Government officials on Thursday raised eyebrows at a letter Israel's UN envoy Ron Prosor wrote UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon this week asking for international intervention to "stop the provocation" of a small ship sailing to Gaza.
According to one official, the letter – which said the Vikings had a better moral compass than the passengers of the Estelle which is expected to arrive near Gaza in the coming days— gave a publicity boost to the ship that is challenging the IDF's naval blockade of Gaza.
"One ship does not a flotilla make," said one official of the ship carrying what Prosor called "weekend revolutionaries" with "radical and extremist agendas."
Israel's blockade policy remains intact, and the ship will be stopped, one official said.
The ship, sailing under a Swedish flag, set sail in June and has stopped at numerous European ports trying to drum up support and publicity. The vessel, carrying over a dozen passengers, took on additional food and passengers off the coast of Crete earlier this week.
Among the new passengers were five European parliamentarians: Ricardo Sixto Iglesias from Spain, Sven Britton from Sweden, Aksel Hagen from Norway, and Vangelis Diamandopoulos and Dimitris Kodelas from Greece.