Mick Hartley

Jonathan Sacerdoti in the Spectator on the end to the Greta Thunberg farce:

Once again, the Mediterranean has hosted a familiar theatre of self-satisfied spectacle. This time, however, the curtain has come down swiftly. The latest vessel to set sail in defiance of Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza – the Madleen, a boat bloated with virtue signalling and the vanity of performative compassion – has been intercepted by the Israeli Navy.

The operation was executed peacefully and without casualties by fighters from Fleet 13, Israel’s naval commando forces. The ship is now making its way safely to the port of Ashdod, its dozen passengers – including Greta Thunberg, the climate whinger turned omni-cause moral voice – healthy, unharmed, and provided with sandwiches (individually wrapped in plastic, sorry Greta) and water.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry left no doubt about the farcical nature of this voyage: “There are ways to provide aid to the Gaza Strip – they don’t involve Instagram selfies.”

The Madleen’s cargo, amounting to less than one aid truck, will be transferred to Gaza through genuine humanitarian channels. Meanwhile, more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel in the past fortnight alone, and nearly 11 million meals have been distributed directly to civilians through the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.

There are historical parallels which Thunberg and co. might want to bear in mind.

During their virtue-signalling sailing jolly, one can only hope that Greta and her companions brought something worthwhile to read. They might reflect on the cautionary tale of Vittorio Arrigoni – a story that should linger as a sombre whisper against hubris. In August 2008, Arrigoni arrived in Gaza by boat with the Free Gaza Movement flotilla. During Operation Cast Lead, he became one of the best-known Western voices in Gaza, writing prolifically and immersing himself in the territory’s brutal complexities.

Yet in his zeal to “stay human”, Arrigoni drifted dangerously close to factions linked to Hamas and other Islamist groups – remaining ideologically blind to the jihadist forces brewing in parallel. His was a worldview intoxicated by its own moral purity, one that refused to see the brutal realities of the actors around him. The consequences were fatal. In April 2011, Arrigoni was abducted by the Salafist group Tawhid wal-Jihad, and hanged by those he thought he understood.

If Thunberg and co. had been allowed to land, their safety, or their reception as heroes, would have very much in doubt. But they never really expected to land: they expected to be stopped by the IDF. It was all theatre. Nasty Israel, brave heroic Greta.

The vanity of it all is appalling. It makes a mockery both of Israel’s legitimate security concerns and of the Palestinians themselves, whose plight cannot be alleviated by the conspicuous virtue of foreign celebrities. The Palestinians become a passive backdrop, their suffering instrumentalised for a Western morality play, starring the world’s most famous contemporary white saviour.