RANT: Israel - A State of Denial

Israel continues to be pounded from many quarters on the international stage in the aftermath of the raid on an aid ship by Israeli commandos on May 31st. At least nine people on board the ship died as a result of the Israeli actions. In short, Israeli aggression.

As much as it has become normative over the years, I am still astounded at the sheer arrogance and Orwellian double-speak being deployed by Israeli commentators and authorities in their own defense. Their defense of the indefensible is astounding. In TV show after TV show the Israelis comes across as hyper-defensive, forever the 'victim of others, yet curiously very aggressive as well.

And woe betide any commentator or reporter who probes too much or, heaven forbid, disagrees with or challenges the Israeli position. The Israeli response is either that of outraged vitriol or condescending dismisiveness bordering on the smug and patronizing. And the excuses, expressed as 'hard' fact or 'inevitable' truth, come thick and fast. And that's all that they are - excuses. Pathetic ones at that.

The levels of Israeli denial have become gargantuan in scope and hypocrisy.

It would seem that this has become the way of a nation that has become a law unto itself. A nation that conducts its affairs with impunity. A nation out of control within the context of international law. A rogue nation.

Yet again, the United States chooses to respond to Israeli aggression and illegality with words like 'regrets the deaths of..." and "the US trusts Israel to conduct a full investigation". Little wonder that Israel feels so able to act in such an illegal and hyper-aggressive manner, whether the theatre of its aggression be Gaza or Lebanon or the West Bank or, what the hell, even in a luxury hotel in Dubai.

Blessings of America, even if 'tacit', not to mention billions of dollars in aid from said America, and an Arab world too fractured and too incompetent to do anything of worth, and Israel just keeps going on and on and on and on...

The Israelis did not need to board that ship with that much force and aggression. Their actions were overly aggressive and provocative. They acted illegally in international waters. Their blockade of Gaza is illegal under the Geneva Convention. The effective entrapment of 1.5-million people in Gaza is illegal and inhumane.

But let it be said here loud and clear: Israel acts with such impunity and with such arrogance based on a constant barrage of denial and disinformation precisely because the world, in the end, really does very little.

And as long as the world continues to do so little to effectively condemn and rein in Israel, so then will the Israel of today continue to be nothing more than an aggressive apartheid state dressed up as a legitimate democracy.

It's a demented, self-serving and morally schizophrenic lager mentality that reminds me so much of living in apartheid South Africa back in the 1980s...

Do you get my point?