Yes, it is completely unfair that Israel is getting blamed for simply screwing up what was a morally and legally defensible action against terrorists and their enablers, when the world lets other events go unremarked and uncondemned.
But the Israelis are the last people on Earth who should whine about "fairness." Results matter. Victory matters. Defeat really matters.
And this flotilla incident was not about delivering aid--or even weapons. It wasn't really even about breaking the blockade of Hamas-run Gaza. It is about defeating Israel and isolating Israel to achieve that goal, as Stratfor writes:
The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked. Like the British, they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard? As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world. In this case, the issue will be whether the deaths were necessary. The Israeli argument of provocation will have limited traction.
Just as I've argued that we can't complain about the unfairness of having to restrict our firepower in Afghanistan in order to win the war, Israel does not have the luxury of complaining about the unfairness of the world's reaction--including their for-now ally Turkey. It just doesn't matter that Israel is right on the facts (and to the Obama administration's credit, we believe Israel). That is the real logic of the situation.
Israel needs to win on the field and in the war of public opinion. It does them no good to cling to their rightness and ignore that fact, retreating into righteous isolation. The degree of world hostility really does matter. It certainly matters to how much we can support Israel. And Israel can't survive alone. I don't care how many nukes they have.
The Israelis lost the flotilla battle. And if they keep losing battles, their blockade of Gaza will slowly falter until it fails--just as our blockade of Saddam's Iraq before 2003 was crumbling because Saddam used Iraq's children as a prop to claim we were sickening and killing them with the embargo--even as the logic of his spending on palaces instead of food and medicine for "his" children made his claim ludicrous. We were losing because the world believed the ludicrous in increasing numbers--until we changed the game and threw Saddam and the Baathists out of office.
But Israel has no stomach for overthrowing the Hamas regime directly. They pulled out, and in summer 2006 and in the winter of 2008-2009, did not go for the jugular when Gaza-based terrorists kidnapped one of their soldiers and continued to mortar and rocket Israelis civilians, respectively. So Israel has to maintain the blockade to hope it has a result that at least weakens or possibly overthrows Hamas.
Maybe Israel needs to treat blockade runners the way Greenpeace treats whaling vessels--using net devices to snare propellers and immobilize Hamas ships. Then grapple them and tow them to an Israeli port for inspection.
Or perhaps Israel follows the ships to the beach and then drops, by ship and helicopters, a battalion of infantry to set up a perimeter and a customs team to inspect the ships--all recorded on video--and either confiscate or allow the delivery of the goods. And do it fast to make sure the world knows that all this could be done through the existing channels through Israeli ports.
Israel needs to win--not whine. Because if Israel loses, we know what Gaza under Hamas will look like. It will look like Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon. That's the real logic of the flotilla incident.
UPDATE: Let me clarify a point. While it is perfectly fine for Israel to do what they need to do and damn world opinion, it should always be done with a clear view to what is in their interests. Simply defying world opinion--as screwy as it is--just for the sake of defiance is self-defeating if it strains our ability and willingness to support Israel. Anthony Cordesman, writes, though I don't agree on all of his points to reach this conclusion:
It is time Israel realized that it has obligations to the United States, as well as the United States to Israel, and that it become far more careful about the extent to which it test the limits of U.S. patience and exploits the support of American Jews. This does not mean taking a single action that undercuts Israeli security, but it does mean realizing that Israel should show enough discretion to reflect the fact that it is a tertiary U.S. strategic interest in a complex and demanding world.
More simply put, it is possible to win and be wrong. And it is possible to be right and lose on the strategic level just as Israel was right on the flotilla yet lost that battle.
Complaining about the limits of action that unfair world opinion places on Israel is going down the path of being right but losing.
