palestine

Unrepentant

Buddy — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:02:45 -0600

Short Information Teaser

A Report from Johnny Barber: Congressional Resolution Condemns the Audacity of Hope

Excerpt

Demanding to Be Allowed to Sail

In the late spring of 2011, I was one of 37 passengers and 4 crewmembers on the Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat to Gaza… on October 6th, I was in Afghanistan meeting with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) with members of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) when Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL9) introduced HR 3131 in Congress. In summary, this bill “expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should take diplomatic steps to express gratitude to Greece for upholding the rule of law in preventing hostile forces from violating a legal naval blockade of Gaza by Israel and thereby advancing the security of its ally Israel… none of the 14 co-sponsors of HR 3131 have called for a resolution to condemn Israeli state-sponsored terrorism.

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In the late spring of 2011, I was one of 37 passengers and 4 crewmembers on the Audacity of Hope, the U.S. boat to Gaza.

Demanding to Be Allowed to Sail: Athens, June 27, 2011

I had spent the prior month in Gaza and actually left Gaza to join the flotilla sailing from Greece. I was hoping to use my modest skills as an EMT in the event that Israeli naval forces began shooting people on board as they did in May 2010, when they killed nine people on board the Mavi Mamara. Many of these victims, including 19-year-old US citizen Furkan Doğan, were shot point-blank in the head. Doğan was shot five times from less than 45 cm (1.5 ft), in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. He was filming the attack when he was murdered. He was unarmed.

When it was announced that there would be a boat from the U.S. participating in the next flotilla, I applied immediately.

Preparing to Sail: Athens, June 30, 2011

On June 29th as we were preparing to sail from Athens to Gaza, I read with amazement – and some amusement – that the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, had asked that the Justice Department to “take immediate steps” against those found to be violating U.S. law, including providing “material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.” Having never heard of Rick Perry, I assumed that he was just pandering to AIPAC. Little did I know he was pandering ahead of entering the Republican race for President.

On October 6th, I was in Afghanistan meeting with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV) with members of Voices for Creative Nonviolence (VCNV) when Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL9) introduced HR 3131 in Congress. In summary, this bill “expresses the sense of Congress that the United States should take diplomatic steps to express gratitude to Greece for upholding the rule of law in preventing hostile forces (1) from violating a legal naval blockade (2) of Gaza by Israel and thereby advancing the security of its ally Israel. Directs the Secretary of State to report to Congress on whether any support organization that participated in the planning or execution of the recent Gaza flotilla attempt should be designated as a foreign terrorist organization.”

The bill is a frightening reminder of how some people in power are entirely too eager to throw around a “terrorist” designation for non-violent activists. Only in uninformed, closed minds can carrying letters of support from Americans to those trapped in Gaza constitute support of terrorism, yet this is what the bill suggests.

Our largely ignorant Congressional representatives are quite willing to assume that any information from Israeli sources is infallible to the exclusion of other factual findings, such as evidence that Israeli soldiers summarily executed participants on the Mavi Marmara. Israel maims and kills Americans such as Emily Henochowicz, Brian Avery, and Rachel Corrie with impunity. There is no house resolution pending that condemns the maiming or killing of American citizens by Israeli forces.

In a recent issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Mark Perry reported that Israeli Mossad agents posed as CIA agents to recruit from Jundallah, an Iranian dissident group that is currently on the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations. On January 11, the fourth Iranian nuclear scientist in two years was blown up by a magnetic bomb attached to his car door. Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz, Israel’s military chief of staff, was quoted as saying on January 10th. “For Iran, 2012 is a critical year in combining the continuation of its nuclearization, internal changes in the Iranian leadership, continuing and growing pressure from the international community and things which take place in an unnatural manner.” None of the 14 co-sponsors (3) of HR 3131 have called for a resolution to condemn Israeli state-sponsored terrorism.

Filming Our Detention by the Greek Coast Guard: July 1, 2011

HR 3131 is a prime example of the danger facing American citizens. Citizens participating in nonviolent acts of dissent are targeted while other violent actions of the US and Israel are simply ignored. This is less about objective political reality than pursuing political enemies.

With President Obama’s signing of the National Defense Authorization Act, American citizens have lost a fundamental right of citizenship, the right to habeas corpus. The NDAA codifies indefinite detention of American citizens on the “battleground” of America. It is extremely troubling that President Obama would sign this into law, declare he has no intention of using the powers, yet authorize such powers for all those who follow him, including the likes of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and other future apologists for the Israeli occupation – an occupation which the RNC recently denied even exists.

