Ship of fools

Flotilla of ‘aid’ boats into Gaza is a redundant gesture

The claim that the people of Gaza are starving is a lie.

Pure and simple, no need for padding or polite posturing.

In fact, you are more likely to see examples of obesity than malnutrition in the place, and those organizations and activists who tell you that children are dying of hunger are motivated by hatred, extremism and sheer lack of objectivity and integrity.

You can, however, visit parts of Israel where there is genuine poverty.

You can also find people in Israel, especially children, suffering from trauma-related illnesses in the towns close to the border with Gaza, where the allegedly starving inhabitants manage to find the money and strength to send thousands of missiles into Israel in the hope of smashing innocent Israelis to pieces.

They sometimes succeed, as when a teenage boy was killed recently. No Canadian “peace” groups have campaigned for him. Good Lord, most of them don’t even know his name!

Which brings us to the publicly funded crazies in this country who are joining a bag of assorted Islamic fanatics, obsessive Jew-haters, Marxist militants and liberal Christian fundamentalists intent on sailing a flotilla of boats into Gaza.

They claim the boats will contain food and supplies — if so, it is a redundant gesture and, if you doubt me, please Google some of the pictures of Gaza’s markets and stores. I have been there — I say again, the boast that the people of Gaza are starving is a lie.

These boats will contain food, but if they are anything like the last fleet they will also contain arms.

There is ample evidence of this, even admitted by some of the less hysterical on board. The major purpose of the flotilla, though, is to challenge the authority of the Jewish state and to delegitimize it. This is what anti-Zionists have been trying to do for years and they have scored victories within the hard left and elements of the labour movement.

Which is exactly why our postal union and various “aid” groups have supported this latest project. They are not sending boats to Syria, where a 13-year-old protester has just been knee-capped, castrated and then murdered by security forces, or to the Kurds who are so persecuted in Turkey, or to Christians in Pakistan who are regularly slaughtered. No, much more fun to attack the Jews, the Americans and the West.

The Israelis will doubtless intercept the boats and it may well be that some of the useful idiots and professional demonstrators on board will be hurt or even killed. So be it. It is regrettable, but the simple way to avoid such suffering is to get a real job, work with the homeless, raise a family, or something boring like that.

Last year a Christian woman not wearing Islamic covering had acid thrown in her face in Gaza.

We do not know her views on the flotilla, but we can confidently assume that she is not a fan of Islamic fundamentalism or of the Hamas government that recently praised Osama bin Laden as a holy warrior and a martyr.

Still, if we say the kids are starving long enough, the Jews are bound to be blamed.