If this is true, it is so wrong on so many levels it makes the head spin:

I’m told there won’t be any daylight between the US and Israel in the aftermath of the incident on the flotilla yesterday, which resulted in the deaths of 10 activists.

Regardless of the details of the flotilla incident, sources say President Obama is focused on what he sees as the longer term issue here: a successful Mideast peace process.

“The president has always said that it will be much easier for Israel to make peace if it feels secure,” a senior administration official tells ABC News.

The suggestion is that US condemnation of Israel would further isolate that country, and make further peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians even more difficult.

Barbara O’Brien quotes Juan Cole, who sees significance in the fact that the Obama administration either tacitly or explicitly (it’s not clear to me which one) allowed the UN Security Council to condemn Israel’s raid on the aid flotilla without the usual condemnation of the condemnation:

The one encouraging thing I heard this morning was from Juan Cole, who writes about the UN Security Council condemnation of the incident.

This development is head-spinning in its implications. The United States almost never allows UNSC resolutions condemning Israel to go forward (though this text was admittedly a presidential statement rather than a full resolution). But here it is clear that President Barack Obama instructed his ambassador to the UN to join in the condemnation of the Israeli “acts.” Since Turkey is currently a non-permanent member of the UNSC and led the charge on the condemnation of Israel, it is possible that the US felt it had to trade horses with Ankara if it has any chance of still getting a UNSC resolution tightening sanctions on Iran (a step that Turkey opposes, as does Brazil, though neither has a veto). It is also possible that Israel’s rash attack has sabotaged the Obama administration’s push for increased UN sanctions on Iran, hardening opposition to an Israel-driven policy toward Tehran.

Compare/contrast with Jack Tapper, who claims a White House official told him the U.S. would “stand with Israel.”

[…]

I don’t see how knee-jerk support of every damnfool thing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government does is going to enable a “successful Mideast Peace process.” I think either Tapper or his “source” is blowing smoke.

Here is the text of that UN statement:

The Security Council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza. The Council, in this context, condemns those acts which resulted in the loss of at least ten civilians and many wounded, and expresses its condolences to their families.

The Security Council requests the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians held by Israel. The Council urges Israel to permit full consular access, to allow the countries concerned to retrieve their deceased and wounded immediately, and to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance from the convoy to its destination.

The Security Council takes note of the statement of the UN Secretary-General on the need to have a full investigation into the matter and it calls for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation conforming to international standards.

The Security Council stresses that the situation in Gaza is not sustainable. The Council re-emphasizes the importance of the full implementation of Resolutions 1850 and 1860. In that context, it reiterates its grave concern at the humanitarian situation in Gaza and stresses the need for sustained and regular flow of goods and people to Gaza as well as unimpeded provision and distribution of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza.

The Security Council underscores that the only viable solution to Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an agreement negotiated between the parties and re-emphasises that only a two-State solution, with an independent and viable Palestinian State living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours, could bring peace to the region.

The Security Council expresses support for the proximity talks and voices concern that this incident took place while the proximity talks are underway and urges the parties to act with restraint, avoiding any unilateral and provocative actions, and all international partners to promote an atmosphere of cooperation between the parties and throughout the region.

So apparently the Obama administration didn’t directly sign on to the statement, but they didn’t explicitly condemn it or try to stop it, either. I think. That kind of indecisive, timid non-response is not gaining it any friends on either side:

A delicate diplomatic maneuver by President Barack Obama to smooth frayed relations with Israel without alienating America’s Arab allies may have been blown out of the water Monday morning by Israel’s botched attempt to enforce the Gaza blockade — and by the lack of condemnation from Washington that followed it.

For while much about the incident remains unclear, a day of carefully parsed statements from the White House and State Department left at least one irrefutable aftershock: With much of the world expressing fury over the raid, the contrast with Washington’s muted response could not have been more striking.

In other words: the White House (a) knows full well that full-throated U.S. support for Israel puts the United States in the position of defending actions that the entire rest of the world has condemned — and more importantly from a realpolitik point of view, actions that have created a potentially very serious international incident with a third party (Turkey) that is both a regional and a NATO ally; while (b) having to reconcile that awareness with the Eleventh Commandment of U.S. foreign policy: Thou Shalt Not Criticize Israel — EVER. Israel’s actions have ruptured relations with both Israel’s and the United States’s major ally in the region, set back the already dubious prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and further degraded security in the region — but the prospect of unequivocally denouncing Israel for using lethal force against a ship loaded with humanitarian supplies and hundreds of civilians trying to deliver that aid to a Gazan population in desperate need is just way, way, way too scary for the U.S. government to seriously consider.

