This week I had planned to discuss matters of less gravitas, but the events surrounding the IHH flotilla on its way to Gaza are understandably dominating the thoughts of everyone here in Israel, and quite obviously many people further afield.

At the time of writing, reports are still coming in depicting the scenario that greeted the Israeli soldiers attempting to board the main vessel that was on its way to Gaza to apparently deliver humanitarian aid, and it might well be that by the time you hear this blog more evidence will have come to light that sheds quite a different perspective on the matter.

As things stands, the loss of human life in such a situation is always highly regrettable but it does appear that blame lies on both sides and not solely on the side of the Israelis, as was indicated by initial reports from a variety of mainstream international news media.

As the flotilla made its way to this part of the world it was, for a while, refused entry to Cypriot waters, apparently on the grounds that the Cypriot authorities were unwilling to accept the assurances of those on board that the cargo was wholly humanitarian and there were no items that could be used by the Hamas regime in Gaza for more ulterior purposes.

The day before the alarming pitched battle that occurred at sea, a variety of news sources reported that passengers aboard the lead ship were singing a song glorifying Islam and pining for the removal of Israelis from the land and a return to the teachings of the prophet Muhammed. A strange ditty, I thought, for a humanitarian organization whose sole aim is to relieve the acknowledged suffering of the ordinary people of Gaza. Could it possibly be that those on board had more on their collective agendas than simply offering supplies to a people let down, abused and kept in poverty by their own militant leadership?

Here in Israel most people from across the political spectrum felt that the flotilla was most likely a carefully orchestrated anti-Israel publicity stunt, just as much as it was an alleged humanitarian mission. The test of the voracity of the mission was whether or not the flotilla would accept the offer made many times by the Israeli authorities that the ships' cargo should be unloaded and inspected at the port of Ashdod, and then, subject to the consignment being legal and above board, would be delivered by lorries, in full, to Gaza. Surely any humanitarian group whose prime objective was to deliver goods to the Gazans couldn't have any possible objection to that?

As it happened they did, and refused many times point blank to make their way to Ashdod, raising suspicions that the contents on board the ships weren't all for 'humanitarian' purposes. Any country in the world anticipating the arrival of suspicious cargo in its territorial waters has the right to make an inspection. At this point Israel was doing everything by the book.   

Unfortunately, Israel has become a past master at scoring own goals on the PR front and of often turning a perfectly reasonable argument into a cause celebre for its opponents. What transpired when Israeli commandos boarded the ship appears to have been a doubly flawed policy which went disastrously wrong. With the most reasonable and legitimate of intentions, Israel managed to somehow 'cock it up' by first boarding the ships in international waters and not in its own territorial waters, and then launching a highly flawed and amateurish raid that saw individual soldiers being dangled and dropped into crowds of armed and baying pro-Palestinian protesters, without any recourse to an element of surprise or safety in numbers. 

One soldier, under what appeared from video images to be an alarmingly vicious assault from the supposed 'peace' flotilla, had his automatic weapon wrenched from his grasp, thus turning a potentially challenging situation into one that would soon resemble a war zone, with at least nine protesters dead and a number of Israeli soldiers seriously injured.

Reaction to the events of the boarding of the flotilla have been predictably swift, with Hamas calling for a 'day of rage', human rights organizations chiming in with 'war crimes' comments, and the good old UN recalled for an emergency session to discuss the matter and doubtless issue a stern condemnation of the Israeli authorities without mention of any extenuating circumstances.

What upsets me most in this whole affair is not that Israel intercepted the flotilla – they were perfectly entitled to do so – but that the planning and execution of the inspection of the boats was carried out with less brains than your average Somali pirate can muster! Worse than this, the resultant reaction has provided a desperately needed lifeline for the terrorist regime of Hamas in Gaza. 

At the start of this week it was widely reported that there was distinct unrest in the territory due to the wages of public workers not having been paid for three months, the perceived cronyism and corruption of the government, and the significant deterioration in the standard of living of Gaza residents. Since Hamas came to power, and as a direct result of their refusal to acknowledge the right of the State of Israel to exist and their determination to carry on an armed struggle, the Israeli blockade of the territory for all but humanitarian aid and essential supplies has brought very hard times to the average Gazan. Hamas' populatiry was at an all-time low and there was a distinct chance of a popular uprising favouring a return to rule by Fatah.

Israel has now presented the Hamas leadership with a gift wrapped publicity coup that has turned their popularity completely on its head. What a stupid a mistake for the Israeli government and armed forces to make. Time might show this error will prove very costly indeed.

The atmosphere in Israel now is very tense. Latest reports indicate that Hizbollah, backed by Syria and Iran in southern Lebanon have now amassed up to 40,000 rockets (some capable of reaching further than Tel Aviv), and most of which are sited within the supposed UN security zone or ' blue line'. How can the 'impartial' UN explain how it has let the terrorist Hizbollah forces re-arm to a far greater strength than was the case before the last Lebanon War in 2006? 

On top of the Hizbollah situation in the north, with Gaza in the south now on the verge of re-igniting, a growing appetite for confrontation coming from the West Bank, Syria and Iran making inflammatory statements, some Israeli Arab leaders talking of an uprising and the US diplomatic line failing to bear fruit, the signs all point to a major armed conflict in the region, most probably within the next 3-6 months.

These are difficult and dangerous times here in the Middle East. Israel has a right to defend herself and to use reasonable force to do so. Israel has the right to exist in this historic, but much troubled region. But Israel must not alienate the few friends that remain by using flawed military tactics and initiating amateurish commando missions. 

