A flotilla for Gilad?
Friday marks four years since IDF corporal Gilad Shalit was kidnapped at the Kerem Shalom crossing point. This afternoon, as I was stopped at a red light, a young woman came up to me and asked me to tie a yellow ribbon on my car for Gilad Shalit, which I did. But Phyllis Chesler has a much more practical - if dangerous - idea of how to bring about Shalit's release. In New York City, the largest (non-Israeli) international Jewish organization in the world has invited Jews to board boats on the East River (!) in order to symbolically protest the fourth year of Gilad Shalit’s captivity. True, if the Israeli Government and Defense Forces have been unable to free him, what can American Jews hope to do?Nice idea, but I'm not sure the IDF would want to spend the manpower to keep us all from getting killed along the way if this flotilla were actually to land in Gaza.
On the other hand, people of thirty seven countries were willing to board an actual boat in deep, Mediterranean waters, in order to bring food and humanitarian supplies to the tyrants and terrorists of Gaza who hold their own people hostage to their hatred for Israel.
Why can’t the Jews (and our friends) launch a flotilla of humanitarian aid for Gilad Shalit, a peaceful convoy, to sail to Gaza laden with food, medicine, clothing, books, messages from those who love him?
Hamas has not allowed Shalit even a single visit by the International Red Cross. Why not a visit from civilian Jews and our friends instead?
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 6:43 PM
2 Comments:
Phyllis Chesler is very smart and quite clever. However when the world is screaming bloody murder because the pooor abused gazens are starving, all the attention a flotilla of aid for Gilad would do was for others to tell us, LET HIM STARVE along with all the rest.
All the power our best friend had 4 years ago could have been used. He could have put the screws to Hamas and their puppets Fatah. He declined.
Will Phyllis risk her life on a flotilla which would most certainly come under fire upon landing in Gaza. To more more precise would you want your sons to give their lives to defend a real 'ship of fools'??
Calling out those who deceived us takes honesty and integrity. Using Jews for political gain is a trap. What Jews should do is withhold their votes altogether and make clear to the candidates of our choice why. Which more and more Jews both liberal and conservative are doing. We are not in the dozens but in the tens of hundreds.
Being killed, I think is a small price to pay to focus another on the plight of an abandoned Jew. Is there a principle for which Jews will give up their lives? Or are they all sniveling cowards like anti-Semites accuse them of being? The issue is going to have be forced. Being nice to Hamas hasn't secured Shalit's freedom. Its time to turn the tables around on them.
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