The Last Exile

I have been informed I’m being a little uhm…harsh. Normally, I would just shuck it off but it comes from someone whose opinion I value so I gave it a little thought. I suggest you put it down to my inner Jew/Russian-Israeli/Judeo-Nazi. Mostly, why I am reacting the way I am is because I remember Jenin and the terrible aftermath in the media and with government after government condemning the Israelis over the alleged massacre which turned out to be nothing more than a shoot-out between IDF soldiers and a group of hard core terrorists.

In fact, I remember watching Larry King who gave an entire show over to the rantings of Queen Jordan who proclaimed the number of those murdered by the IDF was in the thousands. At the end of the brouhaha, the count of the dead numbered approximately 75 and came down to 23 for the IDF and 52 Palestinian. If the IDF was the force for nefariousness which its strident critics suggest it is; a well aimed missile would have taken out the lot without the shedding of a single IDF soldier’s blood. It was insistence of the IDF command to go in and fight house-to-house in the hopes of preserving civilian lives which was the path which lead to the death of IDF deaths.

The Jerusalem Post carries an interview with two of the naval commandos but I am going to quote from a small part near the end. I suggest you read it all and see how it jibs.

Based on preliminary results of its investigation into the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which ended with nine dead passengers and more than 30 wounded, the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.

The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck, the IDF said. All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades. The IDF’s understanding is that the mercenaries mainly chose dual-purpose items of this sort rather than guns, since opening fire would have made it blatantly clear that they were terrorists and not so-called peace activists.

Nevertheless, the IDF suspects that the group did have some guns of its own. Israeli forensic experts who examined the ship found casings belonging to a weapon that was not used by the commandos, and the Turkish captain of the ship later told the IDF that the “mercenaries” threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel.

I would like to point out that the IDF mission, while regrettable that the commandos were injured and lives were lost, did not fail. The IDF’s mission was to stop the flotilla which it did. While there are those who will protest that the successful mission was a public relations disaster and a screw up of nearly biblical proportions I would like to point out the knee-jerk quality and mass hysteria of the criticism which came immediately and without even the merest examination of the evidence. I would say this suggests that any Israeli action would have been met with the same mass hysteria and the baying for Israeli blood. The world only likes and revers dead Jews.

Like it, love it, or hate it; Israel is not like any other nation.