The ‘Free Gaza Movement’ Convoy: Humanitarians or Camera-Seekers?
And so the stage is set for what is gearing up to be a major international media circus this weekend. The ships will approach Gaza, the Israel navy will order them to divert to Ashdod, and they will refuse. The IDF has been very specific as to what the Freedom Flotilla should expect from that point on:
“If they decide to continue sailing and do not listen to the instructions, then they will be stopped, brought to Israel and dealt with by the Interior Ministry, which will return them to the countries they came from,” an IDF statement said.
According to the statement, the IDF will unload the supplies and transfer the shipment to the Gaza Strip, after inspecting it for weaponry.
The Navy has held a number of drills in recent weeks to prepare for the arrival of the small fleet, which is expected to try breaking the Israel-imposed sea blockade on Gaza and dock at its newly expanded port.
The scenarios drilled included the commandeering of the ships, which could, military sources said Wednesday, include violent clashes — depending on the response by the passengers on the vessels.
The Israeli decision to allow the supplies into Gaza is meant to demonstrate that the Israeli blockade is not keeping humanitarian supplies out of the Strip, but an Israeli belief that reports of the goods reaching Gaza will top news headlines is wishful thinking. The “David vs. Goliath” confrontation of activists versus “oppressive” Israeli soldiers will likely dominate the narrative.
The Washington Post reports that Israel has already set up tents in Ashdod, where the flotilla members will be identified and receive medical attention before they are deported, “or [sent] to a nearby prison if they refuse to be deported voluntarily.”
One can already picture the television footage of IDF soldiers rounding up the activists and hauling them off to prison. Even if the most seasoned public relations crisis management team was in charge of this one, it’s a disaster waiting to happen. On the other hand, the alternative wouldn’t be much better. Security concerns aside, if Israel merely waved the convoy on and wished it a merry journey into Gaza, the event would be spun on the Arab side as Israel showing weakness and fear.
It shouldn’t have to be this way.
Imagine if the flotilla had accepted Shalit’s proposal — which, after all, was not calling for Hamas to allow Gilad Shalit to hop a ride home, but merely to bring him some supplies and some letters to reassure him that he remains in the hearts and minds of his family.
And imagine that the Shalit family then convinced the Israeli government to change its decision to stop the flotilla, and following an at-sea inspection for weaponry, allowed it to sail on to Gaza, unload its wares, and distribute them to the people. That would be a win-win situation. The Shalits would get some comfort, the people of Gaza would get their care packages, Israel would not have to disrupt anything and could protect its image, and Hamas would look generous (though still keeping Shalit captive, of course).
But humanitarian relief is not the goal of this exercise — media provocation and continued demonization of Israel is. And unfortunately for those who really care about human rights, it appears destined to succeed.
Courtesy of linguistic gymnastics-pioneered by dean of language propaganda, Noam Chomsky-a flotilla filled with terror supporters has become an ‘aid flotilla’.Huh?
While Israel’s leaders insanely allow tons of supplies each week into the Gaza terror enclave-as a reaction to the browbeating of western appeasers-(in)human rights brigades cry for the Gazans.Duh? How can that be?
Well, the VERY fact that Gazan cities are bursting at the seams with goods of all sorts, the fact that trendy cafes are lining Gaza City streets, the fact that sporting events are held along the beaches of Gaza, matters NOT a whit to the peace fantasists.IF the Gazans were starving, how could they have the energy for sporting events?
Again, why are the boats causing such a dangerous provocation? Quite simply, political grandstanding for the clueless and mendacious, attempting to re-enact scenes of Jews roaming the high seas for their lives from Nazi stormtroopers, only to be turned back from every port they approached. Color me crazy, but the Islamic Nazis, the very same Arab Muslims who banded together with Hitler during the Holocaust, are AUDACIOUSLY trying to morph their ‘plight’ with Jewish suffering. Orwell, are you listening?
The obsessive need to demonize Israel, to prop up terrorists (yes, the people who voted for Hamas KNEW that they were voting for a group whose Charter calls for the annihilation of Israel/Jews)obviates any mandate for truth telling.The truth is whatever one wants it to be.Up is down, evil is good, terrorists are freedom fighters and on and on-immoral relativism gone beserk.
To be sure, Israeli authorities have an obligation to forcibly stop these terror laden boats, to give the terror enablers a stark choice-either they leave the country voluntarily, or, they will land in jail for a long stint. There is NO middle ground here. Can one imagine ANY rational person allowing ‘flotillas’ into Nazi Germany during wartime? Same difference, both being genocidal, political groups, hell bent on annihilating Jews.
What’s so hard to understand about THAT?
Mr. Shalit operates under the miscomprehension that these flotilla folks are actually humanitarians. They are not. They are glory seeking statists who for some reason seek to make common cause with medieval Muslims.
I’m guessing that the western statists (fascists/socialists/communists) work with Hamas, et al., simply because they both view the free market democratic west as their common enemy.
I love how the Israli press office sent out a helpful notice to the foreign journalists gathering for the circus. They recommended the newly opened Roots Club Restaurant in Gaza. They have a wonderful webpage with a menu in english. The seafood looks absulutely fanstastic but I am split between the deep fried Sea Bass or the more traditional Chataubriand with Bernaise Sauce. Hopefully the freedom flotilla brought their swim trunks so they can enjoy the new olympic sized swimming pool recently opened in Gaza city, built with nonexistant concrete I suppose.
What a joke. Unfortunately I dont think the facilities in Ashdod are going to be as nice and I do hope the IDF keeps them comportable. I read that they did install air conditioning in the tents at the ports, it can be very hot this time of year.
No mention of whether Jimmy Carter will be aboard one of those ships.
If he is – please jail the old fool.
And don’t let him out.
