> How smart were they when they ran a bulldozer over a young, white
> American girl? And what difference did it make?
Of course it made a difference. It made a difference because it showed our increasingly multipolar, multicultural world exactly what kind of state Israel is slowly but surely turning into -- an apartheid state, founded on 19th century racism and xenophobia.
And the time is right for civil protest. Israel has a modern, high-tech economy, which is uniquely vulnerable to trade and cultural sanctions, especially from its biggest trading partner, the EU. Israel can no longer play the military card -- it's at peace with Egypt and Jordan. Syria doesn't want a conflict, and Hezbollah wants simply to be left alone (though if Israel is crazy enough to ever invade Lebanon again, the IDF will lose five times as badly as 2006 -- Hezbollah's already formidable operational capacities have been upgraded several times over).
They can stop this flotilla, but there will be others.
-- DRR