The Greenpeace slogan: “Come to Israel, be arrested with friends.”
Fourteen activists in the environmental organization, aboard the Rainbow Warrior ship, were taken into custody by Israel’s Coast Guard in the Ashkelon harbor last week when they spray-painted the words “Quit Coal” on the side of the cargo ship Cape Heron, which was unloading coal bound for an existing power plant.
The activists, making a circuit of Mediterranean countries, were protesting Israel’s plan to build another coal-fueled electricity power plant near the port. Coal is one of the few natural resources readily available to Israel.
Riding on a small boat launched from the Rainbow Warrior, activists, above, hover at the side of the Cape Heron, bearing a banner (pictured backwards), that means
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“Fuad, coal kills.” Fuad is the nickname of Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer, who is responsible for the country’s environmental policies.
Greenpeace took its cause to the Israeli mainland earlier this year — in May, three activists rappelled from the roof of the Infrastructure Ministry in Jerusalem, unfurling a huge banner that read “In one week, Fuad will kill Ashkelon,” a reference to the coal-based power station then under consideration.
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