Love of the Land: Israel's 'paranoia'

Israel's 'paranoia'

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
07 March '10

The British Sunday paper The Observer devoted one of its recent editorials to an ostensibly well-meaning lecture about what really, truly was in Israel's best interest. The title counseled that "Israel can accelerate peace by exercising restraint," and the sub-header elaborated: "The diplomatic challenge is to help Israel grasp how its failure even to engage with international opinion risks an isolation which will make the country much less secure."

The piece was open for comments by readers for just 12 hours, but attracted more than 300 responses in this time, and if the thrust of these comments reflected "international opinion", they provided a good example of the futility of any Israeli efforts to "engage" with this kind of utterly misinformed and deeply hostile audience.

The analysis offered in the editorial suggested that:

Israeli policy is driven by two fears. The first, quite justified, is that the country is mostly surrounded by hostile states, some of which host terrorist attacks against its civilians. The second, unjustified, is that criticism from any quarter includes an implicit question of the legitimacy of the Jewish state. That paranoia leads to constant reliance on isolationist militarism which, as well as creating terrible injustice for the Palestinians, has consistently failed to provide the security that Israelis crave."

The assessment that efforts to provide Israelis the security they "crave" have " consistently failed" is most peculiar given that the relevant Israeli authorities reported at the end of last year that in 2009, there was "a marked decrease in the volume of terrorist attacks compared to previous years."

Any editorial writers who would like to dispense free advice on how best to achieve the "security that Israelis crave" could also benefit from contemplating the graphic that accompanies the quoted report, because it vividly illustrates that Israeli efforts to achieve peace in Camp David and Taba from summer 2000 to January 2001 were followed by the violence of the so-called "Al Aqsa intifada."

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Love of the Land: Israel's 'paranoia'

ISRAELI SECUTITY GUARDS REPEL SOMALI PIRATE ATTACK

Israeli Security Guards Repel Somali Pirate Attack

Italian 1,500 passenger cruise ship Melody was attacked by Somali Pirates after dinnertime Saturday as it sailed north of the Seychelles and about 500 miles (800 kilometers) east of Somalia, according to the anti-piracy flotilla headquarters of the Maritime Security Center Horn of Africa. The Melody was traveling up Africa's east coast, from Durban, South Africa to Genoa, Italy.

The ship's Italian Commander, Ciro Pinto said the pirates fired "like crazy" with automatic weapons, slightly damaging the liner, when they approached in a small, white Zodiac-like boat.

"After about four or five minutes, they tried to put a ladder up," Pinto told Sky TG24.

According to the company's director Domenico Pellegrino, the private 6 man Israeli security force aboard the MSC Cruises ocean liner Melody returned fire on the pirates Saturday with pistols and water hoses, preventing them from boarding.

"It was an emergency operation," Pellegrino told The Associated Press. "They didn't expect such a quick response. They were surprised."

Passengers were ordered to return to their cabins and the lights on deck were switched off. The massive vessel then sailed on in darkness, eventually escorted by a Spanish warship to make sure it made it to its next port.

"It felt like we were in war," the ship's Italian Commander, Ciro Pinto, told Italian state radio. "They were starting to climb up but we reacted, we started to fire ourselves. When they saw our fire, and also the water from the water hoses that we started to spray toward the Zodiac, they left and went away ... They followed us for a bit, about 20 minutes," he said.

Pellegrino said MSC Cruises had Israeli private security forces on all their ships because they were the best. He said the pistols on board were at the discretion of the commander and the security forces.

Saturday's exchange of fire between the Melody and pirates was one of the first reported between pirates and a nonmilitary ship. Civilian shipping and passenger ships have generally avoided arming crewmen or hiring armed security.

Huh?

Why would anyone go near that area of the world unarmed?

On second thought,why would anyone go anywhere unarmed?

taken from: DoubleTapper (http://doubletapper.blogspot.com/
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