Israel took the bait....

...and lost the moral high ground. It's been awhile since I've posted because there hasn't been an event that really provoked a response until now. (The Gulf Oil spill just makes me feel hopeless and depressed, and there's not much unfortunately that WE can do to solve the problem.)

Israel's response to the Turkish flotilla with humanitarian aid to Gaza was in the vein of recent military operations for the past 3 years: OVERKILL.  But Ernie, the Turks were trying to provoke a response!  Yes, they were but Israel took the bait and then some.  They used an inordinate amount of force and lost their moral high ground in the process.

A 19-year old U.S. citizen was found dead with a bullet in his his chest and four bullets through his head at close range.  (I think you got him guys.) And after all is said and done, the Israeli Defense Forces killed 9 people and wounded many more to stop the dangerous shipment of...musical instruments and coriander.  Wow, guys...WOW.

North Korea, which has a nuclear weapon (or two) likely sunk a South Korean battleship killing 40 sailors and South Korea responded by...resuming high level military drills. Hmmmmmm.  Is something amiss?

I love Israel and I want it to survive.  I wish its people stability, security and happiness. The existence of a Jewish State is an important and essential entity as a spiritual center and an ideological pushback on the world of anti-semitism.  It is because the existence of a Jewish State is so important, that Israel must act in its own self-interest and right now its own self-righteousness is slowly doing itself in.

Israel is a major world power that is lately not acting like one. A real world power understands that it cannot overreact to activists and dissidents.  A real world power allows those activists a space to express their views, however abhorrent, without the overbearing force of a police state.  The era of nation-state warfare is over.  Major world powers and armies are fighting against random groups of young adult men armed with rocks, knives, and light weaponry.  The task of traditional military powers is beating these forces without exacerbating the conditions that produced them in the first place.  Take a page from the Civil Rights movement, you can either be the sympathetic victim or the arrogant douchebag.  The next time Turkish activists try to pour food all over you, don't overreact and win the bigger battle.