Seldom has language been more wilfully and deceitfully manipulated than by political activists who hold in high moral regard and even defend governments or individuals who promote the genocide of the Jewish people of Israel.
Seldom has language been so utterly offensive to facts or to history than by those same political activists.
The proponents of BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel – are the most persistent and the loudest example of such activists. Alas, there are many others.
Apologists for the Hamas rulers of Gaza are another such group. They wilfully ignore the plain and simple truth of Hamas’ violent nature and, worse, of its publicly proclaimed objective of eliminating Israel and exterminating Jews. The fact that it cannot achieve its objective should give it no shelter from thoughtful minds of western political activists. Hamas is unalterably and vehemently opposed to the very existence of the Jewish state. It is also unalterably and vehemently opposed to the sanctuary of human rights and civic freedoms for its own citizens. That is why the efforts of such activists to break the naval blockade of Gaza is especially galling and perplexing.
As of this writing, the Swedish-based group Ships To Gaza has undertaken a new absurdly and falsely named “Freedom Flotilla” to challenge the naval blockade. Both Egypt and Israel imposed the blockade in 2007, some two years after Israel – soldiers and civilians – unilaterally and entirely left the Gaza Strip.
The activists, however, are only interested in training their cameras and directing their negative press release machinery on Israel.
Neither Israel nor Egypt imagined the need for a blockade after Israel’s withdrawal. Rather they imagined the flowering of Gaza into a prosperous fishing and tourism-based jewel on the Mediterranean. But immediately, the industrial infrastructure that Israel left behind was demolished. Then in 2007, Hamas expelled the Palestinian Authority in a gruesome, blood-soaked civil war. Both Egypt and Israel, fearing the stated aggressive intentions of Hamas’ Islamist rulers, imposed the naval blockade. No other country on earth, in similar circumstances, would have behaved differently.
The Israeli navy was monitoring the latest flotilla’s progress as it approached the shoreline of Gaza. By the time this newspaper reaches readers’ homes, the flotilla of small ships may have already met the Israeli navy.
The activists say the vessels are carrying a cargo of solar panels and medical supplies for Gaza residents. This may be true. But it has not been true in the past. And as long as Hamas does not yield on its religiously ordained mission to destroy the Jewish state, the Jewish state must not yield on its security. No other country on earth would.
The claim by the Ships to Gaza organizers that they are acting out of humanitarian concern for the people of Gaza is patently false. Humanitarian aid, in vast quantities, already flows unceasingly into Gaza from Israel. The only products prohibited from entering Gaza are weapons and a short list of dual-use items that can be used to commit violence.
Israel, especially, provides all manner of emergency medical help to the people of Gaza. A recent case involved a young girl from Gaza City, whose leg was amputated in Gaza as a result of a car accident. Three months after the accident, her parents took the child to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, where surgeons saved her life and attached a fully functioning prosthetic.
This young girl’s story is one of many. However, Freedom Flotilla activists do not wish to focus on this story or others like it. If the activists were truly interested in helping the people of Gaza, they might better use their resources to persuade Hamas to abandon its genocidal aims towards the people of Israel.
The slight to Gazan pride that the naval blockade engenders is entirely justifiable in its efforts to impede the flow of weaponry and thus save Israeli and Egyptian lives.