The Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian mission to deliver aid to Gaza, was intercepted by Israeli warships in the Mediterranean Sea, raising complex questions about maritime jurisdiction, exclusive economic zones, and the legal rights of humanitarian missions under international law. The interception occurred in waters claimed by multiple nations, including Turkey, Cyprus, and Israel, highlighting the intricate legal challenges of maritime navigation in contested regions.
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Las aventuras jurídicas de la Sumud Flotilla | Federico Anaya en Casos y CosasAdded:
Human society is diverse and complex. There are always problems, but there are also multiple solutions. I invite you to solve, [music] to know and learn in cases and things.
[music] Good afternoon or evening or morning, depending on when you see us. It is currently 4:01 AM on May 19, 2026.
Incidentally, Ángel Nakamura reminds us that 117 years ago Philo Meneno Mata and Francisco Meoro were elected as the first secretaries of the Anti-Rectionist Club of Mexico.
This in the legacies of the Mexican Revolution. But apart from that fact, I would like to comment on something that will take us into international waters.
Francisco Imadero, who has gone down in history as the great innocent, the spiritual and spiritualist man who couldn't kill a fly, was an impressively serious capitalist businessman who also exploited others.
Plastics, nothing but plastics at that time, that is, the beginning of the 20th century, were natural plastics.
These came from the ule, from the ule tree that was produced in America, in the Caribbean or in Indonesia, but they also came from a rare plant that no one remembers today called guayule and that rhymes with ule. Guayule is a desert plant in northern Mexico, and Francisco Imadero owned large tracts of land that had large natural quantities of guayule and was an exporter of guayule for the manufacture of plastics. In other words, remember that the first tires, the rims, were not made with petroleum derivatives, they were made with this natural rubber and one of the sources of natural rubber, guayle, of which Don Panchito Madero was one of the monopolists.
So, when they tell us that he was innocent and didn't know about international relations and that's why he was finally overthrown, right? Actually, it was the other way around. He was a serious politician who knew how to do international politics and who tried to raise taxes on oil companies.
oil that was not yet used to make plastic, but Don Francisco knew very well that it was important to collect taxes on the resource that was being exported.
And then, with Ángel's note about Don Francisco Meero and the Anti-Reelectionist Club, we enter into international relations. And what I would like to emphasize here is that no one should ever be innocent in that matter, in geopolitical matters. Well, now our topic today is the legal adventures of the Global Sumut Flotilla. And mind you, don't misunderstand me, at this moment Violeta Núñez Rodríguez, Sol González Eguía and Paulina del Castillo Poblano are being held captive by the State of Israel. Three Mexican citizens who pledged to deliver a shipment of humanitarian aid to Gaza amid the genocide that the State of Israel is committing against the Palestinian people in that territory. And to do so they decided to travel by sea, crossing the Mediterranean from Barcelona, then passing through Italy and Greece and then through Cyprus to deliver their humanitarian cargo. They are protected and authorized by international law and by what has been called the law of nations for 500 years. And when I say legal adventures, I'm not saying it because it's something superficial, but because the word adventure has to link us all in our minds with the idea of courage and daring, daring to sail the seas, to live an adventure that can end very badly, but that is necessary to live so that other people can also have a life. Well, with that said, let's see what the legal adventures of the Global Sumut Flotilla are.
But to do that, let's first try to ask ourselves, what does " global sumot flotilla" mean?
At first glance, it sounds like we're pronouncing the words backwards, doesn't it?
Why did we put the flotilla at the end? Why don't we say Sumut flotilla or Sumut global flotilla? Well, I 'm not entirely sure why we're using the word order, but I went and asked Sangogle at his altar what that " Global Sumut Flotill" thing meant, and that's how I made this little chart you have here. I still don't know how to read or what the signs of the Arabic alphabet mean.
I know it's read from left to right, that is, from the equals sign. First of all, you see there, you have to read from right to left, the opposite of what we do.
But the first word is fleet and it is pronounced ustul.
The second word means to endure.
That means smo and global is read ale alami.
So, junto ustul al sumut ale alamí means the flotilla of global resistance.
It's an interesting thing because when we 're constantly saying it in Spanish, here in Mexico, then its mood is catchy, but we don't realize that it means resistance or endurance or resilience. And it is an important thing because what our comrades are doing in all the flotillas, of which there are already several, is helping the resistance of the Palestinian people.
Well, then the words are well placed. I already explained why I'm using the word adventure. Because you have to be bold, and you have to be bold and brave to maintain the resistance. Now let's move on. The Global Sumut flotilla isn't the first time this has been done, but the question is, um, what kind of organization is behind it?
