We feared that it would turn out even worse. The latest Gaza aid flotilla set off from Sicily on June 1 after last month’s mission was seemingly bombed by Israeli drones off Malta. Responding to this latest launch, Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted that he “hoped Greta and her friends can swim,” ostensibly cheering for a repeat attack. Many will still remember when, in 2010, Israeli speedboats and helicopters attacked a similar civilian aid convoy to Palestine, murdering nine activists.
Today the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is shattering ever more skulls and deliberately starving ever more Palestinians; Israeli plans to ethnically cleanse and annex occupied territory are increasingly shameful, and unashamed. Western allies grumble at Benjamin Netanyahu’s excesses as if they were his alone but still arm the killing machine. It could still be hoped that the celebrity of some activists aboard this aid flotilla might somehow protect them from being added to the list of victims.
As Israeli forces illegally boarded and captured the Madleen, the civilian vessel at the head of the flotilla, in international waters this morning, Israel’s Foreign Ministry boasted they were halting a “selfie yacht of celebrities.” The ministry gleefully declared that “the show is over.” Israeli authorities likewise mocked the small volume of aid aboard the flotilla, casting this as a merely symbolic action rather than a solution to supposed mass hunger.
The aid convoy was a symbolic action — and rightly so. Small solidarity initiatives cannot feed millions. This was a call on others to act and break Israel’s total blockade of aid, now into its fourth month. Climate activist Greta Thunberg, the European Parliament member Rima Hassan, and their colleagues aboard the Madleen were making a statement about Israel’s starvation of Gazans, and the rest of the world’s refusal to do anything about it. They were seeking attention — not demanding it…
Auteur: David Broder
