Relief Convoys To Gaza Expose Discrepancy Between Society And State

The boat that headed to the Gazan coast last week to raise awareness of Israel’s enforced starvation drew headlines for several reasons, among them Israel’s bloodstained record in dealing with antecedents and the relatively high profile of the passengers aboard. Since followed by attempts by predominantly Muslim activists and civil society leaders to break the blockade, this episode highlights not only the wanton cruelty of Israel’s genocide but also the gulf between societies and their official states when it comes to the issue. Both in Europe and in much of the Muslim world, governments, elites, and official apparatuses are wildly out of sync with public sympathy for Palestine.

The best-known name on the boat that put out to sea with some dozen activists was Greta Thunberg, a Swedish activist whose rallies against environmentally dangerous practices once won her a widespread fame as a teenager in the late 2010s that was suddenly and stiffly withdrawn when she spoke out against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. The typical Zionist canard that criticism of Israel is antisemitic earned Thunberg considerable slander, especially given how many European countries are eager to offload their actual historical antisemitism onto Palestine’s supporters. However, it only increased her respect elsewhere in a period when taking a stand for Palestine comes with real career risks. Another notable voyager was Rima Hassan, a French member of the European parliament from a Palestinian family displaced in Syria. Despite -or perhaps, because of- their high profile, the relief vessel’s passengers attracted a panicked mixture of derision and censure from many Western politicians, such as the infamous American neoconservative Lindsey Graham, who alluded to Israel capsizing the boat.

Given that Israel had bloodily attacked a similar, Turkish-led, effort against the Gaza blockade fifteen years ago -setting off a years-long row with Ankara- and given the demonstrated bloodthirst of the Israeli elite, such threats were not just rhetorical. In the event, however, Tel Aviv decided that the negative publicity would be too risky and instead contented itself with detaining the activists, several in solitary confinement, before expelling them.

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A convoy that set off for Gaza from North Africa to protest Israel’s blockade. [PC: AP Photo]

Though an enormous amount of relief is needed to end the Israeli-enforced starvation in Gaza, the episode has merely highlighted once more the gaping chasm between many governments and their societies. Sympathy for Palestine in the Muslim world is a byword, only restricted by dictatorships and police states. But beyond the Muslim world, including in even the historically pro-Israel countries of Europe and North America, the horrors of the nearly two-year Israeli assault, the sadism of its prosecutors, and the dignified resilience of their victims has led to a considerable shift against Israel’s actions, if not its entire ethnosupremacist rationale, that is not limited to Muslims but Christians, Jews, and others. A crackdown on such sentiments requires global suppression on a scale that belies the idea of a “free world”.

 – by Ibrahim Moiz for MuslimMatters

Related:

– The Witkoff Massacre: Slaughter Of Starving Palestinians Undercuts Trump Pretensions

– Groundbreaking New Forensic Report Maps Israel’s Genocide On Gaza