The Gaza Flotilla & Exodus 1947

Just like the Gaza Wall reminds me of the wall built around the Warsaw Ghetto, the Gaza Flotillas remind me of the story of the boat called Exodus.

Just like the Gaza Flotilla, the Exodus was an illegal attempt to run a blockade of the eastern Mediterranean coast.

Both were humanitarian efforts. In 1947, Holocaust survivors were seeking a homeland in Palestine. Today the effort is to get food and building materials into the Gaza Strip.

The British and Israelis saw the boats as a threat to the peace of land they didn't own but did control. Both were kinda right. The British knew that Jewish immigration into the Palestine Mandate would upset the delicate balance between Arabs and Jews as well as provide more soldiers for the Jewish resistance movement in Palestine. Israel knows today that food for the children of Gaza can also feed fighters and material to repair and build homes can also be used to construct defensive bunkers.

Both Israel and Britain used violent military force to stop the ships because, for both the British then and Israelis now, they fear the consequences of humanitarianism far more than they are concerned by genuine human suffering.