Thwart the ‘peace crusaders’

Israel should counter ‘anti-siege’ ships with flotilla of inconvenient truths

If all goes the way sponsoring NGOs planned it, a nine-ship armada of activists will steam into a small Mediterranean seaport to break the “siege” of Gaza. Timed for the slow news cycles of the US Memorial Day weekend, organizers, led by “peace crusaders” from Turkey, Ireland, Sweden and North America will unload 10,000 tons of construction material, school and medical supplies.

 

The organizers are not surprised that Israel has already notified the Irish, Turkish and Swedish ambassadors that the flotilla will not be allowed to disembark in Gaza. They are probably counting on it so they can YOUTUBE images to the world of the Israel Navy’s barbaric maneuvers to thwart the SS Rachel Corrie, named for the anti-Israel American activists dispatched by the Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement to Gaza. She died needlessly and tragically “confronting” an Israeli bulldozer in 2003 -another useful martyred poster child for “peace and justice.”

 

So what can be done to thwart this cynical exercise from reinforcing the dominant narrative not only in the Arab and Muslim world, but in mainstream Western media, that Gaza is “under siege” by callous Israel?

 

For starters it can tell an indifferent world what actually entered Gaza legally from Israel just this last week of the “siege”: 637 truckloads, consisting of 14,069 tons of humanitarian aid.

 

Among the goods for Gaza civilians were 810,209 liters of heavy duty diesel fuel; 21 truckloads of milk powder and baby food; 897 tons of cooking gas; 66 truckloads of fruits and vegetables; 51 truckloads of wheat; 27 truckloads of meat, chicken and fish products; 40 truckloads of dairy products; 117 truckloads of animal feed; 36 truckloads of hygiene products; 38 trucks of clothing; 22 trucks of sugar and 4 trucks of medicine and medical equipment.

 

In addition to that, 781 medical patients and accompanying individuals from the Gaza Strip crossed into Israel to receive treatment in various hospitals and 191 staff members of international organizations crossed into the Gaza Strip, and 202 crossed back from Gaza.

 

But numbers alone cannot win the day against the imagery of an international humanitarian flotilla braving a naval blockade. No, to win the day at CNN or SKY News, Israeli NGOs should launch their own flotilla from Ashkelon. It should be led by survivors of suicide bombings and families of the innocents who perished in the tsunami of terror that led to the erecting of the anti-terror fence in the first place.

 

Here’s a partial list of carnage caused by over 70 attacks between just 2001 and 2004 that the anti-Israel peace crusaders should be confronted with:

 

• June 1, 2001 - 21 killed and 120 Israelis - mostly teenagers - wounded outside a Tel Aviv disco.

 

• August 9, 2001 - 15 people were killed, including 7 children, and 130 injured in a suicide bombing at Sbarro’s in downtown Jerusalem.

 

• December 1, 2001 - two genocide bombers detonated explosive devices on Jerusalem’s Ben Yehuda’s pedestrian mall on a Saturday night. A car bomb exploded nearby 20 minutes later. Ten people were killed, including many children, and 188 were injured.

 

• February 16, 2002 - A suicide bomber deliberately targeted Jewish children sitting at a pizzeria in the town of Karnei Shomron. Three children died and over 30 were wounded.

 

• March 9, 2002 - A suicide bomber kills 11 people and injures 54 in a crowded Cafe in Jerusalem.

 

• March 27, 2002 – At a Passover Seder in a Netanya hotel, a genocide bomber belonging to Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs detonated an explosive device, killing 30 and injuring 132, including many children and elderly.

 

• January 5, 2003 - 23 people were killed, and more than 80 were wounded when two Palestinian murderers blew themselves up near the old Tel Aviv bus station.

 

• June 11, 2003 - Sixteen Israelis were killed and more than 100 were wounded when a homicide bomber, dressed as an ultra-Orthodox Jew, detonated his explosives belt on a bus in downtown Jerusalem. Palestinian terrorists have attempted 11 homicide bombings and murdered 23 Israelis in the last 4 days, since Palestinians “accepted” the international “roadmap for peace.”

 

• January 15, 2004 - Two Israeli soldiers, a border policeman, and a security guard for a private manpower company, were murdered by a female suicide bomber at the Erez Gaza crossing.

 

• September 1, 2004 - Two suicide bombers exploded almost simultaneously on two buses in central Beersheba, killing 16 innocents and wounding dozens.

 

And if their stories aren’t enough, maybe Sderot’s Amar family should join the flotilla. You remember the Amars. During the 2008 US presidential campaign, they were visited by candidate Barack Obama. He visited their family’s home, which sustained a direct hit by a Qassam rocket. They could hold up Mr. Obama’s quote, who said at the time, “if missiles were falling where my two daughters sleep, I would do everything in order to stop that.”

 

There is some talk that the international humanitarian aid may be off-loaded in Ashdod and transferred into Gaza. Fair enough, but Israelis should demand that a special care package to Gilad Shalit be added to be delivered by UNRWA.

 

It is Israel’s fear that her civilian population centers in the South will have to face another 7,000 terrorist missiles that had has led her to try to prevent the influx into Gaza of weapons but not food, fuel, or medical supplies. No other government, not Turkish, Swedish, Irish or American would act any differently.

 

Currently, Western public opinion is virtually drowning in a tidal wave of media lies about Israel’s self-defense measures against Gaza’s terrorist “Hamastan.” To rescue the Truth, let a people’s flotilla of inconvenient truths, serve as Israel’s first line of defense.