Israel has a military blockade on the Gaza strip due to Hamas control which has turned the 40-mile long strip of land into an Iranian rocket base. There are other radical groups there, such as Islamic Jihad and now ISIS-related groups, who also have rockets.
Iran could ship vastly larger and more sophisticated quantities of rockets and missiles if it could use ships rather than smuggling tunnels, and it has tried multiple times.
This video shows the Karin A vessel seized in 2009, ferrying arms to Gaza through Egypt. Imagine if such ships could dock directly in Gaza, or offload to smaller ships just off the coast.
In March 2014, another ship was seized.
A U.N. panel has deemed that the naval blockade complies with international law, which is quite amazing since the U.N. almost never agrees with anything Israel does.
That is the context in which you have to view the so-called “Freedom Flotillas” organized to break the blockade.
Under the pretext of shipping humanitarian aid to Gaza, various international groups aligned against Israel have participated in two prior “flotillas” designed to break the blockade. The flotillas are a farce as humanitarian aid can be delivered to Israeli ports and then trucked to Gaza.
Thousands of trucks enter Gaza with civilian supplies, even though there is a long history of Hamas and others firing mortars to stop the flow of civilian goods, and then complaining that the flow of civilian goods was temporarily halted.
Gaza Flotilla I in late May 2010 was organized by Turkish Islamist groups aligned with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party:
On May 31, 2010, Flotilla I ended in disaster when Israeli naval forces boarded the main ship and were attacked with metal bars and knives. In the ensuing fight, 9 of the flotilla participants were killed.
The usual international “useful idiots” served as cover and human shields.
Gaza Flotilla II was foiled when its ships were sabotaged by “unknown” people and its activists arrested before departing foreign ports.
Now get ready for Gaza Flotilla III:
A flotilla carrying pro-Palestinian activists is heading to Crete en route to the Gaza Strip in a bid to break the Israeli and Egyptian-imposed blockade on the Palestinian enclave.The Marianne of Gothenburg, a Scandinavian fishing boat, traveled from Sweden through the waters of Norway, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal before reaching Messina, Italy, last week.“The short stop in Messina was an intensive one with meetings with peace activists and a press conference at the city hall,” the group noted on its website.On board the ship are Swedish journalist Kajsa Ekis Ekman, Swedish-Israeli composer Dror Feiler, Spanish Member of the European Parliament Ana Maria Miranda Paza, and others.The boat was making its way to Crete, Greece, on Sunday, before attempting to breach the blockade and reach Gaza. Along the way it will meet up with at least two other boats that make up the flotilla.
What possibly could go wrong?
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