World News and Trends: "Beating up on Israel"

It's hard to improve on The Wall Street Journal'sabove title when it comes to accurately depicting the global siege directed against Israel for its enforcing of its naval blockade of terrorist-ruled Gaza.

Canada is one of the few countries left in the world whose government and press remains reasonably friendly to Tel Aviv. The Jerusalem-based correspondent for the Toronto Globe and Mail observed, "The speed and intensity with which governments around the world condemned the Israeli behavior appears unprecedented" (Patrick Martin, "Israel's Status Slips as Governments Around the World Condemn Raid," May 31, 2010).

Politicians and journalists ransacked their vocabularies for phrases deemed apt enough to describe their bias and ill-will towards tiny Israel. The Israeli action in stopping six ships was variously described as "piracy, banditry and barbarism," "the massacre of Gaza," "the true face of barbarism," "state terrorism" and "a blatant defiance of civilized values."

Longtime White House reporter Helen Thomas opined that the Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and return to Germany, Poland and the United States. While she was forced into retirement over these remarks, being almost 90, her sentiments are shared by many people the world over.

Few bothered to ascertain the crucial background facts—or willfully ignored them—for Israel's case before unleashing a storm of verbal criticism. Few seemed to recall the fact that Israel has already endured 3,300 rocket attacks since unilaterally and voluntarily departing from Gaza five years ago.

A pro-Palestinian demonstration suddenly materialized in New York City's Times Square. Similar gatherings occurred in Washington D.C., London, Rome, Athens, Oslo and Stockholm.

Trying to reason with people on behalf of the Israeli embassy in Washington, spokesman Jonathan Peled wrote in USA Today, "Israel is not at strife with the people of Gaza and goes to great lengths to organize the transfer of some 15,000 tons of humanitarian aid each week" ("Opposing View on battle in the Middle East: 'A Bloody PR Stunt,'" June 1, 2010).

Of course, the terror group Hamas, which rules Gaza with an iron fist, has many times taken active advantage of Israel's already battered global image to advance its relentless attack on the country's very existence. Yet according to London Telegraph reporter Adrian Blomfield, "Some [citizens of Gaza] in the battered enclave blame Hamas and its overlords for their depredations" (The Sunday Telegraph, June 6, 2010).

Peled further stated, "Hamas not only calls for the destruction of Israel and works hard to achieve it, but also deprives its own population of basic human rights and freedoms."

Telegraph columnist Charles Moore wrote: "Israel has fought so long, and usually so well, in real battles, but it seems to have forgotten how to fight in verbal ones. On the day of the flotilla incident, all the outraged governments were on the airwaves almost before anything had happened. But it took five and a half hours before the Israeli Ambassador in America appeared in public" ("Why Has Israel Disarmed Itself in the Battle for World Opinion?" The Daily Telegraph, June 4, 2010).

Daniel Henninger, reporting for The Wall Street Journal, summed up the disturbing lack of character and resolve among many in government for tackling difficult problems: "In any of the places where men discuss truly monstrous and dangerous plans, in Kim Jong Il's Pyongyang or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Tehran, watching this hyperventilated criticism of Israel for a shoot-out on a boat must strike them as laughable . . .

If the world's powers unload like this only on relatively small, isolated nations like Israel, then clearly the keepers of the world order find it easier to be blowhards than statesmen" (June 3, 2010). (Sources: The Telegraph, The Spectator, BBC News [all London], The Globe and Mail  [Toronto], USA Today, The Wall Street Journal.)