In contrast to the general directions of Helen ("Go back to Germany and Poland") Thomas, the peace-lovers aboard the Mavi Marmara were more specific:

In response to a radio transmission by the Israeli Navy warning the Gaza flotilla that they are approaching a naval blockade, passengers of the Mavi Marmara respond, "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz" and "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11".

Such amusing conversationalists.

These are not "humanitarian" "peace" "activists". These are, in any objective sense, a party to the conflict. They're not trying to bring "peace", they're trying to help their side win. That's their choice, and may the best man win, but the media collusion in presenting them as "humanitarian" "aid" workers is Orwellian - and all the more so in a world in which the Turkish Prime Minister accuses Israel of killing children on the beach and in which the doyenne of the White House press corps no longer recognizes Israel's "right to exist".

Now the Israeli navy is beseeching the MV Rachel Corrie (an Irish ship funded by the Malaysian government) to land in the port of Ashdod, where the authorities will deliver the (entirely unneeded) "humanitarian aid" to Gaza. The Rachel Corrie is flipping 'em the bird and saying "Gaza, here we come."

This ship is merely the latest memorial to Miss Corrie, a foolish young American killed while enjoying the frisson of vacationing in someone else's despair. There's never been a better time to read Tom Gross' piece on "The Forgotten Rachels":

Rachel Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following a suicide bomb attack on a crowd of teenagers on 16 February 2002.

Rachel Corrie's diaries have been published in book form, turned into a hit London play at the Royal Court, and her name has been cited in The Guardian alone hundreds of times ("Remembering Rachel", "Rachel's War", "Rachel Corrie: A True Martyr", "The Lonesome Death Of Rachel Corrie", "Rachel's Words Are A Spur To Action", etc).

By contrast, Rachel Thaler was a British subject. Yet not a single British journalist has ever mentioned her, profiled her, interviewed her parents or other British relatives, or published her diary in a Fleet Street newspaper - except for a single solitary mention by the great (Jewish) comedienne Maureen Lipman noting that nobody ever mentioned her, or the other victims of Palestinian terrorism.

Ah, but Israel is an "apartheid state", and the Palestinians are the Europeans' unending adopt-a-Third-World-pet project. I write in the new National Review (on sale now-ish) that, if old-school judenhass was a by-product of more or less traditional racism and conventional nationalism, the new judenhass advances under the cover of "anti-racism" and "multiculturalism". The oldest hatred didn't get that way without the ability to adapt.