When I travel with my kids I'm too busy to follow much news, so it came as quite a shock when I picked up a Moroccan newspaper and read that Israel had attacked the flotilla destined for Gaza. That suddenly explained the string of text messages I was getting from my US embassy in Jordan, warning me to avoid anti-Israeli protests which seemed to be cropping up everywhere.
Of course the attack is old news now, and pretty much everything that can be said has been. So I'll just link to this excellent post by Andrew Exum, which pretty much sums up my perspective. I particularly agree with his comments about Israel's lack of strategic vision, something I've written about before. I'm completely blown away by how foolish and how incompetent this attack was.
While I was in Morocco I read Audrey Cronin's excellent book How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. A major theme of the book is that terrorism poses the greatest danger when it provokes governments to overreact and do stupid things. Governments can quickly undermine their own legitimacy and mobilize populations against them. Israeli policymakers might want to read the book.
About Me
- Mark Jacobsen
- C-17 Pilot, Middle East Regional Affairs Specialist, Olmsted Scholar in Jordan (2009-2011), Software Developer, Writer. Visit my blog at www.buildingpeace.net. You can follow me at @reach364.
What I'm Reading
- Islam Without Extremes by Mustafa Akyol
- Crescent & Star by Stephen Kinzer
- The Dervish House by Ian MacDonald
- Makers of Ancient Strategy, ed. Victor Davis Hanson
- A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani
Twitter Updates
Good Sites Online
- Abu Muqawama
- Congressional Research Service
- Constructively Discontented
- Earlybird
- Foreign Affairs
- Global Guerillas
- International Crisis Group
- Jihadica
- KurzweilAI.net
- Mountainrunner
- Natural Security
- Open the Future
- Pick Your Battles
- Small Wars Journal
- Steve Walt
- The Best Defense
- The Cable
- The Economist
- The Middle East Channel
- The Official Google Blog
- The Olmsted Foundation
- Wings Over Iraq
- Wired: Danger Room
- Wired: Threat Level
- Zenpundit
2 comments:
Interesting blog. Are you in Jordan for PME? I'm a USAF Major at Scott AFB, IL.
While it is fair to criticize Isreal's response to the activists, some of the activists were not peaceful and were armed, see http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36527_Index-_LGFs_Reuters_Knife-Cropping_Posts. Coming at an armed soldier with a knife is a good way to get shot. It is also the antithesis of a nonviolent, peaceful demonstration against a government and undermines the intent and purpose of the demonstration which is to educate and show the government and the world that said government is being an aggressor against peaceful pacifist demonstrators/people. The hate and violence can not be reciprocated otherwise the whole mission and purpose of the demonstration is compromised. What Isreal did is deplorable, but a supposed pacifist attacking a soldier with a knife is plain stupid and hypocritical as well. Cropping or altering photos to remove evidence of knives and wounded or dying soldiers reeks of Nazi or Stalinist era propaganda if the allegations against Reuters are true. Journalists are supposed to report the bare facts as evidence. Altering the evidence is unethical conduct because one is altering the reader's perception of what really happened.
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