Ron Radosh: The Flotilla Crisis and Israel’s Would-Be Friends

[Ron Radosh is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Hudson Institute, and a Prof. Emeritus of History at the City University of New York's Queensborough Community College]

The truth about Israel and the terrorist flotilla is now apparent for anyone who wants to see. The problem, however, is the one various people, like Max Boot, have alluded to. Israel, by the way it dealt with the problem, handed Hamas and its opponents a major propaganda victory. Daniel Pipes makes much the same point. Nevertheless, this leaves no excuse for the various left-wing and liberal commentators who have seized the moment to find new reasons to bash Israel, and to portray it as the aggressor. As Boot points out, “The so-called Gaza flotilla, comprising eight ships and roughly 800 participants, was not put together by peace-loving humanitarians primarily worried about relieving the suffering of Gaza residents.” Rather, it was a project of the Turkish Insani Yardim Vakfi, an ally of various global jihadist terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda....

So what Israel got was a PR disaster, from which it is now trying to recover. Nevertheless, some clearheaded mainstream foreign policy observers have seen the truth without a problem. Leslie Gelb is one of them....