Greta Thunberg should thank Israel for intercepting her Gaza selfie ship

Once again, the Mediterranean has hosted a familiar theater of self-satisfied spectacle. This time, however, the curtain has come down swiftly. The latest vessel to set sail in defiance of Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza – the Madleen, a boat bloated with virtue signaling and the vanity of performative compassion – has been intercepted by the Israeli Navy.

The operation was executed peacefully and without casualties by fighters from Fleet 13, Israel’s naval commando forces. The ship is now making its way safely to the port of Ashdod, its dozen passengers – including Greta Thunberg, the climate whiner turned omni-cause moral voice – healthy, unharmed and provided with sandwiches (individually wrapped in plastic, sorry Greta) and water.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry left no doubt about the farcical nature of this voyage: “There are ways to provide aid to the Gaza Strip – they don’t involve Instagram selfies.”

The Madleen’s cargo, amounting to less than one aid truck, will be transferred to Gaza through genuine humanitarian channels. Meanwhile, more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel in the past two weeks alone, and nearly 11 million meals have been distributed directly to civilians through the Gaza Humanitarian Fund.

During their virtue-signaling sailing jolly, one can only hope that Greta and her companions brought something worthwhile to read. They might reflect on the cautionary tale of Vittorio Arrigoni – a story that should linger as a somber whisper against hubris. In August 2008, Arrigoni arrived in Gaza by boat with the Free Gaza Movement flotilla. During Operation Cast Lead, he became one of the best-known Western voices in Gaza, writing prolifically and immersing himself in the territory’s brutal complexities.

Yet in his zeal to “stay human,” Arrigoni drifted dangerously close to factions linked to Hamas and other Islamist groups – remaining ideologically blind to the jihadist forces brewing in parallel. His was a worldview intoxicated by its own moral purity, one that refused to see the brutal realities of the actors around him. The consequences were fatal. In April 2011, Arrigoni was abducted by the Salafist group Tawhid wal-Jihad, and hanged by those he thought he understood.

Yet even in the aftermath, some refused to confront the truth. His family’s decision to repatriate his body via Egypt – avoiding any cooperation with Israel – betrayed a continued ideological obstinacy. Critics such as Fiamma Nirenstein denounced him as “a fan of political Islamism” and “an enemy of the Jews.” Others labelled him a “terror tourist” and an “ideological tourist” who failed to grasp the lethal indoctrination coursing through the territory he romanticized.

Arrigoni’s death became a grim parable of Western moralism divorced from realism. Thunberg’s voyage risked repeating this same grievous error – albeit on a larger stage. Now it has ended in anti-climax, its intended media provocation neutralized.

Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz rightly congratulated the IDF for its swift and safe action to uphold the naval blockade. He has ordered that the flotilla passengers be shown video evidence of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7.

By attempting to breach the blockade, the Madleen’s activists sought not to relieve the suffering of Gazans, but to stage a photogenic tableau for Western media. A few boxes of rice, tampons and crutches would not change conditions in Gaza. The flotilla’s purpose was theatrical – and dangerous theatre at that.

Israel’s right to enforce its naval blockade, as upheld in the 2011 Palmer Report, remains firmly grounded in international law. Humanitarian aid does and must continue to flow through controlled channels. What the Madleen attempted was not responsible aid, but irresponsible grandstanding.

The vanity of it all is appalling. It makes a mockery both of Israel’s legitimate security concerns and of the Palestinians themselves, whose plight cannot be alleviated by the conspicuous virtue of foreign celebrities. The Palestinians become a passive backdrop, their suffering instrumentalized for a Western morality play, starring the world’s most famous contemporary white savior.

Had the Madleen succeeded in docking, the activists would have faced a chaotic and volatile landscape in which not all factions share their idealism – nor even basic tolerance for foreign interference. They would have been in everybody’s way, but in nobody’s service.

Arrigoni sailed under the banner of Restiamo umani – “Stay human” – and it remains a noble injunction. But staying human also requires staying wise. Gaza’s tragedy is not ameliorated by empty gestures. It is deepened by them, when they obscure the harsh realities and genuine complexities of war, blockade and diplomacy.

The Madleen has been stopped. The activists are safe. But the lesson stands: moralism without realism is not virtue, but vanity – and, at times, mortal folly.