Why isn’t the “Free Gaza” crowd organizing flotillas to Syria too?
Free Gaza is a hypocritical organization, of course. Egypt shares a border with the Gaza Strip, and is tightening its own blockade, but Free Gaza activists seem uninterested. They are also uninterested in the sins of Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza. The Israeli blockade was a response, in large part, to the unfortunate (and ongoing) Hamas practice of firing rockets into Israeli villages. But put aside Hamas’s crimes against Israelis; the Free Gaza website also makes no mention of a recent report from Human Rights Watch that found that Gaza’s Hamas-run criminal-justice system “reeks of injustice, routinely violates detainees’ rights, and grants impunity to abusive security services.”…
What does this all mean? I’ve been asking for months why the international left hasn’t shown solidarity with the Syrian people — an estimated 30,000 of whom have been killed by the fascist Baath party — by launching a flotilla to Syria’s Mediterranean coastline. Gazans have a miserable life, but their suffering today pales in comparison to that of Syrians. So why don’t the people behind the Gaza flotillas organize a relief effort? The answer is simple: If the Syrians were being slaughtered by Israelis, they would.
I’ve always suspected that many of those on the far left who express solidarity with Palestinians are less interested in helping the Palestinians than in scapegoating their Jewish adversaries. Berlin might have inadvertently helped the world understand that the extreme left has something in common with the extreme right: an obsessive interest in demonizing the Jews.
Blowback
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Well, for one thing, Assad would kill them.
Kind of reminds me of Gandhi protesting against the British in India. How do you think the Nazis would have treated the skinny guy?
hepcat on October 9, 2012 at 9:53 PM
More like the Syrian military would kill everyone on board and sink the ship. They are in an open state of civil war. Whereas Gaza is its own independent state, and is being blockaded by Israel. Syria could justify lethal force, while Israel has a much harder time doing so.
jayhawkboilermaker on October 9, 2012 at 10:01 PM
The notion that fascism comes from the “extreme right” has bothered me for some time, such as what Goldberg infers by this line:
The two sides may come together in the end, as was suggested by CS Lewis in The Pilgrim’s Regress, but fascism is not the means by which the two eventually meet.
Above all else, the political Left sees Government as its saviour, required to ensure the notion of “fairness” is maintained for all; e.g., class war, workers vs corporations, etc., etc., etc. Values are bestowed and managed by the State so as to “protect” people from the vagaries of religion, regardless of form; or, where a certain religion is accepted, its acceptance hinges on the group’s belief that such acceptance is necessary for the good of the group (e.g., cults).
The political Right, by comparison, eschews Government to ensure the rights of individuals. The Right generally embraces religions of some form, but the focus is on the individual.
So to illustrate, the Left, at its far end, eventually becomes the totalitarian State; whereas the right eventually becomes isolated, at its far end, a band of hermits, if you will. Stalin vs Hawkeye.
And one should never forget that the cause celebre of the Left, the belief that fascism leading up to WWII was a political Rightist phenomenon, should always be rebuked by the fact that at its nadir, fascism was Socialist by its own admission (the Nazi Party’s official name was NSDAP, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party).
There is a reason the environmental movement is said to be a “watermelon” movement, and why the social justice movement is so very one sided when it comes to who gets to express their political views without complaint. In the heart of anyone whose superiority complex feels compelled to try to force you to do what they believe is right, regardless of your own right to act within the law and petition government regarding things you believe are important, is the beating heart of a thug, a fascist, and ultimately, a dictator.
Wanderlust on October 9, 2012 at 10:13 PM
Because they’re anti-semites?
Attila (Pillage Idiot) on October 9, 2012 at 10:19 PM
Because Israel isn’t involved. Take a look at the banner of the Turkish group sponsoring the Gaza flotillas (from an article I wrote a year ago on the unbelievable anti-Semitism in Norway, the Useful Infidelism of the Norwegian Left, and the insidious nature of the Islamofascism in Europe):
http://predicthistunpredictpast.blogspot.com/2011/07/norway-tolerant-inclusive-diverse_778.html
It is the last photo on the page.
Resist We Much on October 9, 2012 at 10:23 PM
boilermaker, your last line (“Israel has a much harder time doing so”) is, um, sort of absurd.
There is no situation on Earth – none – where a state in Israel’s position vis-a-vis Gaza would not be obviously and amply justified in not just blockade or quarantine, but incursion and occupation.
This is not even a close case. WTF are you getting at?
