PEACE ACTIVISTS OR TERRORISTS

Peace Activists or Terrorists?
The world's condemnation of Israel's deadly flotilla raid points to a distortion of reality | Aviel Schneider & Shlomo Mordechai

HELD HOSTAGE: Men with iron rods guard a room holding captured Israeli soldiersWhen it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict it is easy to believe a lie. Deception is a clever tool in the hands of an international media, which wittingly or not, champions the Palestinian cause. The world may rush to judgment, but its conclusions are often based on prejudices and preconceived ideas.

So the "Free Gaza Flotilla" was a perfect setup, and Israel fell right into the trap. On the face of it, 700 so-called "peace" activists were sailing six ships laden with "humanitarian" aid into blockaded Gaza to relieve the suffering imposed by Israel on 1.5 million Palestinians.

According to this narrative, the Gaza situation occurred in a vacuum. Hamas is not a terrorist group, it does not smuggle weapons and rockets that are fired at innocent civilians, and Israel's only desire is to impoverish and imprison Palestinian civilians who want nothing more than to carry on with their daily lives in a sense of normalcy.

So when Israeli commandos stormed this well-meaning flotilla and killed nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists, it had to harm Israel's already battered image. In a world of global television and instant news, images speak louder than facts. The world saw heavily-armed commandos killing "unarmed" peace activists.