You may remember the whole world going nuts in late May when the Free Palestine keffiyists, over 400 in this performative episode of catch-me-if-you-can posed heroism, staged yet another virtue-signalling flotilla to Gaza – Greta Thunberg mysteriously absent this time – bearing their token "humanitarian aid" of six tins of tuna and a few bags of potato chips. Once again, they were apprehended by the Israelis and treated like the maritime scofflaws they were.
The sight of activists handcuffed and kneeling, and being mocked by National Security Minister Ben Gvir caused a global seizure of horror and near-universal condemnation. Turkey, which had been the flotilla's staging point, made quite a show of compassion for the alleged beatings and humiliation the poor tykes had been subjected to. Israeli diplomats were summoned for lectures, and anti-Israel journalists were as happy as five-year-olds on Christmas morning gazing at Santa's overnight bounty.
All the kiffeyehnistas were sent on their way. Six flotilla activists who arrived at Spain's Bilbao airport, miraculously recovered from their alleged ordeal, and bubbling with self-importance, deplaned and blocked the exit for the other passengers in their eagerness to do on-the-spot media interviews. They were set upon by the Basque regional police force, who treated some of them with extreme harshness before arresting them.
Naturally, the world condemned Spain with exactly the same moral fervour they had demonstrated against Israel a few days before. Ha ha, of course they didn't. The incident was reported and died. Only Israel summoned the Spanish envoy to demand an explanation for the police violence. The rest of the world couldn't care less about those flotilla activists' rights, because they couldn't pin their abrogation on Israel.
There is no such thing as spontaneous moral fervour in the political class. Double standards around Israel are a dime a dozen and it's become the received wisdom that bashing Israel is a no-brainer in the West as the tastiest, most aromatic, and most important, low-hanging vote bait around. Andy Burnham, the UK Labour Party dauphin, ratcheted the Zionophobia dial to eleven with, as Brendan O'Neill put it in a hard-hitting Spiked column, "a staggeringly pompous digital sermon on Gaza – not an act of geopolitical conviction but a masterclass in demographic toadying." Why did he go full Tucker Carlson on Israel? Easy, O'Neill writes: "[H]e's done it to try to win back the Islamist bloc and metropolitan luvvies who mistake hating Israel for having a personality."
Speaking of the Labour Party and double standards, Keir Starmer offers another case in point. In a recent speech to an LGBT gathering, addressing his accomplishments as PM, Starmer said regarding his "gayest Parliament ever" that "I don't think there's any Parliament that is gayer than this Parliament and that is fantastic." It is true that of 650 members of the House of Commons, 76 identify as LGBT.
But what good are numbers if they don't go to bat for their fellow gays when the chips are down? An LGBTQ cruise ship on a 10-day Mediterranean circuit has just been denied entry to both Turkey and Egypt. About half the 2,000 passengers were American; others came primarily from Britain, Canada and Australia.
Atlantis Events has operated the same gay-themed cruises in the past, visiting these countries without incident. Now Turkish authorities state that the charter group did not align with Turkish society's "moral values."
Turkey used to be gay-friendly, but under Erdogan, rights have been rolled back. Pride marches have been banned and a 2025 draft law would, according to Human Rights Watch, "pave the way to bring criminal charges against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people."
As for Egypt, again according to Human Rights Watch, "Egyptian police and National Security Agency officers arbitrarily arrest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and detain them in inhuman conditions, systematically subject them to ill-treatment including torture, and often incite fellow inmates to abuse them." Convicted gays in Egypt can end up imprisoned for up to 17 years.
Surely the cruise company knew all this? So the snub should not have come as a shock. But whatever. The fact is that the entry refusals represent a huge and surely calculated slap in the face to the West.
So whaddya have to say about that, West? Any government protests or condemnations? It's difficult to suss out a negative in the news. For humans, that is, but it's a snap for AI, and my assigned bot at ChatGPT has this to say about that: As of July 11, "I have not found evidence that any major Western head of government (e.g., the U.S. president, the Canadian prime minister, the British prime minister, the French president, the German chancellor, etc.) publicly condemned Turkey's or Egypt's refusal to allow the LGBTQ+ charter cruise Scarlet Lady to dock. The incident received substantial media coverage, but the public criticism appears to have come primarily from activists, LGBTQ+ organizations, travel companies, entertainers, and commentators rather than national leaders."
What, nothing from Britain and his "gayest Parliament ever"? Nothing from the Democratic Party? Or the Democratic Socialists of America? Zohran Mandami! You're all over LGBTQ as a voting bloc during Pride month. Cat got your tongue? Or is it simply more proof, if proof were needed, that in the Great Chain of Intersectional Being, it is Islam and Zionophobia at the top, and every other identity below. Turkey and Egypt being Islamic countries, omertà prevails; let the LGBT chips fall where they may.
Of course, the great irony here – so great it blots out the sun as one contemplates it – is that the one country in the Mediterranean region that is totally LGBTQ friendly is Israel. But wild horses wouldn't have dragged that ship to its port, because the political cost would be too high.
Do you think the incident will have the Queers for Palestine faction of Pride rethinking their mission? Nah. For woke LGBTs, as for all the other Islamophiliacs and Zionophobes, a day without cognitive dissonance is a day without sunshine.
In LaLaLand, the sun never sets.
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