Wanderlust, very well put. If anything, too kind/soft on the lefties. It’s not just deep inside, where the beating heart is – it’s the very basis of their whole mindset. Power, control over others, moral engineering, extreme arrogance and narcissism – all of this of course only made possible by an ignorance and lack of critical faculties (try having an intelligent discussion with a fascist/”liberal”/”environmentalist”/socialist/commie/Khmer Rouge/islamofascist).
As someone I know put it, chillingly but dead on – in what historical and substantive sense, in a meaningful way, can a huge bulk of “Americans” today even be considered Americans? It’s not a passport, an accent, or accident of birth. It’s a mindset and a way of centering life around freedom and decency (respect for others). I don’t see that in most people I know, and it’s utterly lacking in the public figures these pernicious deadweights adore and elect.
IceCold on October 9, 2012 at 10:24 PM
Exactly. Somehow this was missed?
slickwillie2001 on October 9, 2012 at 10:46 PM
Heh. The last time I tried having an intelligent discussion with a social liberal, in this case a lesbian, explaining to her that I thought Dan Cathy (of Chick Fil A fame) had just as much right to spend his money in support of causes he believed in as did she, and just as much right to petition government in regards to those issues as did she, the argument did not end well. Having been fed the SPLC line of bullsh*t that the gay marriage issue is a “human rights” issue on par with abolishing slavery and ending racism, the thought that anyone should be allowed to support groups that “trample on my rights” (her words) was abhorrent. No amount of encouraging her to petition government could assuage her anger; no, the fact that I supported a “hater”‘s right to petition government to “encourage hate” meant that in her mind, I must too be “trampl[ing] on [her] rights”. As a result, we are now estranged (she is one of my sisters).
Situations like that only reinforce my belief that leftists, from a moral point of view, are nothing less than secular Puritans; to go against them is the secular version of blasphemy and heresy.
I’d like to remind you, though, that what you see now, the fight between Right and Left can be found all through history. It’s not anything new. Europe was full-on socialist even as the Soviet Union was formed (originally positioned as the pinnacle of Marxist belief). And I will argue that today’s environmental movement is nothing more than the ongoing backlash of royalty who are still angry about losing that whole “divine right of Kings” thing by way of Locke several hundred years earlier.
I’ll leave you with this thought. At the height of feudalism in Europe, according to the late author Michael Crichton, a single Knight and his family required the services of no less than 1400 serfs so that he could live the life to which he was accustomed. The serfs, of course, lived in abject poverty, under an economic tradeoff that allowed them to live and work as slaves under the shelter of the benevolent Knight who ostensibly protected them and allowed them to live there (and slave away all day long for him).
It was a great deal for the Knight, of course, because after all, someone else could be made to pay for his benevolence. Castles, armour, horses, etc. don’t pay for themselves, and having a cadre of poverty-stricken workers who believed that the life they led was their only reasonable option helped things along.
But then a funny thing happened: the archer.
Archers did not require wealth to acquire their weapons and do not require years of specialist training. But the status quo was held for ages because arrows could not pierce a Knight’s heavy armour.
That is, until someone figured out how to make the arrow much more lethal, by way of the crossbow.
Have you ever thought about why crossbows were banned by the Pope as “immoral”, in effect, the first weapon of mass destruction?
The arrow of a regular bow carried a punch against foot soldiers but not Knights, who had horses to carry their very heavy armour that protected them against 100 ft-lb arrows. But the crossbow gave the arrow so much more force that they could pierce a Knight’s armour.
Suddenly, not only were Knights invincible (remember the line about what happens to a god when he bleeds), but also the entire top-down economic system built around them, affecting everyone back in those days – up to, and including, the Pope.
Once Knights were seen to be less than gods, as it were, serfs found other things to do, and eventually Knights were forced to open up their castles to trading so the bills could be paid – hence, the first beginnings of today’s indoor malls.
The Left has been trying to put that genie back in its figurative bottle ever since, and if they are successful with the carbon tax thing, they just might get what they hope for.
Wanderlust on October 9, 2012 at 11:06 PM
Hey wait – don’t longbow/crossbow epic comment threads belong at Ace’s place? (just kidding – and I never did read the thread that created that standard reference point over at Ace’s).
Only one quibble (hey – I said quibble): Europe was not socialist from 1917 – 1925 (by which time one could argue the Soviet Union was fully formed). In fact, it wasn’t socialist, really, until after WWII. I don’t consider a minimal welfare state or a Bismarckian bureaucratic state socialist, for purposes of this (non) discussion.
