Opinion

A flotilla of fiends — and useful idiots

The Israeli Defense Force will try to minimize it. “Human-rights activists” (shadowed by terrorists and racist skinheads) claim they don’t want it. But as several ships of fools set sail on the Mediterranean this weekend, the outcome is all but guaranteed: There will be blood.

A Gaza-bound flotilla of 10 boats is seeking to recreate last year’s bloody confrontation at sea with Israel (or — as the activists on board describe it — they, ahem, want to deliver much-needed goods to besieged civilians). A showdown could come as early as tomorrow.

One boat, carrying American activists, is named Audacity of Hope — the title of President Obama’s second book. One passenger, celebrated author Alice Walker, claims that the Obama White House is “ignorant” of America’s history.

“When black people were enslaved for 300 years, it took a lot of people in the outside of our communities to help free us,” the author of “The Color Purple” said.

Huh? Some of her shipmates may not even agree that ending slavery was such a good thing. Israeli intelligence sources tell me they spotted several skinheads aboard Audacity. (Apparently, the swastika-tattooed set decided to set racism aside to join forces against Israel.)

The Turkish Islamist group IHH — which organized last year’s flotilla and initiated the clashes with Israeli commandos that ended in the death of 10 of its activists — said it wouldn’t participate this year. Yet the Israelis have spotted several known IHH militants on this year’s ships.

Funding the flotilla are a number of Hamas-related groups active in Europe and the Arab world. (Their names often change as they try to evade the gaze of governments, like ours, that ban financial support for the Gaza-ruling terror organization.) The Israelis have ID’d known terrorists from Yemen, Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world and Europe among the flotilla “humanists.”

Nevertheless, flotilla organizers swear that each of the travelers has signed a “no-violence” clause. If there’s any confrontation, it’ll be initiated only by the Israeli army, they claim.

But IDF spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich tells me that at a recent meeting of Audacity passengers, activists discussed their intention to hurt and kill Israeli soldiers. Containers of sulfuric acid were spotted on several of the ships; Leibovich says the idea is to pour the acid on Israeli soldiers as they board. (Spokesmen yesterday invited “independent experts” to inspect the Audacity, denying that any acid was aboard.)

“They’ll undoubtedly say this is much-needed fertilizer for Gaza’s farmers,” Leibovich said — but it’s highly flammable, and “it’s hard to believe that they’d risk carrying such volatile cargo just for farm assistance.”

Or any assistance, for that matter. Far from the “open-air prison” that Hamas-sympathizers often describe, Gaza lacks almost no goods.

Yes, Israel limits the import of cement for construction; Hamas insists on using it for building fortifications and “housing” for arms. But medicine, food, jacuzzis, TVs and most other life “necessities” arrive on trucks that cross daily into Gaza from Israel. Gaza farmers also export goods through Israeli ports and land to Europe, Jordan and the Gulf.

Egypt has liberalized its Gaza policy since the fall of Hosni Mubarak, allowing luxury goods like Mercedes cars into Gaza. And Cairo has agreed to allow the flotilla to unload at Egypt’s el-Arish port, from which its cargo would be carried into Gaza. Israel says it’d do the same at the port of Ashdod.

But the flotilla organizers want to end the IDF’s control of Gaza’s naval and air passageways.

Israel uses that control to prevent arms smuggling to the Hamas terrorists.

Mere weeks after Hamas announced a “unity” agreement to end a rift with West Bank-ruling Fatah, the pact has collapsed. With waning support, and as its Syrian patron teeters under internal pressure, Hamas has just a single card left in its arsenal — its oldest one, violence.

The IDF has been practicing non-lethal ship-boarding methods for weeks, hoping to avert a repeat of last year’s deadly clash. But Hamas’ “useful idiots” are being manipulated by a terror group that hopes to rekindle Arab-Israeli hostilities in order to reclaim its lost political fortunes.

So don’t bet on a bloodless weekend in the Mediterranean. Twitter: @bennyavni