How did we get so dumb?
Israel played into Hamas’ hands in an amateurish, pathetic way
Sima Kadmon
Published: 06.01.10, 16:14 / Israel Opinion
When was it that we were just a little less right and a little smarter instead? Almost everything we do in recent years suffers from lack of sophistication, insufficient consideration, and negligence. It appears that the dictum “don’t be right, be smart” grows more meaningful around here from one incident to the next, from one operation to the next, and from one war to the next.
What does it mean to be smart? For example, sending Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon to brief the foreign press in an incident where we killed Turkish nationals is not smart; the same Ayalon who reprimanded the Turkish envoy months ago as he sat in a low chair. It’s just like throwing a red rag into an arena of hungry bulls. Where’s the tact? Where’s our common sense?
It’s not as though the alternative, sending Foreign Minister Lieberman, was much better. Yet someone needs to think ahead, see the overall picture, understand the implications, and predict the reactions.
Yet we don’t need to go that far: As to the trap awaiting our troops at sea Monday, we can say that the writing was all over the water. For weeks they’ve been talking about the sail around here and what needs to be done about it. Yet they didn’t do one simple thing: A thorough intelligence check of the people who are on board these ships.
So is it any wonder that the incident on board the Marmara caused such shock to the Israeli public? Nobody prepared us for this. Nobody told us there would be such bloodshed and that we may find ourselves facing an international entanglement. And why should they prepare us? Our leadership itself didn’t know this.
When the defense minister spoke Monday about a radical Turkish group it was all very nice, but why did he have to do it after the fact? If you knew, Mr. Minister, that members of this organization were on board the vessel, why didn’t you prepare accordingly? And if you didn’t know – why didn’t you know?
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Originally Posted by Kent
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