The picture of Greta Thunberg being offered a sandwich and a bottle of water by an IDF soldier is perfect. Here she is, smiling sheepishly, revealing the utter hollowness of her activism. That awkward moment when the Israel Defence Forces spoil your Instagram story.
Thunberg and her fellow passengers aboard the MV Madleen, the boat which tried to run the naval blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, have been now taken into custody by the Israeli navy. No injuries are reported among the passengers, though some poor Israeli marine has probably had the “How dare you!” treatment by now.
Israel described the Madleen as a “media provocation”, but whatever images the activists hoped to come out of their voyage it was probably not Thunberg being given food and water by an Israeli soldier. It is an embarrassing end to a vanity mission for Thunberg, the climate change activist turned ego warrior who has adopted Palestine as her latest cause.
“There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip – they do not involve Instagram selfies,” the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs said. (Even more cattily, the ministry’s statement referred to Thunberg and her chums as “celebrities”, enclosing the word in deliciously bitchy quotation marks.)
Ah, but Thunberg meant well. It was an act of resistance, a show of solidarity, a sincere effort to get aid to a desperate civilian population. These excuses are somewhat undermined by the discovery on board of less than one truckload of aid, according to the Israeli authorities.
For context, Israel sent 1,200 truckloads of aid into Gaza in the past fortnight in addition to the 11 million meals delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
While it’s amusing to see HMS TikTok provoke the IDF into nothing more drastic than snack distribution and a free trip to Tel Aviv, no one should doubt the dangerous folly of Thunberg and her companions.
However strongly they might feel about the current conflict in Gaza, attempting to break the maritime embargo was foolhardy. For one, that embargo is a lawful security measure which is in place for a reason. We know it’s lawful because in 2011 a UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry, the Palmer Report, concluded that it was “a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea” and Israel’s implementation of the blockade “complied with the requirements of international law”.
For another, the reason the Palmer Inquiry was established was the MV Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, which saw a Turkish-registered boat attempt to run the blockade in the name of getting aid to Gaza.
When the IDF boarded that vessel, the soldiers came under attack from some of the passengers and opened fire, killing nine of the activists. This is not social media. This is real life. This is a war zone and the stakes are nothing less than life and death.
It is worth recalling another finding from the Palmer Report: “Although people are entitled to express their political views, the flotilla acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.”
To re-chart the Marmara’s reckless course, in the knowledge that it concluded in blood and chaos, is impetuous vanity masquerading as humanitarian concern. Greta Thunberg should be grateful to the IDF for their care and professionalism in ensuring her publicity stunt ended in sandwiches and not fatalities.
The picture of Greta Thunberg being offered a sandwich and a bottle of water by an IDF soldier is perfect. Here she is, smiling sheepishly, revealing the utter hollowness of her activism. That awkward moment when the Israel Defence Forces spoil your Instagram story.
Thunberg and her fellow passengers aboard the MV Madleen, the boat which tried to run the naval blockade of Hamas-run Gaza, have been now taken into custody by the Israeli navy. No injuries are reported among the passengers, though some poor Israeli marine has probably had the “How dare you!” treatment by now.
Israel described the Madleen as a “media provocation”, but whatever images the activists hoped to come out of their voyage it was probably not Thunberg being given food and water by an Israeli soldier. It is an embarrassing end to a vanity mission for Thunberg, the climate change activist turned ego warrior who has adopted Palestine as her latest cause.
“There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip – they do not involve Instagram selfies,” the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs said. (Even more cattily, the ministry’s statement referred to Thunberg and her chums as “celebrities”, enclosing the word in deliciously bitchy quotation marks.)
Ah, but Thunberg meant well. It was an act of resistance, a show of solidarity, a sincere effort to get aid to a desperate civilian population. These excuses are somewhat undermined by the discovery on board of less than one truckload of aid, according to the Israeli authorities.
For context, Israel sent 1,200 truckloads of aid into Gaza in the past fortnight in addition to the 11 million meals delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
While it’s amusing to see HMS TikTok provoke the IDF into nothing more drastic than snack distribution and a free trip to Tel Aviv, no one should doubt the dangerous folly of Thunberg and her companions.
However strongly they might feel about the current conflict in Gaza, attempting to break the maritime embargo was foolhardy. For one, that embargo is a lawful security measure which is in place for a reason. We know it’s lawful because in 2011 a UN Secretary-General’s Panel of Inquiry, the Palmer Report, concluded that it was “a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea” and Israel’s implementation of the blockade “complied with the requirements of international law”.
For another, the reason the Palmer Inquiry was established was the MV Mavi Marmara incident in 2010, which saw a Turkish-registered boat attempt to run the blockade in the name of getting aid to Gaza.
When the IDF boarded that vessel, the soldiers came under attack from some of the passengers and opened fire, killing nine of the activists. This is not social media. This is real life. This is a war zone and the stakes are nothing less than life and death.
It is worth recalling another finding from the Palmer Report: “Although people are entitled to express their political views, the flotilla acted recklessly in attempting to breach the naval blockade.”
To re-chart the Marmara’s reckless course, in the knowledge that it concluded in blood and chaos, is impetuous vanity masquerading as humanitarian concern. Greta Thunberg should be grateful to the IDF for their care and professionalism in ensuring her publicity stunt ended in sandwiches and not fatalities.