Gaza: conveniently ignoring the truth

The truth will never find its way to your TV.

As expected, when Israel is involved, the media (and second-tier politicians) condemn first and then (if at all) ask any questions.

The typical Australian, faced with a home loan repayment mountain that gets steeper every month and constant job worries, relies on the mass media to inform him or her of the day’s events. Watching the mass media, which is devoted to images and text to the exclusion of context, they must to conclude that a bevy of peaceniks singing the Arabic version of Kumbaya and doing little more than ferrying baklava and rose water from Greece and Turkey to the nascent Islamic Emirate of Gaza were set upon by bloodthirsty Israeli commandos, resulting in the deaths of at least nine “peace loving” passengers. The reality is significantly different.

What the popular narrative ignores, however, is the nature of the organisers and the flotilla’s mission. The people behind the so-called “Freedom Flotilla” have a documented history with terrorists. The primary sponsor, Insani Yardim Vakfi (the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation also known as IHH), was identified by the CIA as far back as 1996 as a terrorist-tied entity with links to Iran. French magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguière testified that IHH had a history of co-operation with Islamic terrorists.

This video shows just how friendly the “peace loving” passengers were, “welcoming” the Israeli boarding party on the ships with metal bars and chains, beating them before tossing one Israeli overboard, possibly damaging his skull in the process.

Facts conveniently disregarded by the media, especially Fairfax. Including the most paramount fact of all: that the Israel Defense Forces acted lawfully. Just as Britain and Russia did when they enforced a blockade on Nazi Germany.

Also missing from mainstream media coverage was that non-lethal supplies from the flotilla could have been transported to the terror enclave from an Israeli (or for that matter an Egyptian) port by road, after inspection. But that offer was snubbed. The reasoning was simple: flotilla spokeswoman Ms Greta Berlin announced last week to Agence France-Presse, "this mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies, it's about breaking Israel's siege". The best that can be said of her is that she, unlike the majority of the mass media, is honest about her bias.

Islam’s answer to CNN, Al-Jazeera TV, last week showed passengers chanting "Khyber, Khyber", a favorite chant of jihadists because it recalls a battle where Mohammad's army in AD629 offered Jews, in a town 90km north of Medina, a choice: submit to second-class citizenship under the yoke of Islam or die. Many Jews were butchered and the balance surrendered to Islam.

Keeping to form, the mainstream media (with The Australian being the standout exception) should have given full context:

• namely that the blockade of Gaza is a joint enterprise of both Israel and Egypt and seeks to inconvenience the HAMAS government;
• there is no "humanitarian crisis," as claimed by the flotilla's propaganda, given that approximately 100 aid trucks enter Gaza every day; and
• that the only so-called crisis that is brewing in Gaza is the regard HAMAS' is held in by the public. A decaying economy - a direct result of the partnership between Jerusalem and Cairo - has seriously undermined HAMAS' standing among its public sector employees in particular as well as the general population of Gaza.

Not surprisingly, few of these facts found their way into the mainstream media's coverage. The Sydney Morning Herald’s coverage was/is so sympathetic to the terror supporters on board the ships that the flotilla organisers themselves well could have authored the reporting. There was absolutely no categorical mention of the fact that Gaza’s democratically elected government is sworn to the annihilation of the Jewish people, in its charter, in its mission and by its deeds.

What are the Jews supposed to do? Dig their own graves and offer no resistance?

Appeasing terrorists or their allies never helps. In fact, it only serves to embolden jihadists.

Take Ankara’s demand that Israel releases all the passengers, including the seven members of Islamic Terror group, IHH, who were filmed beating to near death the Israeli boarding party. This obscene demand was swiftly complied with.

Having managed to humiliate Israel, the Turks then commanded that the Gaza blockade be lifted. At once.

In a televised message to the nation last Thursday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised, "to continue to uphold our right to self-defense against terror". Pointedly, he stayed “mum” with respect to his intentions on the blockade.

Turkey’s intimate involvement supporting the pro HAMAS flotilla is best understood through the support they gave the Irish vessel, the Rachel Corrie. This ship was left out of the flotilla after it developed engine trouble, and on Saturday was intercepted by the Israeli Navy and escorted to the Israeli port of Ashdod from where its cargo was forwarded to Gaza.

That is bad news.

What is far worse news is Turkey’s Prime Minister Racip Erdogan, whose government sponsored the flotilla, is clearly determined that the HAMAS sympathisers will reach Gaza.

His determination to raise rather than defuse tension between Turkey and Israel is clear. On Friday he leaked word that his challenge to the blockade of Gaza will continue with another 10 ships in the next flotilla. And this time the ships will be escorted by Turkish warships.

It seems that having the blood of Israelis enforcing a lawful blockade as well as the blood of IHH terrorists in addition to injuries of over 40 others on the MaviMarmara is not enough for Ankara.

Sunday’s Washington Post called for Turkey’s Prime Minister Erdogan's government's ties to terrorism to be investigated by any international examination into the flotilla, pointing to its support for HAMAS, which Australia and the United States has designated as a terrorist entity. The Post called Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutogolu's statement that the Israeli attack "is like 9/11 for Turkey" obscene.

Ahead of the Mavi Marmara incident, Erdogan, in Turkish occupied Cyprus began deploying air and naval units, readying them to repel any Israeli action Ankara finds disagreeable with respect to the HAMAS-bound vessels. He was only restrained from sending them into action by the 11th-hour intervention of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who threatened him with hitherto unheard of isolation in NATO and Europe if he dared to go ahead.

On the weekend, the Turkish leader made it known that he is considering joining the next flotilla in person to dramatise his confrontation with the Jews.

That may well happen.

With Erdogan steering Turkey, the post-Ottoman republic isn’t exactly steaming in the direction that Kemal Ataturk has hoped for: a vibrant secular nation. Since his day, Turkey’s population has ballooned from 14 million to nearly 70 million, with the bulk of the growth in the eastern (agrarian and Islamic) region. The western (notionally secular) part has not kept up the birthrate. The eastern regions never embraced secularism and now with their man in Ankara, they don’t have to.

The biggest mistake the West can make is to mock or belittle Islamic warriors like Erdogan. His intimate relations with the world’s leading scoundrels, including Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir are not reckless adventures. They are strategic and deeply considered. And smart from where he’s sitting.

Mirroring Eastern Europeans states and China, he is convinced that Washington is aping many empires in its decline, and therefore any behaviour of Ankara that Washington doesn’t like will not be responded to with anything stronger than words. America, especially under Barrack Obama, hasn’t the stomach for policing anymore.

After all he reasons: Iran is about to go nuclear and Obama in Washington has refused to wave the big stick at the mullahs. Would Washington really retaliate against a few ships carrying crude missiles?

Turkey’s exhibition of explicit contempt for Jerusalem and implicit contempt for Washington is terrible. But the Turkish Navy possibly challenging Israel in the Mediterranean is nothing short of catastrophic.

It signals that Europe (through Turkey’s membership of NATO) is declaring war on the Jews. And this is the stuff of nightmares.

Just ask the six million.