Zogby: Audience of One

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/audience-of-one_b_601719.html

As expected, Israel matched its use of overwhelming force against the passengers on the Mavi Marmara with an equally vigorous attempt to shape both how the story played out in U.S. media and the official response from the U.S. Government.

To that end they prepared talking points, enlisted the efforts of their lobby, and mobilized a virtual army of activists to monitor, respond to and pressure press, politicians and electronic web-postings.

Israel's talking points suggested an alternate reality, asserting that: the ships posed a mortal danger to Israel since they were populated by "dangerous extremists" (which, if true, raises the question, why did Israel free them, sending them on their way?); the Israeli military was ambushed and, therefore, acted in self-defense (as if hooded heavily armed paratroopers who landed in the dead of night were but innocent bystanders); the cargo could have been delivered peacefully to Gaza if only the ships had off-loaded in Israel (ignoring the fact that the materials being delivered included items like pre-fabricated housing that Israel had banned from reaching Gaza); and there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza (clearly refuted by respected independent NGO statistics on poverty and malnutrition rates among Palestinian children in Gaza).

World-wide reactions to the violent assault and the resultant deaths were swift in condemning Israeli behavior. But none of this mattered since Israel, in crises of this sort, plays to an audience of one. It is acceptable for Israel to endure international outrage and votes of 14 to 1 in the United Nation's Security Council, as long as that "1", the United States, stands at its side.

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