Corsairs of the Mediterranean: Israel’s Latest

Act of State Piracy Unmasks the Zionist

Regime, Yet Again

Michael Leonardi

May 22, 2026

FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

Photograph Source: Global Sumud Flotilla

This has been yet another week of raw Israeli extremism, broadcast live to the world. On May 18th and 19th, 2026, Israeli commandos carried out an act of state piracy in international waters near Cyprus — more than 250 nautical miles from Gaza. They stormed vessels of the international flotillas, brutally detained unarmed humanitarian activists, destroyed equipment, and held dozens hostage. The Squid Game like images of civilians forced to kneel, zip-tied and humiliated, have shocked global conscience.

Wanted International war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu emerged from a military command bunker to triumphantly praise the raid, bragging that Israeli commandos had successfully stopped the unarmed humanitarian flotilla activists from “supporting Hamas.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — himself the subject of an active International Criminal Court arrest warrant — arrogantly dismissed international law, declaring that Israel would continue to act as it pleased regardless of “so-called” legal constraints. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir turned the assault into a sadistic public spectacle. On May 20, he paraded detainees, forcing many to lie face-down on the ground with their hands tightly chained or tied behind their backs, mocking them for the cameras in a grotesque display of fascist cruelty and arrogance. Ben-Gvir, a convicted racist who has long advocated executing Palestinian prisoners by hanging, has repeatedly celebrated such imagery, including wearing a noose pin and posting videos fantasizing about mass executions. His behaviour this week was not an aberration — it was the logical expression of a regime that views Palestinians as subhuman and international law as an inconvenience.

Some have aptly called the Mediterranean Israel’s own or God’s chosen swimming pool — a lawless expanse where the self-proclaimed chosen people believe divine right grants them total impunity to rampage across international waters, throwing basic humanity to the wind in service of their messianic delusions. So far, they have done exactly that, and with complete impunity.

The mission of the flotillas is both immediate and strategic: to break Israel’s illegal naval blockade of Gaza, deliver desperately needed aid, and shine an unrelenting spotlight on the ongoing genocide. Imposed in 2007 as collective punishment, the blockade has long been calibrated through the infamous “Red Lines” policy — allowing just enough food to keep 2.3 million Palestinians on the edge of starvation. Since October 2023, it has helped enable a live-streamed extermination: hospitals systematically destroyed, children dying of malnutrition, entire families erased. With total impunity, backed by Washington and its European allies, Israel has turned Gaza into the most documented slaughter in modern history.

Art by Vauro Senesi

Three coordinated efforts — the Global Sumud Flotilla, the Thousand Madleens to Gaza, and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition — represent the largest civilian maritime challenge to this siege in history. Their deeper goal is to forge a durable, global network of solidarity, connecting ports, unions, cities, and movements in an unbreakable chain alongside the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation.

In Italy, Freedom Flotilla Italia is playing a vital role. Its “100 Ports, 100 Cities” campaign, which departed from Taranto on May 2, combines the sailboat Ghassan Kanafani — named after the legendary Palestinian writer and revolutionary assassinated by Mossad in 1972 — with a mobile caravan that travels from port to inland towns. As the organizers state, the mission is “to build a solid and lasting network to stand alongside the Palestinian people and put the liberation of Palestine at the forefront of the struggle against imperialism and the world powers that enrich themselves through war and unrestrained capitalism at the expense of all of us.” It is also raising essential funds for the besieged Al Awda Hospital, one of the last functioning medical facilities in Gaza.

The latest act of piracy has triggered widespread outrage. Saif Abu Keshek, recently released after his previous abduction, was in Rome this week joining protests against this new assault. The courage of the Flotilla activists has only fueled the movement. The story has dominated front pages in Italy and made international headlines, with global leaders, human rights organizations, and ordinary citizens denouncing Israel’s behaviour as a flagrant violation of international law. Yet, as always, condemnation has not translated into concrete action.

This week’s events lay bare Zionism’s essence: a European settler-colonial project, an ethno-supremacist enclave built on stolen land and sustained by relentless violence. Palestinians are the indigenous Semitic people of the region. The European colonizers are not. “Make Israel Palestine Again” is not revenge — it is justice and decolonization.

The moral bankruptcy of the West stands fully exposed. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas offers empty rhetoric about supporting Palestine while the bloc continues weapons supplies and uninterrupted economic cooperation with Israel. Italy under Meloni — whose government carries the living DNA of Italian fascism — and Germany — a country with Nazism still in its blood, now expressed through brutal repression of Palestinian solidarity activists and blind support for Zionism — were instrumental in blocking any serious EU sanctions on the Zionist entity. Their complicity is criminal.

Meanwhile, Trump’s grotesque “Board of Peace” — a cabal of Zionist speculators and evangelical extremists — fantasizes about turning Gaza’s ruins into a luxury Riviera while Palestinians still die under bombs and blockade. This is gangster capitalism at its most depraved.

