The Facts of the "Freedom Floatilla"

I'll be honest, I held off on commenting on this particular "Historic Event" mostly because I knew that it was never going to be a historic event. This was always going to be a non-starter, a pointless propaganda exercise to give a handful of people fifteen days of fame by linking themselves toa current popular cause without actually doing anything useful.

Also, I have complicated feelings about Greta. I was and am a supporter of her climate activism, but she seems to have completely dropped that in favour of a new cause that I am less on board with.

To be clear, I do support Palestinian Statehood, but seeing how Gazan Independance has gone since 2005, I can recognize that it won't happen in a bubble, and that it has to be conditional on Palestinians being willing to live peacefully with their Neighbors.

Protests holding up signs claiming that rape, murder, kidnapping and mutilation is "legitimate resistance"? Hell no.

I'm old enough to remember the Intifada that Pro-Palestine Protests want to globalize. The suicide bombings of public buses and theatres full of teenagers and children. They were not unavoidable casualties of strikes on military installations, but the planned targets. When the IRA did that, we called it Terrorism. Why is it a good thing when Palestine does it?

Over the weekend, I commented on a post about the Freedom Floatilla, asking what the goal was. Gaza doesn't have any deep-water ports that I know of, largely due to about a mile of very shallow coastline; how were they planning to distribute the humanitarian aide? Yachts similar to the Madleen have limited cargo capacity of maybe 500 kg, about twice the capacity of my car; that's unlikely to feed more than a family for a week, so how much aid was actually on board? How did they plan to distribute it when the total aide worked out to be about 0.0025 kg per Gazan?

Two hours later I put writing this aside to focus on the flood of people who were leaving comments calling me a genocide supporter on my personal page, on posts that had less than nothing to do with Palestine. One of them tried to call my work in an attempt to get me fired.

Fortunately, abusive language and threats is one of those things that allows us to hang up on a caller. My block button got a workout.

So, rather than hysteria, let's focus on the facts.

Who?

There are 12 people on the Madleen, the maximum capacity for a ship of that size. Presumably, a few of them are actual crew; captain, navigator, etc.

1. Greta Thunberg – Swedish climate activist
2. Rima Hassan – French-Palestinian Member of European Parliament
3. Yasemin Acar – Germany
4. Baptiste Andre – France
5. Thiago Avila – Brazil
6. Omar Faiad – France; Al Jazeera Mubasher correspondent
7. Pascal Maurieras – France
8. Yanis Mhamdi – France
9. Suayb Ordu – Turkiye
10. Sergio Toribio – Spain
11. Marco van Rennes – The Netherlands
12. Reva Viard – France

Outside of Greta, I can honestly say that I've never heard of any of these people in my life, and I've been following the conflict closely for coming up on two years.

Googling the ones that aren't Greta, Omar and Rima only brings up articles on the Freedom Floatilla. What did they do as activists before they climbed onboard the Madleen? What other causes do they support?

*crickets chirping*

What?

The claimed purpose of the Freedom Floatilla was to provide Humanitarian Aide to Gaza

A more effective way to do that would be to volunteer with one of the established non-profits that are setting up distribution centres in Gaza. There is plenty of aid inspected and ready to enter Gaza; the problem lies in finding people other than the IDF willing to enter and distribute it, since Hamas tend to pop up with guns to steal it for their own benefit, often selling it at massively inflated prices to the very people it was intended for.

Distribution centers being ransacked and destroyed because there are limited volunteers who need to sleep occasionally, meaning the distribution centers have regular open hours rather than being available 24/7, hasn't helped, either.

Of course, that would require actual work and putting themselves in the line of fire, rather than a sailing holiday and occasionally posing for photos in Superhero Stances while knowing that they were never going to actually reach Gaza...

When?

On June 9th, the Israeli Navy boarded the Madleen. They asked the purpose of the voyage and to inspect the cargo. When the passengers refused, the Madleen was redirected to an Israeli port.

All of this was done with transparency and acting within Maritime Law.

Less than an hour later, social media was blowing up with accusations of kidnapping, begging governments to intervene and "join the war against Israel", and demanding proof of life.

As soon as the Madleen reached Israel, the passengers and crew of the Madleen were offered Expulsion agreements, which basically means you don't get arrested as long as you agree to leave immediately. Greta and three others accepted. The rest were arrested and are currently awaiting the opportunity to appeal their case to a judge.

Where?

Stopping the Madleen occurred in International wates for a good reason. Because that's where the blockade is. Just outside Gazan territorial waters.

To untangle a lot of complicated Legalese, if the blockade was in Gazan waters, or the Madleen got through it to Gazan waters, then it would be the decision of the Gazan government, a.k.a Hamas, what happened. That's why the arrest was in International waters.

Whatever your moral stance might be, this was legal, especially with a war going on and the anti-Israel comments made by the passengers.

Also, that blockade has been in place since 2011, more than a decade before the current conflict, to prevent Arms Smuggling. The UN ruled it as legal, and they haven't rescinded that ruling.

To save you reading the entire document, here's a picture of the relevant paragraph

Why?

I've been asking that myself for the past two weeks. Why? What was the point of this exercise in futility?

Was it to prompt more people into getting arrested for no reason while wasting time money and resources that could have been spent actually helping? Congratulations, theres a Libyian truck convoy planning to attempt the same thing through Gaza's border with Egypt, which has been responding to attempted crossings with bullets since the conflict began.

Unlike Greta, who is enogh of a celebrity to get gentle treatment, I am genuinely concerned that the Libyian convoy is going to end with dead bodies.

After the Madleen was boarded, "spokespeople" for the Freedom Floatilla admitted that the voyage was never intended to succeed, but to raise awareness.

Trust me, we're aware, after having it screamed in our faces by howling mobs for the past 18 months. Everyone knows that there is a conflict going on in Gaza, and Israel has been transparent about it's struggles in getting people willing to enter Gaza to distribute aid. That's not a secret; it's been a problem for months, and this stunt did nothing to change that.

How?

How did people react?

Well, the people screaming in the comment section about how Greta was going to singlehandedly free Palestine have been suspiciously quiet ever since the facts started coming to light.

The people who predicted that this was nothing more than a publicity stunt haven't been crowing too loudly, except for the usual media personalities in their endless quest to 'own the left'.

Normally, I'd be quietly smug about being proven right, but today I'm just sad.

Rather than helping, the Freedom Floatilla has actually done quite a bit of damage to the Pro-Palestine cause. The Activists are being viewed as out of touch, privileged white people who are all talk and no action, believing that the rule of law doesn't apply to them if they scream loudly enough, and having no clue what they're talking about.

Even some of the more casual Pro-Palestinians, who base their support on information rather than popular trends du jour, are reconsidering their stances. A cause isn't just about what you're supporting, it's also about who is standing beside you.

I would be a lot more active in Men's Mental Health spaces, for example, rather than just quiety donating money when I can, if it didn't meean rubbing shoulders with Andrew Tate fans and Incels who blame women for all of their problems.

If the Freedom Floatilla had been honest from the start about this being an awareness stunt, perhaps the fallout wouldn't be so bad. But, they weren't, and now a lot of Moderate Pro-Palestine Supporters are taking a good look around them at what the cause is actually doing, rather than just agreeing with their stated goals.

Greta was right about one thing: This was a Historic Moment, and seeing what happens as a result will be illuminating.