The Flying Flotilla, Maybe

Unlike the Flying Spaghetti Monster, which accepts everyone, Israel is having a tough time appreciating diversity.  Greece, working with Israel, for reasons which can be guessed at, has delayed the sailing of several hundred people to Gaza.  It must be wondered at why Israel would want to help the cause of “activists” Israel considers enemies by publicizing their cause, but often we do not act in our own best interest.

There is no shortage of sources tracking the events.  The Christian Science Monitor quotes Menachem Ganz in the Israeli daily newspaper Yediot Ahronot saying, “There seems to be one thing that the [flotilla] organizers failed to take into account: Greece’s attitude towards the flotilla, and the dramatic change that has occurred in Israeli-Greek relations in the past year.”  Among other reasons for Greece’s sudden friendship with Israel, “Greece’s economy has been in a mostly downward spiral since the country joined the euro in 2001.”  The Christian Science Monitor notes that in return, Israel offered “generous military assistance to the debt-ridden state.”  HaAretz has a Flotilla Diary with the most recent updates. Al Jazeera has a Freedom Flotilla II blog. The Right Turn at the Washington Post has conservative commentary about enemies of Israel. MaAn News Agency has several articles, including one detailing that 600 people who intended to be on the flotilla will instead fly in to Israel and travel to Gaza.

In preparation for the arrival of 600 to 800 people flying into Israel, Israel has appears to be “gearing up for a confrontation,” according to the MaAn news article.  Additionally, MaAn and HaAretz report that Israel “has instructed foreign airlines to prevent 300 pro-Palestinian activists from boarding flights to Israel over the weekend.”  Despite the preparations Israel has taken, Occupied Palestine has an article dated July 6th saying flights are planned for the night of the 7th.  So far, plans for the hundreds of participants include

particular exchanges with the Al-Rowwad Centre of the Aïda refugee camp (Bethlehem), help with olive tree planting around Ramallah, also a solidarity visit to the organizers of the Jenin Freedom Theatre whose manager, Juliano Meir Khamis, was brutally assassinated recently.

Israel has already decreased military presence at Ben Gurion Airport, believing (perhaps rightly) that most people whose names were given to airlines were not able to board flights.  However, “it only takes about 30 activists to make a scene at the airport for media outlets to widely report on it and thus hand the activists their victory.  This event will end with either no problems or as a catastrophe.  There will not be a middle-ground,” said a senior official at Ben-Gurion International Airport.