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Gaza Activists Were Pawns in a Much Bigger Turkish Power Game
(Irish Examiner) Stephen King - For a generation to whom Vietnam and South Africa are either faint memories or battles only read about in history books, Palestine is the most perfect cause. For rebels looking for a cause, Israel makes a classic enemy. Being a Jewish state makes it racist, right? Aren't its most vociferous supporters in the U.S.? What more is there to know? Only the Holocaust prevents even respectable opinion in Ireland from labeling Israel a fascist state. And it helps that Gaza seems so much more winnable than the Tibetan fight for autonomy. These individuals who joined 400 Turkish Islamists on a voyage to break the Israeli blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza came, they said, on a genuine, if misguided, attempt to relieve Gaza's suffering. But for the Turkish activists who drove the mission, the flotilla was all part of a much bigger game - a premeditated provocation by a gang of wannabe martyrs bent on violent confrontation and on realigning Turkey away from the West. The impression that Israel/Palestine is the root of all the Middle East's problems is as misguided as it is pervasive. The conflict with Israel merely serves as an effective cover for the region's collective failure to build stable, just and prosperous societies.