Well, the EU, UN, and State Department has decided that Israel has done a Bad Thing. And indeed the mainstream news media is lightning-quick to describe the event as an “attack” on “humanitarian workers,” emphatically and persistently, as if trying to convince themselves of something.

Very well, news media. The Czar has taken the liberty of scribbling down some question you should be asking everyone involved. Indeed, the answers are out there—in fact, every one of these has been answered fairly conclusively in the last 24 hours, should you care to research and report on them in a bit that lasts more than 15 seconds.

1. Define why emergency humanitarian relief efforts are needed in Gaza, which has not suffered a catastrophic disaster; while opinions differ on why Gaza residents are dirt poor, there is an astonishing culpability to be assumed by Hamas. Hamas, in 2006, won elections and declared itself a legitimate government. Where is their responsibility in their people’s welfare? Why has Egypt supported the blockade by securing its own border with the Gaza Strip? What does Egypt know that Hamas, evidently, does not?

2. Why would a humanitarian group elect to run a well publicized blockade, and defy warnings?

3. Why would a humanitarian group elect to don masks and carry weapons?

4. Assuming Israel started it, why would humanitarians elect to counterattack by (in their own words) taking guns from Israeli commandos and fire back at the main ships? Would they not simply surrender to allow Israel to search and discover their innocent cargo (and later capitalize on Israel’s public blunder)? And, assuming the ship’s passengers and crew were so shocked and horrified by the attack enough to capture Israeli weaponry, why not limit the counterattack to the commandos on board, rather than attempt to engage the blockade ships?

5. Why would humanitarian efforts not employ a known neutral relief agency using an Israeli port of call (legal under the conditions of the blockade) rather than use a blockade-running group openly admitted to be allied with terrorists?

6. Why has Turkey failed to explain its draft resolution indicting Israel with ”piracy and banditry,” while Israel has clearly explained the legality of its operation under international maritime law?

7. Assuming Israel intended to attack an innocent aid ship, why would it go to the trouble of securing it, rescuing passengers, and providing critical details to the world media, when it could simply have sunk the ship, killed all passengers and crew, and made up a plausible story about terrorists on board detonating weapons, or terrorists on board attempting to ram an Israeli ship, or whatever she felt like claiming? Doesn’t this seem like an awful lot of work for a non-coverup?

8. Video shows a firebomb being thrown at Israeli commandos in the first few minutes of the takedown. Assuming the firearms and grenades being used were somehow taken from the commandos, whence did the firebomb originate? Did commandos board the ship with Molotov cocktails (allowing one to be taken), did a passenger happen to have one handy in case, you know, commandos attacked…or were these stockpiled and ready for use? If someone grabbed a bottle of vodka off the ship bar and fashioned something quickly (which is far-fetched given the speed with which someone would have to identify the situation, decide on a bomb, gather the materials, and then make one), what sort of humanitarian immediately resorts to homemade napalm to protest an allegedly illegal action?

The Czar would like to hear these questions asked and answered.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.