Outrage that won't go away

The rogue state of Israel continues to alternately defy the world and attempt to lie its way out of the corner that its illegal and vicious actions have worked it into.

There were guns on the boat, there weren't guns on the boat, the guns on the boat were "taken from attacked Israeli soldiers," it's even been alleged by one Israeli source that the soldiers involved in the raid were merely armed with paint guns. The peace activists attempted to "lynch" the Israeli soldiers, they attacked them with great big knives and metal clubs and so forth.

The stories go on and they change with every passing minute. But they all have one thing in common. They are all utterly unconvincing and they all attempt to embroider a simple and horrific story.

Simply, the Israeli state engaged in an act of piracy on the high seas which left between 10 and 19 peace activists dead - the true figure is still emerging.

And so is the nature of these "dangerous" activists. So far we've got a 63-year-old woodyard worker from the Isle of Wight, a 25-year-old journalist working for London-based Press TV, a pizza shop operator from Altrincham, a charity worker from Huddersfield and a 38-year-old woman from West Lavington in Wiltshire, unaffilliated to any group, who was delivering chemotherapy drugs, as well as a galaxy of political personalities from across the world.

Not the stuff of armed struggle, you might think, and just the sort of decent people who the world's governments should spring to protect.

But that appears not to be the case with the US government, our domestic coalition or, unfortunately, with the United Nations.

In stark contrast to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who denounced Israel's raid as a "bloody massacre," the US has been working its collective backside off to diminish the rage against Israel.

It has bulldozed through the UN compromise wording on a statement on the outrage which took out direct condemnation of Israel and removed references to an international investigation.

The US compromise also weakened demands for an end to the economic blockade of Gaza, but the incident has refocused international attention on the siege and many states have renewed calls for it to be lifted.

In slavish conformity to US attempts at damage limitation, British PM David Cameron merely "deplored the loss of life" caused by the raid, with not a word about culpability or holding Israel to account, and wittered on about the UK commitment to Israel's security.

In the US, President Obama "expressed deep regret at the loss life in the raid and said it was important to learn all the circumstances surrounding the event."

Just what would they be, Mr Obama? The US president is surely not suggesting that any circumstance at all could justify the death of those peace activists.

But what he is doing is desperately trying to cover for Israel and mute the sheer anger that this outrage has generated. Inquiry, of course there must be, but that is not sufficient, no matter how open or quick.

Only justice will suffice here and that is best served by immediate intervention of the UN to pen Israeli forces back into the borders of their country, to squash this appalling Israeli blockade and to guarantee for the Palestinian people their statehood and their right to live free of military dominance by a country which has forfeited any right that it might have claimed to invade another people's territory using facile claims of "security issues" to excuse its terror tactics.

This out-of-control rogue state posture must end and be replaced by diplomacy and, if Israel is unwilling to do so, it is time that the UN stopped turning a blind eye and intervened to protect a desperate and beleaguered people who are being systematically strangled.