23 organizations are expected to participate in the upcoming flotilla

So far, 23 organizations are expected to participate in the upcoming flotilla to the Gaza Strip, similar to the heterogeneous coalition which organized the Mavi Marmara flotilla. Its three core organizations are IHH (Turkey), the ECESG (Europe) and the FGM (America), affiliated with radical Islam, primarily the Muslim Brotherhood, and/or the radical left. The others are global anti-Israeli organizations, some of them human- and social-rights groups.

Overview

1. The IHH website recently posted a provisional list of 23 organizations which have signed up for Freedom Flotilla 2. An examination indicates a considerable similarity between these organizations and those participated in the Mavi Marmara flotilla.1

Like the previous flotilla, its preparations are being led by three organizations and umbrella networks with organizational capabilities and financial resources, and in one instance (IHH) with governmental capabilities. So far the core organizations have demonstrated persistence and determination to launch the flotilla (preparations have been ongoing for a year), despite logistic and political difficulties.2

The most prominent organization and the one leading the preparations for the upcoming flotilla is IHH, an anti-Israeli, anti-West, Islamist Turkish organization. Its strategic partners are two umbrella networks; the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG, a European network based in Britain whose organizations and activists have ideological ties to the Muslim Brotherhood), and the Free Gaza Movement (FGM, a network based within the extreme leftist camp in the United States).

These three core organizations, IHH, ECESG and FGM, determine policy and strategies for the upcoming flotilla (as they did for the Mavi Marmara). That is done through a steering committee set up to organize the flotilla, which holds occasional coordination meetings attended by senior activists of the three core and other anti-Israeli organizations. To date meetings have been held in Athens, Paris, Amsterdam, Madrid and Rome.

In addition to the three core organizations, the list contains the names of networks and organizations from Western Europe (the most prominent country is Britain), Scandinavia, North America and Asia. The local networks from various countries which joined the flotilla are directed and coordinated by the core organizations. Most of their activities deal with logistics, such as raising funds, enlisting and briefing volunteers who will sail with the flotilla, and preparing the media and propaganda groundwork. In most cases, the costs involved are prohibitively high, keeping the local networks from buying their own ships. Some of them have formed ad hoc associations, sometimes of organizations from a number of countries, to pool resources to buy a ship. Some of them preferred not to act independently and plan to join the vessels of other organizations (IHH's Mavi Marmara, for example).

Ideologically, the current flotilla, like the previous one, is composed of a heterogeneous coalition with inter-organizational collaboration among its members: at one end of the ideological spectrum there are organizations and activists who are blatantly radical Islamists (IHH and other Turkish Islamist organizations, organizations and activists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and sometimes also with Hamas in Europe). At the other end are networks, organizations and activists affiliated with the radical left in the United States and Europe.

In some instances, the organizations and activists are involved in the campaign to delegitimize Israel (boycotts, hate propaganda, etc.). They have been joined by human rights organizations and organizations with political-social agendas. Among them are Jewish individuals and small groups not necessarily sharing the same ideology or radical Islamic/extreme leftist agenda, but willing to participate in anti-Israeli activity because they are critical of Israel's policies on the Palestinian issue.

The organizations preparing the upcoming flotilla learned lessons from the previous one. The most important, they feel, is the need to create difficulties for Israel and to ensure that Israel cannot prevent them from reaching the Gaza Strip. The lesson is being applied in various ways: increasing the numbers of vessels (they aspire to between 13 and 15) and activists (there will be 500 aboard the Mavi Marmara alone, and according to Bülent Yildirim, there will be a total of 1,500); and the participation of well-known figures(politicians, cultural figures and media personnel), especially from Western European and North American countries with which Israel has good relations. Jews and perhaps even Israelis are being enlisted to increase the flotilla's legitimacy and attract the media. In addition, there are apparently plans to use defiance and passive resistance to make it difficult for Israel to take over the ships, which are liable to deteriorate into the sort of violence seen during the previous flotilla. Moreover, the organizers are planning to make it difficult for Israel to deal with flotilla participants who are detained.

In our assessment IHH again plays a central role in organizing the flotilla. The Mavi Marmara will again be its flagship. As far as is known, it will carry activists from IHH and other Turkish Islamist organizations, media personnel and, in our assessment, Arab-Muslim activists from other countries, including those who participated in previous flotillas and convoys and gained experience in confrontations with the IDF and the security forces of Arab countries. IHH leader Bülent Yildirim has stated that he is willing to sacrifice "shaheeds" for the sake of the flotilla, thus it is highly likely that the conduct of the Mavi Marmara passengers will be provocative and the level of violence there will be higher than aboard the other vessels.

The list of the organizations on the IHH website (in English, Turkish and Arabic)does not so far contain names from the Arab-Muslim world, nor of the Islamist Turkish IHH-affiliated organizations which participated in the Mavi Marmara flotilla. That is true despite the fact that Arab delegations are making preparations to join the flotilla and the Jordanian committee for the flotilla (composed in large part of members of the Muslim Brotherhood) even said it might use Arab funds to purchase a ship.3 In our assessment Arab-Muslim names do not appear because the organizers are afraid that the names of extreme Islamist organizations might damage their attempts to represent the flotilla as on a "peace" and "human rights" mission, and make it difficult for them to allay the concerns of the international community regarding a repetition of violence. The names of Israeli organizations or activists expected to participate also do not appear.

The members of the steering committee meeting in Rome (Picture from the flotilla website, February 24, 2011).

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