Hamas fired two Kassam rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip earlier today, but that’s far from the most serious attack being made on the Jewish state. Unable to defeat Israel in a direct military assault, her enemies have become well practiced at tactics that seek to damage her in the court of world opinion, to strip her of support (or even tolerance) and to encourage the kind of opposition that could ultimately break the nation’s spirit.

The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank receive more international aid per capita than any population on planet Earth. They regularly receive millions of dollars in aid from the U.N., from the U.S.A., from Europe, and — to a much lesser extent — from their supposed brothers and sisters in the Muslim Middle East. It is necessary to note this in order to understand the real purpose of this “aid flotilla.” The goal of the flotilla was to deliver a public relations black eye to the state of Israel. This is not to say that there are not some useful idiots involved, as in Western leftists who might actually like to tell themselves that they are delivering much needed supplies to deprived people. But the Turkish Islamists who were running this show were under no such illusions.

For perspective, one might well ask where are the aid flotillas for the truly beleaguered and generally starving people of North Korea? There, over 22 million people live as virtual slaves when they are not explicitly enslaved in labor camps. Food, along with everything else, is scarce, and such aid as the international community delivers is often diverted to the dictator’s military minions. The poor and pathetic people of North Korea could sure use a flotilla of boats bearing food and medicine, and then some. But no one tries to get around the North Korean authorities to deliver aid in this way directly to the people. Why? Aside from the fact that the malnourished North Koreans are not the sexy cause célèbre of the world’s corrupt elites, there’s a simple reason: The North Korean regime would almost certainly blow out of the water any such approaching flotilla of do-gooders. And instead of apologizing for it, they would likely then threaten nuclear attacks on the countries from which the boats came. Any surviving would-be deliverers of aid would be imprisoned, fed rice with rocks in it (as were the arrested journalists last year) and used as hostages.

The very fact that these boats even attempt to evade the blockade of Gaza is itself a testament to everyone’s sure knowledge that Israel is a civilized nation which will not simply blow the boats out of the water.

The people who attacked the arriving Israeli commandos were determined to force the issue and make sure that blood got spilled, and that it got spilled all over the newspaper headlines. They were obviously just as willing to lose their lives in the process as Hamas suicide bombers. The video of the encounter is crystal clear and leaves a reasonable viewer with only one question: Why didn’t the soldiers begin shooting sooner to defend themselves?

No doubt smarter tactics could have been used in stopping the Mavi Marmara, but it still amounts to blaming the victim to criticize the actions of the Israeli commandos. The “peace activists” who launched their suicidal attacks on the soldiers would have been determined to violently resist any attempt to stop the boat. Their mission was to create as big a story as possible, and then let the leaders back home, and the usual suspects across the globe, run with it in an attempt to damage Israel as much as possible. Already we see Egypt opening the border with Gaza and a growing cacophony of fools and worse demanding Israel lift the blockade on their end. Allowing free movement of goods, materials and people in and out of Gaza will lead to more rocket attacks and the strengthening of the terroristic death cult that is Hamas. It will not help one Palestinian child have a better future; quite the opposite, in fact.

If the U.S., and in particular the Obama regime, is truly interested anymore in being a friend of Israel, then no time should be wasted (although much already has been wasted) in declaring that this was obviously a set-up by violent extremists and that Israel has no culpability in the matter whatsoever. Only taking a position just that clear and strong will slow down the snowballing momentum of this disgusting escapade.

However, there is little reason to believe that the current U.S. administration any longer considers itself a friend to Israel. Another front of attack on that country, courtesy of the U.N., has found the Obama administration a willing aider and abettor. That is the recent resolution calling for a nuclear-free Middle East that specifically singles out Israel (though not Iran!). If there is any country that needs a nuclear deterrent, it is Israel, surrounded by amoral enemies who seek her destruction. By supporting this resolution, the U.S. has dealt a death blow to Israel’s policy of nuclear ambiguity and set that nation up for further isolation and punishment down the road by those who desire its destruction and by those sanctimonious useful idiots around the world who seem unable to distinguish between night and day.

With friends like these, Israel is facing a future that gets more precarious by the minute.

Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn’t hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He’s the neighborhood bully

(From Bob Dylan’s 1983 song Neighborhood Bully)