meh...this attempt to make a parallel between the two countries comes off as silly.

I generally agree with Dan's appalled reaction to this incident, though the North Korean analogy looks to me like one of those peculiar ideas that sometimes come out when one is writing under time pressure.

One thing, though: I don't think the Israeli-Turkish relationship is imperilled by anything that happened within the last 48 hours. The Israeli-Turkish relationship is instead a casualty of internal Turkish politics. The Islamist Turkish government knows that Israel is less than popular with much of the Turkish public, especially with its own constituency, and knows also that the heretofore close relationship between Turkey and Israel was a product of previous secular Turkish governments in which the Turkish military was influential. It sought to make an incident that would put the burden of good relations with the unpopular Israelis on its domestic political opponents.

If it hadn't been the Gaza flotilla incident, it would have been something else. The current Turkish government just doesn't value the relationship with Israel as its predecessors did. Israel's contribution was to make this particular incident look much worse than it might have, but as far as Turkey is concerned the story is not its reaction to the incident but rather its role in making it possible.

Oh yeah: Israel's just like North Korea.

Its starving people are eating grass. It's surrounded by enemies on all sides, includuing China. The US , China and the Russians have all declared their intent to destroy it, and have sat idly by while the South shells it and sends rockets into it.

Yeah, right.

Drezner, we're onto to glib-but-shallow morons such as yourself. In the Obama Caliphate your perfidy will rewarded, or so you think.

If you yourself Jewish, as your name would indicate, you must be an extra-ordinarily self-hating POS.

You might want to re-think this one, Daniel.

Agree that the response to this bunch of terrorist sympathizers was botched.
I think there was more political input than military planning involved.

But there is no comparison between North Korea and Israel. There is a closer match between North Korea and Hamas. One is a Stalinist police state with some technical skills and the other is just a terrorist gang. Hamas hasn't even shown that they possess the skills to do anything except building simple rockets that they have to launch from kindergartens. North Korea, bad as it is, has shown that it has some skills. They can actually sell things to the Palestinians who have only shown a knack for begging.

They can't govern, they can't provide for their people, and, in case it has slipped everyone's mind, Gaza shares a border with Egypt. They could build a big assed freeway through that border. If they were capable of building anything, and if the Egyptians actually gave a damn about the Palestinians, which they don't.

Israel's bad behavior? That flotilla was a deliberate provocation, and the deaths on the ship were not intentional. That marks the difference between the Palestinians (and their enablers and sympathizers) and the Israelis. Palestine fires rockets into Israel hoping to hit someone innocent, while Israel drops leaflets in war zones telling the innocent to flee before the fighting begins.

If the Palestinians unilaterally disarmed, Israel would leave them alone. If Israel unilaterally disarmed, the Palestinians would kill them all. I just can't see how reasonable people find the two groups somehow comparable.

I would like to know what arm chair generals like yourself would have chosen to do in the circumstances. Just let the ships land at Gaza and deliver their weapons? Wouldn't more ships be on the way after these, and wouldn't that show of weakness embolden Israel's enemies further?

They did not sink these ships. Force was their only choice, and Israel chose the bare minimum of force possible, with plenty of warnings beforehand. What else could they have done?

The Jewish population and wealth (and outside the Negev even size) Israel is slightly less, but comparable to metro Philly. Why people expect Israel to have the diplomatic finesse, military muscle, PR chops and deep bench of a mid weight European power is beyond me.

The last time a European nation of even larger population and greater wealth was put to the test (Greece) it failed utterly in the sense that their are few outside Greece who would defend their actions.-- Considerably worse than Israel which has a very presentable counter narrative to its opponents' case. Yet Israel is judged by standards that even a super power would find tricky to satisfy.

Finally this immigrant Jewish folklore hype has gotten out of hand. People find resourceful solutions when they are desperate or when they have space to be creative. Not because they are magic Jews. Since Israelis are neither desperate and since their actions are heavily scrutinized from all quarters neither condition is met. Instead you get the plodding resource heavy procedures that are common when one is trying to avoid making a legal mistake.

In short there is not much Israel can do live up to Dan's standards.

They could try.

A few weeks ago Russia captured dozens of Somali pirates. You can see them on YouTube. Supplicant and handcuffed. The next day they were all dead. Did Russia F**k up?

Nope. 'Cause Russia doesn't give a f**k what Daniel W. Drezner or anyone else thinks of them.

Unlike Israel, Mr. Drezner knows Russia can't be hustled, manipulated, conned or embarrased into wetting their pants and groveling before the "world community".

So Mr. Drezner doesn't even bother writing about the Russian murder of Somalis.

But since Israel is infected with the disease of liberal "how do I look" Judaism, he's all over it like a fly on a cow patty.

The only other option I can see for Israel would have been to ignore the provocation and permit the flotilla to proceed. But this seems unsatisfactory. This being perceived as Israeli weakness, further provocations would have followed.
What other options existed for Israel?

I am not quite sure what the options were for Israel in this sense. Where the "seichel" is supposed to be.
Let's see Israel's other options:
1. Let the flotilla go through and open up a sea lane for the delivery of weapons to Hamas in Gaza. This is the result regardless of the cargo on this particular flotilla. This is not an option for the Israeli government or military.
2. Disable the ships at sea and leave them there. Who would be responsible then to feed these people? Turkey? Greece? EU? No - Israel would be condemned for letting people starve in the middle of the sea.
3. Take over the ships. This is what was done. Could the tactics have been different? Possibly. Is it really so easy to take over a ship in the middle of the sea without casualties? Possibly, but I would like to think a Navy SEAL would respond instead of a pundit or professor. My guess is that no navy would have done any better facing the same harsh responses.
4. Is Israel only dependent upon the US as N Korea is on China? I think that you have not read up on Israeli foreign and trade policy over the last 15 years. Israeli trade with India and China are exploding. Relations with those countries is also on the rise. This is also true with most countries of the former Soviet Union (including Russia) as well as the EU and many African and Latin American countries.
5. The reality is that in the UN/diplomatic community Israel is always wrong while in the business and trade world, we are welcomed with open arms. Which community should we pay attention to more?

