A Swedish ship with rights activists from several countries aboard sailed from Naples on Saturday in the latest bid to break Israel's blockade against Gaza.Here are some of their lies:
A crowd of well-wishers saw off the sailing vessel Estelle as it left the Italian port as part of the "Freedom Flotilla" movement.
"We think it will take around two weeks to get to Gaza, but it will obviously also depend on the weather conditions," spokeswoman Ann Ighe told the AFP news agency.
The Estelle, whose voyage was organized by an international pro-Palestinian coalition, is carrying humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip.
The 17 activists from around the world on board include passengers and crew from Sweden, Norway, Canada, the United States and Israel.
Israel says the blockade against Gaza is necessary to prevent weapons from entering the coastal territory, which is run by the Islamist movement Hamas.
The Free Gaza movement landed in hot water last month after its founder, Greta Berlin, tweeted that "Zionists operated the concentration camps and helped murder millions of innocent Jews."
The tweet linked to a video of Eustace Mullins, a conspiracy theorist, claiming that the word “Nazi” combines the words “National Socialist” and “Zionist.”
The organization Ship to Gaza Sweden quickly issued a statement:
"This movie link and its content have since been connected to Ship to Gaza Sweden and this year’s Freedom Flotilla mission. Let’s make it clear that our action is not anti-Semitic, and furthermore is not organised in co-operation with the Free Gaza Movement," the organization said.
At just 53 metres (173 feet) long, the Estelle is much smaller than the Marmara ferry, and has sails as well as an engine.
Following our initial attempt to break the blockade there have only been minor easings of the blockade--commodities such as spices which Israel had previously classified as "luxury goods" are now allowed into Gaza.There is still an acute shortage of medicine, medical supplies and building materials.Actually, since the Mavi Marmara, Israel now allows all the food and fuel into Gaza that Gazans pay for, without limit. (Don't believe me? Ask Gaza Gateway!)
Israel never limited medical supplies into Gaza. Again, that is an issue of what the PA pays for and what Hamas allows to be distributed to hospitals, rather than confiscating it and reselling it to make money.
And here is Ship to Gaza's biggest lie:
Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris said Friday on visiting the Estelle:But look what one of the leaders of the Ship to Gaza, Henning Mankell, said about the two-state solution:
"This is not an initiative in favour of Hamas but in favour of Palestine, of the Palestinians who live in Gaza, and in favour of two states living as neighbours in peace and security."
In 1948, the year of my birth, the state of Israel proclaimed its independence on occupied land. There are no reasons whatsoever to call that a legitimate intervention according to international law. What happened was that Israel simply occupied Palestinian land. And the amount of land under possession is constantly growing, with in the war in 1967, and with the increasing number of settlements today. ... A two-state solution will not be the end of the historical occupation.This is the "peaceful" solution they seek - the utter destruction of the Jewish state. And to these idiots, "occupation" did not start in 1967 but in 1948.
...When change is coming, each Israeli has to decide for him- or herself if he or she is prepared to give up their privileges and live in a Palestinian state.
Mankell also provides this justification for suicide bombers:
Is it strange that some of them in pure desperation, when they cannot see any other way out, decide to become suicide bombers? Not really? Maybe it is strange that there are not more of them.
More hypocrisy from Mankell is that he is against nationalism altogether - but for some reason he wants the "Palestine" borders to include only British Mandate Palestine, not to include Jordan, which indeed is part of "historic Palestine." Why should he accept colonialist borders to destroy Israel and not Jordan? If Mankell was consistent, he would - but he isn't.
Needless to say, nothing on their website is critical of Egypt, which fully controls a border with Gaza and which severely restricts goods and people from crossing. No, 100% of the efforts of these haters pretending to be "pro-Palestinian activists" is against only one state. Which just so happens to be Jewish.
So what "humanitarian aid" is being shipped? 41 tons of cement - less than the amount needed for a single house. The organizers, as with the previous boats towards Gaza, throw a symbolic amount of material on board so they can fool journalists into thinking that they are an aid organization, even though their purpose is purely political.
And the journalists are never smart enough to call them on it.