In her second such puff piece in barely two weeks, Monika Rekola, a Midland, Ontario-based bird watcher and horticulturist writing for Village Media, an online publication serving a number of small communities in Ontario and claiming to focus on “hyper-local news,” fawningly profiled Marie Tota, a local nurse who participated in a recent ill-fated ‘flotilla’ to Gaza.

Rekola’s May 18 article, “Nurse vows to continue ‘fighting,’ carry on Gaza aid mission,” told readers about the “Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla,” taking it as a given that the recent ‘Global Sumud Flotilla’ was humanitarian in nature.

What Rekola did not bother to mention is that for a supposedly “humanitarian” effort, virtually no aid was found on board, in contrast to the 600+ trucks filled with aid entering Gaza every single day, another critical detail she did not see fit to mention.

Instead of helping readers understand that the flotilla bore virtually no aid, leading critics to deride it as a selfie yacht and publicity stunt, Rekola devoted her article to being little more than a free publicity piece for Tota and the other participants.

According to Rekola, “United Nations experts have since described the seizure of the vessels as a potential violation of international maritime law.” It is not clear who these “experts” are, since she does not name them. Nor does Rekola admit that blockades, such as the one that Israel has over Gaza in order to ensure that Hamas and other terrorist groups do not smuggle weapons, are eminently legal under international law, and Israel is entitled to stop boats seeking to ram their way through those blockades.

Rekola’s absurd depiction of Israel’s legal arrest of mischief-seeking individuals borders on the obscene. No mention is made anywhere of the enormous amount of aid that Israel delivers to Gaza daily, nor the almost complete lack of aid on board these “humanitarian” vessels, nor even how Hamas, the openly genocidal Islamic terrorist group in Gaza, continues to attempt to smuggle in weapons into the territory, thus necessitating the blockade.

Instead, the writer offers a sympathetic platform for Tota to complain that, after being arrested, “there were no pillows, no blankets,” and Rekola adds that while “she was not physically harmed, she described moments of fear and confusion during the ordeal.”

Incredibly, for a publication ostensibly focused on local news, this was not the first time that Rekola authored an article on the antics of a small group of anti-Israel activists thousands of kilometres away.

In fact, just two weeks earlier, on May 1, Rekola penned another article about the same flotilla and the same nurse, Marie Tota. In her earlier piece, obscenely titled “‘Loving’ Ontario nurse aboard Gaza aid flotilla attacked at sea,” Rekola began by telling readers that the subject of her apparent adoration is “described by those who know her as compassionate and driven,” and continues to quote only anti-Israel activists, including Midland resident Kal Kurdi.

Kurdi, whom the author writes “knows Tota through community organizing efforts with Simcoe County 4 Palestine,” is quoted as claiming that Tota is “very loving. Very self-sacrificing.”

Despite quoting Kurdi in both her articles, Rekola does not share with readers that his social media features imagery of terrorist glorification, including depictions of convicted Palestinian terrorist Laila Khaled and another image alongside claims that Israelis are pedophiles. He also shared a video purporting to show him as part of a group of anti-Israel activists who protest in a predominantly Jewish area of Toronto, in what experts call a textbook example of harassment.

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In our view, Monika Rekola’s two articles for Village Media were little more than pro-Palestinian propaganda under the guise of human interest, and served only to sanitize a radical anti-Israel activist movement, not to inform readers.