In October of 2006, after the “Enemy Combatants Bill” passed our Congress and was signed into law I wrote,

“I, for one, am facing my so called “leaders” in Congress, and this corrupt, morally bankrupt administration that would strip the Constitution, suspend habeas corpus, and destroy the very foundation this country was built on while in the same breath promising the world that democratic reform will reduce tyranny. I, for one, will not be silent in these dark days of our dying democracy.”

Today, an action I assumed was an aberration by fearmongers and torturers in the Bush administration has become further codified into American law. I stand by my statement as our rights and freedom continue to erode.

Johnny Barber’s blog: oneBrightpearl

Notes:

1 There is no evidence of any sort that the Flotilla was comprised of “hostile forces”. The U.S. boat was comprised of 37 nonviolent peace activists.

2 This is based on the Palmer report released on July 7th, 2011. The committee responsible clearly states in the document “We must stress we are not asked to determine the legality or otherwise of the events. What we express are our views on what took place.” The findings of the Palmer report on the legality of the blockade were disputed by a panel of five UN human rights experts, who said that the blockade amounted to a “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law”.

3 Co-sponsors: Shelley Berkley (D-NV1), John Carter (R-TX31, Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL21, Eliot Engel (D-NY17),Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ11), Michael Grimm (R-NY13), Peter King (R-NY3), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY14), Peter Roskam (D-NJ9), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL18), Steven Rothman (D-NJ9), John Sarbanes (D-MD3), Albio Sires (D-NJ13), Bill Young (R-FL10).

VCNV Author

Johnny Barber

Start of the Season

Gerald — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 11:37:15 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly wrting from Greece after participating in the Freedom Flotilla II and the Flytilla

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July 8, 2011

It looked like a scene from an opera. Massed in the doorway and second floor balconies of a quaint building in Athens, facing a magnificent view of the Parthenon, Spanish activists hung banners and flashed peace signs and proclaimed that they wouldn’t leave the building, the Embassy of Spain, until their government assured them that their boat, “The Guernica,” could at last leave for the suffering and besieged territory of Gaza.

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July 8, 2011

Like other boats in the “Freedom Flotilla 2,” an international flotilla aiming to end the naval blockade of Gaza, the Spaniards’ boat has been blocked from sailing by bureaucratic measures imposed by the Greek government. This was unacceptable to the activists. On July 4, 2011, the Spanish Ambassador to Greece had agreed to meet with only four of the Spanish activists, but at a pre-arranged time, one of the four had gone downstairs, opened the door and ushered in 17 others to help them occupy the Embassy. Today, three days later, they have issued an eloquent statement explaining why they still refuse to leave. They call for an end to the illegal blockade of Gaza and for immediate release of their boat so that it can soon reach Gazan shores.

I’m here as an activist passenger on the United States flotilla boat, the Audacity of Hope, also blocked by the Greek government decision. We tried to escape to international waters but were towed back to dock by heavily-armed boats of the Greek Coast Guard. We haven’t tried an embassy occupation. “That’s what your group should be doing,” said one of the main organizers of the international flotilla effort, referring to the Spanish action.

He’s right. And yet, crucial and telling differences exist between the Embassy of Spain in Athens, where I counted exactly one security guard nonchalantly keeping watch in the first afternoon of the Spanish activists’ demonstration, and the Embassy of the U.S. in Athens. The U.S. Embassy takes up about four square blocks of land. Nondescript, boxy white buildings are surrounded by spiked fences of battleship gray. Embassy employees arrive at a checkpoint and are subjected to search routines that include examining the base of their vehicle as it drives over a pit. Dozens of guards maintain round the clock security. What necessitates such elaborate security measures? Is it simply that U.S. lives are more precious than the lives of others and therefore must be intensely safeguarded, or might it be that menacing economic and military policies enforced by the U.S. have caused antagonism and rage sufficient to endanger official U.S. representatives in almost any part of the globe?

Several of us who were quietly fasting, across the street from our Embassy, earlier this week, called upon the U.S. to help free Gaza, free our ship from a Greek port, and free, or at least visit, our captain who was, at the time, detained in a Greek jail. When we politely declined to end our fasting presence, we were loaded into Greek police squad cars and held for several hours. The next day, the Greek police again detained six U.S. activists, this time for sitting on a park bench across from the home of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece.

Had U.S. activists attempted to occupy the U.S. Embassy in Athens, in an action comparable to that of the Spaniards, we surely wouldn’t have been filmed waving from open air balconies. It’s likely that the only cameras within the U.S. compound that would cover such an event would be U.S. surveillance cameras.