Once again, says Abu Muqawama, we see what happens when superpowers push the limits of military power (italics are in original):

… Military operations cannot substitute for a comprehensive strategy. Just because the military is willing and able, and just because direct-action raids appear to be quick and easy, does not mean that second- and third-order effects cannot bite you hard if not properly thought through and mitigated by effective information operations and other supporting operations.

Jeffrey Goldberg’s take on the flotilla attack is a must-read (and how often do I say that about anything Jeffrey Goldberg has written?)

There is a word in Yiddish, seichel, which means wisdom, but it also means more than that: It connotes ingenuity, creativity, subtlety, nuance. Jews have always needed seichel to survive in this world; a person in possession of a Yiddishe kop, a “Jewish head,” is someone who has seichel, someone who looks for a clever way out of problems, someone who understands that the most direct way — blunt force, for instance — often represents the least elegant solution, a person who can foresee consequences of his actions.

I don’t know yet exactly what happened at sea when a group of Israeli commandos boarded a ship packed with not-exactly-Gandhi-like anti-Israel protesters. … But I will say this: What I know already makes me worried for the future of Israel, a worry I feel in a deeper way than I think I have ever felt before. The Jewish people have survived this long in part because of the vision of their leaders, men and women who were able to intuit what was possible and what was impossible. Where is this vision today? Israel may face, in the coming year, a threat to its existence the likes of which it has not experienced before: A theologically-motivated regional superpower with a nuclear arsenal. It faces another existential threat as well, from forces arguing that Israel’s morally disastrous settlement policy fatally undermines the very idea of a Jewish state. Is Israel ready to deploy seichel in these battles, rather than mere force?

A lot of the commentaries I’m seeing on yesterday’s disaster are variations on Goldberg’s (and Abu Muquwama’s) points. It’s worth itemizing them, though, because as obvious as it seems that just because you CAN do something doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it, the likelihood that Israel will get it seems to be going down rather than up.

Here is Robert R. Mackey at Obsidian Wings:

Here’s my 50 cents on the whole mess. And it is a mess, a mess of Israel’s making.  Recently, I read Ben MacIntyre’s new book Operation Mincemeat, the story of how the British used a dead body to fool the Germans as part of a great deception plan–to convince Hitler that the Allies would land in Greece and Sardinia, not Sicily, in 1943.  What has this to do with what happened this weekend?

Easy.  We live in an information-centric world, and just as Hitler fell for the trick of Operation Mincemeat, the Israeli government fell for the bait provided–instead of allowing in needed humanitarian supplies into Gaza, they boarded a flotilla of Turkish-flagged vessels in international waters, killing at least nine and leaving dozens wounded.  And gave a real victory to those who–for whatever reason (humanitarian, political, religious, whatever)–want the suffering in Gaza to end, and dealt Israel [an] informational defeat as great as that of the Germans in 1943.

Again Israel will pay a heavy diplomatic price, once which had not been considered ahead of time. Again, the Israeli propaganda machine has managed to convince only brainwashed Israelis, and once more no one asked the question: What was it for? Why were our soldiers thrown into this trap of pipes and ball bearings? What did we get out of it?

If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned nothing from the first movie.

Yesterday’s fiasco could and should have been prevented. This flotilla should have been allowed to pass and the blockade should be brought to an end.

This should have happened a long time ago. In four years Hamas has not weakened and Gilad Shalit was not released. There was not even a sign of a gain.

And what have we instead? A country that is quickly becoming completely isolated. This is a place that turns away intellectuals, shoots peace activists, cuts off Gaza and now finds itself in an international blockade. Once more yesterday it seemed, and not for the first time, that Israel is increasingly breaking away from the mother ship, and losing touch with the world – which does not accept its actions and does not understand its motives.

Yesterday there was no one on the planet, not a newsman or analyst, except for its conscripted chorus, who could say a good word about the lethal takeover.

Did you know that your taxes (if you are a U.S. citizen) pay for a fifth of Israel’s military budget? John Cole raises his hand:

[Can] we have a Stupak amendment so I am no longer paying for this? That is how it works, right? All you have to do is cite your personal morals and you can get things you don’t like unfunded, right?

Kathy Kattenburg

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