David Adler
We always knew, looking back across the past fifteen years of the Freedom Flotilla initiative, that there coexisted in constant tension these twin but incompatible narratives about flotillas. On one side, you have the claim that these were vessels harboring terror, that they were linked to networks of organized terror, that they were hiding beneath this veneer of humanitarianism with some hidden agenda that was a threat to the national security of Israel.
On the other side, you had a more nascent narrative emerging just this year, with the deployment of the Madleen and later the Handala boats: that these boats were nothing but an indulgence for celebrity activists. We always knew that this was going to be a choice that the state of Israel would have to make between one of these two narratives.
Now you have the unprecedented scale of this operation, bringing together so many delegations from different parts of the world, many of them deemed — precisely because of their long-standing solidarity with Palestine — hostile to Israel, like the participants from Algeria, Tunisia, and Turkey. It became clear that this would cleave away from the “these are just little sailboats enjoying their sunshine” narrative, and the narrative would become that these are somehow a menace to the state of Israel.
The deployment of that narrative, trying to smear the really courageous and ordinary people on this flotilla with this absurd claim of a “violent course of action,” has induced in the participants a double, polarized reaction. On one side, it’s so absurd and so tired as a narrative, that it’s clear it’s not landing among the target populations that Israel wants to reach in the way that it may have landed five years ago.
The claim that something is “Hamas” is so exhausted that people are now starting to push past that propaganda to interrogate these questions for themselves. When you look at the composition of these boats and you look at the state of these secondhand vessels, these beat-up motor cruisers and fishing boats that are accompanying us, it doesn’t correspond at all with this accusation.
On the other hand, we’re very afraid for our lives. We know their propaganda is indicative of their behavior and policy. If they are setting up that we are somehow a menace to their security, we can see very clearly, as they have done time and again with humanitarian workers, with United Nations workers, with journalists, that they’re setting the stage for a truly violent interception of this flotilla. It would not be the first time that Israel has deployed violent force against this initiative.
Great Job David Adler & the Team @ Jacobin Source link for sharing this story.