And, of course, the plight we want to make visible is not ours but rather that of the Palestinians in Gaza who rarely have an opportunity to raise or amplify their voices. Our guiding question, our rudder, as we contemplate next steps, asks to what extent we can focus world attention on the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. Today, I read an article by Professor Noam Chomsky in which he asked Chris Gunness, a spokesperson for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza to describe the humanitarian crisis Gazans face. “If there were no humanitarian crisis, if there weren’t a crisis in almost every aspect of life in Gaza there would be no need for the flotilla,” said Gunness. ” 95 percent of all water in Gaza is undrinkable, 40 percent of all disease is water-borne … 45.2 percent of the labor force is unemployed, 80 percent aid dependency, a tripling of the abject poor since the start of the blockade. Let’s get rid of this blockade and there would be no need for a flotilla.”

And so it goes. Our formation as peace and antiwar activists should be guided by focusing on the most impoverished people who bear the brunt of our economic and military warfare. We U.S. activists must continue to learn from the durable actions and plans of the Spaniards and numerous other internationals gathered here in Athens, many of whom are facing draconian new economic policies in their home countries as financial institutions hold sway over governments and demand new austerity measures..

Greek activists who assemble every night in Athens’ Syntagma Square have constructed an inspiring, effective means for developing free speech and determined, risk-taking action in a setting that has evolved to emphasize simplicity, sharing of resources and a clear preference for service rather than dominance.

I leave Greece tonight with sincere regret that I didn’t spend more time learning from these sturdy activists.

I and another US Boat to Gaza campaign member, Missy Lane, headed to Tel Aviv earlier today, where we planned to be part of a “flytilla,” a new campaign which will bring hundreds of activists together in Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, all of whom are intent on reaching Palestinian refugee camps and/or visiting Gazan families. Missy and I wore T-shirts identifying us as part of the U.S. Boat to Gaza project. Upon arrival at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, we were swiftly taken to what an Israeli guard called “the immigration hotel” and told that we were denied entry to the country for security reasons. The Israelis put us on a plane back to Athens.

Yesterday evening, a group of U.S. activists who’ve been able to remain longer, here in Athens, demonstrated at each of the heavily guarded streets leading to the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. The Ambassador is hosting a huge festival tonight, in celebration of the U.S. July 4 holiday that commemorates independence.

Several Greek people passing us read our signs seeking freedom for Gaza and asked us to understand that as recently as one year ago, the government of Greece showed no sign of submitting to Israeli or U.S. pressure and allowed international flotilla boats to sail. But, now they are dependent on the whims of financial elites around the world. The IMF is prescribing extremely severe measures which will wreck their economy and make them subservient to the dictates of foreign multinationals. What would happen if the government defied the masters?

The Greek government has been told to bend down and kiss the dirt, and if it doesn’t do so it will be told to bend down and eat the dirt.

So far, the government has complied, and one instance of galling obeisance is their cooperation with Israeli and U.S. governmental insistence that no boats bound for Gaza be allowed to depart from Grecian ports.

The flotilla may not leave Grecian ports this month, but the idea and practice of dissent surely will. The Arab Spring has planted seeds throughout the eastern Mediterranean, from its birthplace in Tunisia, through the Mubarak overthrow, here to Greece, and of course throughout the world as it spreads into a heralded European Summer. With democracy in Gaza, here in Greece, and throughout the world so dependent on what our own government does in the United States, U.S. citizens should surely be thinking, thinking constantly, of daily actions, gutsy and inspiring, which we can take in our home country where we face so little risk compared with so many living in utmost precarity – so many beckoning all of us to carry their hard-fought struggle beyond one Arab Spring into a perennial human striving for freedom; into hope, perhaps outlandish hope, even for an American autumn. A grand drama is unfolding here in Greece, in Egypt, in Barcelona, in Gaza, and throughout the world, which may end in sorrow or in jubilation largely depending on whether people of the United States are watching, and themselves getting ready to take the stage.

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

July 6th Update from the U.S. Boat to Gaza

Gerald — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:43:29 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Recent update from the US boat to Gaza and suggested links

Excerpt

July 6, 2011

The presence of the U.S. Boat to Gaza in Athens is winding down. For more than 2 weeks the 37 passengers (someone was added at the last moment), 4 crew members and about 12 people in the support team there worked hard to make sure our boat – The Audacity of Hope – could sail as part of the international Freedom Flotilla 2 to Gaza. The Greek government’s willingness to serve as the enforcer of Israeli’s naval blockade of Gaza made it impossible for this journey to happen.