And that's one of the most interesting things. While the United Nations is a club of nation-states, that is, those more or less philanthropic ogres that are states, then they meet and have a club called the United Nations. Approximately 200 states around the globe meet in the United Nations General Assembly and have institutions that try to maintain a certain international order, right? Well, but those are the states. In contrast, the flotilla, and the word flotilla is interesting because it is not fleet, which could be the direct interpretation from Arabic, is not a flotilla because first of all it is made up of small ships. So in that sense, it's not a big fleet, it's a strange thing. The word "fleet" seems bigger, but it also has to do with the fact that the vessels are larger. The flotilla is theoretically smaller, but what we are seeing more and more at each flotilla event is that we have more smaller vessels, which are small sailboats, small boats that carry, I can imagine, no more than 50 people each and maybe many less, but they go in a kind of swarm. The flotilla is a swarm and can be sustained by a very small organization or a small group of friends in each of the countries that send volunteers or as they are now called delegates to the flotilla. Well, then it's a process that comes from below, from popular organization and on a very small scale, so to speak. Well, um, so the Globus Flotilla comes from below and there are very few of them. Now there are only a few people who sponsor each of the small boats in the flotilla, but together they can be many, and more and more sailboats and small boats are joining the flotilla.
Yesterday morning, the latest edition of the flotilla was finally intercepted at sea, which is what we're going to see today. They can be claimed by Cyprus, Greece, or Turkey, and perhaps by Egypt. And in reality, there should not have been any presence of warships from the State of Israel, but the State of Israel sent those warships, intercepted the flotilla, and kidnapped all the crew members, hundreds of them. Well, when this event occurred, our colleagues transmitted the following coordinates, because all of this is being monitored from all the countries that have sent delegates or volunteers. So, take a look at the coordinates they sent us.
33º 48 minutes north 31º 9 minutes.
This is 33.8 versus 3116.
If you enter these coordinates into Google with the format shown below, you will find the following. First Google will read it and say, "Ah, yes, you mean this." And he's going to show them a point. Look at the point I found. I did that yesterday. That's the place where they were intercepted by the warships of the State of Israel; it's there to the northwest, no, sorry, southwest of the island of Cyprus. I'll tell you a little more about the island of Cyprus because it's a bit of a mess. This is not exactly a sovereign state, although the Republic of Cyprus is part of the United Nations, but it has a very complicated history that will make Cyprus's territorial waters and exclusive economic zone a real mess. But we're going to move forward with that now. We have already located the interception site. Now, I had already told you that the Mediterranean Sea is a bit complicated in terms of what we have already studied in this space about what the territorial sea is and what the exclusive economic zone is.
Territorial sea is a relatively simple thing because it is 12 nautical miles from the coast of the sovereign state.
That means that in theory all the countries you see on this Google map have a small line three nautical miles wide off their coast. That is the territorial sea and it is as if it were the national territory of each of those states. Attention, this is very important.
In the case of Israel and Palestine, there is currently an agreement in force that was negotiated between the two parties for the two-state solution, and therefore there are two states in the territory of ancient Palestine. One is the Palestinian state and the other is the State of Israel. And each of those states has the right to a territorial sea, especially Gaza, because Gaza is the Gaza Strip and it is called a strip because it is a coastal strip. So, the strip has territorial waters and has a right to them. The question is, how does the Palestinian government inside Gaza manage to monitor and patrol that territorial sea? He can't. Because?
because it is suffering a permanent attack from the State of Israel, which does not comply with the two-state rule and therefore does not allow the Palestinian State, firstly, to even organize itself and secondly, to exercise sovereignty, for example, over territorial sea or exclusive economic zone.
Now let's do a little bit of law, forgive me for being boring, but to help us, let's look at a map of the entire Mediterranean Sea, which is the route used by the Global Sumut Flotilla. Uh, here we have a map that shows us, in principle, what the sovereign claims are in the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. The Black Sea is this mass on the right. of our map above, up above, that is, north of Türkiye, east, and south of Ukraine and Russia. In reality, if we're honest, both the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea are inland seas that, if it weren't for Gibraltar, which is on the left of this map, between Spain and Morocco, would actually have lakes, two gigantic lakes. Yes.
Why? Because they are surrounded by land on all sides, and that is what makes the issue of territorial sea and exclusive economic zone extremely complicated. The lines that run along the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea on this map show us, in principle, the claims of the coastal states that [clears throat] are on the shores of these inland seas. And the red dot that you see there on the left in the Mediterranean Sea is to the north, and I insist, north-southwest of Cyprus. Cyprus is this island that's painted in a little brown color over there. And if you look there, Cyprus seems to have a very clear area around Cyprus, which would be its territorial sea. Well, this is just a preview of something I'm going to explain to you in a little while. This, Turkey, which is a very large country north of Cyprus, is this big chubby peninsula, this, which looks like a large rectangle, this, immediately north of Cyprus, that is, above Cyprus on this map. If you look closely, to its left it has practically no territorial waters, right?
its territorial sea line, because it doesn't advance at all. Because? Because that area west of Türkiye is called the Aegian Sea. And the Aegian Sea is full of islands; this is a place with many islands, and for millennia those islands have been Greek rather than Turkish. And in fact there are many Greek islands that are part of the Greek state that are attached to the coast of Türkiye.
