Another Ship of Fools? Or "Thar She Blows"

Israeli authorities are worried about a Palestinian plan to sail a ship to Gaza through Israel's naval blockade on August 5, according to news reports today. Some 60 Palestinian and European leftist activists promise to be on board. Journalists are reportedly booking passage to record the voyage and the likely confrontation with Israeli navy ships. The boat will supposedly be stocked with humanitarian aid and medical supplies for Gaza, and another small vessel, carrying members of the international media, more activists and doctors, would sail alongside it, according to the Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

We've seen this tactic before -- on land and on water. In February 2008 the Palestinians considered a mass breakout from Gaza. At the time I reflected on the attempt in a blog posting, Stopping a Mass Invasion of Israel from Gaza.

Below is an excerpt from the blog, referring to a Palestinian attempt to sail into an Israeli port in 1988.

Twenty years ago the PLO outfitted a ship, the Sol Phryne (pictured), and renamed it the al Awda (the Return). Some 200 Palestinian refugees and international “dignitaries” were slated to board the ship and provocatively sail into Haifa, in a voyage reminiscent of the voyage of the Exodus bearing Jewish refugees in 1947. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called the voyage "a declaration of war." The voyage had been scheduled to sail on Feb. 9, 1988 from the port of Athens.

The ship never made it. On Feb. 16, 1988, the ship was damaged by a mine attached below the waterline at Limassol, Cyprus, which ripped a huge hole in the ferry's hull. No one was injured.

The timing of the blast was critical. The first Intifada had erupted and Yasser Arafat was attempting to gain control of the violence from afar. “By sabotaging the ship before it ever weighed anchor,” wrote analyst Ehud Ya’ari at the time, “Israel turned what was meant to be a dazzling media extravaganza into a public relations fiasco for the PLO. What's more, Arafat had planned to use the ship both to regain full command of events [the Intifada] and to pull in the 700,000 Arab citizens of Israel, who had clearly expressed their solidarity with the residents of the territories but had stopped short of actively joining in the uprising.”

Will Israel’s leadership have the foresight to thwart another Palestinian public relations show? Or is this just a small-time, half-baked PR plan?

See "Dry Bones" classic cartoon commentary on the 1988 ship. Hat tip to Yaakov Kirschen.

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