Does the Mossad control the weather? Conspiracy theorists who have long argued that Jews, with their diabolical trickery, can exact revenge on enemies by directing meteorological phenomena now have proof. Well, sort of. A Greta Thunberg-starring fleet of a dozen ships was scheduled to set sail from Barcelona on Labor Day. Stormy weather, though, forced this latest Gaza flotilla back to port. Antisemitic bilge aside, the problem is merely deferred. 

Israelis, increasingly obsessed about erosion of their global image, are at sea on how to respond to Hamas’s successful campaign to invert guilt in the Gaza war. In the imagination of too many in the world’s democracies, a group with a charter calling for killing all Jews in Palestine is now the victim of “genocide.” Add allegations of an Israeli campaign of forced famine, the wanton slaying of innocents, and the like, and what decent person can sit aside?

Israel intercepted the original “Flotilla to Gaza” in 2010 in a bloody clash on board of the Mavi Marmara. The stunt organizer and owner of the ship was a Turkish group affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, known as IHH. A recent “aid” flotilla in June this year ended in a more peaceful manner: The Madleen set course to Gaza, but was politely diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod. Ms. Thunberg was given a sandwich, and flashed a rare smile. 

The current iteration involves dozens of ships and boats. The Swedish climate activist turned Gaza advocate once again stars, as well as actors Liam Cunningham and Susan Sarandon, and other professional do-gooders. The flotilla campaign’s architect is a British-Arab activist, Zaher Birawi, who according to the Knesset and the British parliament is a Hamas operative. Social media-savvy places Mr. Birawi at the heart of a left wing Islamist nexus. 

That Red-Green coalition has spread far beyond the usual suspects. The United Nations is spewing Hamas propaganda daily. A large portion of Democrats no longer support Israel, as is the case with some in the far fringes of the GOP. Some 150 press organizations in 50 countries ran identically worded front page headlines today, protesting Israel’s alleged killing of Gaza journalists. A memo finds Reporters Without Borders and Avaaz coordinating the campaign.  

The Jerusalem government and the Israel Defense Forces are intent on verifying facts, and can be slow to react to such incitement. Just this weekend social media grew outraged over the killing of innocent Gazan children, alleging no legitimate target was involved. It took a couple of days for Israel to verify that the Hamas Goebbels-clone, its military wing’s spokesman, Abu Obeida, who was one of the October 7 massacre architects, was targeted. 

Obeida was central to the Hamas worldwide campaign to blame Israel for the war, rather than his own organization that launched it. His Kefiyyah-covered face is as iconic for this generation of useful idiots as Che Guevara’s beret was in the 1960s. His death, though, is unlikely to deter eager activists. If today’s fleet sails on, can Israel handle it as deftly as it did the Madleen, even without relying on the weather to stop this “mother of all flotillas”?