But the creative and determined spirit of this team of committed activists could not be stopped or silenced. They worked tirelessly to make the point in countless ways: they attempted to set sail knowing it might lead to a confrontation with the Greek authorities, they stood by the boat’s captain when he was arrested and jailed for several days, several people held a hunger strike for a few days, everyone marched and rallied with other flotilla activists and with the people of Athens in their own struggle for economic justice, and incredible energy went into getting the word out to people throughout this country and around the world as the work with the media continued through it all.

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July 6, 2011
The presence of the U.S. Boat to Gaza in Athens is winding down. For more than 2 weeks the 37 passengers (someone was added at the last moment), 4 crew members and about 12 people in the support team there worked hard to make sure our boat – The Audacity of Hope – could sail as part of the international Freedom Flotilla 2 to Gaza. The Greek government’s willingness to serve as the enforcer of Israeli’s naval blockade of Gaza made it impossible for this journey to happen.

Last night our group’s activities in Athens ended and here’s a description from one of our people there: “We all went to Syntagma Square which looks much like Tahrir where there is an encampment and thousands of people gather each night. On Sundays there may be upwards of 50,000 and on big nights hundreds of thousands. We unfurled to drum beats 22 flags sewn together representing the countries participating in the Flotilla. Our black and white signs were in Greek, Arabic and English. It was a beautiful sight. Then we marched to the Spanish Embassy where our Spanish partners were occupying its embassy demanding the release of their boat. We arrived at about 9 pm with drummers leading the way. They came out on balconies and we sang to each other. It was quite the sight.”

Now our folks are beginning the journey home – some will arrive today, some tomorrow and others in the days ahead. Everyone is tired, but their energy is strong! They will share their stories and talk about their experiences in communities everywhere. And they will use this incredible time they shared in Athens as a spring board for further activism and organizing.

As soon as we can, we will send more information about the next steps and how you all can stay involved in the work to end the Israeli naval blockade and lift the siege of Gaza, as well as the efforts to end the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. That, after all is said and done, is what this effort has been about, and that is the work that must continue.

Below is a quick overview of several items related to our presence in Athens and our work with the flotilla. In the coming days we will be including further updates on our website so please check there. Also, remember, there are great photos and videos from these last two weeks on our site…check them out!

peace, Leslie

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JULY 6, 2011 OVERVIEW

1) Captain Released Our boat’s captain – John Klusmire – had a hearing on Tuesday in a Greek court. Her was released from jail, where he had been since Saturday morning, and was told he had no restrictions or limitations on his movements or activities. The charges against him were not dropped but we are hopeful that eventually they will be. Thanks everyone for all of the calls and email messages you sent to Greek and U.S. authorities in support of John!!

2) Hunger Strike Over The 9 passengers who were on a hunger strike in support of our captain ended their fast. On Sunday they had been detained by the Athens police for several hours, and then on Monday 6 people (some others and some of the same folks) were again detained and then let go a few hours later. Everyone was fine and since then no one has been held by the police.

3) Our Boat The Audacity of Hope remains in the hands of Greek authorities and we do not yet know when they will release it. Several of our people are staying in Athens for the foreseeable future to make sure the boat is safe. While we do not own the boat – we leased it from a Greek company – we feel a responsibility to make sure it is returned to its owner in good condition.

4) Information on Some of the Other Boats – Please note that the situation for each boat has been constantly changing so it’s possible that some of this information could already be put of date. We will try to get an update on the boats on our website as soon as possible.

a) On 7/5, the Greek Boat to Gaza group held a press conference at the Athens Press Club. Present were Dimitris Plionis, an organizer from the Greek group, Dr. Mattias Gardell of the partner group Swedish Boat to Gaza, Members of Parliament Tasos Kourakis and Theodoris Dritsas 2 MPs, and Green Party representative Iannis Tsironis. They denounced the government actions and policies forbidding ships of the Flotilla to leave Greek ports, effectively extending the Israeli siege of Gaza to Greek waters and outsourcing the siege of Gaza. Also attending in solidarity was MP Panagiotis Kouroublis, who had recently been expelled from the ruling PASOK Party for voting against the IMF austerity plan. He was given a standing ovation when he entered the hall.

