How the Flotilla Helps Hamas
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Ezra Glinter July 7, 2011
Chrisopher Hitchens, in a July 4 piece on Slate linked to on Tuesday by J.J. Goldberg, almost got it almost right.
“It seems safe and fair to say that the flotilla and its leadership work in reasonably close harmony with Hamas, which constitutes the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood,” he wrote.
It’s unclear if Hitchens, by “in reasonably close harmony,” meant to suggest that the flotilla activists are in actual collaboration with the Islamist organization that governs Gaza, or just that they are self-consciously in sympathy with it. Whichever it is, the claim is large, and unsubstantiated. Worse, it distracts from a more important truth.
Whether those aboard the flotilla are working with, or have had any communication with Hamas, doesn’t matter. Whether they believe in Hamas’s Islamist ideology and declared mission to destroy Israel, doesn’t matter. Either way, their actions support Hamas.
As Ethan Bronner pointed out in the July 2 New York Times, and as has been proclaimed loudly and often by Israeli government officials, the flotilla is not really a humanitarian mission, as it is not bringing Gaza any supplies that it actually needs. Even if it were, it could bring them in over land, including through the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt.
Rather, the flotilla serves a different, specifically political end. It is an effort to defy Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, and its message is that Palestinians — not Israel — should control coastal access to the territory. That sounds well and good, and there is little doubt that the lives of many Palestinians would be improved were it the case. The problem is, which Palestinians would do the controlling? The beleaguered citizens of Gaza whom the flotilla supposedly supports? Or Hamas, who rules them?
Of course, it is the latter that ultimately wields power. And with Hamas-controlled sea access comes weapons smuggling and further chapters in the organization’s war against Israel. Alice Walker and co. may not think they are supporting Hamas’s call for the destruction of Israel or endorsing its vile ideology, but that is what their actions imply, regardless of their intent. No wonder that Israel takes umbrage.
The entire discussion may be moot if the flotilla is never going to get to Gaza anyway. But in the moral morass of Middle Eastern politics, the flotilla is a particularly glaring example of slippery thinking, with its participants sliding down on the wrong side.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
