WhatThe NYTimes Doesn't Report On the Tali from Togo

[see update below]

A cargo boat named "Tali" bearing the flag of Togo tried to reach Gaza.

The Israel side of the story:

Starting yesterday evening, the Israel Navy made direct contact with the boat and continued to clarify that the ship will not be permitted to enter the Gaza Strip's coastal waters. The boat crew stated their intentions of changing their destination to the port in El-Arish, Egypt.

During the morning hours today, the cargo ship changed its bearing, and began heading towards the Gaza Strip, contrary to the claims made by the boat crew last evening.

Disregarding all warnings, the cargo boat entered Gazan coastal waters.

An Israel Navy force intercepted, boarded, and took control of the cargo boat, directing it towards Ashdod, Israel. No gunshots were fired on board during the boarding and capturing of the cargo boat. The boat crew will be taken for questioning by the Israeli Police, and any humanitarian goods found on the boat will be transferred to the Gaza Strip.

The IDF Spokesperson Unit would like to emphasize that any organization or country that wishes to transfer humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, can do so via the established crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip with prior coordination.

Note: The true motivation of the ship's voyage can be discerned by the fact that not only were a number of journalists invited to join, but also on board was Hilarion Cappuci - a former Greek Catholic bishop who was caught in 1974 smuggling weapons bound for Palestinian terrorists in the trunk of his official church vehicle while entering Israel from Lebanon.
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But check the New York Times report which mentions the former terrorist-of-the-cloth but without any reference to his violent past:

The boat, called “The Brotherhood Ship” and carrying what its organizers
said was humanitarian aid --- food, medicine, and toys -- had nine people
aboard, including the former Greek Orthodox archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor
Hilarion Capucci. [see update below]

the former Greek-Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who left Jerusalem in the 1970s after serving time in an Israeli jail for membership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

(membership? he smuggled guns in his car to Arafat's PLO!)

Oriana Fallaci, [back in 2002]caused a polemic on Friday after she pointed the finger at the Roman Catholic church and the political left over the current Mideast crisis. A specialist in the Middle East, Fallaci, 71, uses the world "I find shameful" at the head of a long list of reasons she gives to attack inaction on anti-Semitism by the church and left-wing political leaders. Among her targets are "the presence of people disguised as Kamikazi's during a pro-Palestinian protest in Rome," anti-Semitic attacks in France, and moves to have the Nobel Peace Prize taken back from Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. She attacked the church saying, "I find it shameful that the Catholic Church can allow a bishop housed at the Vatican ... to take part in a protest in Rome during which he used a megaphone to thank in the name of God the Kamikazes who have massacred Jews," she wrote.

The incident refers to Bishop Hilarion Capucci, 77, a Syrian in charge of helping Greek-Catholics in Europe, who took part in a pro-Palestinian protest.

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UPDATE


Just checked back. After all, maybe they read my blog at the NYT.

I now find this:

Among the nine people aboard was the former archbishop of Jerusalem, Msgr. Hilarion Capucci, who was convicted of smuggling guns from Lebanon to Israel in 1975 and spent two years in an Israeli prison.

Hmmm.