And what you are seeing there for Greece and Turkey is a dispute that has been going on for at least 4000 years between the Hellenic peoples, the Greeks, perhaps, and the peoples of the Anatolian Turkish area, who were not always Turks. In fact, the Turks come from Central Asia.
This, but these two regions have always fought over those seas.
So, the Rejeo Sea is a Greek lake, which it shouldn't be, says Türkiye. And Türkiye claims much more territorial water than it has on this map. But why do we care about what I 'm telling you? Because of the location where the interception took place. If you look closely, that place isn't even close to the possible claim of the State of Israel, is it?
So the question is, why did Israel intercept the flotilla there? That is one of the questions we have to answer today. Hey, Tanislao, good afternoon, Max the lawyer. Good afternoon, Mr. Tanislao. Hey, Maria Romero, teacher, please use an arrow. Yes, sorry. The problem is that I have no way of using the cursor over these maps. I can do it, but you won't see it. And that is serious. This, well yes, there they are. That's how the claws of the Peloponnese are, for a button. Yes, although there are, of course, the Peloponnesian Wars were between Greeks and the crazy story is that Athens is the island power, it is the one that has all the islands under control and Sparta, which is on the mainland, fights and has almost no allies on the islands, but that is another story and we will have to discuss it on another occasion.
Okay, well, let's move on. Okay, let's continue locating on our maps where the capture and kidnapping of the three Mexican women I mentioned took place.
Look at this map. On this map, the red line you are seeing is Türkiye's unilateral claim.
Turkey, the sea or rather the exclusive economic zone that it does have, not the territorial sea, territorial sea is that small white line that is around everyone's coast, but outside those 12 nautical miles there is much more sea in the Mediterranean. It is not enough to have international waters. Remember, the Mediterranean is so narrow that there are no international waters, only an exclusive economic zone. And that's what makes the matter so complicated; the dotted line, or rather the dotted lines in blue, are basically the exclusive economic zone that everyone agrees each country has. And if you look closely, the Turkish one is quite small, except for a little point there in the middle. Well, Turkey said, "No, that's not true. I'm going to claim as my exclusive economic zone all the sea within the red line I 'm telling you about." And again, the red dot on this map indicates where the interception occurred, and that's within, or almost certainly within, the area Turkey claims as its own.
Now, what's the legal problem with this?
The law of the sea establishes that states can unilaterally claim something, but then the neighbors will probably have something to say, and they're almost certain to say, "I don't agree." Here, for example, Greece disagrees and says, "Look, Turkey, why does your red line that you're claiming extend almost to Crete?"
Well, let me explain. It turns out that a long time ago— well, not that long ago, actually, like 10, 20 years ago— Greece and Turkey reached an agreement.
Since their disputes are over the islands, [sighs] they established a special rule that the islands, for both of them, will not have an exclusive economic zone. Remember what we saw regarding Mexico? Islands do have exclusive economic zones, and that's why it's so important that Clarion Island in the Jigeo archipelago be Mexican. That's why it was so important that Clipperton Island be Mexican and not French. But now, the Pacific Ocean is vast, gigantic compared to this.
Greece and Turkey knew they were going to fight forever. Besides, Greece had islands right off the coast of Turkey. So, it was convenient for both of them to accept as a rule between Greece and Turkey that islands, even if inhabited, don't give the neighboring country the right to an exclusive economic zone. We'll negotiate that.
Yes, that was the agreement. Then, Turkey replies to Greece, "Look, I set my exclusive economic zone up to the territorial waters of Crete, because, as we said, there's no exclusive economic zone in Crete."
Well, and Greece shouts back, "No, no, no! Crete is very big. So, Crete has to be an exception to our rule." Look, a [clears throat] exception to the exception. Well, if you think it's complicated, it gets worse. This map, if you look at it, you see Israel in the lower left, but there in Israel is also the Gaza Strip. And there's another unilateral claim by the Palestinian State in Gaza, which said, "Listen, I'm entitled not only to the territorial sea, 12 miles in front of Gaza, but also 200 nautical miles out to sea and a little bit more."
Because? Because I tell you that they are not enough for 200 and 200. So, the two red lines that you see coming out of the coast of Gaza are actually the Palestinian claim for a corridor that allows it to make contact with the rest of the exclusive economic zones of the other states, specifically with Cyprus and of course with Egypt. So, what's the problem?
