Common Folk Using Common Sense

First:

The Free Gaza movement is sending another solidarity ship to the Strip, due this time to the major Israeli attacks. The four previous voyages have set sail in solidarity to the million and a half residents under siege.

On board the ship expected to set sail on Monday are four physicians. Among them is Dr. Elena Theoharous, a surgeon and member of Cypriot parliament. Former United States Congresswoman and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney will also be making the voyage. And local hero, Al Jazeera correspondent formerly imprisoned in Guantanamo, Sami Al Hajj, is also expected.

Then:

A group of international activists said it would defy an Israeli blockade and send a boat with medical supplies to Gaza from Cyprus.

Free Gaza Group spokeswoman Caoimhe Butterly said their 20-meter yacht Dignity would leave Larnaca port around 5 p.m. (1400GMT) Monday with 3.5 tons of donated supplies.

She said the yacht would carry 16 passengers, including former US Congresswoman Cynthia Mckinney, Cypriot lawmaker and doctor Eleni Theocharous and activists from Britain, Australia, Ireland and Tunisia.

And then:

A boat that was carrying international peace activists and medical supplies to Gaza sailed into a Lebanese port on Tuesday after being turned back by the Israeli navy, organizers of the trip said.

The boat, which set off from Cyprus Monday wanted to make a statement and deliver medical supplies to Gaza. The trip’s organizers said the boat was clearly in international waters, 90 miles off the coast of Gaza, at the time of its close encounter with the Israeli navy.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the boat ignored an Israeli radio order to turn back early Tuesday.

Palmor says the boat tried to outmaneuver an Israeli navy ship and crashed into it, which lightly damaged both vessels. The navy then escorted the boat out into the territorial waters of Cyprus.

The 66-foot yacht Dignity, flying the flag of Gibraltar, left Larnaca Monday with almost 4 tons of Cypriot-donated supplies and 16 passengers, including former US Representative Cynthia McKinney, Cypriot lawmaker Eleni Theocharous and activists from Britain, Australia, Ireland and Tunisia, organizers said.

Hamas ended the cease-fire and rained rockets down on Israel, accompanied by mortars and the occasional attempt at a cross-border ground attack.

Israel did nothing. The rest of the planet yawned.

Hamas tells Israel that it is weak, confused, and helpless. And so more people are recruited, West Bank Palestinians look on with admiration at those fighting the enemy, and the Arabic-speaking world is impressed.

Israel did nothing. The rest of the planet yawned.

But then Israel does fight back. Its planes bomb military targets which have been deliberately put amid civilians. If there is a high danger of hitting civilians, Israel doesn’t attack. But there is a line below which risk that will be taken, and rightly so.

And now the planet begins to take notice? Casualty figures are announced by Hamas, and accepted by reporters who are not on the spot. Everyone hit is, of course, a civilian. Hamas has no soldiers, right?

Arab-sympathetic, or Israel-hating, photographers take pictures of children who pretend to be injured, and once they are published in Western newspapers these claims become fact.

Hamas is the aggressor. Hamas intentionally targets civilians. Hamas purposely hides its weapons within civilian residential areas. Yet Cynthia McKinney is willing to enter this volatile area to offer aid to Hamas, not Israel?

McKinney has long hated all things Israel while admiring all things Arab. I can only hope that she accidentally walks in front of an IDF tank while it’s screaming across Gaza.

McKinney is one person for which I will shed no tear when she no longer breathes.

Gaza, Israel, Cynthia McKinney, Hamas, Palestinian

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