This Time, Israel Wins Long before Confrontation

by Lazar Berman, The Enterprise Blog, 22/07/2011

“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” – Sun Tzu

On Tuesday, the much-anticipated “Freedom Flotilla 2” finally made contact with the Israeli navy. Instead of the planned 1,500 activists on 10 ships sailing en masse to challenge the Israeli naval blockade on Hamas-run Gaza, one small, pathetic boat sputtered across the Mediterranean carrying 16 passengers—ten activists, three crewmembers, and three journalists.

The flotilla organizers lost long before the little yacht Dignite-Al Karama was boarded by Israeli navy seals this week. The flotilla sought to embarrass the IDF and diminish support for the blockade, either by making it to Gaza, provoking the navy into using excessive force, or at the very least, broadcasting Israeli cruelty to the world while their boats are stopped and boarded. They accomplished none of these things. In an overwhelming and complete success, Israel managed, through a mix of diplomacy, legal maneuvering, deterrence, and possibly sabotage, to cause the coalition of activists/provocateurs to crumble before it even left the port. In the end, the overmatched activists looked like naïve amateurs, unable to cope with the whirlwind of challenges Israel and its allies presented.

In their zeal to embarrass Israel, the activists seem not to have considered the costs for countries cooperating with the flotilla, or the benefits of helping Israel keep the flotilla from confronting Israeli forces. They also never expected Turkey to side with Israel. Turkey allowed members of the Islamic charity and Hamas-sympathizing IHH to board the 2010 flotilla ship Mavi Marmara, and lost nine citizens after they attacked Israeli commandoes boarding the ship. Turkey was much more cooperative this time around. In April, the IHH announced it was pulling out of the flotilla until after the June 12 elections in Turkey. After the elections, the IHH withdrew entirely, citing technical problems on the ship as a pretext. The Turkish government, in all likelihood, pressured the IHH to stay home. Erdogan’s government, already seen as increasingly problematic in much of the West, was not eager to be affiliated with a Hamas-supporting flotilla just as the UN report on the 2010 flotilla came out. That report confirms that the blockade is legal, and that while Israel used excessive force in 2010, its investigation was fair and impartial, while Turkey’s was anything but.


The unrest in Syria also played a role in Turkey’s calculations. While it has moved toward Syria and Iran in recent years, the brutal crackdown by the Assad regime pushed thousands of refugees into Turkey, and drew Erdogan’s attention to the unpopularity and instability of its new allies.

Greece, which refused to cooperate with Israel’s anti-flotilla efforts in 2010, is not the same country today. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has fostered very close relations with Israel since he and Netanyahu bonded in Moscow while discussing Turkey’s anti-Israel rhetoric. Barak Ravid, writing in Haaretz, details their budding relationship:

Israeli diplomats can attest that the budding friendship between the two countries over the course of the past year-and-a-half has been nothing short of dramatic. Intelligence communication has increased, the IAF has conducted a number of joint exercises with Greece’s air force …

Many of Netanyahu and Papandreou’s talks in the past few months have revolved around the severe financial crisis Greece is currently suffering. Netanyahu recently decided to come to the aid of his newfound friend in a meeting of foreign ministers and European leaders, imploring them to provide Greece with financial aid.

“Netanyahu has become Greece’s lobbyist to the European Union,” an Israeli diplomat said.

It was Greece that sealed the flotilla’s fate. The Hellenic Coast Guard blocked all ships to Gaza from leaving its ports, and found problems with the paperwork the flotilla organizations had filled out. Wasting time and money sitting in Greek ports, flotilla participants began to defect. Organizers tried to put a positive spin on the situation, but it was clear their expensive provocation was being stymied at every turn by the Israelis.

Even the one boat that did manage to sail failed to accomplish its goal. Knowing they would be easily intercepted, the flotilla participants sought to cover the interception live, broadcasting Israel’s cruelty to the world in real time. Even that minor victory was taken from them. Israeli ships successfully jammed all communications from the Dignite-Al Karama, while IDF spokespeople broadcasted images of the ship’s refusal to stop and the subsequent peaceful takeover.

Far from galvanizing public opinion against Israel, the flotilla did just the opposite. Seen universally as a purely political stunt with no humanitarian purpose, the flotilla was opposed by the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Greece, Netherlands, Germany, the Quartet, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, and even Turkey. Supporting it? Hamas. Hezbollah. Noam Chomsky. The usual host of far-left websites and news organs. Not exactly a threat to Israeli efforts to keep Hamas from importing arms.

I have written about Israel’s surprising recent military and diplomatic success in facing a stunning variety of complex challenges. Some of these are military achievements, and some, like the flotilla, are against unarmed activists seeking to harm Israel’s image and remove support for its measures to protect its civilians. The flotilla is the most recent example of those accomplishments, and suggests that while Israel can be forced into mistakes the first time around, it learns very quickly, and is able to bring the full force of its national power to bear.

This episode also suggests that although Israel fights an uphill battle in the international arena, other countries have many reasons to ally with Israel. Greece snapped up a new partner as soon as Turkey dropped Israel. When Turkey realized that the new Greek-Israeli relationship would leave its isolated, Erdogan began a push for reconciliation. Turkey, Greece, India, and China are among the countries who built relationships with Israel around its security and defense expertise. Many countries see an alliance with Israel as an important entrée into Washington’s good graces. Israel’s responsible fiscal policies during the global recession, with unemployment at a mere 5.8 percent and no need to take austerity measures, lend it credibility in the EU, and enabled Netanyahu to lobby for Greece.

This was, in all likelihood, the last such flotilla. It is hard to conceive of an organization spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an effort that failed so spectacularly this time around. Without the cooperation of Cyprus, Turkey, Greece, or Egypt, a flotilla would have trouble finding a port from which to organize and set sail.

There will be no shortage of provocations and attacks on Israel in the future, and Israel will surely slip up again. But the synergy of legal, diplomatic, covert, and military measures suggests that Israel is up to the challenge, and will be vigorous and creative in defending its interests.