When menace lurks behind every door 

If the Israelis approached civilian craft in international waters with the intention to – and in fact did – board, take control of and then tow, or with armed force cause, those craft to land in an Israeli port, isn’t that piracy? What is the difference really between the the Israelis and the Somali pirates? […despite the claim by Mark Regev, the unctuous Israeli spokesperson, that (“as you know”) interception on the high seas with warning is allowed in some convention or other …]

There are, however, these Articles from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea:

Article 88:   Reservation of the high seas for peaceful purposes

The high seas shall be reserved for peaceful purposes.

Article 89:    Invalidity of claims of sovereignty over the high seas

No State may validly purport to subject any part of the high seas to its sovereignty.

Article 90:    Right of navigation

Every State, whether coastal or land-locked, has the right to sail ships flying its flag on the high seas.

Article 110 :   Right of visit

1. Except where acts of interference derive from powers conferred by treaty, a warship which encounters on the high seas a foreign ship, other than a ship entitled to complete immunity in accordance with articles 95 and 96, is not justified in boarding it unless there is reasonable ground for suspecting that:

(a) the ship is engaged in piracy;
(b) the ship is engaged in the slave trade;
(c) the ship is engaged in unauthorized broadcasting and the flag State of the warship has jurisdiction under article 109;
(d) the ship is without nationality; or
(e) though flying a foreign flag or refusing to show its flag, the ship is, in reality, of the same nationality as the warship.

As far as one knows there is no suggestion that the flotilla was suspected of piracy, slavery, unauthorised broadcasting, or having no or bogus nationality.

There is just one thing you need to know in order to understand Israeli politics: 

NEVER AGAIN

If you understand that you understand the Wall, this recent piracy, and even Mark Regev (ptooey ptooey) — possibly Australia’s most embarrassing export.

They will do and say ANYTHING – lie, cheat, kill, stab friends in the back – whatever it takes to maintain their existence so that NEVER AGAIN will they be the victims.

You can understand this for obvious historical reasons.

Of course, the problem is that this attitude/policy makes them their own victims; cages and imprisons them and shrouds them in the fog of their own delusion and blindness.

They blockade the Palestinians, but they also besiege themselves.

The paradox is that a policy that is all about NOT being a victim, because it is predicated on the reaction to victimhood actually makes the policy all about being a victim – in the present and into the future. And protecting against victimhood ignites the resentment and fuels the very fury that threatens them.

Who are they, after all, if they are not Victim reacting to Victimhood, struggling for survival in a hostile world in which terror surrounds them, menace lurks behind every door and NOBODY can be trusted?

Who are they?

What else is Israel?

What else do, or could, they stand for?

That’s the question for them that, when they can answer it, might free them and much of the rest of the world.

Anyway, it’s fascinatingly awful to watch them self-destructing, as they are – making increasingly appalling choices, telling increasingly preposterous lies and taking increasingly hysterical actions, marching with deliberate, inexorable, arrogance to self-inflicted defeat.