It was never about aid.Even though this has been what the anti-Israel activists have been saying in private for years, even in this current floptilla they made a point of telling the media that they were bringing 3000 tons of aid - cement, ambulances, medicine. As recently as yesterday, Reuters parroted the line that their primary purpose was aid. Their tweets regularly refer to themselves as a "humanitarian mission" and not as primarily political.
Freedom Flotilla II is, like its assaulted predecessor of a year ago, a political act. The passengers came together in shared determination to challenge Israel's five-year siege of Gaza and to exercise their right to travel through international waters to Palestinian shores and, by so doing, support the Palestinian right to freedom.
Many have misrepresented this political act as being about aid.
As usual, they are trying to have it both ways, depending on the audience and convenience.
If you ask Hijab, honestly, whether Hamas has the right to import Iranian rockets to target Israeli schoolchildren, she would answer "Absolutely." Because this is her definition of freedom and human rights - human rights for everyone in the Middle East except for Jews seeking self determination and the right to live in peace and security.
In fact, Israel's sealing of Gaza from the outside world began before Hamas was elected. It began as far back as 1988 -- almost before Hamas existed -- when Israel imposed a "permit system" in Gaza.I love handpicked history lessons.
Gaza, under Egyptian control, really was a prison. Gazans couldn't easily travel to Egypt, they couldn't get jobs, they couldn't get citizenship, they were herded into camps, Egypt ignored their needs for infrastructure, their life expectancy was absurdly low. The only time that Gazans had freedom of movement was when Israel controlled the area - and until the first Intifada when Palestinian Arabs started to kill Jews by the score. Of course, as we have seen, Nadia Hijab cares not one whit for Jewish human rights.
Israel often complains that it is singled out for criticism when there are other worse human rights violators. Why not set a flotilla against China or Russia? Because Israel is the only country claiming to be a Western-style democracy whose gross human rights violations are supported economically and politically by major world powers.Here is a neat sleight-of-hand. Up until now, Hijab has claimed that her concern was for Palestinian Arabs and their rights. The obvious hypocrisy is that she doesn't care about Syrian Arabs, Egyptian Arabs or any other Arabs who are truly fighting for real rights. So in order to shield herself from that charge, she changes the equation with a tortured explanation that somehow Israel's western status is what offends her - it isn't the victims at all that concerns her, but the perpetrators!
Of course, this proves what Israel has been saying all along - it is not a pro-Palestinian movement, but an anti-Israel movement! Nadia's pretense at caring about Gazans' "freedom" has now morphed into something else, that is much closer to the truth.
Of course, Israel's actions in Gaza are no less moral that the Western actions in Libya, Afghanistan and Iraq, and I don't see her sending any flotillas there, so even here she remains a hypocrite.
And then comes the coup de grace:
Beyond drawing the world's attention to the obscenity that is the siege of Gaza, the Flotilla has shown the peoples of the Arab world, engaged in their own quest for dignity and rights, that there are two kinds of Americans and two kinds of Jews. Not just those in power in the U.S. and Israel who are widely seen to subvert human rights throughout the region, but also those determined to uphold human rights. By so doing, the Flotilla has contributed to an eventual era of mutual respect between Arabs, Americans, and Jews.You see, Israel contributes to worldwide anti-semitism, and the flotilla helps combat that image! Arabs appreciate the moonbats who come to Gaza to meet with Haniyeh and receive medals and honorary citizenship from him, and that helps fight anti-Americanism and anti-semitism!
Has any NGO ever had a workshop to combat anti-Western and anti-semitic attitudes among Arabs? No, they believe that by their shining examples they are leading by example. Of course, that didn't save the lives of Vittorio Arrigoni or Juliano Mer Khamis.
I wonder what she has to say about the Western "peace activists" who have been sexually harassed and raped by their most appreciative Arabs. Only the Westerners, mind you, not the honorable Arab women.
The entire article is claptrap, an exercise in misdirection and obfuscation meant to justify the real motivation that the flotilla activists have - a seething hatred for the Jewish State, and only for the Jewish State.