So the latest “Flytilla” has come and gone. With the hype surrounding the event, one could have been forgiven for thinking that there would be an “invasion” at Ben Gurion Airport.
The various Israeli departments compiled a list of some 1500 activists and handed it to airlines with a warning that if allowed to board, the activists would be put back on the flights on which they arrived and sent back at the airlines' expense. (A very positive action) As a consequence airlines, such as Lufthansa, Air France and others heeded the warning and cancelled the reservations of most of these activists, some 400 to 600 demonstrators.
The bottom line is that perhaps 1 woman from France managed to get through to Ramallah and approx. 60 were detained at Ben-Gurion airport and to be deported from Israel.
For those Israeli left-liberals who criticized the Israeli government for its position ("why not allow them to come in and demonstrate?"), their effect was minimal.
One has to ask, which of the Western countries, particularly the USA, who would allow entry to people whose sole expressed goal is to demonstrate against those governments? Yet the press think this is “hot” news.
In addition, would these “activists” dare fly into countries whose regimes deserve to be demonstrated against. Yet in a blatent display of hypocracy, they paint themselves as "heroes" attempting to enter Israel, the only liberal country in the Middle East, where all its citizens, including Arab-Palestinians, enjoy full human rights, freedoms and security.
The government of Israel acted properly and efficiently. Israel has her home grown “idiots”. She does not need imports of “idiots” from abroad.
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