Flotilla Rally Unveiled Intentions

Short days before the attack on the Mavi Marmara, as it and the other ships were being launched, a celebratory rally was held sending off flotilla leader and IHH president Bulent Yildinim.

Death to Jews, the crowd yelled.

If it seems strange that a movement with intentions as white as the driven snow -- just wanting to get aid to people in the Gaza Strip -- would yell death to anyone, look further.

IHH is the Turkish organization Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, which Israel maintains has ties to Islamic terrorists. Although the IHH is not on the list of organizations the U.S. officially recognizes as terrorists, it might be hard to deny Israel's fear. Who was the speaker at a Hamas rally just more than a year before the Mavi Marmara? Bulent Yildinim. "All Muslims of the World Will March to Gaza," reads an Internet headline telling of Yildirim's speech.

Israel maintains the objective of the flotilla's chief organizers is not to get aid through, but to provoke Israel into an attack and bring international scrutiny.

If that has been the objective, mission accomplished.

And, more such efforts may be coming. Just days later on the heels of the Free Gaza flotilla, the Rachel Corrie came. Yildirim says there will be more. "If we have to, with help from everyone, we will organize bigger flotillas, bigger road convoys from Egypt, and these will arrive at the same time from both sea and land."

Now international opinion is swinging to Yildirim's corner, favoring allowing the shipments in without being checked by the Israelis, unbriddled entry into the Gaza Strip may wipe away the blockade, leaving the flow of weapons as well as the flow of food into the Strip.

Here's a quote found in the online Jerusalem Post. That a flotilla participant -- not a political pundit, news commentator, or Israeli spokesperson -- would say the flotilla was not about delivering humanitarian supplies seems a little much.

"The mission is not about delivering humanitarian supplies. It's about breaking Israel's siege on 1.5 million Palestinians."

In fairness, it should be noted the quote says the effort is to free the Palestinians, so perhaps it is saying no more than that the effort isn't just about one shipment, but rather about making all shipments possible.

One thinks about the name of the flotilla effort, Free Gaza, and wonders how that fits with an effort to supply humanitarian aid. We remember Haiti, where the name of one organization was Helping Hands for Haiti. Would a relief organization have been called Free Haiti? That would have been odd. But, in light that the effort in Gaza is to break the blockade, not just with one shipment, but by allowing all shipments in, perhaps we can see why it would be called Free Gaza.