Month: June 2010

There have been reports that women are playing a large role in the tea parties. Bernstein hopes so:

I'm pretty skeptical that there's a Tea Party "movement," so I wouldn't really start talking about how it will affect American politics going forward. As far as I can tell, most of the Tea Party momentum is probably best seen as Republican Party discontent with unified Democratic government. But there are Tea Party events, and Tea Party organizers, and it is no doubt true that some people are becoming involved in politics for the first time, or increasing their level of involvement, through Tea Party activity. If it's true that a lot of the organizers are women, I think it's likely that some of those women will eventually forge serious political careers, and look back to the early Obama years as the spark that got them started. I hope that it's true; I tend to think it's not very healthy for the nation for one party's pols to be overwhelmingly white men while the other party is far more inclusive. So don't expect 2010 to be a good year for women in politics, but perhaps it will be the year that the Republican Party starts catching up to the Democrats and most of the rest of the world by nominating and electing women.

Hanna Rosin investigated the trend last month.

Via Exum:

An interesting account:

"I was the second to be lowered in by rope," said Captain R. "My comrade who had already been dropped in was surrounded by a bunch of people. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us. I had to fight against quite a few terrorists who were armed with knives and batons."

I note two things. It began with a one-on-one fight. This was not a lynch mob primed to kill. It was a reaction that spread as more soldiers arrived. The second thing I note is that the captain describes the passengers as "terrorists."

The Economist provides a graphic:

 

I understand the need to deploy a blockade to prevent serious weaponry getting in to Hamas. But when you look at the full range of blockaded goods, you realize that this is a de facto act of collective punishment, depriving Gazans of the ability to feed themselves, rebuild their shattered infrastructure, or construct a functioning state. Has it weakened Hamas' grip? Not so far as one can tell.

In fact, if you'd contrived to give Hamas a real, deep advantage, you could do far worse than Netanyahu's incompetence and rigidity. Fred Kaplan explains how lucky Hamas is to have such a clueless enemy here.

And he basically agrees with the Dish. Except he describes the point of the flotilla as "provoking a confrontation." Well, yes, in as much as they clearly wanted to go where they were told they couldn't and force Israel to stop them, it was indeed designed to provoke a response. This is also called civil disobedience, designed for p.r. in a long war of ideas. It is not warfare; and it need not be deflected by tactics much more lethal than Bull Connor's. Couldn't they disable the rudder and guide the ship to port? Or did they once again have to prove who's the man?

Moreover, Chait regards the decision to assault the ship rather than disable it a "technical" matter, rather than a core misjudgment, or a sign of Israel's trigger-happy impunity. He cites Shmuel Rosner:

The commandos didn't know they were going to face an angry mob armed with knives and bats.

You mean the IDF sent commandos to take over a ship packed with opponents of Israel's blockade in international waters and thought everyone would just wave the white flag (which, by some accounts, they did). This was either truly dangerous incompetence or Cheney-esque bravado. Or both. And, yes, the US doesn't have a strong moral position on this after the Bush-Cheney years. Netanyahu is simply being Israel's Cheney. Comforting thought, no?

What I learn from this is that Israel under its current government is quite capable of attacking Iran – against US wishes – and failing to gain anything but a brief breathing space and deeper and deeper isolation.

A reader writes:

Apropos your belief that the "violence [of the 'activists'] was not fatal to anyone" and their weapons were mere "bric a brac" — In fact, the "activists" attacked with knives and lead pipes. These weapons were not, to reply to another of your clever evasions, banal implements of the homestead used improvisationally as defensive weapons, e.g., "pitchforks" from the ol' barn. The "activists" were prepared for a bloody struggle, and surely wanted one — they just hadn't thought through how badly it might go for them. Oh well. They now know Jewish blood, and radical glory, are not cheap after all.

One commando was hurled thirty feet downward from the ship. Several others were stabbed, and one was brained by a pipe. This preceded the use of Israeli firearms. Even you, before your residual Jew hatred took over, were willing to characterize the "activists'" behavior as abhorrent.

The "activists," if in fact they merely wanted to deliver soap and potato chips to the poor Gazans, and not provoke a crisis, could have submitted to a brief inspection and then been on their way. They refused this option offered by the Israelis, because they expected to be lionized by preening anti-semites like yourself. Foolish them. Shameful you.

Their blood is on your hands more than Bibi's. It won't wash off easily.

The activists were not Gandhians. But they were trying to make a legitimate political point about the blockade of Gaza. They did defend their ship from attack in international waters with weapons that may well have been kept on board in case of conflict. None of this can excuse the disproportionate violence unleashed upon them, the death of ten or more, and the inability of the Netanyahu government to operate under any measure of restraint, wisdom, prudence or proportion.

Pivoting off the furor about building a mosque near the World Trade Center, Adam Serwer crafts "a more perfect mission statement for the torture wing of the GOP."

300 of the passengers are still detained by the Israelis. Those who have been released say they had to abandon all "cameras, laptops, cellphones, personal belongings including our clothes." One claims that the Israeli commandos initiated the conflict with shooting. More:

Dimitris Gielalis, who had been aboard the Sfendoni, told reporters: "Suddenly from everywhere we saw inflatables coming at us, and within seconds fully equipped commandos came up on the boat. They came up and used plastic bullets, we had beatings, we had electric shocks, any method we can think of, they used."

Michalis Grigoropoulos, who was at the wheel of the Free Mediterranean, said: "We were in international waters. The Israelis acted like pirates, completely out of the normal way that they conduct nautical exercises, and seized our ship. They took us hostage, pointing guns at our heads; they descended from helicopters and fired tear gas and bullets. There was absolutely nothing we could do … Those who tried to resist forming a human ring on the bridge were given electric shocks."

So there were tasers?

NYT Magazine's Lynn Hirschberg sparked a feud with hip-hop artist M.I.A (aka Maya Arulpragasam) in a scathing cover story:

In the press, Maya was labeled a terrorist sympathizer by some; others charged her with being unsophisticated about the politics of Sri Lanka. “People in exile tend to be more nationalistic,” [Ahilan Kadirgamar at Sri Lanka Democracy Forum] said. “And Maya took a very simplistic explanation of the problems between Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese government and the Tamils. It’s very unfair when you condemn one side of this conflict. The Tigers were killing people, and the government was killing people. It was a brutal war, and M.I.A. had a role in putting the Tigers on the map. She doesn’t seem to know the complexity of what these groups do.”

Ackerman plucks out the more provocative passages. M.I.A. retaliated by tweeting Hirschberg's cell phone number, which the writer called "infuriating" but not surprising. And the rapper has already come out with a song about the spat.

Like many observers, George Packer views the flotilla attack as a media victory for Israel’s enemies:

Sunday night’s incident showed again that the most powerful force in international relations today is neither standing armies nor diplomatic councils, but public opinion as shaped by media. The presence of an Al Jazeera crew on one ship proves that the pro-Gazans understand completely the main arena in which they’re operating. The American military learned this truth slowly and the hard way in Iraq and Afghanistan.

No one else cared if it was insurgents dressed as ordinary men who triggered an attack; what always shaped the world’s judgment was footage of soldiers retaliating with overwhelming firepower. (The recent WikiLeaks video is a good example; Raffi Khatchadourian has more about WikiLeaks this week in the magazine.) For years, the military would release self-justifying (and often misleading) statements that only inflamed opinion and strengthened the hand of the insurgents. Over time, American soldiers learned that they had to care what the world—especially Iraqis and Afghans—thought. They started trying harder to avoid such incidents, and, when that failed, to control their effect by owning up faster to their own responsibility.