Israel’s PR stunt backfires, guides focus to humanitarian deprivation in Gaza

“All the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X. The images of Israeli commandos handing out packets of sandwiches and bottles of water to the 12 activists on board the Madleen was prominent on social media. But the activists were not starving, unlike the Palestinian people under siege and genocide in Gaza.

If Israel intended this purportedly humanitarian gesture to strike a chord, it did, albeit not in the way the settler-colonial entity expected. Israel’s accomplishment was to consolidate global attention on depriving Palestinians of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

The Madleen, Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated, had “less than a single truckload of aid”, while Israel allowed “more than 1,200 aid trucks” to pass into Gaza from Israel in the last two weeks, in addition to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. If Israel wants statistics, in January 2025 the World Health Organisation estimated that up to 600 trucks per day would be needed to start alleviating the humanitarian deprivation caused by Israel in Gaza.

Israel does not seem to understand protest or symbolism. Far from being unsuccessful, the voyage exposed the routine blockade which diplomats speak about in the most detached manner possible. On one hand, we see a measured response – one that is guaranteed no diplomatic backlash from the international community. But in the background, and one that is now ingrained in the world’s psyche, the genocide continues. Which means that Israel’s reaction to the Madleen only shifts attention back to Gaza, where the danger is Israel itself, not a boat containing trickle of aid that exposed various levels of state violence in Israeli diplomacy. Because there is violence in silence and that violence will speak back in the international community’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

“All the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X. The images of Israeli commandos handing out packets of sandwiches and bottles of water to the 12 activists on board the Madleen was prominent on social media. But the activists were not starving, unlike the Palestinian people under siege and genocide in Gaza.

If Israel intended this purportedly humanitarian gesture to strike a chord, it did, albeit not in the way the settler-colonial entity expected. Israel’s accomplishment was to consolidate global attention on depriving Palestinians of humanitarian aid in Gaza.

The Madleen, Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated, had “less than a single truckload of aid”, while Israel allowed “more than 1,200 aid trucks” to pass into Gaza from Israel in the last two weeks, in addition to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. If Israel wants statistics, in January 2025 the World Health Organisation estimated that up to 600 trucks per day would be needed to start alleviating the humanitarian deprivation caused by Israel in Gaza.

Israel does not seem to understand protest or symbolism. Far from being unsuccessful, the voyage exposed the routine blockade which diplomats speak about in the most detached manner possible. On one hand, we see a measured response – one that is guaranteed no diplomatic backlash from the international community. But in the background, and one that is now ingrained in the world’s psyche, the genocide continues. Which means that Israel’s reaction to the Madleen only shifts attention back to Gaza, where the danger is Israel itself, not a boat containing trickle of aid that exposed various levels of state violence in Israeli diplomacy. Because there is violence in silence and that violence will speak back in the international community’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

Israel’s PR stunt backfires, guides focus to humanitarian deprivation in Gaza