Wall St. Journal
OPINION EUROPE JUNE 7, 2010
The War Against Israel
Terror, lies and slander are the main tools of the Leftist-Islamist alliance
against the Jewish state.
BY GERALD M. STEINBERG Jerusalem
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704025304575283832128809598.html

The blurring of terrorist-activists and civilians that characterizes 21st
century warfare took on a new dimension in the violent confrontation between
the "Free Gaza Flotilla" and the Israeli Navy last week. Ostensibly, the
hundreds of passengers on a ship carrying a large Turkish flag were "peace
activists" on a "humanitarian" mission to bring aid to Palestinians "trapped
behind the Israeli blockade." But this moral façade hid a strategy of
engaging Israel in a bloody confrontation to exploit the "halo effect"
(automatically granted to groups claiming moral missions) and to reinforce
the image of Israelis as "war criminals."

Despite all the misreporting, Gaza is not starving as Israel allows tons of
food, drugs and humanitarian aid to reach Gaza every day. The entirely legal
naval blockade is designed to prevent arms, primarily from Iran, from
reaching the terrorists in Gaza, from which Israel withdrew in 2005. The
flotilla's aim was not to feed ordinary Palestinians, but to help Hamas
break the embargo so that it can bring in weapons.

The "Free Gaza" group is a potent example of how the new alliance between
radical-left Western groups and Jihadists is waging this new war. In 2001,
1,500 organizations, both Islamic and Western, participated in the NGO Forum
of the United Nations Durban Conference on Racism. They declared Israel to
be "a racist, apartheid state" and "a crime against humanity," while calling
on the "international community to impose a policy of complete and total
isolation." To advance this hate agenda, Israel's enemies would use terror
attacks to provoke an inevitable response, and then strip away the context
to highlight allegations of "war crimes."

The approach was implemented in the 2002 Jenin massacre myth, when
Palestinian lies alleging Israeli atrocities were reported by the mainstream
media and NGOs as facts. This strategy was further perfected in the 2006
Lebanon and 2009 Gaza wars, when Hezbollah and Hamas respectively attacked
Israeli civilians while hiding behind their own civilian populations. Israel
was then held responsible for the unavoidable death of civilians in the
cause of its legitimate self-defense. In each case, false allegations of
"war crimes" were published by NGOs and then adopted by U.N. inquiries, such
as the deeply flawed Goldstone report.

The "Free Gaza" round of provocation and condemnation marks a major
escalation. The Turkish Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH Humanitarian Relief
Foundation) reportedly purchased the boats and provided the crew, as well as
the paramilitary forces that attacked the Israeli boarding party. As the
videos from the ship's own security cameras and the IDF show (
www.youtube.com/user/idfnadesk ), the soldiers acted in legitimate
self-defense as they were assaulted by a lynch mob armed with slingshots,
steel bars, broken glass bottles, chairs, chains, and knives. Prior to the
flotilla launch, activists chanted Islamic battle cries "[Remember] Khaibar,
Khaibar, oh Jews! The army of Muhammad will return!" Khaibar was the last
Jewish village defeated by Muhammad's army in 628. The battle marked the end
of Jewish presence in Arabia.

One participant told Al Jazeera, "Either the Israelis let us reach Gaza, or
they can stop us . . . . We can also die as martyrs and never return, which
is okay with us."

For the IHH, as in the case of other Islamist charities, the "humanitarian
relief" dimension is a cover, or at best, a side show. IHH is a prominent
member of the "Union of the Good," which was designated by the U.S.
government as "an organization created by the Hamas leadership to transfer
funds to the terrorist organization." In 1997, before the Islamist AKP came
to power in Turkey, a police raid on an IHH building in Istanbul found
weapons, explosives, and instructions for making improvised explosive
devices widely used by insurgents and terror groups.

At a 2001 U.S. Federal trial emanating from the Millenium plot to bomb the
Los Angeles airport, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the leading French
counter-terrorism investigating magistrate, gave evidence on the IHH's
"important role" in obtaining weapons, documents and dispatching fighters in
various al-Qaida operations. A 2006 report published by the Danish Institute
for International Studies quotes from Mr. Bruguiere's legal depositions,
including revelations that Turkish authorities had uncovered IHH links to
Al-Qaeda in Milan and to Algerian terrorists in Europe, as well as having
had a major role in recruiting militants sent to Bosnia, Chechnya, and
Afghanistan.

Thus, the IHH was a logical vehicle for the Islamist-led Turkish government,
headed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to turn against its former
ally Israel. While embracing Syria and Iran, Mr. Erdogan is fueling
anti-Israel hatred in his country and throughout the region.

The second partner in this violent "humanitarian" confrontation was the
International Solidarity Movement (ISM) which promotes Palestinian
"resistance" and fuels the violence. On April 30, 2003, a suicide terrorist
blew himself up at the entrance to Mike's Place, a popular bar on the Tel
Aviv beach promenade. Three Israelis were murdered, and over 50 wounded.
Just a few days before the attack, the terrorists (British citizens) had
spent time with a group of ISM members.

Indeed, ISM declares on its own website that its mission is to "support and
strengthen the Palestinian popular resistance" through direct confrontation
with the IDF. In 2002, ISM co-founder Adam Shapiro and his Palestinian-born
wife promoted both "non-violent and violent" tactics in support of the
Palestinian resistance. "Yes, people will get killed and injured," but these
deaths are "no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation" and "would
be considered shaheed," using the Arabic word for "martyr," usually applied
to suicide bombers.

The ISM's Caoimhe Butterly-a prominent Irish participant in the Free Gaza
campaign-has had many run-ins with the IDF. In April 2002, following a
series of Palestinian terror bombings that led to the IDF's operation
"Defensive Shield," she spent 16 days as a "human shield" in Yasser Arafat's
compound.

The hysteria, extreme hatred for the West, and for Israel, in particular, is
a trademark of many ISM members. According to ISM media coordinator Flo
Rosovski, "'Israel' is an illegal entity that should not exist." For the
ISM, like IHH, labels like "peace activists" and "humanitarian aid workers"
are convenient masks for this hatred.

In addition, this Leftist-Islamist alliance is supported and legitimized by
mainstream NGOs, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

Notwithstanding embarrassing exposes on how, in May 2009, HRW solicited
funds from the Saudis by touting the need to counter Jewish and "pro-Israel
pressure groups," and the documentation of its systematic anti-Israeli bias,
this organization immediately joined in the condemnations of Israel. These
once-respected watchdogs have become an integral part of the efforts to
criminalize legitimate responses to terror through false allegations of
human rights violations.

For the "peace activists" aboard the Free Gaza Flotilla, the deaths and the
images of violence from their excursion are viewed as a great success. As an
IHH official in Istanbul declared, "We are very thankful to the Israeli
authorities." Once again, Israel is on the front lines of this strategy, but
NATO and the West are next in line in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen and
elsewhere.
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Mr. Steinberg teaches political science at Bar Ilan University and heads NGO
Monitor.