On May 29, two days before Israel’s botched raid of six “humanitarian” ships bound for Gaza, Robert Naiman, the policy director of something called “Just Foreign Policy,” had an item in the Huffington Post headlined “Gaza Freedom Flotilla Shows Awesome Power of Nonviolent Resistance.”
Naiman waxed lyrical about how the moral authority of nonviolence had compelled Turkish-controlled Cyprus to help the flotilla while Greek-controlled Cyprus had allegedly caved to Israeli pressure and refused to help the heirs of Gandhi (it couldn’t have been because the Turks were up to no good).
“All this,” Naiman gushed, “and the main confrontation between the Israeli occupation authorities and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has not yet begun.”
Roughly 48 hours later, the “main confrontation” unfolded. In fairness, the majority of the “peace activists” on the ships were nonviolent, offering passive resistance. But on the last boat Israelis boarded, the supposed disciples of peace attacked the Israeli commandos. These new Gandhians beat the Israelis with metal bars and even threw one Israeli overboard.
Funny, I’m no expert, but that’s not how Gandhi behaved in the movie. Maybe there was a sequel with Chuck Norris as the Mahatma? “Gandhi’s back, and this time it’s personal!”
Update: Yup: