Each time a new flotilla sets sail towards Gaza with the aim of challenging the blockade, the same question is repeated: what is the point if these ships are intercepted before they arrive?

From a purely logistical perspective, the pattern appears predictable. The vessels are stopped. The participants are detained. The mission does not reach its physical destination. On that narrow reading, some conclude that these efforts are indeed futile.

But this way of framing the issue reduces a complex political and moral action to a single outcome: arrival of the vessels and delivery of the aid on board. It ignores the wider purpose these initiatives serve, and misunderstands how resistance movements operate under conditions of asymmetrical power.

As a Palestinian activist, coordinator of the Red Ribbons Campaign for Palestinian hostages in Israeli prisons, and involved in Palestine solidarity work across multiple international platforms, I approach this question with a clear reservation. Evaluating acts of resistance solely through immediate material success or failure is not a neutral analytical position. It is a framing that, intentionally or not, reflects the logic of the powerful rather than the perspectives of the oppressed.

If this logic were applied historically, very few anti-colonial or civil rights struggles would ever have begun.

Under conditions of overwhelming force, most forms of resistance would appear irrational at the outset. Yet history shows that political change is rarely the result of a single successful action. It is the accumulation of pressure, visibility, disruption, and sustained moral challenge.

Under conditions of overwhelming........

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