The Sumud Flotilla has been intercepted, with only one boat from a fleet of over 40 having escaped Israeli authorities. Their crews have been kidnapped on international waters, and sent to an Israeli port city. It is important to emphasise that this is in direct violation of international law. In the month of January,2024, the International Court of Justice ordered that Israel “take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” ‘International law’ has, yet again, proven itself to be a standard to which the illegitimate state of Israel is exempt.
After the last kidnapping of Greta ThunbergSwedish climate and political activist, Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would inform Benjamin Netanyahu to “take a harder approach” the next time Greta’s flotilla attempted to break the siege. “Netanyahu not to be satisfied with mild detentions and aerial deportation, but instead a deterrent strategy.”
This thinly veiled threat of violence did not deter Thunberg and her fellow members of the Sumud Flotilla, who quickly made plans for another attempt to break the unending siege on Gaza and bring desperately needed aid to a starved and terrorised population. However, it did change the previous apathy of the flotilla members’ respective governments.
European citizens, after being informed of the threat of violence to activists aboard the flotilla, took to the streets en masse. Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, and other European cities saw thousands demanding their governments protect these humanitarians. Wednesday, in particular, saw general strikes of the largest unions in Italy, stopping roads and economic movement. The response? A denouncement from major European governments of Israel’s possibly violent response to the flotilla, and a promise of military intervention and protection.
Spanish, Italian, and Greek naval ships were instructed to escort the flotillas from the coast of Crete, as far as the “orange line”—an Israeli exclusion zone. The Sumud Flotilla was, even tokenistically, protected. They were militarily and directly supported until “Israeli waters”, but even without direct physical support, the message sent to Israel was clear. The European Union, at least—its biggest members—would not respond kindly to violence on its citizens.
So, governments are able to disobey Israel, are able to protect citizens, and do this using their power as international bodies. However, we have not seen this type of support before for Palestinians. What changed?
The bodies being protected were not Palestinian.
Greta Thunberg has been working to speak the quiet part out loud, that her body as a European is simply worth more to the world and “international community”. Palestinian bodies are mangled, discarded, tortured—all on broadcast to the world. But the world will only move to protect the bodies it deems valuable.
This isn’t to say I don’t understand the concept of citizenship. I understand that nations will always prioritise the wellbeing of their citizens before anyone else. But even this rule proves itself inconsistent.
When Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, and the world watched as Afghanistan was swallowed in days, the response was swift. Military cargo planes were sent by the US, the UK, EU states, and Australia—not just to retrieve their own citizens, but Afghans as well. Non-citizens were pulled onto planes mid-collapse, so long as their lives could be justified by collaboration. Because the Taliban could be clearly, publicly, and unquestionably framed as illegitimate—an "evil" worthy of rejection. The global consensus allowed it—in fact, demanded it. We were told: these people must be saved from this regime. No hesitation.
But when it comes to Israel, even the suggestion of illegitimacy is forbidden. Even as they kill journalists, children, paramedics, poets, entire lineages—it is never enough. Not enough to call it what it is. Not enough to say genocide. Not enough to justify intervention. Not even enough to protect people.
EU citizens have been killed by Israeli bombs. So have Australians. So have US citizens. So have aid workers, journalists, and doctors. Their passports did not protect them. No cargo planes came. No statements of condemnation echoed through parliaments. No promises of protection followed. Because Israel is not allowed to be seen as anything other than the legitimate state, and its violence is excused, contextualised, rationalised. Palestinian bodies are always a footnote to Israeli “security”.
And so, what we are shown is that the value of a life is not determined by legality or passport or citizenship, but by narrative. Who the world is allowed to see as victim. Who can commit atrocities legitimately. Palestinian bodies have never been cast as lives worth saving. They are allowed to be bombed, starved, and mutilated, as the world watches with the distant, muted concern of a spectator, not the urgency of a witness.
The Sumud Flotilla, and the rare, reluctant protections afforded to it, remind us that states can act. That international bodies can draw lines. But only when the people on the receiving end of the violence are bodies that matter to them.
Until Palestinians are allowed to be fully human—not a number, not a statistic, not a symbol—then no convoy, no aid ship, no solidarity campaign will be enough. Because as long as the Israeli state is allowed to do “legitimate” evil, then Palestinian life will continue to be calculated against the myth of Israeli right.
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