In a long and somewhat labyrinthine article in The Independent, author and academic Andy Martin focuses on a documentary film about a Palestinian surfing club in Gaza.
Feeding the prejudices of The Independent’s readership, every activity in Gaza, even leisure, is turned into an opportunity to attack Israel and spread inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Martin makes it crystal-clear what he thinks about Israel:
Set aside the whole dubious history of Israel, the events of 1948 that the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba (or “Catastrophe”), the Six Day War, the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the continued imperial expansion and slow-motion ethnic cleansing known euphemistically as “settlement”. Even set aside, most recently, the “Nation State” law that spells out, reiterates and reinforces a condition of apartheid. Do you want to know the final straw? They won’t allow surfboards into Gaza. They are obviously part of some sinister Hamas-inspired conspiracy. They may exhibit coded subversive messages on stickers applied to their decks, such as “Life’s a beach”, or “Surf’s Up, Dude”.
Are surfboards “illegal” in Gaza?
So let’s set aside the whole dubious references to “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” that Martin casually tosses into the water and deal with his allegations regarding surfboards. Are they really “illegal” in Gaza as the article and the headline suggest?
Surfboards are classified for the purposes of import regulations as “vessels,” which fall under the category of dual use items requiring an import permit. These are materials or goods that could be used for terror activities.
But before Martin or anyone else dismisses Israeli concerns over surfboards, it’s worth reminding ourselves that, thanks to the twisted imaginations of some Palestinians, seemingly innocent objects such as balloons and kites have recently been transformed into terror weapons, in essence becoming dual-use items.
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As for surfboards, it’s also worth pointing out that Hamas has its own navy replete with commandos. For example, in 2014, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel by sea from Gaza before being killed by the IDF.
Only days ago, Gazans attempted to sail makeshift rafts with burning tires towards Israel while a protest flotilla tried to break Israel’s naval blockade.
Is it really so difficult to imagine what Hamas could potentially use (or misuse) surfboards for?
So Israel has every reason to err on the side of caution when it comes to allowing items such as surfboards into Gaza. Indeed, Martin quotes one of the Palestinian surfers as saying that he was unable to get a permit to bring the surfboards into Gaza.
This does not mean that surfing or surfboards are illegal in Gaza.
Martin writes:
At the risk of labouring the point, let me repeat that: Israel prohibits the importation of surfboards. Israel is, in effect, outlawing surfing, just as the buttoned-up East Coast evangelicals tried to do in Hawaii. “I met a lot of people after the film,” Ibrahim wrote to me, “and they wanted to support us and build the club and they offered to send boards to Gaza, but Israel prevents any kind of equipment or boards getting to Gaza.” No boards, no surfing. By a strange concatenation of historical circumstances, surfing, in the 20th century, became synonymous with hedonism. So by extension Israel is outlawing the pleasure principle in Gaza. Only pain – what Freud calls the “reality principle” – is permissible. Or compulsory.
Not only is Martin unwilling or unable to contemplate Israeli security concerns but he accuses Israel of simply being out to destroy anything that could bring joy or alleviate Palestinian suffering in Gaza. But worse, according to Martin, Israel is deliberately inflicting pain on Gazans just because it can.
Ridiculing British Jews over Labour antisemitism
Having dismissed Israel’s security concerns, Martin then dismisses and ridicules the concerns of the British Jewish community over antisemitism in the UK Labour Party:
Anti-semitism is real, but also liable to be over-diagnosed and mis-attributed. Are the Gaza surfers anti-semitic? Is Jeremy Corbyn?
He answers the question in the negative. It may very well be ridiculous to attribute antisemitism to a group of Gazan surfers but it certainly isn’t when it comes to Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the UK Labour Party who stands accused by members of the UK Jewish community and even in his own party of, at best enabling antisemitism and, at worst of being an actual antisemite.
Martin appears to be saying that there is as much evidence of Corbyn’s antisemtism as there is of Gazan surfers’, effectively dismissing genuine concerns over Corbyn’s behavior and ideology.
Ultimately, Andy Martin is unable to help himself, given the opportunity to bash Israel and have a subtle dig at British Jews under the false charge that Israel has made surfing a banned activity in Gaza.
That this appears in The Independent should come as no surprise.
