To the ‘Flotilla of Resilience’: The True Destination is Doha, Not Gaza

While drafting this article on the morning of Monday, September 8, 2025, urgent news alerts appeared on my tablet: two armed Palestinian terrorists opened fire at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem, killing six people and wounding around twenty others, some critically, in one of the deadliest attacks the city has witnessed in recent years.

I ask you, dear readers, as a mental exercise: how many of those currently on the decks of the so-called “Global Flotilla of Resilience” heading to Gaza whose majority of fifty ships reached the penultimate stop at the port of Sidi Bou Said in Tunisia, carrying activists from 44 countries have condemned this heinous terrorist attack?

I direct this question explicitly to Susan Sarandon, Oscar winner; Reema Hassan, Member of the European Parliament; Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg; Irish actor Liam Cunningham; and their fellow passengers aboard these vessels: Were you aware of the attack? Or would condemning it provoke your colleagues who are connected, directly or indirectly, to Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, or to what is known as the “Global Left,” which now executes terrorist agendas with astonishing zeal? You are present, participating in the “Flotilla of Resilience,” aboard the Madeleine, ship number 36 of the Freedom Fleet, alongside the ships that preceded it. Are you truly concerned about the people of Gaza?

All of them have pursued objectives that barely extend beyond deception and manipulating the minds of the naive. Their true aim is neither Gaza nor its inhabitants, but the spotlight, the cameras, and the coverage in newspapers, news agencies, and global media channels. They share a hatred for Israel and strive to orchestrate a collective spectacle intended to embarrass it internationally.

Had they been sincere in their declarations, they would have headed directly to Doha to meet with Hamas leaders and its political bureau the sole reason dozens of negotiation rounds over the past two years were thwarted and persuaded them to release hostages and weapons, and withdraw militias that repeatedly boast of wanting to replicate the “October 7” attacks whenever they see the chance.

These are precisely the demands Israeli officials have stated repeatedly to halt the war. They are just demands that no fair-minded person can ignore. How could any ruler accept the presence of an armed militia, or individuals orbiting its official charter, which seeks the erasure of Israel from the world map?

To those who sympathize with them: a bit of logic is enough to prevent turning into mere cogs in a colossal machine that produces delusions and myths, recycling lies under so-called “sacred” banners. A machine monopolized by radical Islamist groups, around which orbit leftist currents, associations, and global networks that praise them day and night.

This escalating farce will not end unless a practical measure changes the rules of the game. Israel, fighting on behalf of the free world, does not defend its borders alone; it also fights for everyone who believes in democracy and refuses to allow terrorist forces to impose their agendas worldwide. Yet, the inverted scene continues: flotillas bearing the banner “Freedom and Resilience” head to Gaza to support dubious agendas while the world ignores the simplest realities.

Here lies the fundamental question: why do no ships set sail from Israeli ports carrying Israel’s true friends peace and democracy activists who genuinely oppose terrorism? Those who understand that supporting Israel is not merely a political choice but a moral duty against the forces of darkness that violate innocent lives.

The existence of a “Peace Fleet” departing from the ports of Haifa, Ashdod, or Eilat, carrying a clear message to the world, would be the most effective response to the hypocrisies presented by the so-called “Flotilla of Resilience.” A fleet that raises no hollow slogans but charts a course back to Doha, where Hamas leaders and their political bureau reside. There lies the real stop, the proper destination that anyone sincerely seeking to end the war in Gaza should aim for. True freedom is not a false mask hiding a terrorist project.