SYNDICATED COLUMN: Sticks and Stones on the High Seas
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Activists Finally Fight Back—And Win They call themselves activists. But leftist activists rarely do anything. They march. They chant. They whine. Then they go home, satisfied that they’ve said their piece without taking a personal risk. Oppressive governments love such phony “activists.” Not only can they carry on as usual, they point to the toothless demonstrators as evidence that they’re not so bad. Each side legitimizes the other. Since the ’70s, passive resistance has become a religion of sorts among American “activists.” The exceptions, such as 1999’s Battle of Seattle between Seattle riot cops and anti-WTO protesters, have been notable—not least because they mark the few times the left has won. So when Israel dispatched a group of armed commandos to seize a flotilla of Turkish ships attempting to break its blockade of the besieged Gaza Strip, they had every reason to expect the usual pathetic pacifist response: rolling over and playing dead. “We prepared for an operation involving light…
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