The madness of arrogance Dr Alan Sabrosky
2 June 2010 Israels attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla on Americas Memorial Day was all too predictable, although the form it took surprised many. And it confirms the old proverb that Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad, for the attack was the kind of madness only unbridled arrogance can assume.
It wasnt just that foreigners as well as Palestinians, flying flags other than that of Palestine, were attacked. Israel has a long history of doing such things, especially to the UN. But except for the USS Liberty incident in 1967, it has generally done that on inland sites Gaza, the West Bank, the Lebanon where it can largely block news and visual evidence, and control the spin it puts on events, counting on its friends in the US and other mainstream media to say little or nothing to contradict them.
Not this time. An attack on the open seas, in acknowledged international waters, against unarmed ships carrying humanitarian aid with passengers and crews from many countries especially a direct attack against a Turkish ship is a different matter, and potentially an explosive one. The number of shipboard casualties indicates that once fighting started, the Israeli commandos simply sprayed automatic weapons fire into the people around them another of their long-standing habits.
And technology is their enemy here, just as it became in an earlier day the enemy of communist regimes in the former Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries. Too many images and videos were taken, and some sent, and too many witnesses reported what was happening, before the Israelis were able to suppress communications 
from their victims.
Bad for their victims, but also potentially very bad for Israel, and the initial Israeli public-relations damage control efforts show that they are at least dimly aware of that fact. Trying to cast the attack in international waters as an exercise in self-defense would be ludicrous in the best or worst of circumstances has anyone ever seen wheelchairs used as offensive weaponry?
And for the Israeli spokeswoman to try to spin an assault by warships and armed commandos as defense against a lynch (I guess she was trying to push an American hot button for Obama someone should tell her it is lynching or lynch mob) would have embarrassed even her public relations soul-mate, Dr. Josef Goebbels. But desperate do what desperation dictates, I suppose, although this time they may well have gone way too far.
And that is what the initial responses appear to affirm. All of the major US and many other media outlets are carrying this story, and even with the slant from many Jewish correspondents based in Jerusalem or Ashdod, the bloody particulars are slowly coming through to at least a general American audience for the first time:
1. The unarmed ships with unarmed passengers were trying to ferry humanitarian and reconstruction aid to ravaged and embattled Gaza.
2. Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza, probably if not certainly in violation of international law, supported largely by US vetoes in the UN 
Security Council.
3. Israeli warships and commandos intercepted and attacked the aid flotilla in international waters which is an act of war, piracy or state terrorism, depending on ones view of the details.
4. Under attack, some of the passengers tried to defend themselves, scores were killed or wounded, and some Israeli commandos were also wounded doubtless a surprise to them, but then their usual run of victims may have made them 
a bit too cocky.
5. Many governments and publics around the world not only in Arab capitals are openly outraged, and the discussion forums on US news websites carrying the story suggest that much the same is happening at a public level in this country.
6. But for Israel, this is just another we are the misunderstood victim incident in a long, sordid and utterly unbelievable litany of such things except that this time, they may not get away with it.
This is a time for those interested in justice for Palestine to seize the moment and act, building on the promise engendered but not fulfilled after the submission of the Goldstone 
Report to the HRC.
Americans shouldnt bother with letters or emails to US Senators or Representatives, or Obama; AIPAC will be there ahead of you with more letters and money than you can generate. Go instead directly to the local offices of US Senators and Representatives, stay until you speak personally to the senior person there, and make your case as forcefully as you can.
Make sure as many people hear you as possible but be polite, and leave your signs at home.
For the world community, now is the time and this is the incident to drive home the UN Uniting for Peace Resolution, in both the Security Council and the General Assembly as needed. The nationalities of the victims will at least neutralise many European countries that might have opposed it before. Sanctions, embargoes, even the suspension or expulsion of Israel from the UN itself, do as much as quickly and as forcefully as possible.
Remember that the cornerstone of our oaths is not to obedience, but to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Think about it on this Memorial Day.
Alan Sabrosky (Ph.D, University of Michigan) is a 10-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College
The madness of arrogance