MJ Rosenberg Responds To Glenn Beck's Attacks

Glenn Beck is wrong on so many counts in his response to my Foreign Policy Matters column on the flotilla incident.

His first error is the assumption that my column was a response to the "history" of Israel's establishment that he presented Wednesday night.  Not true.  My column appeared hours before his show was televised and was a response to the overall media coverage of the flotilla attack -- not to him. Of course, his take on the situation is rather typical of the media's, in general, so it hardly matters that I wasn't addressing him -- although he did address me.

Beck practically shouts "gotcha" at my assertion that "the first thing you need to know about the Gaza flotilla disaster is that the intention of the activists on board the ships was to break the Israeli blockade. Delivering the embargoed goods was incidental. In other words, the activists were like the civil rights demonstrators who sat down at segregated lunch counters throughout the South and refused to leave until they were served. Their goal was not really to get breakfast. It was to end segregation."

But he has nothing to get all "gotcha" about.  There is nothing contradictory about the dual goals of supplying the people of Gaza with needed goods (blocked by the Israeli blockade) and simultaneously seeking to permanently "break" the blockade.  In fact, why would anyone seek to supply the people of Gaza with necessities only once, rather than seek to end the blockade once and for all? 

Beck's other "gotcha" moment is his suggestion that I would favor allowing weapons into Gaza.  I would not. Israel has every right to keep munitions out of Gaza.  But the ships the Israelis attacked were not bringing weapons into Gaza -- not even the Israelis claim they were -- but rather goods needed to restore normal life to Gaza. Israel blocks spices, chocolate and children's toys (among dozens and dozens of proscribed items).  Beck is wrong when he says the blockade of these goods is legal.  It isn't.  But even if it was, the blockade would still be wrong and should be opposed.  After all, as Beck surely knows, segregation was legal, too, which is why the civil rights movement was all about combating Jim Crow laws. 

No matter what the law says, it is right that Israel has the ability to block the import of weapons into Gaza.  And it is wrong that Israel can keep out the items needed to keep children safe and healthy.

It is hard to imagine that even Glenn Beck would disagree.

Foreign Policy Matters has prepared a full fact check of Beck's segment from last night HERE.