An Open Letter to the Israeli Defense Forces

06/06/2010
Dear Israeli Defense Forces

Just wanted to say that I thought it was real nice of you to welcome that so-called "humanitarian aid flotilla" into your waters (they are your waters, aren't they?) in such a restrained manner.

After all, you could just have fired a few missiles into them and sunk those pesky ships. That would have been so much easier, and saved you so much trouble. And it wouldn't have put your nice friendly helpful soldiers in harm's way either.

Never mind that the rest of the world (well, the common people anyway) may have criticised you a little bit. After all, what would they know? And its not as though their opinions matter anyway. I mean, they're not really part of the Master Race like yourselves are they?
And at least you could be assured that your stalwart friends in the American government (and indeed our own wonderful UK government) wouldn't do or say anything to harm your interests.

But no, you chose the much kinder, compassionate (and, it has to be said, braver) option of sending your heroic soldiers to intercept that so-called "humanitarian aid flotilla" in your waters (they definitely are your waters, aren't they?).

And for all your effort; your thoughtfulness and tolerance; what greeting do you get?

Those nasty little "activists" (and we all know that "activist" is really just another word for "terrorist" don't we?) actually have the nerve to try and stop you boarding their ships. Oh the cheek of it!
To think they imagined they had some sort of right to try to stop you, soldiers of the great well-armed Master Race, from boarding their common-or-garden civilian ships just beggars belief.

Next thing you know they'll be trying to claim they were only acting in self-defense! When its quite obvious to everyone that the whole thing was set up deliberately to provoke you. And that all the tens of thousands of pounds worth of aid on board was simply a ruse. Damned clever these activists terrorists.

And they actually had the audacity to use weapons against you! Real nasty dangerous hoses, and slingshots and stuff. Must have been terrifying indeed. A true ordeal. Lucky you guys just happened to have your guns with you and managed to shoot a few of them... several times so I understand. Just to make sure they were actually dead I suppose. Wise move.

The thing you don't want to pay any attention to is when some naive people suggest that if you hadn't tried boarding the ships in the first place then your oh-so-brave soldiers wouldn't have been attacked.
No, don't pay any attention to that. After all, likely not a grain of truth in it.
I'm sure if you hadn't boarded those ships they would certainly have attacked all your boats and stuff, and forgotten all about delivering that so-called "aid" (all that tens of thousands of pounds worth of stuff) to Gaza. Probably thrown it overboard in fact. What with it being a ruse and all... just to provoke you.

After all, its not as though the Gazans need it, is it? What with you looking after them so brilliantly. And helping to repair all the damage and alleviate all the suffering that... er... you may have inadvertently caused. Not with any malicious intent of course. Oh no.
Problem is, the Gazans are so ungrateful. Its not everyone that has the chance of having a Master Race look after them and care for them, is it?
Last time I recollect it happening was somewhere in Europe a good, oh, 70 or so years ago. Guess you learned a lot from them, eh?

Though, if I may make a suggestion? It might be better to warn your wonderful soldiers that next time they go fully-armed against defenceless civilians those same defenceless civilians may just be silly enough to try to take the weapons away from your lads... what with not having any guns of their own and so forth. Just sayin'.

Of course I fully understand that's not the sort of thing you'd normally expect to happen. Unarmed untrained civilians tackling brave well-trained fully-armed soldiers... whatever is the world coming to? Next thing you know people will be calling out for justice and "being called to account", and independent investigations, and other such silly notions.

Though those civilians weren't totally unarmed, were they? As you so helpfully inform us. Just as well you managed to photograph some of those really scary weapons they had with them.
That scarf-type thing for example. I'd rather not try to imagine what use they'd put that to. Probably try to strangle someone with it or something.

And those CDs! Wow! If they were thrown frisbee-style I guess they could quite easily take someone's eye out. Or at least leave a nasty scratch. Unless the wind catches them of course. Little chance of that happening though... as there's never any wind at sea is there?

And what about that axe? Soon as I saw that photograph of it I shuddered. Real evil-looking thing. Not the sort of thing you'd expect to find on a boat at all really. I just hope you managed to get a photograph of someone actually using it against your oh-so-brave soldiers.

Talking of photographs however... here's a useful little tip (speaking as a photographer myself you understand, and only trying to be helpful). Next time you ask your people to take photographs that could conceivably be used as some sort of evidence it might be an idea to get them to reset the date and time on the cameras first. Usually to be found in the menu settings that will be displayed on the LCD screen under something like "date/time".

Otherwise some nasty suspicious types might check the exif data embedded in the photographs and try to question the credibility of the images... implying maybe that they weren't taken quite when (or even where) you said they were. Have to watch out for those sort of things you know. Not that you'd ever fabricate, or deceive, or manipulate the truth of course, would you?

Though I do think you've missed a trick, if I may say so.

What about the WMD? All terrorists have weapons of mass destruction nowadays, surely. I mean, you can't be a proper terrorist nowadays without at least some tiddly little WMDs. Not a self-respecting one at least. (Um... you have WMD as well, don't you? The only Middle East state to have them I do believe. Though why you'd need them is a bit of a puzzle to me. Guess its to protect you from all those nasty smelly neighbours of yours, with their sticks and stones and stuff. Still, I suppose its all part of being a Master Race and dominating everyone else.)

Anyway, those WMD. There's bound to have been some on board. Especially as some of those terrorists, as you so helpfully informed us all, had links to Al Qaeda. And even if you hadn't found any you could always have said you had "intelligence" that suggested there were some. Isn't that what all self-respecting States do nowadays? I mean, no-one minds a little deception now and then, just between friends.

By the way, this would be the same Al Qaeda that was oh-so-active in Iraq before your friends the ever-so-truthful Americans brought law and order to that country, would it?

You know, Osama bin Laden's highly organised and absolutely terrifying outfit. According to what your friends the Americans say, anyway.

Talking of whom, what about Osama bin Laden? Are you sure he wasn't on board one of those ships as well? After all, he seemed to turn up pretty much everywhere else.

And what about the "Rachel Corrie" then? You know, that silly little ship that was named after some woman or other. That lass who rather carelessly got herself run over by one of your bulldozers whilst it was going about its customary business of knocking someone's house down. I'm sure you must remember her?

Anyway, the "Rachel Corrie". Whatever were you thinking of? No guns? No bloodshed? No massacre?
Come on now, surely you can do better than that? Don't tell me you've been paying any attention whatsoever to all those silly little protests around the world? And what other governments have been saying. The Turks for example. No, surely not. When have you ever done that?

But, if you don't mind my saying, you've slipped up badly with the "Rachel Corrie". Tarnished your hard-earned reputation as a rogue state sort of thing. But I'm sure you'll soon be back on track again.

Well, I guess that's about it for the moment.

Oh, there was one other little thing. Something you may not have thought of, but I'm sure it would help out enormously with maintaining that reputation you've worked so hard to acquire.

Fashion! There... bet you'd not thought of that. You really should think about changing your uniforms to something more appropriate. The colour for example. Black would be really good. And jackboots. Nice shiny black jackboots. Maybe an armband too. And you could have little insignia... those metal badge things all the best soldiers have pinned to their jacket collars. A skull and crossbones for example.

Just a few ideas for you to mull over.

Yours very sincerely,
fotdmike

(Also published at yet another blog)

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