In the aftermath of Israel's completely understandable resort to deadly force in response to the beatings of their soldiers by Turkish Muslims Victor Davis Hanson wonders what explains the irrational reaction of so much of the world to what the Israelis did (For those who need to get caught up go here and here):
What explains this preexisting hatred, which ensures denunciation of Israel in the most rabid - or, to use the politically correct parlance, "disproportionate," terms? It is not about "occupied land," given the millions of square miles worldwide that are presently occupied, from Georgia to Cyprus to Tibet. It is not a divided capital - Nicosia is walled off. It is not an overreaction in the use of force per se - the Russians flattened Grozny and killed tens of thousands while the world snoozed. And it cannot be the scale of violence, given what we see hourly in Pakistan, Darfur, and the Congo. And, given the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish histories (and reactions to them), the currently outraged Turkish government is surely not a credible referent on the topic of disproportionate violence.
Perhaps the outrage reflects simple realpolitik - 350 million Arab Muslims versus 7 million Israelis. Perhaps it is oil: half the world's reserves versus Israel's nada. Perhaps it is the fear of terror: draw a cartoon or write a novel offending Islam, and you must go into hiding; defame Jews and earn accolades. Perhaps it is anti-Semitism, which is as fashionable on the academic Left as it used to be among the neanderthal Right.
Perhaps there is also a new sense that the United States at last has fallen into line with the Western consensus, and so is hardly likely to play the old lone-wolf supporter of Israel in the press or at the U.N.
The world condemns the Israelis for defending themselves, as if it were a crime against humanity for Jews to preserve their own lives, but the world has been almost completely silent about the North Koreans sinking a South Korean vessel killing a dozen or so South Korean sailors. Nor has the world condemned the Palestinians for their incessant attempts to kill Israelis nor for their attempts to procure more rockets with which to blow up Israeli children. About these atrocities the world is silent.
For Muslims, and increasingly for the western Left, the very existence of Israel is a crime and nothing anyone who hates Israel says or does is beyond the pale. Israel blockades Gaza to keep weapons such as rockets out of the hands of vicious thugs and the world condemns them for it, even though they allow humanitarian goods to pass. The world doesn't condemn Hamas for using the weapons, mind you, they condemn Israel for trying to keep them from getting them. The Israelis seek to turn back ships, leased to a known terrorist organization, trying to run the blockade and the crew set upon the commandos with guns, iron bars, knives and other weapons. The Israelis reluctantly draw their sidearms to defend themselves, and the Left everywhere condemns whom? The crew? No, the Israelis.
To get an idea of the twisted thinking of those on the Left when it comes to Israel listen to Helen Thomas assuming that Israel "deliberately" massacred the jihadis on the ship:
It's beginning to smell like the 1930s all over again.
RLC