“The climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and 11 other activists have set sail for Gaza on a ship aimed at breaking Israel’s siege of the devastated territory, organisers have said. The boat Madleen – operated by the activist group Freedom Flotilla Coalition – departed from the port of Catania in Sicily on Sunday. It will try to reach the shores of the Gaza Strip to bring in aid and raise international awareness of the continuing humanitarian crisis.” – News report, 2 June 2025.

Here’s something I wrote about a similar, earlier attempt. For those who still think this all began on 7 October 2023, let me point out that this was written 15 years ago to the day.

………………..

2 June 2010

Dear Bibi,

Well done on stopping those perfidious bootleggers from delivering their deadly cargo to the terrorists of Gaza.

What an exciting operation it must have been! From what I saw on the telly, your boys have certainly picked up a thing or two from the Somali pirates.

I must say, though, that I was a little disappointed in the way things turned out.

I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but some of your fans are asking whether a late-night boarding of these ships was really the way to go. Have you seen video of the operation? It is so grainy and poorly lit that you can barely tell the pro-Palestinians from the good guys.

Pre-dawn raids are very romantic, but you of all people should know that tracer fire and phosphorous bombs make for fabulous night-time viewing.

For a really spectacular finale, you might have fired off a bunch of them damn fine AGM-142 Raptors. Or even dropped a small nuclear device on top of the Mavi Marmara.

What an awesome way that would have been to get your message across to those Hamas-hugging mung beans.

I understand your navy commandos were forced to open fire when one of the activists slapped an Israeli officer after he rappelled out of a helicopter. This kind of conduct cannot be tolerated in times of war, even if it does come from a short-sighted 19-year-old vegan with PMS.

Let it slide, and the next thing you know, Israel is overrun with moth-eaten urchins demanding money for sweets and detonators and shouting “Allahu Akbar” all over the place.

A few girly governments have condemned this latest skirmish as some sort of atrocity. Many of these countries, like France and Sweden, have appalling human rights records and they should keep their opinions to themselves.

Israel has done a splendid job of isolating Gaza for the past three years and even though 80% of the Strip’s 1.5 million people now depend on outside help to survive, one cannot assume that they will not misuse even the most basic of commodities. These Arabs are a cunning people, capable of making weapons of mass destruction with nothing more than a bar of soap and two spoons of instant coffee.

Had this armada of evil made it to Gaza, the carnage would have been unimaginable.

The terrorists would have converted the cement into catapult ammo and used the prefabricated houses as bomb factories.

The water purification kits would have been lethal in the wrong hands. The electric wheelchairs would have been used by paraplegic suicide bombers and your great country would have been destroyed by barrages of spaghetti-based rockets and mortars made from fig jam.

If you buckle to international pressure and scrap the blockade, I suggest you quickly replace it with a giant Perspex dome. Simply lower it right down over them.

You can pump in oxygen when they behave and poison gas when they don’t.

You are God’s chosen people, for heaven’s sake. Why show any restraint at all?

Say hi to Sara and the kids.

Shalom.

Ben Trovato