Israel allows Palestine to have this exclusive economic zone, right? Because under the pretext of a war against the so-called Hamas terrorists, Israel occupies Palestine and claims that the Israeli state will exercise sovereignty in that corridor as well, which is ridiculous and is another violation of international law and another attack on Palestine.
Okay, so where does the Global Sumut Flotilla want to go now? He wants to reach that corridor, because even though Israel is also abusing the Palestinian exclusive economic zone, the goal is still to at least get there.
And now we're going to see how Israel justifies this.
Israel says that the blockade they have imposed on Palestine's exclusive economic zone and territorial sea is a legal blockade.
Where do they get that from? Because they say it is legal for the State of Israel to attack the terrorists of Aas. Well, since there's a war, then it's legal to blockade Palestine.
So, where did the Israelis catch Global Sumlotilla? I put in my calculation, mind you, I'm not a geographer and I didn't do exactly where they would be on each of these maps, but since the maps do show me longitudes and latitudes, in this case we do have longitude and latitude.
This was obviously at 32 degrees east, so it was there and it's halfway between 32 and 5 degrees north.
So, the point is, what was the Israeli Navy doing outside its exclusive economic zone? What is the argument?
Why is he attacking foreigners who are not doing anything illegal? outside their exclusive economic zone and outside the exclusive economic zone of Palestine that they claim, in quotes, to be legally occupying. We don't know, I say, so that we know the magnitude of Israel's unjust arbitrariness, well, all arbitrariness is unjust.
[laughs] Miguel Cuaté says I'm never boring. I hope not.
[snort] This, by the way, uh, I sent Tania a couple of links, uh, which have articles, uh, I think they're both in English, about this chaos that the discussion of exclusive economic zones can be, specifically around Cyprus, which is something that's going to matter a lot to us right now.
So, if you can put them out there so you can click on them and also have fun looking at these things in more detail. One of them, this one by Matthew Brisa of the Atlantic Council, tells us how European powers, specifically France and Macron, become incredibly strangely entangled in diplomacy that breaks down and reorganizes itself based on these disputes over exclusive economic zones.
This grid between nation-states is important because one of the questions the current Sumut flotilla asked itself was, why had Greece done nothing during the previous attack that occurred off the coast of Crete?
This one, if it happened in Greek waters, well, probably because Greece doesn't want to fight with Israel. Now, sometimes they fight and sometimes they don't. Türkiye is at odds with Israel, and Türkiye is an enemy of Greece. It is necessary to be more or less aware of how the balance of power between these European countries changes every day or at least every month.
Europeans because Türkiye insists.
Okay, let's move on. Let's look at another little map, this one that I hope will tell us something more. That little map is precisely Gaza's claim. And here you have the Gaza Strip on the coast, its territorial sea, and then the claim that says, "This corridor is mine," and it reaches all the way to Cyprus's exclusive economic zone. On this map, the little dot where they were intercepted is way up north, and maybe even higher, but I'm not so sure about that.
In other words, this Global Sumut was on the verge of reaching the waters of Gaza's exclusive economic zone. And that also explains why Israel tried to attack them earlier when they were facing Crete. And because here it has already attacked all the ships in the flotilla.
Martín González Tam from the northern border of Nueva Lareo, Tamaulipas. It's a pleasure to listen to International Relations here. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Martín González. This, and let's move on. Let's see. I think there's still another little map out there somewhere.
Yes, there is another map, the map of the Mediterranean in Cyprus. Look at this one I put again, where could the interception have been?
This, and here the map tells us in a little more detail about the Cypriot chaos.
Remember, Cyprus, Cyprus is inhabited by comrades who are Cypriots.
This, in Cyprus, this island, there are actually two states. One state is the Turkish Republic of Cyprus, which is in the north, and another is in the south, which is the Republic of Cyprus. The only state recognized by the United Nations is Cyprus, the Republic of the South. So why the division? Because the north of the island is basically inhabited by Turkish-speaking water people, and the south by Greek-speaking people. Now you can see that apart from the division between south and north, there are some gray areas from which little lines of territorial sea emerge. Well, these are England's military naval bases.
And now the question is, why does England have military bases that, moreover, according to the 1960 border arrangement, have territorial waters? In other words, England has territorial waters there.
Because? Because the entire island was a colonial possession of England after World War I.
And when Cyprus became independent or tried to become independent in the 1950s and 60s, England said, "Okay, become independent, but let me have these two military bases." And these two military bases have the right to have a zone, sorry, territorial sea. Now, England was generous and said so, but it gave up the exclusive economic zone. Well, actually, it did n't happen immediately in '60 because at that time there wasn't much talk about exclusive economic zones, but once the law of the sea came along and we started discussing it, England said, "I have no problem with that. Let the entire exclusive economic zone go to Cyprus." What is the problem with Cyprus? Cyprus had a civil war between Turks in the north, Greeks in the south, and Türkiye, which is north of Cyprus, invaded eastern Cyprus to protect the Turkish population.