Despite Israel’s hundreds of millions poured into hasbara propaganda, the mask has fallen. The sadistic reality of Zionism — apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and genocide — is now visible to millions all around the world. The more Israel lashes out in arrogance and brutality, the faster the global awakening spreads. People across the world are connecting the dots: this is not self-defense, but the death throes of a colonial project that can no longer hide its true nature.

The flotillas sail on, in body or in spirit. The resistance at sea continues. The resistance on land must intensify.

Break the siege. End the genocide. Make Israel Palestine Again. Free Palestine!

Michael Leonardi lives in Italy and can be reached at michaeleleonardi@gmail.com

Gaza flotilla activists await deportation from Israel

By AFP
May 21, 2026


Israeli activist Zohar Chamberlain Regev is among dozens of people detained since the interception of the flotilla - Copyright AFP -

Hiba ASLAN

Hundreds of activists seized by Israel from a Gaza-bound flotilla were awaiting deportation on Thursday, as global outcry grows over their treatment in custody.

More than 430 activists from countries around the world were in custody in Israel after they were detained at sea while making the latest in a string of attempts to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir sparked condemnation on Wednesday by posting a video showing the detained activists with their hands tied and foreheads on the ground.

Captioned “Welcome to Israel”, the footage showed Ben Gvir heckling and waving an Israeli flag among the detained activists.

On Thursday, the legal centre representing the activists said the flotilla members were “en route for deportation” from Ramon Airport in Israel’s far south.

“The majority of the participants are being transferred to Ramon Airport to be flown out of the country,” Adalah said in a statement, adding that the activists had been held at Israel’s Ktziot prison, in the Negev Desert near Gaza.

Around 50 vessels under the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail from Turkey last week in the latest attempt by activists to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza, after Israeli forces intercepted a previous convoy last month.



– ‘They kicked us’ –



Adalah said one of the flotilla participants who holds Israeli citizenship had a court hearing Thursday, and faced “absurd” charges.

“Israeli authorities are holding her under unfounded and contradictory accusations of ‘illegal entry into Israel’, ‘unlawful stay’, and for an attempt to break the blockade on Gaza,” Adalah said.

Adalah’s legal director Suhad Bishara told AFP Wednesday that the group’s lawyers had been able to give legal counsel to “many” of the hundreds of activists, though she added that others had faced court hearings without legal assistance.

“We know of at least two participants who were hospitalised… both of them were shot by rubber bullets,” Bishara said, adding that others said they feared they had broken ribs.

Alessandro Mantovani, an Italian journalist detained with the flotilla activists and deported before the others, told reporters upon landing in Rome’s Fiumicino airport Thursday that he and others had been “taken to Ben Gurion airport in handcuffs and with chains on our feet and put on a flight to Athens”.

“They beat us up. They kicked us and punched us and shouted ‘Welcome to Israel’,” he said of his treatment by Israeli security forces.

Dario Carotenuto, an Italian MP who was also detained and deported said: “It was really tough… They called us by number… with rifles pointed at us… I think those were the longest seconds in my life.”

The video posted by Ben Gvir sparked resounding condemnation by governments around the world, from Italy to Spain and Australia to Canada.

He was also criticised at home by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar, as well as by US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who denounced what he called “despicable actions”.

Francesca Albanese, an outspoken UN expert on the Palestinian territories, called on Italy, where she is from, to take action.

“Words do not suffice: let Italy stop opposing the suspension” of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, she wrote on X.



– Fragile truce –



Israel controls all entry points into Gaza, under blockade since 2007.

Since the Israel-Hamas war began with the Palestinian militant group’s attack on October 7, 2023, the vast majority of Gaza’s population has become aid-dependent and forcibly displaced at least one.

While a fragile ceasefire took hold in the territory last year, Gaza still suffers severe shortages of food, medicine and other essential supplies, with Israel at times halting aid deliveries entirely.

A previous flotilla attempt was intercepted last month in international waters off Greece, with most activists expelled to Europe.

Two were brought to Israel, detained for several days and then deported.

Sovereignty, Palestine, and Power Vacuum: The Urgent Need for a United Arab Initiat

Ramzy Baroud

 May 22, 2026

FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

Image by Ling Tang.

US President Donald Trump’s state visit to China will go down in history as the day the United States finally acknowledged Beijing’s ascendancy as a global superpower. That acknowledgment does not need to be articulated in a formal statement; it can be clearly read in the subtext of diplomatic behavior, global perception, and shifting media coverage.

During the summit, Trump’s delegation—accompanied by prominent American corporate leaders—engaged with President Xi Jinping not from a position of absolute global dictation, but through a lens of defensive pragmatism. This transactional approach focused on securing bilateral trade commitments and preventing catastrophic economic friction.

