Yesterday, coming from the Israeli Port of Ashdod, 50 yachts arrived at the Egyptian port of Port Said with 250 tourists on board. These tourists came from 30 countries, including Israel, to participate in the Rally of Mediterranean Sea East (Med-Rally). It was officially announced that, the yachts came to represent many countries. Of the yachts were 12 belonging to the USA with a crew of 21 members, seven representing France with a crew of 19 members, 12 belonging to Britain with a crew of 32 members and six belonging to Germany with a crew of 18 members. However, the remainder included yachts that represented Netherlands, Denmark, South Africa, Canada, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, Austria, Turkey and Australia with one to three yachts for each country. Sources working for Port Said Port Authority assured that, Israeli participants were present at the rally, but they carried nationalities other than the Israeli. Such a step was to be carried out so that the anger showed by some of the Egyptian People against last year rally, which witnessed the participation of yachts carrying the Israeli flag, could be avoided. On his part, agent Felix, who organizes the rally, denied the existence of any Israelis; yet he stressed the rally route was to be to and from Israel. Egyptian opposition forces announced their alert against what was seen by them as a kind of normalization; especially the rally program includes a formal dinner for the entire crews in honor of the Governor of Port Said, Major General Mustafa Abdul Latif and Major General Ibrahim Seddiq, Port Said Port Authority Chairman. For example, the maverick leftist MP from Port Said, el-Badri Farghali, said that what happened was a normalization accompanied by swine flu. He warned that, despite their coming from an infected country, the medical quarantine procedures to be followed with the yachts' passengers existed in name only. El-Badri added that, at the same time Egypt officially welcome the yachts as well as Israeli tourists; Israel continues to hamper the members of the convoy "Save Gaza". Israel, purposefully, did that, despite the fact that the convoy members came from European countries and included, among them, European parliamentarians.
