As Jews in New Hampshire began their celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, on Monday, state Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket) had her own announcement.
She will be the “first ever elected official in the US” to join an anti-Israel flotilla to break the Jewish state’s military blockade of Gaza.
Read announced via social media, sharing a post from the anti-Israel group Thousand Madleens, which teamed up with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition “to challenge the colony (sic) of Israel’s illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza.”
Read also threw a “#FreePalestine” into her tweet.
Israel first imposed the naval blockade of Gaza after the Islamist militant group Hamas seized control of the territory in June 2007. Hamas’ terror sponsor, Iran, has been shipping weapons to Hamas for years, and Israel is using the blockade to prevent some of those weapons from reaching the terrorists.
For example, in 2014, Israel stopped the “Klos C,” seizing several dozen advanced Syrian M-302 missiles, with a range of up to 125 miles. “Iran has also been shipping Hamas its more advanced … ballistic missiles via sea, in components for construction in Gaza,” Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, told CNN.
The United Nations has recognized the legitimacy of the IDF’s blockade.
But it isn’t recognized by the organizations Read has teamed up with, which describe the nation of Israel as a “colony.”
“Like every past mission, this flotilla is a civil intervention against the colony of Israel’s 18-year-long blockade on Gaza, which has recently led to manufacturing a famine that kills Palestinians daily,” they claim.
Referring to Israel as a “colony” is viewed as antisemitic by the Anti-Defamation League. It feeds the conspiracy theory promoted by the “Globalize the Intifada” activists that Jews were sent to “colonize” the land known as Palestine and displace Arabs.
Read is no stranger to controversy. Last Christmas season, the Newmarket Democrat reached out to the Salem, Mass.-based Satanic Temple with the idea for a display of the goat-headed Baphomet statue, a symbol of the Church of Satan. At the time, Read argued that the Knights of Columbus’ Nativity scene should not be the only display outside the State House during the Christmas season.
Soon after, Read asked her fellow legislators to stop using the word “prayer” to describe the morning invocation before each House session. She wanted it replaced with “reflection.”
And while Read may be the first elected American, she won’t be the biggest name. There is already a flotilla headed toward Gaza, and progressive celebrity Greta Thunberg is part of the troubled fleet. Thunberg was a leader of the Sumud flotilla, but according to media reports, her celebrity status and publicity-grabbing have resulted in her being “removed from the (flotilla’s) executive committee and forced to switch ships, while the media advisor left the flotilla entirely.”
Meanwhile, the Sumud flotilla has been plagued by delays, including fires on deck while the ships were off the coast of Tunisia. The anti-Israel activists claim drone attacks caused the fires, but Tunisian authorities say there were no drones in the area.
Read’s decision to join an anti-Israel effort puts her in the mainstream of the Democratic Party, which has turned against the Jewish state over the past decade. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen and a majority of her fellow Senate Democrats recently voted to block some U.S. weapons from going to Israel,
Shaheen’s daughter, Stefany, is a candidate for Congress in the First Congressional District. Asked directly if Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, the younger Shaheen declined to answer.
Asked about Read’s travels, N.H. House Majority Leader Jason Osborne (R-Auburn) said, “May she find great fulfillment and extend her travels indefinitely.”
Rep. Judy Aron (R-Acworth), who is Jewish, added: “But if she’s going to Gaza on a flotilla, she should bring her Satanic statue with her.”