I wonder who Jews think they're kidding? So Israel claims to be scared of those who stand up and try to defend themselves (like Hamas or Hezbollah) against Jewish aggression and terrorism (of the armed robber kind) and they want us to think along with them that this justifies all the murder, butchery and savagery which are the cornerstones upon which Israel society is founded. I wonder out loud if this rule and reaction applies universally? It doesn't. Are Palestinians allowed to be scared - so scared that they invade a Jewish neighborhood in Crown Heights, murder a bunch of innocent Jews - including children, the elderly and pregnant women, flatten the neighborhood & surround it with barbed wire, steal the money - and call it "self defense?" That is exactly the height of current Jewish wisdom that keeps pumping out of the mouths of these Jewish bloggers and paid-to-post forum participants. So is this now the international rule - that anything goes as long as you can claim you were scared? Of course not. Apparently, being "scared" has proven extremely profitable for Jews. There seems to be one rule for Jews (in essence, no rules or restrictions) and another for the rest of humanity.

"Based on the number of e-mails I got from the flotilla organizers in the last 72 hours.."

You've been corresponding with people who organized the deliberate running of the Israel + Egypt blockade for 3 days?

And you expect us to pay attention to what you have to say about Israel?

"it should be possible to gain control of an unruly ship without, you know, killing more than ten people"

Ha ha. I assume this is based on Prof. Drezner's extensive experience as a, what, Colonel? Major? General? in the military specializing in airborne amphibious assault. Perhaps Prof./Col./Maj./Gen. Drezner can show us his military plan to take the ships without casualties. I am sure he could enlighten us all.

(On a slightly less snarky note - why is it that Ivory Tower academics think they are so much more intelligent than everyone else in the world that that confidently make assertions about things that they clearly unqualified to make and that they have no idea about? Is it some kind of disease of academia that causes this to happen? Academia Arrogance Gigantism?)

"they [Flotilla organizers] were dying for a confrontation with Israeli forces"

And you were corresponding with these people for 3 days?

And you want us to respect what you have to write about Israel?

Now we know.

Not happening.

"At this rate, Israel and the Netanyahu government will be blamed for the sinking of the Cheonan and the cancellation of Law & Order by the end of the week."

Israel may not be accused of the sinking of the Cheonan, but definitely the attempted sinking of the USS Liberty -- 34 Americans were killed and 173 injured in Israel's 1967 attack on the U.S.S. Liberty.

from Jeff Goldberg
"Israel may face, in the coming year, a threat to its existence the likes of which it has not experienced before: A theologically-motivated regional superpower with a nuclear arsenal."
While Israel is often murderous and, with its latest foray into piracy, getting suicidal I really can not see it turning its own WMDs on itself.

Based on the number of e-mails I got from the flotilla organizers in the last 72 hours, they were dying for a confrontation with Israeli forces.

Well, they got their wish. Literally. Was the choice of words intentional?

...and forcing the UN Security Council into emergency session...

Another interesting choice of words. Forcing? Right, I'm sure they went kicking and screaming. ;o)

This would be the 11th special session in UN history. Any guesses how many focused on one tiny country on the eastern side of the Mediterranean? No peeking before you guess :-).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_special_sessions_of_the_United_Nations_General_Assembly

Your analogy is broadly valid, but has some serious limitations, to wit:

1) The Cheonan posed no imminent security threat; the flotilla arguably did.
2) North Korea does not suffer rocket, nor any, attacks from South Korea (at least not recently); Hamas has fired circa 7,000 over civilian areas.
3) Korea is embroiled in what is essentially a protracted civil war; Israel and Hamas represent two distinct nations.
4) Whereas South Korea fights for Korea's eventual national unification, Hamas continues to fight explicitly for the ethnic cleansing of what they consider to be Palestine; there is no room for any Israel in Hamas' charter.
5) North Korea launched a torpedo; the IDF came armed with paintball guns and pistols.
6) North Korea denies that it even attacked the Cheonan; Israel not only admitted its responsibility but released reams of footage in defense of its actions.
7) Compare the South Korean Sunshine Policy (abandoned only recently) to Hamas' own charter: "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

...etc.

Has any undergraduate ever taken an introductory history or IR course without being warned of the danger in drawing such analogies?

Gaza is part of Palestine. It can't survive w/o the West Bank. They are inseparable. The simpletons with blinders on who can't even pronounce Hamas (Chamas) make much of the fact that its charter doesn't recognize Israel. So what, the Likud Charter doesn't recognize Palestine. tit for tat.

Meshal has said he would recognize 1967 Israel. All the Arab States have signed on to the Saudi Beirut initiative but the New Afrikaaners want to keep on colonizing East Jerusalem & the West Bank and hold on to the settlements.

The U.N. is awful, the resolutions are to be disobeyed except when it is to be used against Iraq or Iran, of course.

The Israeli Firsters have embroiled the U.S. now in two Mid East wars, cost us ten thousand dead, fifty thousand wounded, ten trillion dollars blown, wrecked our economy, and the sheep people have not yet woke up yet!

"If the Palestinians unilaterally disarmed, Israel would leave them alone." Bullsh*t, they'd just use coach outlet as an excuse to steal more Palestinian land.