And then the Greeks, who were ruled by a horrific dictatorship, the dictatorship of the colonels, invaded Cyprus too, and that turned into a disaster, a civil war that turned into an international war until the United Nations intervened.
Then someone says, "United Nations is useless." Well, the United Nations has been there for almost 50 years or more with a military force monitoring the border between Northern Cyprus and Southern Cyprus. Southern Cyprus is Greek, Northern Cyprus is Turkish, and there are UN peacekeepers there in a demilitarized zone who are responsible for making sure that Turkish and Greek Cypriots don't start fighting again. Okay, now the question is, does the island have a very large exclusive economic zone around it?
In fact, it is the largest in that part of the Mediterranean.
Whose turn is it?
Turkish Cypriots or Greek Cypriots? Well, it is precisely this complicated debate that makes crossing this area of the Mediterranean Sea risky and adventurous, to use the word again, because we are not sure who has jurisdiction.
Türkiye claims it on one side, the Greek Republic of Cyprus also claims it on the other, and so on. Okay, let's see how Türkiye and the Turkish Republic of Cyprus came to an agreement on the following map.
Look, this, again the red dot is where the interception of the Global Sumut Flotilla would have taken place.
The Palestinian corridor is not recognized on this map.
This one, but look, the blue part, this is Türkiye's claim.
Turkey says, "I want an exclusive economic zone, or EZ. This is the blue area to the east."
In exchange, the Turkish Republic of Cyprus, an ally of Turkey, said, "Okay, fine, I'll grant it to you, keep that, and you grant me the exclusive economic zone shown in yellow on this map."
So, you see how what the Turks, Cypriots, and Turks are doing is practically taking away the entire exclusive economic zone from the Greek Republic of Cyprus. [sigh] Now, where did the Israelis go to stop the Sumut? At the red dot. That is, it should have been the Republic of Cyprus protecting them. Note that when they were attacked, they headed towards Cyprus, the Global Sumut Flot.
But anyway, Cyprus, the Greek Cypriot state, didn't have much way to protect anyone. The serious thing is, neither did Turkey. And while reading to prepare for this talk, I discovered something interesting. Of the first flotillas that tried to arrive with humanitarian aid to Gaza.
One of them was carrying a very large Turkish delegation. And it actually ended very badly. There were deaths when the Israelis attacked, and that provoked a very serious confrontation between Turkey and Israel.
And yet, now Turkey did nothing. Why? Because in international politics, no one is anyone's friend forever. Well, no one is anyone's enemy forever either. Now, let's move on. That's enough maps. Let's see when the interception took place.
What did the parties involved say? And first, let's look at the statement made by the State of Israel. That's from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Notice the language. Once again, a provocation for the sake of provoking.
Another so-called humanitarian aid flotilla, in quotes, without any humanitarian aid whatsoever. This time, two violent Turkish groups, Mavi Marmara and IH, the latter designated as a terrorist organization, are part of the provocation. Hmm, strange, because Turkey did nothing. The purpose of this provocation is to serve a greater purpose, to divert attention from the rejection of Amazás to disarm and obstruct progress on President Trump's peace plan.
Okay. It's clear to us which side Israel is on. Israel is on the side of the United States and Trump. And then it goes on to say, as the peace board— Trump's Middle East and Gaza peace board—made clear, that it oversees humanitarian activities in Gaza under UN Security Council Resolution 2803.
Okay, that last detail is important in the legal discourse of the State of Israel, which invaded Gaza without reason and is committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and in South Jordan, and now also in Lebanon.
The State of Israel says it is acting under a Security Council resolution, which does indeed exist, 2803. It's a UN Security Council resolution that says, "There will be a peace board, and that peace board is entrusted to the United States and Trump." And here's something very strange that should alert all citizens of the world.
It turns out that the UN Security Council accepted That there was a peace council that was actually outside the United Nations, chaired by Trump.
Besides, Trump wasn't even there as President of the United States, but as a businessman. So, if his presidency ends, he'll still be there leading that peace council. Well, that 's another awful issue of international law that we would have to discuss. But listen, the argument, the legal narrative of Israel, is: I'm defending the Peace Council, which has a UN Security Council resolution, 2803, and the flotilla refuses to cooperate with the Peace Council because the Peace Council is the only one that can send humanitarian aid.
So, they have no reason to come with a flotilla to deliver the humanitarian aid themselves.
They have to deliver it to the Peace Council, which is controlled by the United States and Israel, which is completely illogical. Those who are supposedly in solidarity with the Palestinian people are going to be right.
Okay, let's move on. What does the other side say? What does the Global Sumut Flotilla say?
Uh, oh, no, before, before, before.
