Such raw hatred of Jews, never mind Israel, is commonplace in the Middle East, even without the excuse of last week's deadly incident.
The "peace flotilla" was no such thing. To be sure, it had peaceful people aboard, but its organizer, the Turkish Islamist organization IHH, is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, an openly terrorist organization pledged to the destruction of Israel and the triumph of sharia law everywhere. Scores of the "peace passengers" were Islamic militants pledged to kill Jews and secure martyrdom for themselves.
Even that was not enough for Sheikh Hussein bin Mahmud, a pseudonymous but apparently popular commentator in the global jihadist community: "Gaza does not want 'freedom ships' bearing blond women with Muslim, Christian, Jewish and atheist men; it wants a naval fleet and a land army bearing black Islamic banners. ... Gaza will not agree to a ceasefire with the Jews. On the contrary, it is thirsty and wants to drink the blood of the sons of apes and pigs, and it is hungry and longs to devour the body parts of these cowards."
It is not surprising that such racist loathing creates a siege mentality in Israel. Worse is the fact that Israelis know that it's not just "the black Islamic banners" with which they must contend. The realities of Gaza, Israel and the West Bank -- where, with Israel's assistance, the Palestinian economy is booming -- are deemed irrelevant to the conventional narrative. Israel is a cartoon villain, beyond sympathy, beyond even redemption.
Israel is an imperfect society (like any other) but it has extraordinary social, scientific and scholastic achievements. Despite living under endless threats, it is far closer to the liberal ideal of a free society than any other country in the Middle East.
Radical Muslims, on the other hand, stone women, hang homosexuals and kill to deny free speech. Do Europeans protest that? Not many, not often.
Israel is held to a far higher standard than any other nation on earth. Few people seem to care much about North Korean atrocities, let alone its terrifying nuclear defiance of the world. No one marches or calls emergency meetings of the United Nations and the European Union to protest the vicious Muslim brutality against other Muslims that takes place everyday throughout the Islamic world -- and beyond. No one demonstrates on behalf of Christians murdered in the Middle East, their churches burned down.
The Muslim world and the Western left are in an unholy alliance: They do not want to improve the Jewish state, they want to remove it.
Israel has come to expect double standards from Europe and the U.N. Much more serious is the loss of support from the Obama administration. In his attempts to reach out to the Islamic world, President Obama has abandoned the U.S. tradition of wholehearted support for one of its principal allies.
Most recently, Obama backed a U.N. resolution that singled out Israel in calling for a nuclear-free Middle East. No other president has done that, and Israelis are understandably concerned.
What Obama does not seem to understand is that his lack of support for Israel not only saps Israel -- it emboldens Israel's enemies. The Middle East and the world is now a much more dangerous place as "the sons [and daughters] of apes and pigs" are delegitimized once again -- on their way back to Auschwitz, if their enemies succeed.
