Journalists in the Arab world have come out in support of Israel in the aftermath of last month's flotilla incident, which left 9 dead after Hamas-tied "humanitarian activists" attacked Israeli commandos with clubs, knives, and other weapons.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) released excerpts from an interview with Magdi Khalil, an Egyptian-American writer, aired on June 15 on Al-Jazeera TV. Khalil explains:

"The Turkish ship, however, was organized by a known terrorist organization, which has appeared on the terror list since 1997. The IHH [The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief] is a terrorist organization. It was foolish of the Israeli defense minister to believe the Turkish prime minister, who said that these were peaceful people. The Turkish prime minister is an Islamist and should not be trusted to begin with."

Khalil's assertions have been confirmed by intelligence experts— IHH has ties to both Hamas and Al-Qaeda. The organization planted 40 IHH operatives on the Mavi Marmara ship to create a violent confrontation with Israel. Those who died have been celebrated as martyrs by IHH and its supporters.

Kuwaiti journalist Abdallah Al-Hadlaq reveals the double standard placed upon Israel in a column about how the "world is obsessed" with Gaza while ignoring grave tragedies occurring around the world.

Hadlaq explains that there is a "terrible silence, lack of consideration, and indifference that has overcome the world…with regard to more important and more valuable [issues] that merit attention far more than this murky piece of land called the Gaza Strip." Among the issues that Hadlaq mentions in his column published in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan on June 19, released by MEMRI, include:

• The Darfur conflict, which has lead to the death of 300,000 people and 27 million refugees;
• the Arab Ahwaz province in Iran, "whose eight million inhabitants are oppressed, repressed and tyrannized by the totalitarian Persian regime that controls Tehran;"
• the Southern Kordofan province in Sudan, and the clashes between rivals leading to violence, expulsion, and exodus;
• and the "spiraling human crisis in Kyrgyzstan."

Hadlaq asks: "Are not the [three] islands belonging to the UAE that are under the Iranian Persian dictatorship's occupation worthy of more attention than Gaza and its residents?"

Hadlaq explains the motives behind organizers of flotillas to Gaza:

"Some of these defeatists and interested parties are constantly trying to use the slogan 'removal of the siege on Gaza' for political and media [purposes], and to exploit it for the benefit of their own private goals."

Hadlaq continues:

"In any event, the global exaggeration, which is headed by some of the defeatists and interested parties attempting to create an illusion among the public that the situation in Gaza is tragic, that the distress is great, and that there is a need for feverish action to remove the siege on it, will be revealed as a tool of fraud, and the events that follow will reveal the [true] intents and goals of the defeatists and the commoners who achieved fame. [Then] these ongoing supposed humanitarian efforts will be diverted from their false goal – that is, 'pacifist global humanist purposes' – [and will show their true colors of] violence, terrorism, extremism, and rigidity."