talks

Your concept of "Israeli security" is probably wrong. If you're a part of the hoards of people protesting Israel's interception of the flotilla, you just don't get it: Israel will risk everything if it thinks its security is the least bit in jeopardy. If you're Israeli and believe in the need for overwhelming violence, your grasp of "security" is outdated, outmoded and unsustainable.

The Israeli attack on the Gaza-bound "Freedom Flotilla" has put the United States in a difficult position. But it has also given Washington an opening for a game-changing action. When ships on a humanitarian mission to the besieged Gaza Strip were violently confronted in international waters, the Obama administration was faced with a choice between one strategic ally, Israel, and a larger international community centered on a key NATO ally, Turkey. The United States also has to be careful to protect fragile Palestinian-Israeli proximity talks that took U.S.

As expected, Israel matched its use of overwhelming force against the passengers on the Mavi Marmara with an equally vigorous attempt to shape both how the story played out in U.S. media and the official response from the U.S. Government.

To that end they prepared talking points, enlisted the efforts of their lobby, and mobilized a virtual army of activists to monitor, respond to and pressure press, politicians and electronic web-postings.

The unprecedented enthusiasm in the Arab and Muslim World which greeted Barack Obama's election win nearly 20 months ago has been replaced with disappointment and anger.

Millions of Arabs and Muslims applauded when Barack Obama addressed the Muslim World in Cairo on June 4 last year, and cheered him when he said "America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own".

The Israel Gaza attack on Monday, a flotilla raid involving activists delivering aid to Palestinians, led to the death of nine passengers and worldwide condemnation.

By Stephen P. Cohen
Author, "Beyond America's Grasp: A Century of Failed Diplomacy in the Middle East."

Until the tragic and reckless Israeli raid on the Gaza flotilla, three recent developments dominated the current environment in the Middle East and offered President Obama opportunities for successful Arab-Israeli peacemaking:
• Proximity talks between the Palestinians and the Israelis finally began, creating a slim hope of breaking the impasse on that front.
• A very wide international consensus emerged on further sanctions against Iran.

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.

The raid provoked ferocious international condemnation of Israel, raised questions at home, and appeared likely to increase pressure to end the blockade that has deepened the poverty of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the strip.

Some 2,000 demonstrators gathered outside Israel's Ministry of Defense late Monday to protest the military's violent raid on an aid flotilla that attempted to break the country's years-long siege on the Gaza Strip.

Approximately 100 Tel Aviv and border police officers were present and one left-wing activist, Matan Cohen, was arrested. A few dozen right-wing Israelis staged a counter-protest, but police kept them from interfering in the leftists' demonstration.

The fact that Israeli commandos were allowed to kill 10--and possibly as many as 20--pro-Palestinian activists aboard a small flotilla of boats, presumably bringing humanitarian supplies to Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, is symptomatic of how clueless the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is. These supplies were said to include building materials, electric-powered wheelchairs, and water purifiers.