In the end, Israel handled it expertly. The two boats carrying a motley crew of Palestine activists - including Yvonne Ridley, a propagandist for Iran’s Press TV and Lauren Booth, Tony Blair’s embarrassing sister-in-law - docked in Gaza without fuss.
“They wanted provocation at sea, but they won’t get it,” said Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Aviv Shiron. “We know who the passengers are and what they are bringing with them and so we have no problem letting them through.”
Prior to their departure, the shipmates did their level best to portray the Israelis as monsters determined to foil their mission. Organizer Paul Larudee warned that the Israelis would intercept the boats and arrest those on board. Another passenger crowed, “It’s such a victory to leave the harbor without being sabotaged.”
Larudee also said, “we want people to see the Palestinian problem as one of human rights not feeding them rice.” Of all the statements the group has come out with, this has to be the most idiotic. Somebody should explain to Larudee that there are some parts of the world - like Burma and Zimbabwe - where feeding the hungry is, above all else, a human rights act, given that the regimes in those countries use the denial of food as an instrument to repress their populations.
Still, we shouldn’t expect much from folks like these. Which is why I’m not expecting a statement from the “Free Gaza” movement any time soon detailing the violence and intimidation which characterizes the rule of their Hamas friends in Gaza. Nor am I expecting a post-Gaza jaunt to Darfur; that really would be too dangerous.
BILL DIENST, the ship’s doctor, described in an article the situation in Gaza as follows:
“Gaza stands on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe…, Israel … denies the vast majority of the population access to … medical care and basic necessities. ”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/371366_firstperson21.html
Yet the Gaurdian, a news outlet not known for favouring Israel, reported that:
“The mission is intended to challenge the economic blockade imposed by Israel and deliver a cargo of 200 hearing aids for a deaf school and 5,000 balloons” presumably quoting the ships passengers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/23/israelandthepalestinians
Can we deduce, from the incongruity between the messages that no humanitarian crisis takes place in Gza, that there is no shortage of basic nessecities and medical care, and that the people on those two yachts had known that all along?
Why else would they bring in a “cargo” of 200 hearing aids and 5,000 balloons and not what you would expect such good people to bring to a place of such deprivation (like food stuffs and antibiotics, etc)?
Isn’t it a cynical manipulation of the term “humanitarian aid”? Balloons? And won’t this cause a long term harm to the credibility of genuine humanitarian missions, going where the people are actually dying, starving and deprived of the barest necessities? Such as in:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/23/content_9648262.htm
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/LSGZ-7HNCRJ?OpenDocument
Oh cut out the invective and go to the http://www.freegaza.org website and you will see what the mission was all about.
We took in some token humanitarian aid but it was all about the siege … stupid!
Kindest regards
Yvonne Ridley
ps: Personally I was glad the Israeli Navy backed down - I hate confrontations and certainly did not want to become the next Tom Hurndall or Rachel Corrie
Where does a person who
- converted to Islam
- joined this disgusting spiv Galloway
- called her co-religionists to boycott the police
- sung hosannas to child killer Shamil Basaev
- …
- and now is hobnobbing with Hamas gangsters
gets off calling anyone stupid?
Strange world…
Oh come on Yvonne don’t be so modest. If IDF had kidnapped you and held you hostage on a West Bank settlement you’d have converted to orthodox Judaism by now!
Also Yvonne, you say this is all about the “siege” - if Hamas had restricted its activities to chucking hearing aids and balloons at Israeli schoolkids & pensioners, do you really think there would be a “siege” at all?
I’m with Snoopy
Does Ridley’s scolding mean that BILL DIENST, the ship’s doctor, who described the mission as:
“Gaza stands on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe…, Israel … denies the vast majority of the population access to … medical care and basic necessities. ”
is a dishonest and stupid person?
Yvonne Ridley “We took in some token humanitarian aid but it was all about the siege … stupid!”
No , it was much more than that , it was part of a delegitimisation of Israel campaign , part of a campaign which believes Israel should not exist within a 2 states settlement. From the campaigns website :
‘The historic illegal appropriation of Palestinian land, home and heritage is at the heart of the Middle East conflict. It has given rise to the largest ongoing refugee population in the world. It paved the way for subsequent land theft in 1967, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing that
has squeezed Palestinians in the West Bank into ghettos and bantustans surrounded by 27-foot walls, sniper towers, and military guards. It has created the open-air prison of Gaza with an impoverished and overcrowded population of 1.4 million inhabitants.’
So you’re going to Gaza because you really care about the Palestinians and your really care about the siege. But it’s not about humanitarian aid, so you don’t bother to take any, even though you, alone, are going to be breaking the blockade? Well, alright — 200 hearing aids, that’s about one suitcase, and 5000 balloons (balloons?), another suitcase. Even my parents, touristing in the USSR in the 1980s, found space to cram some jeans and a tanach or two into their baggage, for the use of the locals. It was a tighter squeeze than hearing aids and balloons on a fishing boat will have been.
Could it be that these people love the cause (or Cause), but don’t actually give a wet slap about the people? It could be — because that’s exactly how the Arab states have treated the Palestinians since the beginning.