The spectacle of the leader of the Western world navigating Beijing’s terms, while actively managing domestic economic anxieties, signals a profound shift. The traditional American posture of undisputed global hegemon has transformed into that of a major power among equals, seeking stable terms of co-existence with an unignorable rival.

The moment is comparable only to Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 visit to Beijing, though the circumstances are entirely different. Back then, the US’s aim was to exploit the Sino-Soviet split and gain leverage over the Soviet Union in exchange for the normalization of diplomatic ties.

In 1972, China was an economically isolated, agrarian society recovering from internal upheaval. Today, Beijing is a financial giant boasting the world’s largest economy by purchasing power parity, a critical hub of global supply chains, and a leader in next-generation technologies like Artificial Intelligence.

Militarily, the People’s Liberation Army has transformed into a powerful navy and high-tech force capable of denying access to the Western Pacific. This vast economic and military expansion translates into unparalleled global influence, altering the balance of power across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

All this in mind, Trump’s visit to China appears to be more about a declining empire attempting to manage its own contraction—a move that will likely lead to serious concessions.

Nowhere is the US’s dwindling status more apparent than in the Middle East. Decades of disastrous military campaigns, political alienation, and the unraveling of traditional alliances have eroded Washington’s credibility. Regional powers no longer view the US as an indispensable security guarantor, looking instead toward a multipolar future.

China is already the Middle East’s largest trading partner, with interests ranging from massive crude oil imports to sweeping infrastructure investments under the Belt and Road Initiative, cutting-edge telecommunications networks, and multi-billion-dollar clean energy grids.

Yet Beijing’s approach to the Middle East is fundamentally different from that of the US. The latter inherited the colonial legacy of Britain and France. Though Washington resists seeing itself as a colonial power, it behaves like one: leveraging military might to achieve political dominance and economic privileges.

China is different. Free from the baggage of a regional colonial past—and having historical memory as a survivor of Western imperialism itself—China’s expansion utilizes a completely alternative model: economic integration, development, and trade ties. However, this model could alter should circumstances change. If Beijing finds itself forced to defend its massive interests and energy routes, it may adopt a more muscular posture, similar to its current assertive strategy in the South China Sea.

US influence in the Middle East has been waning for years, and the latest US National Defense Strategy, published in early 2026, is proof of that. The document explicitly anchors American military priorities to a homeland-first posture and the containment of China in the Indo-Pacific. By formally invoking the Monroe Doctrine to focus on the Western Hemisphere and emphasizing conditional support for allies, Washington’s own policy papers reveal a strategic retrenchment and an admission of overstretch.

In this context, the destructive US-Israeli escalations against Iran cannot be seen as an American return to the Middle East, but as a desperate attempt at maintaining relevance. This closely echoes the 1956 tripartite aggression against Egypt by Britain, France, and Israel. Just as that ill-fated campaign was a desperate, violent attempt by dying European empires to demonstrate Western relevance after the devastating toll of WWII, current US-Israeli actions are the volatile spasms of a fading hegemony.

Considering China’s global agenda of expansion and integration, Beijing is likely to find itself the new global player in our region, although such a role can be shaped to mean partnership as opposed to dominance.

Aristotle, warning against the horror vacuii, proposed that every space must be filled with something; if the US exits or its presence continues to dwindle, that political space will not remain empty. For the Arab world, the future carries both a challenge and an immense opportunity. An American exit will create political margins that Arab countries must exploit and fill on their own terms. If they do not, others will.

Arabs nations, like others in the Global South, fully understand the danger of vulnerability during seismic global changes as great powers jockey for influence. They also recognize how US behavior—acting as Israel’s enabler while failing to dictate regional outcomes—only contributes to Washington’s strategic desperation.

This desperation could lead to a sudden, chaotic US exit, leaving an aggressive Israel to expand as a local hegemon, or prompt more unstrategic military campaigns with dire consequences. All of this leaves Middle Eastern nations hostage to a volatile US foreign policy, granting opportunities for an expansionist Israel to reign more chaos.

This moment, therefore, calls for total Arab political clarity and unity, insisting on real sovereignty and the freedom to act based on the interests of the people. This new agenda should prioritize human development and economic prosperity, alongside equality and social justice.

Moreover, Arabs should achieve a new political contract that rejects further foreign meddling or military interventions, holding any government that deviates from this principle accountable.

Finally, a unified Arab position must move past mere rhetoric into concrete action to hold Israel accountable, working ceaselessly toward the freedom of Palestine and ending the illegal occupation of Lebanese and Syrian lands.

Arab political outlooks must leverage these issues in all future integrations with global players, including China, to ensure that the century-long cycle of violence wrought by Western colonialism is over for good.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author, and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His new book, Before the Flood: A Gaza Family Memoir Across Three Generations of Colonial Invasion, Occupation and War in Palestine was published by Seven Stories Press. His other books include “Our Vision for Liberation,” “My Father was a Freedom Fighter,” and “The Last Earth.”  Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net