Good thing I remembered Tania. What's interesting about this attack is that Israel has been forced to fight its narrative in the media on the ground set by international civil society, specifically by the Global Sumut Flotilla, which had been making a huge fuss on social media. So, what did they do now that they intercepted the flotilla?
Well, they also sent their own boats with their civil society allies. In this case, we have Ben Carazo, a John Israel Advocacy activist, an Israeli human rights activist, who is explaining why the State of Israel is right to stop the flotilla. So they send their flotilla, their counter-flotilla, and then they're explaining this on social media.
So, this is part of the State of Israel's war propaganda. What I find interesting, and a point in favor of the Global Sumut Flotilla, is that the Global Sumut Flotilla was so successful on social media that it has forced the State of Israel to counter them on the same ground.
We'll see how strong they are in that arena. I mean, the military superiority of Israel and the United States is obvious. But they are not equally strong in all dimensions of this war.
Let's move on. Now, let's see what the other side has to say. We owe all of this to Breaking and Global Exchange, who provided us with these materials.
And look, there's a pattern of extrajudicial piracy on the high seas.
This active naval engagement is a direct continuation of the unlawful military attack off the coast of Crete, when they tried, or rather intercepted, several of the flotilla's vessels.
During the previous interception, which was 650 nautical miles from Gase—that is, very far from Gase, within the search and rescue zone— Israeli military forces illegally boarded, sabotaged, and kidnapped 181 peaceful human rights defenders aboard 21 civilian vessels. By intercepting the flotilla—look where the interception was, 250 nautical miles east and in the SAR zone of Cyprus—it 's In other words, our red dot on our maps is more or less well located.
These are the coordinates our comrades gave us when they were intercepted. The Israeli regime continues to demonstrate a systematic disregard for international maritime law, freedom of navigation on the high seas—note, pay attention, freedom of navigation on the high seas—and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which is the law of the sea.
This military interception follows a week-long, coordinated propaganda campaign disseminated by controlled media outlets. As I was saying, they also launched their own counter-flotilla and are also active on social media.
The legal team of the Global Sumut flotilla has formally notified the international community that the participants are completely unarmed and that any violence will obviously be a serious violation of human rights. By the way, there's another point. All citizens of the world have the right to defend human rights, and no state—none of the 200 or so philanthropic ogres—has the right to prevent a human being from defending their own human rights. Of course, and from other people. Well, what we just saw are the two sides of an argumentative war, where both sides use legal arguments.
Let's see.
Gloria Romero Montoya tells us that an absent secretary of foreign affairs left. This one, the former rector of UNAM, De la Fuente.
He was absent from everything. Someone arrived who shouldn't be there. We don't know yet, but Gloria is right, his attitude is quite lukewarm. In fact, I would say too lukewarm, and they should train him so he's not so repetitive.
Attention. Uh, we also had the link, Tania, to the article that Marta Olivia wrote [snort] about the diplomatic response from the Mexican government, which was a communication via social media from the foreign minister. For a country the size of Mexico, which is the thirteenth largest economy in the world and a diplomatically recognized actor by the UN—Mexico is a heavyweight— the truth is, it's incredibly lukewarm, it 's very little. And in fact, the colleagues who are supporting the Global Su Flotilla are still on the day of Yesterday morning, they were waiting and hoping that the Mexican Foreign Ministry would respond more forcefully, more boldly, more courageously, and that hasn't happened.
The problem is that at this moment, we still don't know if Violeta, Sol, or Paulina are alright, if they haven't been tortured. In fact, another argument of the Global Summit flotilla is that there's a kind of blind spot on the high seas when they're captured and taken away, and nobody knows if they're going to be taken to Cyprus, for example, which is what happened in Crete, or if they're going to be taken to Israel and accused of something.
During all that time, there's the perverse opportunity for people to be tortured psychologically or physically. And that's what we have to be giving up on at this moment.
The families have relatively little information. The Mexican government may have even less, but they're protesting with everything they have, and the Mexican government should be less lukewarm and more forceful in its demands. So, our new foreign minister isn't performing very well in relation to what we expected from him. It's a What a shame. Greetings, lawyer, from here, Testero, in Tecate, Baja California. Luis Antonio, thank you.
Okay, now let's see, if we continue, uh, let me show you the route of the previous Global Sumut. This route comes from Barcelona, makes a stop in Sicily, which is Italian territory.
Well, first in Tunis, which is where they were attacked with drones, by the way.
Then they go to Sicily and then finally they are hit again almost in front of a gas canister. Look, the Global Sumut in August/ September of last year, 2025, got closer to Gaza than the current one and again they had to retreat towards Cyprus.
Well, uh, look, this is part of a pattern from the first flotillas, when there was that bloody incident where there was a fight between Turkey and Israel, uh, it had always been towards Turkey, where the solaris fled. Well, what should seem extremely serious to us here is not only that Mexico isn't reacting, but that Turkey apparently isn't reacting either.
