Ben Lynfield: Israel is losing the propaganda war amid the sound of gunfire

A YEAR-and-a-half after its military offensive in Gaza hugely reduced its standing in the world, Israel yesterday got a fresh lesson on the costs of choosing military force over other options.

Israel's naval commander said troops acted with "great restraint" in taking over the flotilla bound for Gaza. It could have been much worse than the at least ten fatalities and dozens of wounded, he argued.

The belief that troops had no choice but to use force after coming under severe attack was being widely accepted across Israel's political spectrum. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni even took the lead in justifying the military action and trying to sell it, or at least cast it as unavoidable, in interviews with foreign media.

But internationally, it was another story entirely, with Israeli envoys being summoned to explain the action in Greece, Egypt, Sweden, Spain and Denmark. Turkey, whose nationals made up most of the passengers, withdrew its ambassador from Israel and called an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council. The European Union called on Israel to lift the blockade it has imposed on Gaza since Hamas seized power there three years ago.

Indeed, yesterday may well be looked back upon as a milestone on Israel's road to becoming a pariah state among most of the international community, the United States excepted. With continued impatience over what is seen as Israeli stonewalling of peace efforts with the Palestinians, few countries are in the mood to give Israel the benefit of the doubt any more.

Like in the Gaza offensive, the lopsided casualty toll and the initial images emanating from the Israeli interdiction were backfiring against Israel.

"It doesn't matter what happened there," said Shlomo Brom, a senior analyst at the National Institute of Security Studies. "I assume the reports of harsh violence by those on board are right, but this will not convince the outside world which perceives people from humanitarian organisations coming under attack. The government's version does not sound convincing.

"This contributes to a process of deligitimisation of Israel and demonisation whose end result is Israel finding itself isolated."

In the view of Eitan Haber, a former aide to the assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, the entire objective of the flotilla was to harm Israel's image and in this, he says, it succeeded due to the loss of life. "A country that almost the whole world denies its right to exist won't last for long," he said. "Our problem is that we always have only one solution to every problem: force."

The fact is Tel Aviv is now losing the propaganda war even with an organisation such as Hamas, which adheres in its very founding covenant to the most foul and outrageous of conspiracy theories about the Jewish people. The sound of the gun is not the voice Israel needs to address the world.