b) The owners and crew of the Greek/Swedish/Norwegian passenger boat Juliano went on board in the port of Perama near Piraeus, and attempted to take the boat to the port town of Fokia, approximately 10 km. away, where they were due to attend a welcome ceremony at the invitation of the Fokia mayor, honoring the passengers and crew. However, the port authorities prevented the boat from leaving, without citing any justification. In the meantime, two rented boats filled with journalists and supporters gathered at the port to cover the action and to demand release of the boat, and have been confronted by port police. At latest report, the standoff continues, and a crowd of people is gathering at the Perama Port Authority to demand the release of the boat.

c) Passengers of the Spanish boat Guernica entered the Spanish embassy in Athens and staged a sit-in, demanding that the Spanish government intercede with Greece to release the boat. They hoisted the Palestinian flag and are refusing to leave until their boat is given permission to leave.

d) Canadian citizen Sandra Ruch remains in custody in the port city of Aghios Nikolaos. She and one other Suha Kneen, Michael Coleman, Australian Canadian were charged with impeding coast guard authorities by placing themselves in kayaks in front of police boats attempting to stop the Canadian boat, Tahrir from leaving Greek waters. They have been charged with interfering with law enforcement.

e) The other French passenger boat Karameh is again at sea in international waters, awaiting the other boats in the Flotilla. After leaving France, it proceeded to the eastern Mediterranean, where it sheltered in a safe port before returning to international waters.

f)July 7, 2011 The MV Juliano, carrying the Swedish-Norwegian-Greek contingent of the flotilla to Gaza, left the port of Athens at around 4:30 P.M. yesterday, after receiving permission from the port authorities and all other relevant Greek authorities.

For more information on the Freedom Flotilla 2: Stay Human search “gaza flotilla 2011 (and the date)” in google or search #flotilla2 on Twitter

Action: Alert The U.S. Government Must Pressure Greece to Let U.S. Boat to Gaza Sail

Joshua Brollier — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 20:45:03 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Release Captain John Klusmire Immediately!

Excerpt

Action Alert: July 3, 2011

The U.S. Government Must Pressure Greece to Let U.S. Boat to Gaza Sail

Release Captain John Klusmire and Our Boat Immediately!

The U.S. Boat to Gaza calls for pressure on the U.S. State Department

People around the world are rallying for the release of the boats that Greece is preventing from sailing to Gaza. We call on you to show your solidarity and support for the flotilla as a whole, and in particular for the captain of the U.S. boat, John Klusmire.

Over the past two weeks, two boats of the international flotilla to Gaza have been sabotaged while docked at Greek ports. No one has claimed responsibility for the damage done to these boats. The potential danger to the U.S. boat was obvious to the captain, the crew and the passengers: there was a clear possibility that the U.S. boat would be sabotaged next.

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Action Alert: July 3, 2011

The U.S. Government Must Pressure Greece to Let U.S. Boat to Gaza Sail

Release Captain John Klusmire and Our Boat Immediately!

The U.S. Boat to Gaza calls for pressure on the U.S. State Department

The departure of the U.S. Boat to Gaza - The Audacity of Hope - was first delayed by a complaint filed by the Israel Law Center and shown to be frivolous. Greek authorities then inspected the boat but, until the boat set sail five days later the, the results of that inspection has not been shared with the captain and his crew. Those results were not shared until the Hellenic Coast Guard stopped The Audacity of Hope some 20 minutes after it had left the dock on Friday, July 1. The Hellenic Coast Guard intercepted the ship and ordered that the ship stop. This order was obeyed. Commandos with drawn rifles ordered the ship to return. It is now impounded at a military dock in Athens and the captain has ben arrested.

Captain Klusmire faces two charges: disturbing sea traffic and endangering passengers; and moving away from the dock in violation of an order not to do so. He is being held in a cell without a bed and does not have access to toilet facilities. The only food and water he has had has been brought in by visitors. He has not been visited by anyone from the U.S. Embassy even though he is entitled to such a visit by international law.

The U.S. Boat to Gaza campaign urges you to immediately take the following actions. Even though it is a holiday weekend we urge you to make these calls now, and if necessary to place calls again on Monday and Tuesday.

Contact your members of Congress and urge him or her to pressure the Greek authorities to drop the charges against Captain Klusmire.

Contact the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Greece. Insist that they fulfill their duty to advocate on behalf of Captain Klusmire and that they demand the release of the U.S. boat by Greece so it can freely sail to Gaza.