The Gaza flotilla debacle might pass without an immediate conflict being lit by this particular touch paper, but it is merely a matter of time before another incident, most likely of far more serious proportions comes along and Israel and its neighbours face each other once again at the point of a gun.
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The State of Israel celebrated its 62nd birthday this week, quite an achievement when one considers the many challenges to its existence that this tiny Jewish nation has faced since 1948.

The sad truth is that whatever trials and tribulations have been overcome thus far may well pale into insignificance with what lies ahead. Over the last few weeks I have spoken to quite a sample of people from across the political and religious spectrum, and whilst most are agreed that we have created an extraordinary country in such a relatively short space of time, most also fear the enormity of the problems that are staring us in the face.

I'm not trying to be a scaremonger or harbinger of doom, I'm simply attempting to relate to you the feelings of the man on the street, those that work hard for relatively low pay, whose children serve in the armed forces, who struggle to afford a mortgage due to the massive rise in house process here, but who believe passionately that  the Jewish people need a place of their own if we are to avoid a repeat of the awful happenings of the late-1930's and 1940's in western and central Europe.

I've been surprised at the level of agreement about exactly where the main dangers lie. We're all concerned about Iran's attempt to produce nuclear weapons given its leader's promise that he will wipe Israel off the face off the earth. There have been many  recently corroborated reports of Hizbollah arming themselves with longer range weapons on the Lebanese border, right under the nose of the 'supposed' UN peacekeeping force. And in Gaza, despite their assertion that they won't use the smuggling tunnels any more, there have been enough unsavoury incidents and sporadic clashes to suggest that it will take just the merest of touch papers to ignite further violence in that extremist Hamas entity.

For me, and for the majority of Israeli citizens, the most distasteful sight of the last week was the demonstration by members of the Haredi communities in Jerusalem and B'nei Barak against the very existence of the State of Israel! To those unfamiliar with mainstream Haredi thinking, they don't acknowledge the existence of Israel because the Messiah hasn't come, and only then can there be a country called Israel that will be home to the Jews – that it, of course, to ultra-religious Jews like themselves. Me, and those many Israeli citizens like me, (and that includes modern Orthodox Jews who pray every day and wear a 'kippa' (skullcap), are seen by many Haredim as not even Jewish, because we are not religious enough for their liking.

In both Jerusalem and B'nei Barak, a handful of young Haredim were arrested for burning the Israeli flag and chanting "death to Israel", as they refused to stand and respect the siren honouring the fallen soldiers of the wars and those that died in the Holocaust.
 
The token arrests have sickened many people over here who point out that if it were Arab, Bedouin, Druze or secular Israelis doing the same, they would be arrested in droves and sent down for long periods. This will not happen to the Haredim, you can be sure of that.

I've expressed my feelings about these people before in this blog, but it should be understood that I am not some renegade voice sailing against the tide. Judging by the masses of correspondence in the Israeli media and on the principal internet sites, a significant majority agree with me when I say that people that don't acknowledge the existence of the Israel, who refuse to work but have families of as many as 16 children and receive astounding amounts of social security and other benefits, whose children do not fight in the army, who pay no taxes, and who wish to impose their way of life on everyone else in the country (given the chance), represent the biggest threat to the continued existence of the State of Israel – as we know it.

According to a report in the Jerusalem Post this week, if the current demographic trends continue, in 25 years only 50% of the adult Israeli population will be from working families whose children are obliged to serve in the army. The Haredim know that if they continue breeding at the same rate as today, in 40 years they will form a majority of the electorate in this democracy.

The Arabs who surround Israel have no need to go to war against us, If they sit tight and consider feeding funds to the Haredim – you may or may not know that a deputation of Haredim was received warmly recently by President Ahmedinejad in Tehran where they expressed their solidarity with the megalomaniac leader who doubtless didn’t send them home empty-handed – Israel will be theirs for the taking as the formerly everyday secular, traditional and modern-Orthodox Jews will doubtless up sticks and go elsewhere. That is, of course, assuming there is somewhere else to go.

The other trump card for the Arabs is to again sit back and wait for Israel to descend into civil chaos as the religious and secular societies battle over a clash of ideologies. If there is one grain of hope, it might possibly come from the presently very small minority of Haredim who themselves have realized that their stance on many subjects is causing them to be hated by so many.

To their credit a few Haredi leaders came out and publicly condemned the violence seen this week, and the Hadrei Haredi website, using unprecedented strong words against one of their own, described the Deputy Health Minister Litzman's decision to scupper the building of an emergency room at a major hospital in Ashkleon because some ancient graves had been found their that he thought might be Jewish, (even though all archealogical evidence has proved otherwise), as "an unnecessary battle that caused immense damage to the Ultra-Orthodox sector".

The Hadre Haredi site went on to point out that Litzman had,"…aggressively and disgracefully exploited his power in a way that turned the entire nation against us... it is not the honor of the dead at stake here, but solely that of the deputy minister." In an astonishing public attack against one of their own leading politicians, they concluded in a somewhat unfortunate turn of phrase, "…to safeguard the graves, while it was clear to [Litzman] and anyone who dealt with the topic that there is no halachic, ethical or moral problem, has brought a holocaust upon our heads that will take many years to amend."

The disproportionate power the Haredim have on the coalition government means that many of the leading parties are obliged to team up with these people if they want to govern. It's about time, having survived 62 hard and dramatic years, that a new political mettle is revealed that gives our politicians the backbone to stand up and say that no more will the law abiding, tax paying, military serving citizens of this country be held to ransom by people who, like Hamas, Syria and Iran, don't even accept that this country has a right to exist. 

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