Simple question: Why of their exclusive interest for those who have publically told to complete Hitler’s work? After all there are many more Black Soudanese being killed, they live in far worse conditions and unlike the Paletiansn have never tried to blow maternities. However their fate doesn’ make those liberals lose any sleep.
Now here is my answer: Pro-palestinian activism is politically correct nazism.
This constant perceptually bankrupt position of the loser’s of a civil war who also engage in violence as somehow holding the moral high ground must stop. From black American pundits, to native Americans and to everyone else who came up short through lack of success rather than lack of the all too human penchant to oppress and make war themselves you see the same old tired stuff repeated over and over again.
The rockets that fly into Israel from Gaza are not accurate but the 105mm counter battery from Israel is and so the Israelis are immoral and the Gazans are not. It is the intent to carry out destruction and murder that is immmoral and not ones ability to do so that is the real issue. The Aztecs were not innocents overwhelmed by humans completely different from them but merely better at subjugation because they had the luck to have the upper technological hand.
Attaching morality or lack of it to success and failure is a ploy used by failed, conquered and oppressed peoples who demonstrably engaged in these same activities when they could. The Palestinian Arabs threw the dice for civil war more than 6 decades ago and, unlike the American South in the Civil War, have not had the sense to admit the defeat so plainly in front of them and in this sense have only contributed to their own further oppression and degradation.
To suggest otherwise and portray white Americans or Jews in Israel as endemic racists, supremacists and enablers of apartheid is foolish on the face of it. Doing so is a nuanced and subtle form of patronizing racism mostly against people of color who are absolved of the same human characteristics as their conquerers. Crying racism and oppression is a double edged sword in this regard done in the name of explaining away failure. I am not trying to suggest that Jim Crow and slavery or the plight of the Palestinians is anything short of a tragic disaster. What I am saying is that it is the result of bad people doing bad things to each other and that the idea that winners are always racists and losers always not racist is ludicrous. One must put morality or lack of it where it belongs and that is in intent and not lump it with failure or success. Seen in this light, demonization by race and culture can stop and the real issues of man’s cruelty to his fellow man can be addressed. The Palestinian Arabs willingly engaged in civil war with the Palestinian Jews and lost and it is as simple as that. All this talk of apartheid and ethnic cleansing as if the Arabs didn’t try and do the same thing is nonsense. The so-called “Apartheid Wall” around the West Bank is no more of an apartheid wall than were trenches in World War I as this civil war is very much ongoing and only in slow motion because of harsh Israeli policies to stop terrorist attacks on people riding busses and eating pizza. The Palestinian Arabs will never have a country until they admit their own human failings and stop trying to occupy a moral high ground them and their delusional supporters have no right to.
Ms. sommer: as a father of a Marine serving in Afghanistan I always worry what if my son fell in the hands of the dispacable Taliban’s…
I feel the pain this father has whose being held by the terrorists who call themselves Hammas…
at the same time I am not surprised that this father’s request/offer was rejected by this group. who is helping or giving humaneterian aids to thousands of palastinians in Israeli prisons millions more being blockeded by the murderous Israeli government?
miriam rove
“…the murderous Israeli government?….]
Your son is ashamed of you!
Self defense (shooting back) is not a crime.
Terrorism is.
Save you compassion for the oppressed in Darfur and the Congo.
my son is proud of me and he is a true American.. he despises those american jews who betray our country and serve in the Israeli military
I’ll bet you would rather have American Jews serve mohammad’s followers against Israel.
Americans serving in the Israeli Army isn’t a betrayal of America. You’ve raised a fine bigot.
During many of these idiotic stage shows, bullets and rockets just happened to find their way along with the food…hmmm, I didn’t realize that one could eat ammunition – or maybe it is just a cultural necessity; we wouldn’t want to be culturally insensitive, now would we?
no in fact i love jews… my daughter in law is jewish….
Adina, you talk about linguistic gymnastics ala Chomsky and subsequently spew out a poetic version of nothing more than an extremely nationalistic self-righteous position.
Trendy internet cafes? Insanely allow a fraction of the required goods into Gaza? What coolaid have you been drinking? We are so good to see the terrorist and evil in anybody but ourselves and than cry the whole world is against us for anybody daring to level any kind of criticism against us.
We have long seized being the victim but apparently have lost somewhere along the way the moral fortitude and courage to apply the same standards we judge others by to ourselves.
But thanks for your honesty (even if it wasn’t really intended that way) for stating your position that the Palestinians lost and should gracefully accept defeat and be the well behaved second rate citizen we want them to be. Of course it is not us who are doing the repression, it is the Palestinians doing it to themselves. He, why take responsibility for our own shit. After all, who has the higher moral ground, right?
On top of that how dare they to audaciously claim something which is copyrighted material belonging to the Jewish script. Nobody suffers like we have or do and by golly, we sure as hell will not allow ourselves to fall prey to acknowledging the pain we inflict on others (bunch of cry babies!).
A small factual point to add to your “trenches” analogy: they didn’t have settlements of the other side either and dare I suggest a regime of repression. Did I say repression? Noooooo……
Please dont attack the Israli people, they are GOD’s people. Its al a setup in the media from the arabics people. Dont be foollish and dont believe this story’s. The soldiers are right too shoot back. May GOd watch over Israli.
A convoy packed with advocates of Jewish genocide and sponsored by those who would create a world wide Caliphate where women and gays can be killed is called a “freedom” convoy with a straight face.
There is no moral equivalence between Israel, where Arabs have full political rights and the nations run by Muslims, where no Jew can live. The apartheid terrorist states are the Muslim ones, including Hamas run Palestine.
How come no huge outcry when Muslims are killed by other Muslims? The selective outrage is telling. That convoy was a propaganda stunt and their supporters are antisemite bigots.