Israeli Overkill Strikes Again

Civilian provocation or trigger-happy soldiers...what do you think?

About 600 "peace activists" from 20 countries were on board 6 yacht-type vessels carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid (wheelchairs, medicine, clothes etc.) to Gaza when a confrontation ensued with Israeli defense forces. At least 9 activists were shot dead, many more were wounded (including an American woman shot in the eye with a teargas grenade), and several Israeli soldiers suffered non-life-threatening injuries

Among the 600 peace activists were:

• 1 retired American ambassador in his 80s
• 1 member of the Israeli parliament
• 2 Egyptian lawmakers
• Volunteers from Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Sweden, and the U.S.
• 40 British citizens whom the British Foreign Office said were accompanying the aid

Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman has already come out on the record, saying that "the sole responsibility" for the incident lies with activists who have "chosen violence and confrontation."

It is difficult to understand, though, how the peace activists "chose" confrontation and violence.

By all accounts, the aid vessels were in international waters over 70 miles outside Israeli territorial waters when, according to Israeli Member of Parliament Hanin Zoabi, who was accompanying the aid flotilla, the Israeli Navy fired on the ships for 5-minutes before commandos rappelled from helicopters onto the decks of the ships. Zoabi says the passengers on board the ships were unarmed.

Did Israel believe the ships were smuggling arms into Palestinian territory, as has happened in the past?

It's unlikely, given the scenario. Not only is 600 passengers and a convoy of 6 ships obviously too big a group to be attempting anything sneaky, but the flotilla had in fact planned to reach Gaza in broad daylight the following day so that they could document the delivery.

Additionally, it's not like these were Iranian speed boats. The vessels were all from a friendly nation--Turkey, whom Israel trusts enough to sell weapons to, and which was the first Muslim country to recognize modern day Israel as an independent nation, just after Israel's founding.

Israel's rhetoric after the fact seemed aimed to tarnish the reputation and intention of the civilians accompanying the flotilla. Israel arrested the hundreds of peace activists, and has charged them with illegally entering Israel, which, if true, might give Israel more leeway in how it dealt with "intruders."

But those arrested did not enter Israel illegally. They did not even enter voluntarily.

As Ireland's Foreign Affairs Minister noted in his strenuous objection to the Israeli action, the civilians "did not enter Israel illegally; rather they were essentially seized from international waters, taken into Israel and asked to sign documents confirming that they entered illegally."

In an absurd proof that Israel knew nothing untoward was happening with the aid flotilla, after killing 9 and arresting 600, Israel actually allowed the aid the ships were carrying to be delivered to its intended destination. Palestinian officials have confirmed that five trucks were allowed into Gaza, carrying wheelchairs.

Perhaps most tellingly, Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson Major Avital Leibovitch accused the peace activists of having planned the conflict. Speaking on NPR's All Things Considered, Maj. Leibovitch claimed that the activists "waited for them [the Israeli commandos]. They planned this." Saying, "it's more than an attack. I describe it as a lynch because when you have one Navy Seal and 10 activists jumping on him trying to break his arms and legs, for me, it's a lynch."

Maj. Leibovitch did not explain how the peace activists might have lured the Israeli navy and its helicopter commandos over 70-miles beyond their borders, or how the civilians might have first engaged them in the skirmish.

It's interesting to note Maj. Leibovitch's incorrect use of the word "lynch." Anyone as fluent in English as the Major is, but who is familiar with the term lynch, would know that nobody ever says "it's a lynch," but rather, "it's a lynching." So it seems that the Major did not know the term on his own--that the term was new to him.

Perhaps Maj. Leibovitch was coached to invoke the word "lynch" on U.S. National Public Radio in an effort to strike a chord with a listening audience that is generally thought to be liberal, and sympathetic to demographics who have historically been the victims of lynching. But while NPR listeners may be left-wing, they are definitely intelligent, and they can see through a flimsy political excuse a mile away.

When you shoot at someone, then jump onto their property from a helicopter, and they fight back, you aren't being lynched; you're just being fended off.

As usual, Israel's general approach seems to be that occasionally, in the course of keeping Palestinians in their place, a civilian is accidentally and tragically killed through military action. But if that civilian, in the course of being accidentally killed, attempts to save himself and avoid his own accidental death by fighting back, then while his death may still be regrettable, as Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman has already said, "the sole responsibility" for the incident lies with the dead civilian who has "chosen violence and confrontation."

Regarding "reverse racism" and the establishment of demographically distinct membership organizations

I wrote this in response to an interesting iReport on CNN that had prompted quite a few posters to raise that common complaint of racism/prejudice against membership organizations whose name indicates the demographic bulk of membership (e.g., NAACP, NOW etc.). In my post, I mention "white men" as a group simply because it is a pragmatic necessity of explaining the situation, and not because of anything intrinsic to white men. In another time and place, any group might play the role that in our recent history happens to have been played by men who were white.

I don't share many posters' views of "reverse racism," as it regards membership- and advocacy-groups like the NAACP. Although I understand from these posters' perspective what they are getting at, and I actually believe most such people are not trying to be disingenuous, I disagree. A lot.

The thing is, by default, most groups just are the "white guys' group." I mean, white guys had, what, 145-years in America to give women the vote, for example, but they didn't do it. Forget why for the moment; they just never did it. It required a bunch of women to get together, and self-organize as women, rather than people, to claim their rights.

Similarly, the people who comprised the Boards of every, single pre-gender/race-desegregation American university, at any moment could have decided to stop behaving so shamefully and admit blacks, women, Asians etc. But they just didn't. And as it happened, they were white guys. It required groups with "women" or "black" in their names to make higher education a legal option for their members.

