Gaza Flotilla - genuine peace activists or Hamas puppets?

The amount of aid they are carrying must be tiny as they need to have all their own supplies including for the return journey.

Please could you talk me through how this going to be an effective way to distribute aid?
How much is there? How will it be distributed? Do they have transport or will they just offload it to the first person they meet when they dock? How do they stop the people they give it to selling it at vastly inflated prices? What protection do they have against looting? Or have Hamas organised a reception committee & protection for them? Maybe those helpful chaps have got their smart uniforms pressed and ready?

Yes, it should be the governments of the world who step in immediately to stop a famine from even starting.

But they didn’t, did they? So it’s up to random do-gooders.

This!

Who is defending it? I’m certainly not. I just don’t think Greta Thunberg is the answer.

Ask anyone who actually has experience of aid distribution & they will tell you, there is no place for random do-gooders on the ground, especially in a war zone.

'Deliver the aid'. Have you wondered at all what that even means? Who to? The first random person they bump into? Hamas? The amount of aid they have is tiny, less than a drop in the ocean & they have no distribution system. Even people on your own side have admitted its 'symbolic'.

Did you even read the OP?

They were given the opportunity by the Italian Government/Pope to offload the humanitarian aid in Cyprus where it would be safely delivered to Gaza?

Israel agreed to that plan, the flotilla didn’t. This is about publicly, (as if we need more about this one war), it is NOT just about delivering humanitarian aid.

It’s a sad day for humanity when people will scramble for reasons to discredit those who are risking their lives to carry aid to people who are at risk of famine.

Greta and her crew could be the biggest bunch of narcissists in the world for all I care. They are still doing the right thing, the thing that our governments have shamefully failed to do.

Yes, I'm sure you are.

Why is anyone upset at the attempt- successful or otherwise to try and get aid to a starving population? Some people are actual psychos.

I'm failing to see the relevance.

You assume that propaganda is aimed solely at a western audience.

You’re entitled to, but can’t say that surprised me. You’ve literally started this thread to try and portray them in a bad light.

The concern for pollution of 300 dumped iPhone batteries in the sea amidst the IDFs use of munitions, daily bombardment of white phosphorus and complete wreckage of most of Gaza is really… something.

Anyway, Godspeed the flotilla. May they show hope to innocent civilians and even to the Israelis who are stuck in extremism.

You possibly spend a lot of time online on this issue then. I'd never heard of hasbara (thanks for the vocabulary improvement!) but I do remember the horror of Arrigoni's murder, and of course he will be remembered while this flotilla is in the news. It's disrespectful to his memory to call that a gotcha - it's important to note that commitment to the cause does not guarantee safe landing. He wasn't murdered by Hamas but by a group who thought that Hamas were too moderate - and which wasn't funded by Netanyahu at the time, not least because Netanyahu wasn't PM at the time. Arrigoni's murder was also not long after Hamas were elected / remained in power. I'm dubious about any suggestion that they just had no idea about other groups operating within what is a very small area.

If I in the Israeli government I'd be very tempted to let them land.

I see you are worried about the environmental impact of the flotilla perhaps you should be more concerned re the below
”An act of ecocide’
The scale and long-term impact of the destruction in Gaza have led to calls for it to be investigated as a potential war crime, and to be classed as ecocide, which covers damage done to the environment by deliberate or negligent actions.
Under the Rome Statute, which governs the international criminal court, it is a war crime to intentionally launch an excessive attack knowing that it will cause widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment The Geneva conventions require that warring parties do not use methods of warfare that cause “widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment”.
Saeed Bagheri, a lecturer in international law at Reading University, says that while there are disagreements about how to apply these articles, there are enough grounds to investigate the damage done to Gaza’s environment already.

What’s breathtaking is the brainwashed support of genocide and upholding of war criminals. As is the length posters will go to justify sustained extreme violence on innocent civilians and children.

To be fair Israel are quite Keen on human shields too so that makes two of them.

Still not seeing it though, if Hamas are the great propagandists that it is claimed they are on here attacking a group of internationals would be propaganda suicide.

Presumably very similar reasons to why Hamas would use its own citizens as human shields while they shelter in tunnels. Because Hamas would feel like it might serve their purposes and they wouldn't give a shit about the wellbeing of the humans involved.

So drawing attention to the deliberate starvation of a civilian population is a waste of time? Should Israel just be allowed to continue unchallenged to complete its genocidal project??

most people don’t think so

Imprison them for what?

Why would Hamas take them hostage if according to the Israeli's the flotilla is organised by Hamas?

@BelleHathorafter Greta saying several times Israel were going to attack them Tunisia have confirmed that has not happened. She is an eco warrior spilling tons of fuel into the ocean on a fruitless mission that will end in failure.

The naivety on here is breathtaking and shows how very little some who post on here actually know. ‘Hamas have very little power’ they still challenge every aid truck coming through and if that were true we wouldn’t have hostages still held.

’israel should let them in, deliver the aid and leave’ as if that would happen? A small amount of aid brought into an active war zone by a Kermit the hat wearing teenager and they will let her sail out? She would be another hostage really quickly. And the remains flotilla members (those who haven’t fallen out due to homophobia) would be taken as pawns for pressure on their respective governments. The Spanish lady rapist denier to FAFO about the claims she made today about women hostages being to ‘ugly’ to rape. What a courageous bunch.

It just beggars belief. I hope they hold them much longer and imprison them before deporting them. It’s a performative waste of time with everything else going on. Am Israel’s chai.