by Gerald A. Honigman
For quite some time in our nation's relatively short history, whenever we faced severe difficulties regarding national interests, Send In The Marineswas our frequent call.
Iran--that beacon of humanity (just ask the ghosts of those Iranians slaughtered in the streets struggling for the most basic freedoms, or those of Iranian Kurds and other minorities being hung and otherwise killed for the same reasons)--is contemplating sending Revolutionary Guard marines to escort future alleged humanitarian aid flotillas to Hamas's Gaza.
Let's step back for a moment to review...
In 1967, Egypt blockaded Israel (a casus belli), amassed 100,000 troops, tanks, aircraft, and so forth right up to the Israeli border in Gaza and the northern Sinai Peninsula, and repeatedly called for a war of extermination against the Jewish State. That's how Egypt lost Gaza--which has been used since Pharaoh days to attack Israeli Jews. The latter also had millennial connections to the land as well.
For some perspective, America and other nations have acquired territories all over the world as a result of wars fought and perceived national security interests--often thousands of miles away from home. The examples are indeed many, and the war over the Falkland Islands is a beaut.
In a controversial move, several years back Israel decided to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza for the sake of greater peace with its assorted Arab neighbors. It had already done so from Sinai in exchange for a very cold peace with Egypt--especially after President Sadat's assassination. Hundreds of tunnels move huge quantities of munitions into Gaza to kill Jews from Egyptian territory. Just imagine if things were reversed...
But the tunnels are just one of many unfortunate aspects of the frigid nature of the peace Israel has gotten as a result of its withdrawals so far. Keep in mind that Israel was not obligated to make any withdrawals whatsoever until real treaties of peace (not "hudna" ceasefires and such) were concluded between itself and those who have repeatedly tried to destroy it.
For good or for bad, Prime Minister Sharon withdrew from Gaza. Israel maintained some controls to see to it that Gaza didn't simply become another Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and/or Iranian base from which it could be attacked--like that which it faces in Lebanon with Hizbullah. Hence, the naval blockade.
The whole idea was to give Gaza's Arabs a chance at what scholars call positive nationalism--state building, for example--rather than the negative nationalism Arabs indeed are such specialists at. While negative nationalism has different aspects to it, it can largely be summed up as holding one’s own nation/group superior and turning this difference into instruments of discrimination, subjugation, and other assorted nastiness towards others.
A look at how Arab nationalism has handled/is handling scores of millions of non-Arab peoples--Kurds, Imazighen ("Berbers"), Copts, Jews (kilab yahud--"Jew dogs"), black Africans (abeed--"slaves"), and so forth--who predate by millennia the Arabs themselves in the lands they conquered and forcibly Arabized--is telling indeed. Yet few folks want to listen...If it's not about Jews and Israel, evil simply does not exist in the region for the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil majority when it comes to the "Arab" World.
Sure enough and true to form, Gaza's Arabs did not disappoint.
Rather than positively responding to Israel's peace gesture--the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza that it was not obligated to make but did anyway since there was no treaty of peace with its Arab Palestinian Authority and/or Hamas enemies--thousands of Arab rockets, mortars, and so forth soon rained down from Gaza on Israel proper. Think about how other nations--America, Russia, the Arabs themselves, for example--would have handled this situation. Israel tolerated such murder, terror, and destruction for years before reacting.
So, that's how we got to where we're at today.
Facing an enemy elected by Gaza's Arabs themselves (so they are not "innocent") which is dedicated to its destruction and the killing of its people, Israel has thus kept up its naval blockade of the Gaza coast line. The blockade is totally legal in international maritime law, and is like others that have been used by nations against enemies. While others have used blockades (America included), few-- if any--have ever faced an enemy such as Israel faces--one dedicated to its very disappearance. So, if Israel's blockade is not legit, there has never been one that was.
While numerous weaponry has made it into Gaza via the Egyptian tunnels mentioned above (nice "peace partner"), ships have no match when it comes to delivering massive quantities of materials. A number of ships filled with weapons destined for Hamas and Hizbullah have already been prevented from delivering such "humanitarian aid" in the past. In the Karine-A incident, behind the bags of flour and food were missiles, rockets, mortars, mines, and the like.
To any reasonable mind, Israel thus has good reason to want to see what's aboard ships getting through to Gaza's Arabs. And, remember, it didn't have to be this way...Positive gestures towards peace by the Arabs themselves responding to the Israel withdrawal would have seen the blockade gone by now. Unfortunately, building the Arabs' 22nd state is not the priority...destroying the Jews' lone, miniscule one is and always has been.
As for humanitarian aid, please recall that thousands of tons of food, medicine, and other life essentials move freely overland each week into Gaza after inspection. No one is starving in Gaza. Yet in places where folks are truly starving, being daily oppressed, and struggling for the most basic of human rights, there are no flotillas to be found. Again, Jew devils aren't involved--so there's not much meaningful interest.
And that brings me back to the marines--Iran's, that is...
Look--I don't want to see anyone die, suffer, and so forth.
I truly want to see justice--the relative variety of positive nationalism, not the oppressive, exclusive variety of negative nationalism--for all peoples, in the Middle East and elsewhere. That's what my new book aims for (http://q4j-middle-east.com). But that's not what Gaza, Fatah, Hamas, the flotilla, Iran, and so forth are all about. They are about Israel's destruction--sooner or later. There is no doubt about this.
Given these realities, Israel has no good choices. But, unless it wants to allow Gaza to be able to import all the Iranian and other weaponry that it wants, the blockade must stay in force.
I don't want to see war come anywhere, but, Iran is not giving Israel much of a choice. It openly proclaims that it too wants Israel dead. One way for non-Arab Muslims to prove their worth is by out-Arabing the Arabs in their hatred of the despised kilab yahud. The mullahs and their followers excel at this.
The Twelver Shi'a ruling Iran have no fear of war. They especially expect a major catastrophe before the return of their "Hidden Imam," their messianic mahdi.
Iran is a huge country with a large population. The mullahs calculate that even with massive Israeli retaliation, Iran will be left standing--while Israel, which one needs a magnifying glass to locate on a world map, will not.
Israel should have dealt with the Iranian issue years ago before new anti-aircraft systems and such were installed and the Iranian nuclear program became as advanced as it is today. It did not act largely because it feared the world's reactions. Perhaps it also hoped that real sanctions and actions by the world community would also tame the mullahs a bit. If so, Israel has been as naive here as it was when it supplied paintball guns to its commandos coming aboard that Turkish ship off of Gaza a bit ago.
If Iranian marines are aboard any new flotilla aiming to break Israel's necessary, legal blockade (not to supply poor starving Arabs), then Israel must either disable the ship--if possible--or sink it. As a fisherman, it will make a great artificial reef.
If war comes, well...it was coming anyway. Not a good thing, but what are Israel's choices here--other than to roll over and play dead in order to appease the world's assorted hypocrites and supporters of the double standard supreme?
It's worth noting that Iran, Syrian Arabs, and its new friends in Turkey are just playing that same old game other real oppressors often do: make folks look elsewhere so they don't focus on the real subjugation, crimes against humanity, and such being perpetrated by those assorted pots calling the kettle black.
And Jews and their nation are always the scapegoats and whipping posts par excellence.
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