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What They Talk About When They Talk About Gaza

Your Flotilla opinion round-up

by
Marc Tracy
June 01, 2010
The Palestinian Ambassador to the Arab League.(Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images)
The Palestinian Ambassador to the Arab League.(Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images)

• Yoav Fromer argues that Israel’s pre-existing image problem and the activists’ relative savvy should have dissuaded Israel from attempting to “resolve a political challenge through military action.” [Tablet]

• While the American Jewish Committee (and the Anti-Defamation League too) fingered the Free Gaza movement, J Street called for a “credible, independent” Israeli-sponsored investigation. [JTA]

• Though he defends the soldiers, Peter Beinart blames their political leaders for the blockade itself and pro-Israel Americans who have succumbed to the “epidemic of not watching.” [The Daily Beast]

• Leslie Gelb goes the opposite route: He says the soldiers mishandled the raid, but that enforcing the blockade was legal and just, and “only knee-jerk left-wingers … would dispute this.” [The Daily Beast]

• Ralph Peters says the incident is best understood as Turkey’s assertion of increased hegemony. [NY Post]

If you buy the blockade, notes Shmuel Rosner, then enforcing it is clearly necessary. [Slate]

• To J.J. Goldberg, Israel is Charlie Brown, always thinking that, this time, it really can kick the football. [Forward]

• “One really does have to marvel at the incredible own goal the Israelis have just scored.” Hey, over here we prefer football—real football—analogies, Mr. Muqawama! [Abu Muqawama]

• Hussein Ibish notes that, in a sense, everything went exactly according to the activists’ plan, and according to their best wishes. [Ibishblog]

• George Packer sees “a classic triumph of civil disobedience over state power.” Oh, and nice headline, Mr. Packer! [Interesting Times]

• Reza Aslan says Israel’s “vaunted” hasbara, or public relations machine, even with all its storied “power and potency,” cannot clean up this mess. First, aren’t “power” and “potency” the same thing? Second, is there any evidence the hasbara has had either any time recently? [The Daily Beast]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.