We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege, which is itself becoming Israel's Vietnam.

A war tells a people terrible truths about itself. That is why it is so difficult to listen.

We were determined to avoid an honest look at the first Gaza war. Now, in international waters and having opened fire on an international g

roup of humanitarian aid workers and activists, we are fighting and losing the second. For Israel, in the end, this Second Gaza War could be far more costly and painful than the first

In going to war in Gaza in late 2008, Israeli military and political leaders hoped to teach Hamas a lesson. They succeeded. Hamas learned that the best way to fight Israel is to let Israel do what it has begun to do naturally: bluster, blunder, stonewall, and fume.

Hamas, and no less, Iran and Hezbollah, learned early on that Israel's own embargo against Hamas-ruled Gaza was the most sophisticated and powerful weapon they could have deployed against the Jewish state.

Here in Israel, we have still yet to learn the lesson: We are no longer defending Israel. We are now defending the siege. The siege itself is becoming Israel's Vietnam.

Of course, we knew this could happen. On Sunday, when the army spokesman began speaking of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in terms of an attack on Israel, MK Nahman Shai, the IDF chief spokesman during the 1991 Gulf war, spoke publicly of his worst nightmare, an operation in which Israeli troops, raiding the flotilla, might open fire on peace activists, aid workers and Nobel laureates.

Likud MK Miri Regev, who also once headed the IDF Spokesman's Office, said early Monday that the most important thing now was to deal with the negative media reports quickly, so they would go away.

But they are not going to go away. One of the ships is named for Rachel Corrie, killed while trying to bar the way of an IDF bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago. Her name, and her story, have since become a lightning rod for pro-Palestinian activism.

Perhaps most ominously, in a stepwise, lemming-like march of folly in our relations with Ankara, a regional power of crucial importance and one which, if heeded, could have helped head off the First Gaza War, we have come dangerously close to effectively declaring a state of war with Turkey.

"This is going to be a very large incident, certainly with the Turks," said Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, the cabinet minister with the most sensitive sense of Israel's ties with the Muslim world.

We explain, time and again, that we are not at war with the people of Gaza. We say it time and again because we ourselves need to believe it, and because, deep down, we do not.

There was a time, when it could be said that we knew ourselves only in wartime. No longer. Now we know nothing. Yet another problem with refraining from talks with Hamas and Iran: They know us so much better than we know ourselves.

They know, as the song about the Lebanon War suggested ("Lo Yachol La'atzor Et Zeh") that we, unable to see ourselves in any clarity, are no longer capable of stopping ourselves.

Hamas, as well as Iran, have come to know and benefit from the toxicity of Israeli domestic politics, which is all too ready to mortgage the future for the sake of a momentary apparent calm.

They know that in our desperation to protect our own image of ourselves, we will avoid modifying policies which have literally brought aid and comfort to our enemies, in particular Hamas, which the siege on Gaza has enriched through tunnel taxes and entrenched through anger toward Israel.

For many on the right, it must be said, there will be a quiet joy in all of what is about to hit the fan. "We told you so," the crowing will begin. "The world hates us, no matter what we do. So we may as well go on building [Read: 'Settling the West Bank and East Jerusalem'] and defending our borders [Read: 'Bolster Hamas and ultimately harm ourselves by refusing to lift the Gaza embargo']."

Hamas, Iran and the Israeli and Diaspora hard right know, as one, that this is a test of enormous importance for Benjamin Netanyahu. Keen to have the world focus on Iran and the threat it poses to the people of Israel, Netanyahu must recognize that the world is now focused on Israel and the threat it poses to the people of Gaza.

By Bradley Burston from haaretz.com

Richard Goldstone, a former South African judge, has been effectively banned from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah which is to be held in Johannesburg next month.

Goldstone, who authored a UN report on the war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip, has been barred by the South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) from attending the event, South African and Israeli newspapers reported on Thursday.

"A very ugly feature of the response to the Goldstone report has been personal attacks like this on him and his family over a sustained period," Doron Isaacs, a Jewish South African, told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

"This should not be seen as an isolated incident." Tight lipped

An agreement with the family, that Goldstone would not be in attendance at the synagogue service, was reached after negotiations between the SAZF and the Sandton Shul, where the event is due to take place.

Avrom Krengel, chairman of the SAZF, who was reportedly not keen to reveal much, said: "We understand there's a barmitzvah boy involved - we're very sensitive to the issues; at this stage there's nothing further to say."

While Krengel said the SAZF had interacted on the matter with the chief rabbi and others, his organisation was "coming across most forcefully because we represent Israel".

Goldstone was reluctant to reveal further details, and is reported to have said: "In the interests of my grandson, I've decided not to attend the ceremony at the synagogue."

A bar mitzvah is a coming of age event for a young Jewish boy, when he symbollically becomes a man.

"There is a belief amongst right-wing Zionist organisations that defaming and humiliating Jewish critics of Israeli policy, will set an example that would intimidate others into silence," Isaacs, co-ordinator of a community-based education NGO, said.

Isaacs led a Jewish youth movement that campaigned for a just resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. 'A lot of anger'

Moshe Kurtstag, Rabbi and head of South Africa's Jewish religious court, said that he believed Goldstone had done a tremendous disservice not only to Israel but to the Jewish world.

 "I know that there was a very strong feeling in the shul, a lot of anger."

Arthur Chaskalson, retired president of the constitutional court, said it was "disgraceful" to put pressure on a grandfather not to attend his grandson's bar mitzvah.

"If this has the blessing of the leadership of the Jewish community in South Africa, it reflects on them rather than Judge Goldstone. They should hang their heads in shame."

David Saks, associate director of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies told Al Jazeera that this was a SAZF issue and they were not prepared to make any statement.

"Israeli apologists in South Africa behave as they did under Apartheid when they failed to recognise the humanity of black people. They have no understanding of constitutional values or the humanity of Palestinians," Zackie Achmat, the renowned South African HIV/AIDS activist, said to Al Jazeera.

"The SAZF is not only ignorant of the Goldstone report but they have violated his rights to belief, family life and dignity."

Source: aljazeera.net