Indy op-ed promotes lie after lie about Greta's publicity stunt

A column in the Indy (“Why my friend Greta Thunberg had no choice but to sail an aid boat to Gaza“, June 10) by “youth climate campaigner” Scarlett Westbrook includes multiple lies and gross distortions in her effort to promote her friend Greta’s anti-Israel publicity stunt: a one-boat agitprop which had set off from Italy nine days earlier attempting to reach Gaza.

The ‘activist yacht’ called the Madleen, which was reportedly organised by Hamas operative Zaher Birawi, was peacefully intercepted by Israel’s Navy early on Monday morning, and reached the Ashdod Port by evening, with Thunberg, the climate activist turned radical anti-Zionist, returned to Sweden.

In the fourth paragraph, Westbrook begins her disinformation campaign, writing that the Madleen “was en route to Gaza carrying 5,500 tonnes of crucial humanitarian aid”. In fact, the “5,000” figure is from a previous flotilla, called the Conscience, which, in April, set sail from Turkey and attempted to break Israel’s blockade. Thunberg’s boat, by contrast, only had, as the activists themselves admitted, a “symbolic” amount of aid.

The Indy columnist then promotes another untruth, writing that “Greta and the 11 other civilians aboard the Madleen were sailing to deliver this life-saving aid to Gaza, and their right to do so is entrenched in international law“. In fact, the 2011 UN Palmer Report concluded that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is fully consistent with international law – a legal conclusion which was widely reported at the time. Thus, according to international law, such flotillas have no right to breach the IDF’s naval blockade of the terrorist-controlled territory.

Westbrook again lies, when she writes that “for 11 weeks now, Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza”. Of course, as has been widely reported, including at the Indy, Israel resumed aid deliveries to Gaza on May 19, after a pause since March 2. Since then, 1,459 trucks have entered the Strip.

The Indy contributor promotes more disinformation, writing that “In 2010, Israeli commandos raided a small fleet of ships trying to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza, killing nine peaceful civilians“.

However, “peaceful activists” they were not. The Mavi Marmara incident in 2010 that Westbrook is referring to involved extremist, terror-affiliated Turkish activists on board a ship (which didn’t contain humanitarian aid) trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, who attacked IDF naval commandos after they boarded the boat. Nine of the ship’s activists – many of whom were carrying and using deadly weapons – were killed in the fighting which ensued.