Is the outpouring of sympathy following the historic flotilla to be taken at face value, asks Omayma Abdel-Latif The advertisement published in the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar called for volunteers and funding to launch the "Free journalists ship" heading to Gaza. "We call upon all journalists and the free people of the world to participate in launching the Free journalists ship heading to Gaza to send educational and stationary material to the besieged children of Palestine," read the ad. The Naji Al-Ali ship, as it has been dubbed by its funding group, the Free Palestine Movement, is the latest effort aimed to capitalise on the strong wave of popular revulsion and anger which swept across the Arab world and translate it into action. Another initiative is organised by a group of women activists who disclosed in a news conference held earlier this week their plan to send the Mariam flotilla to Gaza in solidarity with Gaza women. The two ships are part of the Gaza Freedom 2 which according to its main donor Palestinian businessman Yasser Qashlaq, will include more than fifty ships. In Beirut, volunteers were signing up for Freedom Gaza 2. Several initiatives were also being discussed among members of the European Campaign to end the blockade of Gaza. Samar Al-Haj, one of the organisers of the Mariam flotilla said the organising committee had been inundated with requests from women activists to join its ranks. Almost two weeks into the attack on the Gaza Freedom flotilla which took place on 31 May, the Arab world continues to hum with fierce debate over Israel's deadly assault. But it is here in Lebanon, home to more than 20 Palestinian refugee camps, where a flurry of activities seeks to turn the solidarity rhetoric into action. One Lebanese analyst pointed out that the "euphoria of naval tourism heading to Gaza" reflected a strong tendency among the Arab public to reach out to the Palestinians and that "the Arabs, just as the Turks, will not abandon Palestine." Another commentator Ibrahim Al-Amin of Al-Akhbar criticised the excessive media attention about solidarity activities, suggesting that such efforts should cease to be the media's focus. "The heart of the matter should not be about how many ships will sail to Gaza, because there is a fear that this turns into a show; rather, the focus should be on the cruel blockade imposed for four years with Arab and international blessing," Al-Amin explained. And while activists were preoccupied with attempts to keep up the momentum created by the Freedom Gaza flotilla to end the blockade, Hizbullah was battling on a different, albeit related, front. The Islamic resistance movement called for a public rally to honour the lives of the nine Turkish activists who were killed in cold blood during the Israeli raid on the flotilla. With nine coffins wrapped in Turkish flags symbolising the nine victims, Hizbullah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called for more humanitarian ships to head to Gaza in defiance of the blockade. He pointed out that the Freedom Gaza flotilla brought world attention to the inhumane siege imposed on Gaza. Nasrallah, who rarely gives interviews to foreign channels, appeared on TRT, Turkey's Arabic-speaking channel, and praised Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan's efforts in reminding the world of the four-year blockade of Gaza. The Turkish channel disclosed on Monday that Nasrallah received an official invitation from Erdogan to visit Turkey and that preparations for the visit were underway. Hizbullah's embracing of the event and celebration of it was viewed as a response to some writings in the Saudi-financed press which sought to portray Turkey's initiative as part of the regional rivalry between Turkey and Iran over a leading role in the region. Worse still, some neo-liberal writers even stretched the argument further to frame the whole issue of the flotilla within a context of sectarian rivalry: "It is now Turkey 'the Sunni state' taking over the Palestinian question which had been hijacked by Iran, the 'Shia state' and its proxies," wrote Ragheda Dargham in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper. Such a view was condemned by one Hizbullah official who described it as part of the scheme to maintain the Sunni-Shia divide. Hizbullah, explained the official, enjoys popularity among the Turkish population. Party flags and symbols were carried by Turkish demonstrators during protests.
