The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches has officially condemned Israel for the Gaza flotilla incident. I know this is an extraordinary surprise, but sometimes those crazy folks in Geneva just feel the need to break out of their mold:

It is with great distress that the World Council of Churches received the news that the Israeli naval forces stormed a Gaza-bound vessel carrying humanitarian aid in international waters before dawn on Monday, killing at least 10 civilians and injuring many more.

The Israelis suffered at least a half dozen casualties as a result of coming down in the middle of an armed mob, but why should that bother anyone? Got what they deserved, I tell ya.

We condemn the assault and killing of innocent people who were attempting to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza, who have been under a crippling Israeli blockade since 2007.

The WCC has an odd idea of what constitutes “innocence.” The people in question were armed with iron bars, baseball bats, knives and at least two guns. They started beating on Israeli soldiers, who came with no intention of hurting anyone, before their feet touched the deck. They threw at least one soldier overboard, which at the very least counts as attempted murder. But hey, they were attempting to bring “humanitarian assistance” to Gaza, so they must be innocent, right?

We further condemn the flagrant violation of international law by Israel in attacking and boarding a humanitarian convoy in international waters.

Ignorance is bliss, I guess. The joint Israeli-Egyptian blockade of Gaza is for the express purpose of preventing weapons from reaching Hamas, something the Iranians have been caught trying to do by sea at least twice. Given that Hamas is officially dedicated to Israel’s destruction, and has lobbed rockets into Israeli territory on a daily basis for years, I think it’s fair to say that a state of war exists between Gaza and Israel. That being the case, the blockade is a legitimate action in prosecution of that war, in which case the stopping and boarding of ships that have announced their intention of running a blockade, even in international waters, is perfectly legal. But at this point Olav Fykse Tveit is doing nothing more than reflecting elite European opinion, which knows no more, and desires to know no more, about the laws of war than it knows about the contents of the Koran. Just gets in the way, doncha know.

The deplorable events which occurred yesterday off the coast of Gaza remind us yet again of the pressing need for an end to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Someone needs to wake Dr. Tveit up, and let him know it isn’t 2004 any more. There is no Israeli military occupation of Gaza–if there were, does he really think Hamas would be in charge of the territory? In any case, it isn’t the occupation of the West Bank that caused yesterday’s incident. It is the continued refusal of Hamas to demonstrate any desire to make peace with Israel, and the continuing efforts of Iran and others to smuggle weapons to it, that keeps the blockade in place. It is the actions of its Islamic supporters and Western fellow travelers who do all they can to prop Hamas up and provide it with propaganda victories, even at the cost of lives. It is the continuing willful blindness of delusional people such as Olav Fykse Tveit who give Hamas and its bloodthirsty minions hope of achieving their ultimate goal of pushing the Jews into the sea.

UPDATE: Saw a reference at Michelle Malkin‘s site to the fact that the United Nations has yet to say a word about the North Korean sinking of a South Korean ship on March 29, two weeks after an investigation demonstrated beyond a doubt that a North Korean submarine was involved. Got me to wondering, and sure enough, the WCC has yet to utter a peep about an act of war involving one of its favorite totalitarian regimes. Of course, the South Koreans weren’t “innocent”–they were clearly puppets of Western imperialism, and as such deserved what they got, too.