Those troublesome Jews

Charles Krauthammer

Friday, June 4, 2010

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.
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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.
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Israel has already twice intercepted ships laden with Iranian arms destined for Hezbollah and Gaza. What country would allow that?

But even more important, why did Israel even have to resort to blockade? Because, blockade is Israel's fallback as the world systematically de-legitimizes its traditional ways of defending itself -- forward and active defense.

(1) Forward defense: As a small, densely populated country surrounded by hostile states, Israel had, for its first half-century, adopted forward defense -- fighting wars on enemy territory (such as the Sinai and Golan Heights) rather than its own.

Where possible (Sinai, for example) Israel has traded territory for peace. But where peace offers were refused, Israel retained the territory as a protective buffer zone. Thus Israel retained a small strip of southern Lebanon to protect the villages of northern Israel. And it took many losses in Gaza, rather than expose Israeli border towns to Palestinian terror attacks. It is for the same reason America wages a grinding war in Afghanistan: You fight them there, so you don't have to fight them here.

But under overwhelming outside pressure, Israel gave it up. The Israelis were told the occupations were not just illegal but at the root of the anti-Israel insurgencies -- and therefore withdrawal, by removing the cause, would bring peace.

Land for peace. Remember? Well, during the past decade, Israel gave the land -- evacuating South Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005. What did it get? An intensification of belligerency, heavy militarization of the enemy side, multiple kidnappings, cross-border attacks and, from Gaza, years of unrelenting rocket attack.

(2) Active defense: Israel then had to switch to active defense -- military action to disrupt, dismantle and defeat (to borrow President Obama's description of our campaign against the Taliban and al-Qaeda) the newly armed terrorist mini-states established in southern Lebanon and Gaza after Israel withdrew.

The result? The Lebanon war of 2006 and Gaza operation of 2008-09. They were met with yet another avalanche of opprobrium and calumny by the same international community that had demanded the land-for-peace Israeli withdrawals in the first place. Worse, the U.N. Goldstone report, which essentially criminalized Israel's defensive operation in Gaza while whitewashing the casus belli -- the preceding and unprovoked Hamas rocket war -- effectively de-legitimized any active Israeli defense against its self-declared terror enemies.

(3) Passive defense: Without forward or active defense, Israel is left with but the most passive and benign of all defenses -- a blockade to simply prevent enemy rearmament. Yet, as we speak, this too is headed for international de-legitimation. Even the United States is now moving toward having it abolished.

But, if none of these is permissible, what's left?

Ah, but that's the point. It's the point understood by the blockade-busting flotilla of useful idiots and terror sympathizers, by the Turkish front organization that funded it, by the automatic anti-Israel Third World chorus at the United Nations, and by the supine Europeans who've had quite enough of the Jewish problem.

What's left? Nothing. The whole point of this relentless international campaign is to deprive Israel of any legitimate form of self-defense. Why, just last week, the Obama administration joined the jackals, and reversed four decades of U.S. practice, by signing onto a consensus document that singles out Israel's possession of nuclear weapons -- thus de-legitimizing Israel's very last line of defense: deterrence.

The world is tired of these troublesome Jews, 6 million -- that number again -- hard by the Mediterranean, refusing every invitation to national suicide. For which they are relentlessly demonized, ghettoized and constrained from defending themselves, even as the more committed anti-Zionists -- Iranian in particular -- openly prepare a more final solution.

>> ^Sarzy:

What about the hatch? I don't think there was anything about the hatch that was left completely ambiguous -- that seems to be one of the few elements on the show that didn't really leave any lingering questions. Am I forgetting something?

Here's a few unanswered questions about the hatch:

Why did the Dharma initiative want to build it? Why did they think it was important, and needed to be kept secret? What was the significance of the numbers? Why did the door say Quarantine on it? What did "the Button" actually do, and why did it need to be pushed every 108 minutes? Why did hieroglyphs appear on the countdown clock when it was finally allowed to reach zero? What started happening when the clock reached zero? What happened when Desmond activated the failsafe? What was the failsafe? Why did Desmond start seeing flashes of the future from that point forward? Was he really seeing the future? Did the hatch have anything to do with the smoke monster/light plotline? Did the "others" know or care about what was going on with the hatch? Did Jacob have any sort of position or interest in what happened in the hatch?

What effect did the nuclear bomb set off at the base of the hatch before it was built have, other than sending everyone back to the "present"? Was the button version of the hatch built as a direct consequence of what our own merry band of castaways did in the 70's?

Don't get me wrong, I understand that shows will pointedly try to get you to forget stuff a few years back that doesn't fit the story they've decided to tell in the present. The hatch and the numbers were ancient history, and I can forgive them for pretending like it doesn't matter anymore.

I'm mostly annoyed that even stuff they brought up in just the last two seasons didn't get any kind of explanation or payoff, like the nuclear bomb last season, and the central conflict between Jacob and his smoky adversary this season. I expected them to at least try to build a new internally consistent mythology, and try to retcon in as much of the previous seasons as possible.

Instead we got "none of this matters" as our big explanation for what's been happening on the island. Meh.

I frickin knew someone was gonna say that.>> ^Golgi:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Why is everything in a mirror image?

he's australian. that's in the southern hemisphere where everything is backwards. also, their toilets flow the opposite way when flushed.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'quarantine, tb, tuberculosis, rap, Fully Sick Rapper' to 'quarantine, tb, tuberculosis, rap, Fully Sick Rapper, heaps good' - edited by SlipperyPete

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

>> ^Avokineok:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Why is everything in a mirror image?

I think I know the answer to that one: he has Mac Book Pro likde me with camera built in, that autatically mirrors the image to give you the idea you are looking at mirror.. Which is stupid.


Very, I've seen a number of people wonder about that when they make videos... But nooo, Macs are 'easy to use'... except when they make dumb arse decisions which are completely counter intuitive.

Agreed.

In reply to this comment by Avokineok:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Why is everything in a mirror image?


I think I know the answer to that one: he has Mac Book Pro likde me with camera built in, that autatically mirrors the image to give you the idea you are looking at mirror.. Which is stupid.

>> ^Trancecoach:
Why is everything in a mirror image?


I think I know the answer to that one: he has Mac Book Pro likde me with camera built in, that autatically mirrors the image to give you the idea you are looking at mirror.. Which is stupid.

>> ^Golgi:
he's australian. that's in the southern hemisphere where everything is backwards. also, their toilets flush the opposite way when flushed.


You mean the water comes out the bowl?

>> ^Trancecoach:
Why is everything in a mirror image?


he's australian. that's in the southern hemisphere where everything is backwards. also, their toilets flow the opposite way when flushed.

Your video, Quarantined for TB, guy solos an AWESOME rap song, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by rottenseed.

You must have your monitor on backwards.>> ^Trancecoach:
Why is everything in a mirror image?

This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by Hybrid. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Quarantined-for-TB-guy-solos-an-awesome-rap-song