Israel’s Gaza Flotilla Attack Just Backfired Spectacularly

Israel sent its navy 600 nautical miles after aid boats and somehow thought that would make the starvation blockade look less guilty. Right, so Israel has just turned a Gaza aid flotilla into evidence against itself once again. Israeli forces have intercepted, boarded and seized vessels from the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters near Greece, way out in international waters, with the organisers saying twenty-one boats were taken and seventeen managed to escape into Greek waters, while Israel’s own foreign ministry has put the number of detained activists at around one hundred and seventy-five from more than twenty boats. This was not some skirmish at the Gaza shoreline was it? Crew reports from the support ship Arctic Sunrise put the intervention forty-five nautical miles west of Kythira and six hundred nautical miles from Gaza, which means Israel did not merely defend a coastal line, it dragged the Gaza blockade halfway across the Mediterranean and expected everyone else to nod along like this is normal. Food, medicine, doctors, volunteers, cameras and witnesses apparently now require a navy to deal with. Very brave. The physical boats have been stopped, but the image Israel has created is a state so scared, so utterly terrified of civilian aid that it has to chase it near Greece before it gets anywhere near Gaza, and of course with detained civilians now heading towards Israeli custody.