By Belen Fernandez

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon spent yesterday endeavoring to convince the world that the massacre by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos of humanitarian aid activists on board the Turkish Mavi Marmara—part of the Freedom Flotilla en route to Gaza—was in fact justifiable due to ties between ship passengers and global jihad, Al Qaeda, and Hamas. It was not clear why the latter two phenomena were not sufficiently covered by the first; Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev meanwhile confirmed terrorist links on the part of the Turkish NGO IHH, one of the pillars of the movement to break the siege, and added that the international activists were not actually interested in delivering aid to Gaza but rather in accruing “headlines for their cause” via a confrontation with the Israeli military.

A Turkish friend of mine suggested to me that the terrorism charges may stem from the fact that IHH project coordinator Bahattin Y