Nazi of course meant “socialist” as in the “S” in NSAPD. But in power the Nazis actually nationalized fairly small amounts of the economy (while targeting race/political enemies and their businesses, a different thing). They preferred to “coordinate” economic sectors, much as they did all other sectors of society (education, arts, organized labor, law), in effect taking them over but in the most sinister way, indirectly, by intimidating/corrupting enough people to play along and terrifying those who didn’t. Once we’re talking about war and total national mobilization the discussion really just doesn’t apply, and more in Germany than the US, where extraordinary measures were taken (rightly, and with everyone’s assent) for the special short-term purpose of winning the war. Not a matter of principle, or a longer-term plan (even for the New Dealers, in practice).
Though, bizarrely, some minor policies of the war-mobilization period echo down to this day. Wasn’t it the Office of Price Stabilization (can’t recall the exact name) that invented the idea of a tax advantage to company-provided health insurance, as a way to give companies some way to compete, as wages were strictly controlled by that bureaucracy? Why and how the country ever kept that arrangement, and worse allowed it to contribute to the current health care financing insanity, is among the most troubling and incomprehensible failings of the last 50 years.
IceCold on October 9, 2012 at 11:25 PM
I think you’d enjoy the Commanding Heights series, based on the book of the same name by Daniel Yergin (in a bit of supreme irony, the series was produced by PBS). Yergin argues that prior to WWI, market economies flourished in most of the developed world, but the Serb who shot Archduke Ferdinand effectively killed it.
The only difference between the way NSDAP “coordinated” its economic sectors and the way the Obama administration “coordinated” the actions it took surrounding the bailout of GM in 2009 is, no one was publicly threatened to go along with the selective paring down of dealerships and the abrogation of senior bondholder rights at the point of a gun. But the threats and intimidation and corruption were otherwise very similar. Perhaps the main difference now is, one can destroy a person’s livelihood at the touch of a button.
Regarding the Office of Price Stabilization stuff, don’t forget it was Nixon who gave us EPA and wage & price controls in the early 1970′s. Reagan was known to have said that proof of immortality could be found in any government bureaucracy.
Wanderlust on October 10, 2012 at 12:16 AM
Because the so-called “Free Gaza” and “Palestine Solidarity Movement” and all those tiny splinter groups are irrational, among other things.
AlexB on October 10, 2012 at 12:19 AM
Because they’d get killed. Duh.
J.E. Dyer on October 10, 2012 at 12:20 AM
Oh, and here’s another “past is prologue” post, this one coming from Doug Ross’s blog. In Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina, Ross compares and contrasts government actions taken by the Argentinian government in the beginning of the 20th century against those taken by the Democrats over the past several years, and shows what happened to the Argentines by the late 1980′s as a result. Basically it’s a primer on how to kill a powerful economy.
Wanderlust on October 10, 2012 at 12:21 AM
Lol JE, this reminds me of why every gay group that protests against Israel should be made to live in Gaza or Tehran…
Wanderlust on October 10, 2012 at 12:23 AM
Killing and sinking foreign nationals headed towards not your territory is going to cause problems. Think if these activists were all Chinese, I highly doubt the Israelis are looking to cause an international incident with them. The point is Israel’s micromanagement of Gaza’s waters gets them into more hot water than Syria managing its own waters.
jayhawkboilermaker on October 10, 2012 at 12:27 AM
Wanderlust, cannot agree on your comparisons.
Yes – the lawlessness surrounding the looting of GM and Chrysler senior debt-holders (this lawlessness is all-encompassing, to include the judiciary – which in any case has been hollowed out by lawlessness and capricious arrogance for some time) was an unprecedented and shocking event. Even more so because ….. look around you, who even knows about it, understands it, or IS shocked?
But the coordination activities of the Nazis in Germany in the 30s simply cannot be compared. The entire context is completely different. And the outrage of the GM/Chrysler lootings was not part of some all-encompassing totalitarian environment that took the most educated and advanced country in the world into an insane unbelievable nightmare of evil and chaos in the span of 5 or 6 years.
boilermaker, I just can’t follow your reasoning here. If we want to talk tactics and legalities, JE Dyer could step in and offer some authoritative perspective. I was just pointing out that in any other place on Earth with a situation like Israel’s vis-a-vis Gaza, naval interdiction (what the heck is “micromanagement” in this context?) up to full blockade wouldn’t raise an eyebrow, period. “Killing and sinking foreign nationals not headed to your territory” is both slanderous and silly – if those “foreign nationals” are part of an effort to sustain a terrorist war across your border, you damn well can/should kill them. If they are truly “humanitarian”, they are simply ignorant or dishonest, as Gaza has ready access to land-based imports (uh, if you have a problem with Eygpt’s “blockade”, then take it up with the Brotherhood).
What – the “flotilla” bs is actually a serious effort to actually help people who actually need help? Nonsense.
IceCold on October 10, 2012 at 1:45 AM