But well, uh, that gives you a an idea of what the routes are. Now, you might ask, why does this route have so many dashes? Well, because it's a flotilla, a kind of swarm.
So, each of the dashes represents a different ship. Yes. And pay attention, keep this idea in mind. There are so many ships in the flotilla, tiny, humble, and small ships, but size matters because, just like in Miguel Ende's novel, The Neverending Story, where one of the characters is called Igramul the Many, it's a kind of swarm of insects, but the entity is Igramul and the swarm can take any form, but it's a single entity, a collective.
This one, San Jorge, Violeta, Sol, and Paulina are kidnapped. Exactly. This lukewarm stance of the Mexican State raises suspicions of the power and control that Israel has over several strategic actors in Mexico.
I wish that were the case.
Mexico is large enough that strategic sectors of Mexico shouldn't be controlled. I think there's something worse, San Jorge, which is that Mexican diplomacy continues to be, because it always has It has been, it continues to be timid. They're terrified of demonstrating strongly, and that's wrong because it doesn't correspond to the size of the country. We have a big country that's always asking everyone for forgiveness and permission. It's a strange thing, by the way. It has to do with the culture. I don't know. Once, a Chilean friend in Georgeston told me, "No, it's not that walking behind two Mexicans and getting to a door is a nightmare because there you have it, the two of them say, ' You first, right? You first, of course not. You first, so nobody gets through.'
It seems that this style of always saying 'command' instead of responding more forcefully, of always asking for permission, of apologizing when you don't need to, is part of this culture that isn't even truly Mexican, but rather more like a Mexico City culture.
This has rubbed off on our diplomatic corps, so they're always going around the world apologizing.
Well, no. Here we have three citizens who are in danger of being tortured. We have to be much tougher.
And the other thing is Anyway, the other excuse for not breaking with Israel has always been that breaking with Israel wouldn't affect Israel much because Mexico has very little contact with Israel. The argument works the other way around too, because that worked last year in the other intercepted Global Sumut, where we also had Mexicans who were kidnapped.
Well, it happened again. Are they going to torture our compatriots again, our three colleagues? No, we have to be tougher now. So, if we broke off relations, it wouldn't affect us.
Well, then it doesn't really matter if we break off or not. So let's break off with one small detail. If we break off relations right now, our ambassador in Israel can't provide assistance to the detainees.
So, on that point too, we have to be careful with what we ask for. But anyway, I think we should be much tougher now than last year. Something like this was expected, from the new ambassador, from Marcelo's group, with all the approval from the previous Secretary of Foreign Affairs, the legacy of Israel. Okay. This one can, he can. Tell us about the legality of the City of the Torah. Ah, well, that's another matter.
One detail: I'm not even sure if the City of the Torah has been fully authorized. It seems they haven't continued construction. It's located in the eastern, or rather western, part of the State of Mexico.
Remember that the State of Mexico has a western zone, which is the Toluca Valley, and then the eastern part, which is the Tescoco Valley.
This is on the Toluca side, way to the south, almost at the corner of Guerrero and Morelos. It 's between Itapan de la Paz and another municipality in the State of Mexico.
Halfway there's a housing development that's roughly half the size of Ciudad Satélite, and it's been presented and sold as exclusively for Orthodox Jews. That's what's happening.
By the way, I think we should dedicate a whole segment to this, maybe not this Friday, but the following one, about how this housing development issue works.
of urban areas. It's called the City of the Torah. The Torah is the sacred book of the Jewish rabbinic religion. And so it would seem that only people of that religion can live there.
Which is probably a violation of the freedom of worship in the Mexican Republic, but it's a good topic. If you like, we can leave, hopefully Tania will remember me, not that Friday, but the following Friday.
Breaking with Israel is breaking with Maga.
Breaking with Maga is breaking with this Zionist entity, Trump, and the United States.
Oh, one thing, all of them are breaking with us, and in international relations, [snort] today for you, tomorrow for me has its rough work, which is you hit me, I hit you. Everyone hits according to their size, but it seems to me that Mexico isn't behaving according to its size on the international stage, and that's bad. If the Mexican State doesn't react, each of us can effectively act by boycotting Zionist companies as much as possible. Indeed, mind you, there is a popular diplomacy from below and a diplomacy What governments do, and we have to pressure our government to follow the same path, but in the meantime, we can do everything we can from the ground up.
And one last thing, I would have liked us to talk more about larger international relations, but my last comment in the last 10 minutes of this talk is about Sahat. And Sahat is a kind of news channel, and I said, well, what does Sahat mean? And this writing with the little snakes is really beautiful, artistically speaking, because you can make many designs like this one, which is the symbol of Sahat. Now let's see what Sahat means. I first went to Google and then to an Arabic translator. And look, Sahat means courtyard or open public space. That is, it could be a plaza.
