Another Observation about the Flotilla

flotilla

Andrew Exum:

for the sake of argument, and putting ourselves in the shoes of an Israeli naval commander, let’s assume the most malevolent of motivations for the people participating in the peace flotilla. If I am in charge of doing that for the Israeli Navy, I am going to assume these people are smart and are deliberately trying to provoke a crazy response from my sailors and soldiers that will produce ready-for-television images that both isolate Israel within the international community and further raise the ire of the Arabic-speaking and Islamic worlds. I mean, that is my base assumption for what this group is trying to do. So naturally, the last thing I would want my forces to do would be to overreact, right?

[…]

In reality, what happened today is the Israelis got their butts handed to them. The Israeli response to this aid flotilla was a fabulous gift to Hamas and Iran.

Indeed.

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Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. DC Loser says:

    I guess the operative doctrine of the IDF in the last few years has been “We must be feared.” Nothing else about its behavior makes sense except for this one.

  2. Highlander says:

    The Jews did what they had to do, given the circumstance. Will that get them any points with the closet Jew Haters in the Western Elites…of course not. So be it.

  3. Johnson says:

    why are we talking about it anyways. uhh, hello…we’re american. let the israelis and the middle east sort it out. we should take the moral highground and stay out of it.