Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (Malam) assessed the two Lebanese ships making up the next Gaza flotilla. Three of Malam's key findings say a lot about Hezbollah's involvement, the "activists" on board, and the Lebanese government's irresponsibility.
• Responsible for dispatching the ships are low-ranking Lebanese activists who have no particular standing in Lebanon’s internal politics. Some of them belong to the March 8 Alliance, which supports Hezbollah and Syria. The two groups behind the operation are Journalists without Bounds and the Free Palestine Movement, two fairly minor organizations. In our assessment, purchasing the ships and organizing the flotilla were carried out with Syrian and Hezbollah involvement and support. Neither of them wants to expose its true identity.
• Iman Tawil Sa’ad – Of Egyptian extraction, married to a Lebanese who heads the Lebanese Nasserist organization, a leftist organization whose power anti-Semitism is in Sidon. In an interview with Al-Jazeera TV she said, “We’re going (to Gaza) and honestly we have three options . . . Either martyrdom, imprisonment or victory. Allah willing, we will be victorious and reach Gaza.”
• The Lebanese government does not want a confrontation over the issue of the ships and is attempting to pass the problem along to Cyprus (UNIFIL forces warned the government that providing authorization for the ships would be a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1710). The Lebanese government, using various excuse, rejected the ships’ request to anchor in the port of Tripoli (in the north of Lebanon). Only on June 21 did Ghazi al-Aridi, Lebanese minister of transportation, authorize the sailing of the two ships from Tripoli to Cyprus (Al-Nahar, June 21, 2010). He said that the continuation of the voyage now depended on whether or not Cyprus decided to let the ships sail (Al-Nishra, June 20 2010).
