The footage showed brutal images. Baton-wielding police were seen hitting pro-Palestinian supporters of the Gaza flotilla even as the demonstrators lay on the ground, their clothes scrunched up, exposing bare flesh to the blows.
But don’t worry. There’s no need for an emergency session of the UN Security Council to discuss the police violence. The police caught on camera were members of the force at Bilbao airport in Spain’s Basque region, not Israeli.
There was a certain irony to the violent response of the police in Bilbao to the pro-Palestinian provocateurs at the airport awaiting the arrival of the participants of the thwarted Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), who had been intercepted and deported by Israeli forces before they could break the naval blockade on Gaza.
Spain, after all, was one of the more than 20 countries that protested the video made by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who filmed himself with the prostrate detainees, their hands bound with plastic zip ties, waving an Israeli flag and declaring “Welcome to Israel! We own this place.”
When Ben-Gvir’s antics were published, I was one of the many Israelis who cringed. Like Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who both condemned his stunt, I also realized that after the flotilla interception had been handled professionally with minimal fuss, Ben-Gvir had handed the participants and their supporters the PR image that they sought.
This was not, of course, as brutal as the later images out of Bilbao, or even the confrontation between activists and police in Greece, or news of detainees of a GSF land convoy in Libya. Nevertheless, it was enough to further tarnish Israel’s name in a world only too eager to believe the worst of the Jewish state.
The detainees spoke of being abused. One claimed to have been kicked in the face, and explained the lack of bruising to the exceptional skills of the Israeli police. Several claimed sexual abuse, but at least didn’t try to employ the “dog rape” claim that New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof turned viral.
Australian recidivist activist Neve O’Connor claimed to have been “kidnapped” for the second time, deliberately distorting the meaning of the word. Unlike many of the flotilla participants, none of the Israeli hostages who managed to survive up to two years of Hamas captivity in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, invasion and mega-atrocity, would consider going back to risk the experience of being kidnapped again.
Nearly 430 people from more than 40 countries participated in this latest flotilla of some 50 ships. It’s safe to assume that many of them weren’t taking vacation days from their regular work. Being activists is their full-time job.
Ben-Gvir, deliberately rocking the boat, was clearly playing to his far-right electoral base. But perhaps he also thought that making the detainees’ brief stay in Israel unpleasant would deter some from returning for another try.
As the condemnations of Ben-Gvir continued to make waves, I thought how great it must be to live in a country that has never had a minister or elected official who was an embarrassment. Among the countries that protested Ben-Gvir’s behavior – some declaring him a persona non grata, some calling in the Israeli ambassador to officially protest – were Spain, Ireland, Poland, France, Greece, Italy, and the European Union itself.
Giving a whole new meaning to the word “chutzpah,” Iran also complained about Ben-Gvir. That’s the Islamic Republic of Iran, which earlier this year slaughtered at least 30,000 protesters within days, has sponsored terrorist proxies around the world, and has launched hundreds of missiles and killer drones on targets across the Middle East.
Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands, which all complained about Ben-Gvir, were among the five countries that refused to take part in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest earlier this month because Israel was allowed to compete.
After the Ben-Gvir footage, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X: “We will not tolerate anyone mistreating our citizens.” After the Bilbao incident, he did not have the decency to change that to: “We will not tolerate anyone else mistreating our citizens.” Sanchez seems to be using the Palestinian cause to deflect attention from his serious domestic political woes.
Margaret Connolly, the sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, was one of the detained flotilla participants. Arriving back in Ireland, still wearing the de rigueur keffiyeh, she reportedly likened the conditions of her detention to a “concentration camp.” I can’t even begin to describe the sickening distortion and perverted inversion that turns the Jewish state into modern Nazis. History has been hijacked and rewritten as a Palestinian narrative.
No country is flawless, but only Israel is singled out and portrayed as responsible for all the evil in the world. Pointing this out is not “whataboutism”; it’s an attempt to show the double standards for what they are.
A look at the news in Ireland last week showed the country was having what has been called its “George Floyd moment” after a Congolese migrant collapsed and died as police used tough tactics to arrest him for suspected shoplifting.
In Poland, there were stories of how the police had shot at a vehicle apparently driven by a Belarusian. The details remain disputed but add to the tension between the two neighboring but very different countries.
I wondered how the UK, Italy, and other countries struggling to deal with boatloads of illegal immigrants would have handled the flotilla of provocateurs sponsored by terrorist-affiliated organizations.
Indeed, how would these democratic countries have responded to the assault Israel had to deal with on October 7, when thousands of well-armed Islamist terrorists breached the border to carry out their mega-atrocity that left 1,200 dead, thousands wounded, and tens of thousands displaced? Europe is not even able to handle the fallout from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including occasional drone attacks.
No clash, no splash: The flotilla strategy
Israel has come a long way since the Mavi Marmara flotilla affair in May 2010, when Israeli commandos boarded the Turkish ship and were met with violent resistance from the terrorists on deck. The affair ultimately ended with 10 dead Turkish participants and nine Israeli commandos who were wounded, some of them seriously.
The negative publicity for Israel was its own reward – so rewarding, in fact, that there are “sea-soned” activists, returning in waves time and again. This was never about freedom or delivering aid to Gaza, which is suffering a “humanitarian disaster” of Hamas’s own making.
It’s worth remembering why there is a naval blockade on Gaza in the first place. It was imposed to prevent Hamas – internationally recognized as a terrorist organization – from receiving weapons and rockets, which it hasn’t been shy of using.
The flotilla activists could have accepted Israel’s offer to deliver the “humanitarian aid” to Gaza, after the requisite security checks, through the regular channels; some 600 trucks enter the Strip from Israel every day. But the boats that make up these flotillas aren’t carrying aid at all. The flotilla participants aim to capture an image of them clashing with Israeli security forces.
All the “peace flotillas” in the world will not turn the beautiful Gazan beaches into tourist resorts and an economic success story as long as jihadist terrorism is allowed to thrive. Peace attempts are doomed as long as there’s a safe harbor for terrorists and their sympathizers willing to set sail on the same ship.
The flotilla participants and their supporters have not set their moral and physical compass toward the very real tragedies and atrocities being perpetrated in places like Sudan and elsewhere in Africa.
There is no flotilla against the ayatollahs in Tehran. As long as Iran’s religious leaders continue to declare their desire to see the end of the Jewish state, they get a free pass among the progressives and radicals, and are literally able to get away with the murder of women who flout the modesty laws, homosexuals, minorities, and all those who are brave enough to oppose them.
We are seeing, once again, the “No Jews, no news” phenomenon at play. The flotilla participants are also aware of the “No clash, no splash” maxim.
Ben-Gvir delivered what they hoped for; Bilbao gave them what they hadn’t expected – a foreign police force that wasn’t willing to coddle and accept the anarchists and their sympathizers. It’s doubtful, however, that that’s enough to take the wind out of their sails.
