Home inContext A Lifeline to Gaza?

A Lifeline to Gaza?

Samara Greenberg
SOURCE

Viva Palestina, a flotilla of ships carrying some 340 pro-Palestinian activists from 30 countries, 40 of whom were on board the Mavi Marmara raided by the IDF in May, docked at the al-Arish port in Egypt Wednesday evening. The flotilla, dubbed ‘A Lifeline to Gaza,’ is reportedly carrying over 100 vehicles with $5 million worth of supplies. After being cleared by Egyptian authorities, the activists will drive their vehicles into Gaza through the Rafah border crossing by Monday.

In addition to the supplies and activists, however, the flotilla features anti-Israeli displays. For example, one display depicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding a bloody butcher knife, while another features a skeleton head of an Israeli soldier with Palestinian children coming out of its mouth.

For activists who consider themselves peaceful, this certainly is an aggressive move.

Just like the Mavi Marmara ship, the latest flotilla is more for show than anything else. Even flotilla activists admit this much: “It’s not about the aid,” Huwaida Arraf of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition told reporters in Geneva earlier this month. Because if it were, the activists could certainly utilize easier and less belligerent routes to go about delivering the goods.

As Israeli Foreign Ministry Communications Director Yossi Levy said, the activists are mounting nothing more than “a heinous campaign which is unjustifiable and means only to damage Israel’s international image and standing.” Gaza, he concluded, “Longs not for the end of an Israeli occupation, but for the end of Hamas occupation, which has plunged it into great darkness.” Where are the displays against that?