Freedom Flotilla

[Badh]

Thought this might be worth its own thread. The freedom flotilla The Madleen was getting close to Gaza but seems to have made a diversion, as it was the closest boat to answer a distress call. They seem to also have four Sudanese asylum seekers on board who were trying to escape the Libyan coast patrol.

The UK and France are asking Israel for its safe passage.

The tracker is here but is in and out of action.
https://freedomflotilla.org/ffc-tracker/

More details here, although the latest detour is not covered in the article.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-navy-gears-up-to-block-high-profile-protest-ship-headed-for-gaza/amp/

I read the sentence as calling out the Israeli governments use of the term antisemitism, not calling out their actions.

I agree with you they are brave and what they have done is right

Have you thought this through? You are saying that people who are victims of racism are responsible for having an opinion on the actions of anyone else who invokes the same racism whether accurately or inaccurately (and apparently you are the judge). This is just racist.

Well done to Greta and her compatriots and glad to see they were treated relatively humanely. They were taken to the port of Ashod previously an Arab village called Isdud.

Here is some of it's past history.

Truly, Isdud represents one of the villages referred to by former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who said in 1969 in a talk to Jewish students in Haifa, "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population."

https://imemc.org/article/18022/

The issue is saying all Jewish people have a responsibility ('should') to call out the Israeli government on ANYTHING simply because they are Jewish. Jewish people who did not vote in Israeli elections & therefore have no political stake in the government of Israel have no responsibility to have an opinion any more than I am responsible for something the French government may say on say women, because I'm a woman.

Thanks for putting up some of the statements from Israel about the boat, I cannot remember who did it a few pages back.
They do say the aid carried in the boat will be delivered to Gaza, so hoping that the baby formula and medication, crutches and so on really makes it to Gaza. This is what I see all this is about. To get very much needed items into Gaza for the innocent civilians who are suffering extremely difficult living conditions, with their children and babies.
Now.... here is where the recent acknowledgement of the arming of gangs in Gaza by Netanyahu's lot will play a negative part, because they could be hording said aid and preventing it from reaching those who need it. These gangs seem to include IS and ISIS groups! Yet, there is not that much criticism of Netanyahu about this. Greta seems to get more excrutinity for getting on a sail boat to deliver baby milk formula to a war area.... you cannot really make this out.

I will be watching hoping for the prompt release of the unharmed activists and the boat itself. And the true delivery and distribution of that aid!

I expected more people to be talking about this on the mainstream news channels. It's far down the news agenda.

Gideon Levy did on Sky he is a great humanitarian

Sky News anchor: “Yeah, perhaps the criticism is that [Greta Thunberg’s] not as innocent as all that. She’s been accused of being antisemitic hasn’t she? And there are others on board accused of being Hamas sympathizers.”

Author and Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy: “Are you sure Jonathan that Israel has the moral right to prevent such a mission from reaching Gaza?”

Levy: "We should salute" the 12 activists, including Greta Thunberg, who are attempting to reach Gaza on the Freedom Flotilla aid ship. “It's an act of conscience, an act of courage.”

twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/1931850187389190341

Most people do not see it as that big a story as would never have expected the IDF to do anything other than what they are doing: stop the boat from reaching Gaza & deport the activists back to their own countries.

The ‘brave’ part of their plan was sailing across the Med.
They had no hope of ever getting to Gaza and no chance of coming to harm at the hands of the IDF (who are a professional army, not a gang of murderers, rapists, paedophiles, extortionists).

They got 15 seconds on LBC news.

I take your point but your example of France is inaccurate. Israel is the only Jewish state and the government often refer to acting/ speaking on behalf of all Jews as the only Jewish state so to is far more complicated than you having responsibility for something the french government says about women.

Comments like the ones above is why the word antisemitism often comes up.
To be against what Israel are doing is absolutely not being antisemitic but when people write things such 'Jewish people worldwide should be calling this out' and that 'all Israeli's are enjoying watching this genocide', both of which are on this thread, it continues to prove the point that people think it's fine to say things like this to jewish people but would never dream about saying it to any other religion or race. Would they expect all Muslims around the world to condemn what Hamas have done? Of course they wouldn't and shouldn't.

There are people on here rightly calling out genocide but in the same breath supporting and calling someone on the flotilla 'brave and principled', someone who has shown support for a group who openly say all jewish people are their target and want to destroy Israel. If you are against genocide and people who want to commit it surely you are contradicting yourself?

This awful situation in Gaza needs to end right now and aid desperately needs to get to the innocent Palestinians but I wish people would stop seeing things in such a black and white, simplistic way because this conflict has and always will be, extremely complicated.

No it isnt. Israel is the homeland for the jewish people, if they wish to take that opportunity. Individual Jews outside of Israel have no responsibility to have an opinion and its certainly not the place of non-jewish mumsnetters to tell them what they should and shouldnt say.

It's breaking news on sky as the first story on the landing page. The BBC have a live feed running on the story with regular updates so it does actually have significant coverage on it.

With respect I think you are being naive if you think bringing humanitarian aid into Gaza is what this was about.

The amount of aid on board was tiny, even the activists called it "symbolic".

The Israel Foreign Ministry said that "While Greta (Thunberg) and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity — and which included less than a single truckload of aid — more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel within the past two weeks, and in addition, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distributed close to 11 million meals directly to civilians in Gaza."

"There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip — they do not involve Instagram selfies," they added, "The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the 'celebrities' will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels."

www.ynetnews.com/article/rkx3juqxxe

In the Guardian website is just there, after US gone wrong protests. With the usual Live flashing in red. On the News tab.

It is about getting aid, yes.

Given the amount of time she spent at school, a well done to Greta Thunberg for being able to find Israel on a map and then navigating there.

Because it is performative nonsense. Young Greta has long since lost credibility. She’ll be at the head of a pro-trans rally next. No one cares, but many of us are wondering why Gaza doesn’t release the few living hostages they still hold, or surrender Hamas.

What has happened is precisely how I thought it would play out. Israel have told the kids it’s bedtime. What I feared for them was being taken hostage by Hamas. The IDF may have saved them from that.

Social media and online news plays a much bigger role than news channels these days. It's all over social media and online forums. The BBC news website have a live feed featuring it. It's right there on the front page of most of not all news sites.

Thunberg has used her celebrity for good and once again Israel have demonstrated a lack of adherence to International law and their actions have aligned them more with the terrorist groups like the Houthis than with the Western countries they pretend to be allies with.

Well that all went exactly as I expected.

Yup. Israel breaking international law again. Who could have predicted it!

Great points made.