Boat
Warriors Against
The Israeli Siege Of Gaza
By Eileen Fleming
23 August,
2008
Countercurrents.org
[Mediterranean Sea, August 22, 2008] Morning's light
of August 23, 2008 is expected to illuminate the convergence of the
SS FREE GAZA, SS LIBERTY, twenty odd fishermen from Gaza and the Israeli
Occupying Naval Forces, upon the Mediterranean Sea.
On August 22, 2008, Paul Larudee, Co-Founder of the Free Gaza Movement, son of an Iranian Presbyterian minister and his American missionary spouse, wrote from aboard the SS Liberty, the second boat of the Free Gaza Movement:
Admiral Marom's Strange Proclamation
The signature of Israeli Navy Commander in Chief Admiral Eliezer Marom appears on a very odd document Dated August 11th, 2008, it is not written on official stationery, nor is it addressed to anyone.
The document declares that the Israeli Navy is operating in a maritime zone off the coast of Gaza. Was there any doubt that they have been doing so continuously since 1967?
It includes the sketch of a map and a series of coordinates (also attached) to define the zone, which includes all of Gaza coastal waters, and a major slice of international waters as well.
It advises all foreign vessels to remain clear of this zone because of a "security situation" that is apparently so obvious that it requires no definition or explanation.
The only hint about the "security situation" is a reference to the delivery of humanitarian supplies to the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, which, according to the document, should be done only at the land crossings between Israel and the Gaza Strip (i.e. by Israeli permission only).
Why is the Israeli Navy issuing a proclamation regarding the delivery of humanitarian aid by land?
The proclamation goes on to prescribe a set of protocols for vessels approaching the "maritime zone" and to prohibit vessels from entering Gaza because of the undefined "security situation."
Finally, the document pronounces its benevolent intentions to ensure "safe navigation" and its neighborly undertaking to prevent vessels from approaching an area where their safety may be endangered.
Endangered? By whom? By what?
There is, of course, an explanation for such a strange document, disseminated (as nearly as can be determined) to a narrow circle of maritime authorities. It is that the document itself is an embarrassment to Israel, which nevertheless feels compelled to issue it in some form, as a disclaimer for any forceful action that they might take against an unnamed threat.
The embarrassment is that the unnamed threat consists of the two converted fishing boats of the Free Gaza Movement, bought and refurbished in Greece, and flying the Greek flag. On board is a contingent of forty-three crew and human rights advocates, sworn to nonviolence, as well as a modest cargo of hearing aids for Palestinian children in Gaza. Among their ranks are a Greek member of parliament, an 81-year-old Catholic nun and the sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair.
No wonder Israel is embarrassed.
Does Israel seriously consider the delivery of humanitarian aid to be a security crisis?
Does the initiative of a small group of harmless people constitute such a threat?
If so, what does that say about the kind of state to which Israelis pledge allegiance?
Finally, the declaration's kindly words of interest for the safety of vessels traveling in the area hide the threat to use force against the motley flotilla that dares to challenge the entrapment of 1.5 million people in what has become the largest and most permanent concentration camp in the world, and to animate a civil rights movement where others see only a manufactured humanitarian crisis.
Israel's blockade of the Gaza coast is an affront to all peoples, but most especially the seafaring peoples of the Mediterranean, where people have lived, prospered and built great civilizations through access to the sea since time immemorial, not least in Gaza itself. To deny Palestinians this resource is a human rights obscenity that Greeks, Italians, North Africans, Turks, and other seafaring peoples must unite to condemn.
Admiral's Marom's proclamation shows nothing so much as the desperation and paranoia of a regime that lacks the imagination and courage to embrace a project that harms no one and delivers hope as its primary cargo.
It behooves Israel to welcome the Free Gaza initiative as a step towards mutual respect for the human rights of all persons who call the land of Palestine their home.--Paul Larudee
Paul is a soft spoken gentle person, who came of age in the Midwest and is a leader in the San Francisco Bay Area on the issue of justice in the land of Israel Palestine, which includes the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and occupied east Jerusalem.
In the summer of 2006, Paul, a former Fulbright-Hayes lecturer had scheduled twenty piano tuning appointments throughout the West Bank; but instead, spent two weeks in a Ben Gurion jail cell before being deported because of his NON-VIOLENT activism against the route of The Wall and perhaps-his vocal dissent from how American Tax Dollars Support the Israeli Military Occupation of Palestine, now in its 41st year.
Greta Berlin, the other Co-Founder of the Free Gaza Movement, is an Irish American dissident, and pleased to be listed as a member on the Jewish S.H.I.I.T.E. List, of 7,000 Jews who have been labeled as "self-hating and Israel-threatening Ediots" by judgmental Zionist Jews.
Greta is the mother of two Palestinian/American children who began in the '60's to advocate for human rights for Palestinians. Greta has been to the West Bank three times since 2003 and was wounded by Israeli gunfire in July 2003 while engaging in active creative and nonviolent resistance.
Jeff Halper, is the on board American Israeli Professor and Founder and Coordinator of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, which resists the occupation by standing up to Caterpillar Bulldozers and rebuilding Palestinian homes after they have been demolished by Israel who pays the owner no compensation, claims 'security' as their reason, but in reality are practicing another form of ethnically cleansing the land of the indigenous people.
Jeff was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 and is credited
with the best explanation of Israeli democracy, "Israel is not
a democracy, but is an Ethnocracy, meaning a country run and controlled
by a national group with some democratic elements but set up with
Jews in control and structured to keep them in control."
Jeff has also said, "Missing from Israel's security framing is the very fact of occupation, which Israel both denies exists...and that 'security' requires Israel control over the entire country...rendering impossible a just peace based on human rights, international law, reconciliation."
"We need to expose Israel as the regional superpower and [necessary component in the American Empire] that it really is. Its economy is three times larger than Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon put together. Israel is not the little David of the area, but actually the Goliath." [1]
A 21st century David and Goliath will soon converge and history will
be freely streaming from on board the SS LIBERTY and FREE GAZA:
