ISRAEL’S LATEST MURDER SPREE SHOULD BE SEEN IN CONTEXT OF THE BIGGER REGIONAL PICTURE.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the attack on the Gaza flotilla and the killing of activists on the high seas in international waters by Israeli commandos was an extremely well planned act of aggression designed specifically to murder pre-selected people that were on board the vessel. Turkish sources and the media have revealed that a list prepared by the Israelis and lost by one of the Israeli commandos in the melee that followed their boarding of the vessel shows various activists who were on board and marked down to be killed in a series of targeted assassinations.

In light of the fact that these deaths are now known to have been planned in advance and not as a result of an unfortunate string of spontaneously tragic events it is clear that the go-ahead for the operation must have come from the very top of the Israeli government, Netanyahu. Furthermore, it is very likely that the operation was discussed with Emmanuel Rahm, Obama’s Chief of Staff, who happened to visit Netanyahu while Rahm was in Israel for his son’s Bar Mitzvah last week. If that is the case, then it cannot be ruled out that Obama himself did not know of the pending operation, nor, indeed, the full extent of what was about to happen, just as Bush had been aware of what was about to hit the Gaza Strip prior Israel’s launch of Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009.

Given that almost everything that happens in that part of the world is intrinsically linked geo-politically, one can see an ominous pattern beginning to emerge that does not bode well for the future of the region. The link between the fact that the ship upon which the activists died were Turkish and the fact that Turkey with Brazil had only recently helped facilitate the exchange of nuclear fuel for Iran cannot be ignored. Nor can Israel’s stationing of nuclear-armed submarines in the Persian Gulf off the Iranian coast last week be ignored. The fact that the Israeli submarines are sharing chunks of sea with a fleet of American warships in the Gulf also cannot be ignored.

Israel has also increased its illegal and provocative overflights of Lebanon to the point that the Lebanon military has recently opened fire on the Israeli aircraft. This sort of activity is usually associated with testing ones enemy’s air defence capabilities. On top of this, the Israelis have also been increasing the frequency and intensity of attacking Gazan targets.

Israel has become increasingly marginalised by the international community ever since the atrocity of the 2006 Lebanon war when modern technology exposed and highlighted their unacceptable behaviour of bombing ambulances, hospitals, fleeing civilians and the dropping of cluster bombs. Overt support for the Israeli desire to strike Iran was diminished when the Republicans lost the 2008 Presidential election and the Israelis have now become desperate to somehow find a casus belli to strike before the world catches on to what they are actually up to and deprive them of the opportunity for good.