https://arab.news/p8ex5
One needs only to examine the actions and rhetoric of the Israeli government to fully appreciate the profound significance of the solidarity flotillas bound for Gaza. As the latest and most significant of these efforts, the Global Sumud Flotilla, set sail last week, Israel’s hostile discourse intensified, articulated most forcefully by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The extremist minister ominously declared that all the volunteers in the flotilla are “terrorists,” vowing that they will be treated as such. To grasp the chilling meaning of treating nonviolent activists as terrorists, one must consider a recent investigation by The Guardian newspaper. Its report exposed that all 6,000 Palestinians detained in Gaza during the first 19 months of the genocide were held under a law that classifies them as “unlawful combatants,” thus terrorists, allowing for indefinite imprisonment.
This investigation revealed that the vast majority of those incarcerated by Israel are in fact civilians, including medical workers, teachers, journalists, civil servants and children. The fact that Israel would extend this same draconian definition to international activists, whose declared mission is to break the siege on Gaza, powerfully underscores the political and strategic value of these missions in Israel’s eyes.
