Aftermath...

I have experienced my first crisis in Israel. Then I do not primarily mean an inner crisis, but instead the kind of crisis that rocks the world when the Israeli Defence Forces take some kind of action, which the rest of the world objects to. Yesterday morning as I awoke, Yoram told me on the phone that I should probably read the news since something dramatic had happened on the "Ship to Gaza" convoy, something about dead people, and the initial shock was like waking up into a nightmare.

I started reading, and during the morning hours, number of casualties varied in the different media sources, and everything was still very unsure and preliminary. However, pretty soon it became clear that the IDF soldiers had been met with violence as they boarded the Turkish boat, which had resulted in a complete tumult and unfortunate death-shootings. When I looked into the coverage in the international (Swedish in particular) media, it became painfully obvious to me how angled it was. Nothing about the instigators on the boat, but merely blame on Israel, in very tough words. Friends, who I talked to on Facebook, and who normally can keep a pretty balanced and non-biased attitude, wanted nothing to do with my comments or information. All doors were slammed in my face. At the same time I was sitting here trying to be balanced, with valid criticism over how the IDF choose to handle the convoy. There is no doubt in my mind that the soldiers did what they had to do to defend their lives when they finally came down on the boat, but I am very critical to boarding the boat in night-time and on international waters in the first place. Why not just incapacitate the boat and tow it to Ashdod? And how can the best intelligence in the world underestimate the intentions of a group of people who allegedly has connections to extreme Islamist organisations? And how could the "Ship to Gaza"-delegations from Western Europe, like the Swedish group, so blindly ignore the fact that they had anything but merely non-violent peace activists among them? The questions piled up, with no clear answers and no clear direction, and I started to realise the impact the tragedy would have, on Israel's diplomatic relations and future peace negotiations.

As the walls of my home suddenly felt too narrow, I reached out to Anna Veeder, who had already published a very good early reaction to what had happened on Newsmill (Swedish). We spent some hours ventilating things and she was briefing me on what was said on the radio and TV, and at the same time as the anti-Israeli hysteria were whipped up all around Europe, more detailed videos and testimonies were published, showing how the soldiers were seriously attacked with iron bars, axes and knives, as they boarded the ship armed with merely paint-ball guns, and pistols with live ammunition as a backup. But it was of course too late. The media frenzy was already a fact.

What happened is truly a tragedy, human lives are always precious, and I do not claim that the IDF handled the situation perfectly, but things are more complex than that, and it all needs to be investigated further. I neither defend the siege. I find it pretty obvious that the siege is neither effective in preventing Islamist radicalisation, nor stopping terror-attacks from Gaza on Israeli civilians. That is not the point. After seeing how biased the reactions are, at home in Sweden and in the rest of the Western world, I feel so sad and disillusioned. Anti-Israeli rallies are arranged all around and Facebook groups are growing, all solely blaming Israel for what happened. People, friends and acquaintances, blindly join, without making an opinion of their own by retrieving more information. No one wants to know the truth anymore. Or are they just lazy and convenient? Is there really a hidden agenda to keep Israel as the scapegoat of the world? In any way, I think that you all should be ashamed of yourselves, for taking this distorted propaganda as the only truth. Ashamed!

Anna Veeder wrote today on her blog (free translation by me):

At the same time I find it interesting that some Swedish commentators argue "well, of course the people on the boat got angry when the soldiers were hauled down, and therefore launched at them with iron bars, that is understandable". I can only speak for myself, but if I were to be confronted with armed combat soldiers at four o'clock in the morning on a boat at sea, then I would mostly stay darn passive. Not to say crawled up in a corner somewhere. You need to be pretty driven to take on a bunch of soldiers and have power and motivation to throw one of them in the sea and try to take their weapons. If we are speaking about responsibility, I feel that they clearly failed in keeping the principle of non-violence, at least on the Turkish ship, and here do also the activists and organisers share a responsibility. Because no one had claimed that it was a suicide mission, right?

I finish off with some special dispatches from MEMRI. And then some visuals: