Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Who is trying to kill whom?

Israel Matsaz

I follow Josh Trevino on Twitter. I have never met him in person. I know almost nothing about him other than the fact that a couple of friends (Soccer Dad and Noah Pollak) also follow him and I think Noah actually knows him. I just thought some of his tweets that I saw looked interesting, so I followed him. While writing this post, I looked up this biography. Perhaps in response to this post, he'll send me a resume.

When I saw the tweet above, I thought it was a bit tongue in cheek. At least until this evening, I thought this flotilla would result in less violence than the last one. I retweeted the tweet. revino's tweet has apparently caused some controversy around the blogosphere (Hat Tip: Memeorandum). And some of that controversy needs to be set straight.

As boatloads of American humanitarianofascists, including Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, and the Obamishly hued novelist/poet Alice Walker, steam toward Gaza, one proud GOP operative, Josh Trevino, assures Israel:

Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla -- well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me.

That's what I call thinking out of the box. I mean, hey, when American citizens get all uppity about human rights--ask a foreign power to murder them.

...

But then, I guess Mr. Trevino doesn't deserve all the credit for giving Israel's Likud government the go ahead to slaughter American citizens. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and I assume her boss, is giving the IDF a wink as well:

There will be construction materials entering Gaza and we think that it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.

So there you go, IDF. You have the right to shoot 86-year-old Heda Epstein in order to defend your borders from uppity humanitarianofascists bearing food, medicine, and embarrassment.

Let's get a few things straight. A Holocaust survivor is someone who lived through the Holocaust in an affected country. It's not just someone who was alive when the Holocaust happened. Hedy Epstein - who loves to promote herself as a Holocaust survivor - is not one. She is no more a Holocaust survivor than my 83-year old father who lived through the Holocaust in Boston, Massachusetts. She left Germany in May 1939 - before the war or the Holocaust started - on the Kindertransport, and spent the war in England. When you hear "Holocaust survivor," you envision those gaunt kids who were in the concentration camps at the end of the war. She's not one of them. There were 10,000 kids just like her. They are not Holocaust survivors any more than the thousands of Jews who fled Germany and other affected countries during the 1930's. That makes her a much less sympathetic figure, doesn't it?

The people on those boats are committing an act of war. Yes, including Hedy Epstein and Alice Walker and that moron Medea Benjamin. They're not wearing uniforms, they're not part of an army, but by trying to run a legal naval blockade (and even the UN now says it's legal), they are committing an act of war. They are military combatants, and they may be treated accordingly.

This is what Secretary of State Clinton - who knows and understands the rules - keeps having the State Department tell them. If they are combatants who are attacking a US ally, there is nothing the US can or will do to protect them. Nor should it.

Josh Trevino's tweet was probably tongue in cheek. This post is not. It doesn't matter what they're carrying on those boats because what those boats seek to do is to open up a shipping lane to Gaza through which large scale weaponry - which could not or would not be shipped over land from Israel or Egypt - can be imported in the future. The point of these boats isn't the cargo - it's for the boats to get through. And Israel will not allow that to happen at any cost. Including at the cost of a bunch of American citizens (30% Jewish unfortunately) who have turned themselves into hostile combatants.

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