The Israel Saga Continues

Everyone seems to have reverted to form with regards to Israel's raid on the flotilla. It took the anti Israeli forces less than a day to protest.
He called for a "thorough investigation."

Tuesday afternoon outside the Israeli consulate, the second such protest in as many days.
The demonstration is in response to an Israeli raid on an international civilian aid mission to Gaza in which at nine people were killed and dozens more injured.
Several Bay Area activists were part of the Freedom Flotilla, a six-ship fleet that set sail last week from Greece to bring medical equipment and other supplies to the Gaza Strip.

The condemnation has been near and wide. The Turks, the French, and the Spanish have been leading the charge along with the usual suspects in the Middle East. It took Ban Ki Moon just a couple hours more than the protesters.
The list of usual suspects of pundits has also come to condemn Israel's actions.

Most important, the event is likely to force the international community, including the United States, to open a dialogue with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that rules Gaza. The blockade of Gaza can no longer be sustained politically. Today, Egypt opened the border with Gaza for passage of aid and people, and world pressure on Israel to undo the blockade is likely to be overwhelming. In that, the Free Gaza Movement and its allies have succeeded, though at the cost of many dead and wounded.
Protests are building worldwide, and even Israeli apologists are admitting that the attack on the flotilla was a catastrophic blunder.
Martin Indyk, the head of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and a longtime ally of Israel, told the New York Times that it’s now the responsibility of the United States to extricate Israel from the mess it’s created in Gaza, and he proposed what is likely to be a workable solution: the lifting of the Israeli blockade, a ceasefire by Hamas, and the exchange of political prisoners held on either side. (Hamas hold Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier.)

Meanwhile, Israel has had its normal set of defenders.

Turkish flotilla off the coast of the Gaza Strip.

What you have not heard is the truth from the mainstream media.

Here is the truth:Israel cannot allow ships to go directly to Gaza for security reasons. Innocent Israeli families are threatened daily with missile attacks launched from Gaza, and Israel must make sure weapons are not being smuggled into Gaza in "humanitarian" cargoes.

and...

The effort to destroy the Jewish state has many fronts. One front is in Iran, where the maniacal regime that has repeatedly promised to “wipe Israel off the map” marches inexorably toward a nuclear bomb. Another is in Gaza, from which Hamas has lobbed 10,000 missiles into Israeli cities. Yet another front, the most insidious, is comprised of the propaganda arm of the Palestinian movement. And this front thrives for only one reason — the complicity of the world press and the so-called “international community.”

I doubt either side waited to finish hearing the news to decide that their side was right. The truth to most folks is nothing more than a by product in all this. Here's what's clear to me. Most of those that today condemn Israel take a lot longer time, if they ever do, to condemn Hamas' rockets into Israel. They rarely, if ever, make Israel's enemies to account for their international crimes.

Israel is the only functioning democracy in the Middle East, and, ironically enough, it is the country that gives Muslims the most rights in the Middle East. The blockade and embargo were put into effect in order to protect its citizens from a series of rocket attacks that all originated from Gaza. Those inconvenient facts seem to be missed by those quick to rush to condemn Israel now. The Israelis weren't itching for a fight on that flotilla. Instead, their soldiers were attacked and they defended themselves.

That said, all those rushing to defend Israel as though it is faultless in this situation also miss a very important point. These were commandos on that ship. They are the best of the best. Ten civilians died. That's a royal military screw up. Period!!! To say anything else is to ignore facts. These soldiers are trained to make sure that exactly these sorts of situations are diffused without death on either side. That's why only a few can become commandos. That didn't happen and that's a screw up.

Were the folks on the ship savages? Probably. Were they tied to terrorists? Almost certainly. Is the world outrage totally hypocritical. Almost certainly. Boo hoo. None of that matters. Now, Israel's enemies revel in righteous indignation and they do it because this military operation was royally screwed up.

Whatever you think of Israel's right to defend herself, you also must expect that the best of the best can and will finish this operation without any bloodshed. They must do it because 1) they're the best of the best and 2) because when there's bloodshed this happens.