Beryl Wajsman: The double standard of outrage over treatment of flotilla activists. When Israel detains them, the whole world erupts; when Spanish police are filmed beating them, the silence is palpable. The recent Gaza flotilla controversy has exposed, once again, the grotesque double standard that now passes for diplomacy.
Israel’s Actions Spark Global Condemnation
Israel detained and deported activists who tried to breach a naval blockade in a war zone. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Israel’s handling of the incident, the reaction was immediate, theatrical and global. Governments condemned Israel. Ambassadors were summoned. Israel was accused of violating human dignity and international law.
Spanish Police Violence Met with Silence
But when Spanish police were filmed at Bilbao airport beating, dragging and handcuffing Gaza flotilla activists — with reports of batons used against people already on the ground — the diplomatic thunder vanished. Four people were reportedly detained. Yet the same voices that found instant moral clarity against Israel suddenly discovered complexity, context and silence.
Prime Minister Carney’s Selective Outrage
Prime Minister Mark Carney, for example, called Israel’s actions “abominable” and “unacceptable.” Yet he has said nothing about the clubbing of flotilla activists by Spanish police. This double standard gives antisemitism license. The only difference between Israel and Spain is that Israel is a Jewish state.
The Test of Equal Standards
The test is not whether Israel should be immune from criticism. It should not be. No democracy is. The test is whether Israel is judged by the same standards as everyone else. When the Jewish state detains activists, it is treated as an international outrage. When a European country’s police visibly club those same activists, nothing is said. This is the world’s oldest prejudice in modern diplomatic dress: the Jew, and now the Jewish state, as uniquely guilty.
Flotilla as Political Provocation
The Gaza flotilla was a political provocation designed to create confrontation, headlines and martyrs for the cameras. In its war with Hamas, Israel has security obligations that no responsible state can ignore. Deporting foreign activists attempting to break a blockade is hardly unprecedented conduct. And the activists’ claims of being beaten and tased have been firmly denied by the Israeli Prison Service. The fact is that in the case of Spain, we have video evidence of police misconduct. When it comes to Israel, all we have is the word of people whose sole mission was to make the Jewish state look bad.
Disproportionate Reaction to Israel
The fact is that the reaction to Israel is never proportional. It’s liturgical. Condemnation comes before facts. Accusation before inquiry. Sanctions before standards. Spain’s conduct should have produced the same outrage from those who claim to care about flotilla activists. It did not, because the flotilla members are useful to the international left only when Israel is the accused. When the batons are Spanish, the moral performance ends.
This hypocrisy tells us everything. A world that condemns Israel for detaining and deporting activists but shrugs when Spanish police beat them is not defending human rights. It is singling out the Jewish state for special opprobrium. And that, by any honest name, is antisemitism masquerading as foreign policy.
Beryl P. Wajsman is president of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal.