And why plaza? Because it's related to another word called SAG, which means square. And it's pretty obvious that all plazas are square. By the way, for us Latin Americans, all plazas are square. It's obvious that it comes to us from the Spanish, but not from the Biscayan Christians, but from the Andalusian Spaniards, who were Arabs and Berbers who came from Africa and brought all of Islamic culture and the idea of Islamic urban planning, that is, the Sahat, the SA, the square, the plaza. So, what does Sahat mean? Sahat in English is the plaza, the public square, the open public space. And these little friends put together a video that our friend Tania edited for us, and we could watch it so you can see the power of the little ones.
Let's see if we can do a containership.
Show you the comparative size of the MSC ship, Mediterranean Shipping Company, compared to the Sumut boats.
The ship is that thing that carries these containers. The containers are gigantic, aren't they? And you can see there that it carries hundreds of containers.
That's a transport ship. See how it looks from the deck in the distance.
Well, the one that could be bought by the swarm decided to get in the way of this merchant transport ship.
[Clears throat] Because it's part of the command companies.
Okay. This colleague we're hearing from, this Kiwi colleague, that is, he comes from New Zealand, that is, from other islands in another ocean. And look at the size of the swarm. They're small ships, but the interesting thing is that what we just saw happened probably leaving Sicily, that is, in the exclusive economic zone waters of Italy and Greece, and you saw this ship, the ship is actually called Maya. Interesting.
This one, and the Global Sumul Fleet decided to get in its way. Did you see the size? If the merchant ship makes even the slightest touch of any of the small ships, it will sink it.
And yet, the swarm, the flotilla, decided to get in its way to try to divert it, at least slow it down, that is, to slow down the progress of this commercial shipment from many industries, including weapons for Israel. Now, the fact that the Global Sumul Fleet did this, which I think is something we have to admire. That's why here Remember the word legal adventure. Adventure is daring and courageous.
Imagine that from re If things go wrong and the captain of the merchant ship, I'm sure, of course, didn't want to get involved in the mess of crushing any of the ships in the flotilla.
So, they managed to stop him somewhat, but it was symbolic because he continued on his way, because it is physically impossible to stop him.
But the legal detail, at the moment the flotilla does this, demonstrates that it is possible to carry out a serious act of boycott against trade, which includes arms trade to Israel.
This is the international community, international civil society carrying out a maritime blockade against those who are committing genocide. So, what's the problem with this action? This action can be interpreted by our enemy, the genocidal state of Israel, as saying, "Ah, since they disrupted the freedom of transit, which has been one of the foundations of the international system for 500 years, then I have the right to leave my exclusive economic zone and go and intercept them elsewhere."
Because? Because they have shown me that they are dangerous, because they intend to disrupt the flow of international trade. Well, Israel's argument is ridiculous. Yes of course.
Look at the size of the Sumut Flotilla ships compared to a commercial freighter [coughs], but it matters to do so. Now, the legal adventure is impressive because what this international movement is showing us is that small people are very weak individually, but together they can be like Igramul, the multiple from Miguel Ende.
a swarm large enough to stop, or at least make the giant monster think about what it is doing. And I think it's only fair that we steal a little bit of the legend from the State of Israel.
There was a time when the Jewish people and the Israeli people were the oppressed of the earth, and on several occasions they have been. But it was the small David who defeated the giant Goliath. Now they are the giant and they should be consistent, they should have been better and they are not criminals and genocidal.
Therefore, it is only right that we, the new little ones, which is all the rest of us, organize ourselves to stop them like a swarm. And that's why I thought it was also important to remember that Violeta, Sol, and Paulina were still kidnapped at that time, as far as we know. And well, this was David versus Goliath. Yes, indeed.
This, but what we've learned in the last 7,000 years after that first David is that it's always better to have 100,000 Vietnams, sorry, Davids. So let's stick with the example of Global Sumut and dare to have more legal adventures and all the others. And with this I hope that I can dedicate some time to Luis Carlos Ufraude, teacher. He says, "Thank you very much for having been president of the IFE." Ah, to sell your soul to win. Uh, on Twitter someone suddenly asked me if I had lost something of my soul in the judicial election. Well no. In fact, I met many other souls, 2.5 million souls. This one, Mr. Luis Carlos Ufraude, well said, this Distic Animal, this one, he has more experience in that business of buying and selling souls. Yes, it is, but we would have to see the story behind it. And well, uh, for today it's already 5:02 PM on this day when we remember the guayle, Don Francisco Madero, and also that the little ones can win. And well, let's leave it at that, and you should all demand by all means that our foreign ministry take a stronger position, worthy of the size that Mexico has in the international arena.
Health Republic.
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