g worthwhile to read. They might reflect on the cautionary tale of Vittorio Arrigoni – a story that should linger as a sombre whisper against hubris. In August 2008, Arrigoni arrived in Gaza by boat with the Free Gaza Movement flotilla. During Operation Cast Lead, he became one of the best-known Western voices in Gaza, writing prolifically and immersing himself in the territory’s brutal complexities.
Yet in his zeal to “stay human”, Arrigoni drifted dangerously close to factions linked to Hamas and other Islamist groups – remaining ideologically blind to the jihadist forces brewing in parallel. His was a worldview intoxicated by its own moral purity, one that refused to see the brutal realities of the actors around him. The consequences were fatal. In April 2011, Arrigoni was abducted by the Salafist group Tawhid wal-Jihad, and hanged by those he thought he understood.
If Thunberg and co. had been allowed to land, their safety, or their reception as heroes, would have very much in doubt. But they never really expected to land: they expected to be stopped by the IDF. It was all theatre. Nasty Israel, brave heroic Greta.
The vanity of it all is appalling. It makes a mockery both of Israel’s legitimate security concerns and of the Palestinians themselves, whose plight cannot be alleviated by the conspicuous virtue of foreign celebrities. The Palestinians become a passive backdrop, their suffering instrumentalised for a Western morality play, starring the world’s most famous contemporary white saviour.
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