With few exceptions, this is the way it works in our country. People lacking rights must agitate for their rights. By and large, they will not get them by waiting for people in power to correct wrongs out of a sense of righteousness or civic or moral obligation. It simply has been fact that the folks in a position of power to change things have been white men, and that in almost every case, they have not bothered to do the right thing until the disenfranchised/lacking-rights groups (be it black, women, Asian, gay, handicapped, whatever) have organized themselves into self-identifying advocacy groups to agitate for change.

Given our history, and the fact that only when these groups were formed did real change happen, it is naive to expect the demographics that formed the groups to now disband the groups. I mean, today's white woman makes 78-cents on the dollar for the same work, performed by a similarly-qualified white man, and for black women, it's even grimmer. This has been going on forever. It's just not right. But almost all major corporations continue to be owned and run by people who for better or worse are white men, and these same people, regardless of motivation, are not interested in proactively ensuring equality. So, unfortunately, we continue to need women's groups, black groups, Hispanic groups, gay groups etc. etc.

What if all these groups called "Black such-and-such" just took the "Black" out of their name, but did not change the composition of their membership? I doubt that would make it a ton better for the people who are opposed to such groups. Yet for tens of millions of Americans, this is what we see when we look at the Senate, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the CEOs of all the car companies, the CEOs of all the big banks, the White House etc. etc. We see groups that appear to be not only restricted membership groups, but restricted membership groups of the greatest power, and the membership in these groups is generally white and male.

Are the women all supposed to be just bowled over that we now have zero women presidents ever (!!!) of our country, and one black president? Are black Americans supposed to feel awesome about having 0 or 1 black senator? Are Hispanics supposed to be brimming with a feeling of equality because 1 Hispanic ever is going to the Supreme Court after basically being harangued for being proud of her heritage (and by the same old white guys that apologized in tears to the white, male Supreme Court nominee who was "unjustly" questioned for having been an activist against admitting intellectually qualified women to Princeton while he was himself enjoyed the privilege of studying there!)?

In reality, it is people who happened to be white and male who have taught everyone (including, frankly, the millions of progressive white males who agree with what I am saying) the lesson that if you want to be treated equally, you need to band together with others in your demographic, and make an enormous stink about it or you will be swept under the carpet.

If a time comes when people proactively intervene on one another's behalf, across the board, regardless of gender, race, class, etc., and when nobody needs to ask for equal treatment in order to receive equal treatment, then these "women's goups" and "black groups" and all the rest will likely fade away. But to expect women and minorities to lead the way by dissolving their groups first, and then enjoying the ensuing white, male love is a bit rich.

Drawing a line between apartheid and local culture?

I wrote this post in response to an interesting thread on the RH Reality Check blog about French President Nicolas Sarkozy's move to ban the wearing of the very conservative Muslim burqa in France. A user named John posted a comment as described below, and my response follows.

John, I appreciate your points, as well as your open-minded stance in reminding us that there are many cultures, and many different norms and mores.

However, there is clearly a global double-standard when it comes to human rights being denied to women, as a particular group.

You said,

"Because our culture has grown to embrace new values, and rid ourselves of old taboos, does not give us the right to interfere with those who believe in and adhere to old values."

I agree, but I think that it does not trump the more important concept that human rights exist, and that one actual right is the right to defend those rights, whether in one's own case, or in another's. Some might even say we have a moral duty to defend those rights, but that may be a separate argument.

Think back to the Apartheid struggle in South Africa. Half the world was "interfering" in that country's society, through various external pressures, to make sure black citizens got their rights. Nobody rational said, "hey, that's their culture. Maybe that's just how they are and how they live. Let them evolve at their own pace."

And thank God they didn't, or millions of South Africans might still be languishing without fundamental human freedoms to this day.

So why is it that when the oppressed demographic simply happens not to include males, that it is suddenly just their culture, and so on?

Why, when men and women are oppressed, as in South Africa, is it unequivocal oppression, but when just women are oppressed, as in beatings of people not wearing a burqa, is it "culture?"

Why was the South African governmental system of denying one demographic group (blacks) the vote considered to be an illegal, rights-abrogating Apartheid worthy of American sanctions, but the Saudi Arabian governmental system of denying one demographic group (women) the vote is considered to be legitimate culture that in no way should infringe upon American business relations with that nation?

People in France who don't wear a burqa, whether they be Muslim, Afghan, Swedish, American, Christian, Arab, or whatever... people who don't wear a burqa in all likelihood don't wear it because they don't wish to wear it. And that should be all that is needed for civilized people to know that it is wrong for anyone to be forced to wear a burqa, or be punished for not wearing one.

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Aside:
Imagine that a new law in the U.S. required all women to wear hats and attend a particular Christian denomination's services two times weekly, and that the law's apologists claimed the new law simply represented what millions of American women already, or recently, practiced. Regardless of its truth, that defense would be particularly spurious since the fact would remain that the law would represent behavior entirely unwanted by, and unfamiliar to, most American women, regardless of the several million who might indeed already follow such practices.

I don't believe that cultural relativism needs to be appeased. Nevertheless, let's point out that this burqa-wearing and/or total covering-up, and the "house-binding" of women is actually not a recent part of culture for many of the women to whom it is now happening. Go back and look at photos of Iranian women pre-1979. They are wearing the same fashions as American women here were wearing then (tee-shirts, calf-length skirts, same hairstyles, no head covering, or loose scarf, or hijab, as they chose). In pre-Taliban Afghanistan, for heaven's sake, about half of lawyers and doctors were female, many women wore no head covering, and few city women wore a burqa.