanitarian aid there already).
I am trying to fend off the conclusion that the world teems with poisonous anti-Semitism. But beyond the proven Jew-hating regimes in Iran, Syria and elsewhere, what else explains this attitudinal perversion across continents?
One story line this week is that Israel, as an ally, has become a burden to the U.S. Only to those who refuse to see the necessity of backing our only real friend in the Middle East.
I would have counted Turkey as an ally before it chose to side with Hamas in the blockade crisis. I understand Turkish nerves are frayed, since this drama involved a Turkish ship. But that’s the point. What is a nation on the right side of this conflict doing inciting trouble along a valid defensive blockade?
Now we will hear the usual cries that Israel’s refusal to welcome its conquerors is an obstacle to peace. This is a cousin of the complaint that America makes the world more dangerous with a war against those who would kill us.
It’s useless to reason with such psychosis. Our only hope is that Israel and America can defend themselves successfully to such a degree that even impaired witnesses can see who has been right all along.
