Flotilla 2: Where is Mariam?

Elder of Ziyon
25 June '10

I believe the Free Gaza movement deliberately tries to add confusion to their next Gaza mission. Either to try to mislead the Israeli authorities, or to hide the fact that they cannot find or afford a bigger ship and/or volunteers to go on these ships.

While searching the web for traces of a ship called Maryam, I encountered this article which sheds some light on the possible plans of the next Flotilla:

The voyage has been encumbered by bureaucratic and political obstacles from the start. UN resolution 1701 bars any attempts to enter Israeli territory directly from Lebanon, so Lebanon’s minister of transportation has only given permission to a French-registered ship, the Julia, to embark for Cyprus. But authorities in Nicosia have barred the ship from entering Cypriot waters, so the vessel – to be renamed the Naji al Ali after a famed Palestinian cartoonist – is expected to leave for Cyprus but change course for the Gaza Strip.

The organisers of the endeavour said they had been authorised to depart Lebanon immediately, but they were unwilling to announce the exact time of the departure, apparently in the hope of confusing the Israeli military about their intentions.
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The exact time of the ship’s departure was not the only secret yesterday. Organisers of a group of women activists led by the wife of a former Lebanese general once held in an Israeli jail, Ali al Hajj, said they would be leaving Lebanon in a ship named the Mariam. This group claims it will have more than 50 women aboard, but it was not immediately clear that the ship even exists.

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The Human Spirit: Women and children

Whether it’s a Gaza-bound flotilla of so-called women activists or a cell block full of women prisoners, they should be dealt with no differently than a mixed gender or all-male party.


Barabara Sofer
Columnist/JPost
25 June '10

A women’s flotilla. What a brilliant public relations move. Images of women sailing the seas excite our imagination. Named for the Virgin Mary, the ship was christened at a shrine to make its passengers appear to be the envoy of sanctity and maternal love. I’m reminded of a breakfast I was privileged to take part in more than a decade ago at a Jerusalem hotel. The guest of honor was Harvard law professor and jurist Alan Dershowitz. I came away with two important thoughts that have remained with me. The first was the realization that no matter how horrendous their crime, the guilty among this famous defense attorney’s clients always rationalized their actions. The second was Dershowitz’s correcting someone who used the phrase “women and children” in its clichéd sense, as in “women and children stood in the front rows of the demonstration facing the cameras.”

“Why group women and children together?” asked Dershowitz. “If women are indeed equal to men, they should not be grouped with children. They’re adults and make their own decisions.” Point well-taken. You either want women to be full-fledged grown-ups responsible for their decisions or not. Whether we’re speaking of a flotilla of so-called women peace activists sailing toward Gaza or a cell block full of women prisoners, there should be no different procedure in dealing with them from a mixed gender group or all-male party.

NONE OF us old enough to identify the names Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigades or Leila Khaled without typing them into a search engine would be naïve enough to think for a moment that women are incapable of terrorism. Let us not forget that there was also a widely reported alert earlier in the year that al-Qaida was sending trained non-Arab women terrorists to attack the West.

To elevate the image of the Mariam, it is purportedly carrying cancer medications. This alleged cargo creates the cynical and false impression that Israel would deny tomixifin or herceptin to Palestinian women.

According to press reports, only women who comply with the dress code designated by the male sponsor can take part in the so-called sacred journey. No licentiousness allowed.

But modesty offers no guarantee of innocent intentions. Remember, please, Hamas-emissary Reem Riashi. In January 2004, this mother of two told the security checkers at the Erez exit from Gaza that the metal plates in her supposedly crippled legs would set off the security alarm. Sensitive to Riashi’s need for modesty, she was asked to wait on the side so that a woman security guard could search her discreetly. That’s when Riashi detonated a two-kilogram bomb, killing two people and wounding 11 Israelis and Palestinians.

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