Sect. of State Hillary Clinton: 202-647-5291
Kim Richter, Consular Affairs, Overseas American Citizens Services, U.S. State Dept: 202-647-8308
Greek Desk, U.S. State Dept: 202-647-6113
U.S. Embassy in Athens: 011-30-210-721-2951, fax 011-30-210-645-6282, website: athens.usembassy.gov

Activate your emergency response network to publicly demonstrate support for Captain Klusmire and our call for Greece to let the flotilla sail! Pass along this action alert as widely as possible.

An Open Letter to Illinois Senator Mark Kirk

Gerald — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 15:30:09 -0500

Short Information Teaser

from three constituents responding to his call for U.S. Special Forces to attack a flotilla of ships that will sail to Gaza

Excerpt

June 29, 2011

We are Illinois residents writing to you from Athens, Greece. Just before leaving the United States, we wrote to inform your office about our intent to sail on “The Audacity of Hope,” as part of the US Boat to Gaza project. In our letters, we explained why we were traveling to Gaza. We told you of our previous experiences living among Palestinians who lack access to basic necessities, such as clean water, because of the blockade. Referring to Gaza as the world’s largest open-air prison, we mentioned how hard it has been for people to rebuild after previous lethal assaults, especially the Operation Cast Lead attack which ended, after 22 days, on January 18, 2009. According to B’tselem, the foremost Israeli Human Rights Organization, Operation Cast Lead caused the deaths of 1,389 Palestinians in Gaza. Of those, 344 were children. Of the 13 Israelis who were killed, four were soldiers killed by friendly fire.

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June 29, 2011

An Open Letter to Illinois Senator Mark Kirk from three constituents responding to his call for U.S. Special Forces to attack a flotilla of ships that will sail to Gaza

Senator Mark Kirk

Washington, DC
524 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC, 20510

June 29th, 2011

Dear Senator Kirk,

Knowing that you and your staff care deeply about the consequences of unemployment, poor education and dangerously limited health care delivery, we pointed out related statistics affecting people in Gaza where 45% of the population is unemployed and hospital administrators are sounding the alarm because they are running out of crucial medicines. Half of Gaza’s 1.6 million people are under age 18.

As you’ve recently noted, a flotilla of ships plans to arrive in Gaza. Our ship will carry 3,000 letters addressed to Gazan children and families. Other boats are carrying humanitarian assistance.

Greek authorities have been checking into various complaints which have stalled the flotilla’s progress. In our case, a complaint was lodged by the Israel Law Center, located in Tel Aviv, suggesting that our boat is not seaworthy. Two of the boats have been sabotaged while docked in the harbor, causing further delays.

A website, www.military.com, reports that you said the United States should “make available all necessary special operations and naval support to the Israeli Navy to effectively disable flotilla vessels before they can pose a threat to Israeli coastal security or put Israeli lives at risk.”

You have an unusual opportunity to demonstrate thoughtful reconsideration of your earlier decision. Op-ed pieces have appeared in Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, encouraging the Israeli government to let the flotilla pass.

“There is nearly nothing which more effectively delegitimizes Israel - and makes Israel look more like an uncaring blockhead state - than does the siege of Gaza,” wrote Bradley Burston, Senior Editor of Haaretz and a former Israeli Defense Force medic. “The siege benefits Hamas in a thousand ways and Israel in none. But there is one thing that does the work of delegitimization even better: attacking civilians in order to protect the siege. Enter the 21st century. Before it’s too late. You’re not young commandos anymore… Do your nation a favor - act your age. The flotilla is not a terrorist fleet. It is not an arms shipment. The flotilla is, however, a statement about Israel, a judgment of its policies, and, in the end, the verdict will come directly from you.”

Senator Kirk, we are your constituents. It’s not too late for you to acknowledge that your earlier call for military action against us jeopardizes our safety and to reverse your claim which insinuates that we are dangerous people. We write with utmost respect for our collective responsibility to secure a better world, breaking the irrational cycle of military aggression and upholding basic human rights of all people.

Sincerely, Max Suchan, Chicago IL Kathy Kelly, Chicago IL Robert Naiman, Champaign-Urbana

Staying human: Preparing to sail to Gaza

Gerald — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:01:38 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly Waiting to Board the Freedom Flotilla II

Excerpt

June 27, 2011

Last week, newly-arrived in Athens as part of the US Boat to Gaza project, our team of activists gathered for nonviolence training. We are here to sail to Gaza, in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, in our ship, “The Audacity of Hope.” Our team, and nine other ships’ crews from countries around the world, want Israel to end its lethal blockade of Gaza by letting our crews through to shore to meet with Gazans. The US ship will bring over 3,000 letters of support to a population suffering its fifth continuous decade of de facto occupation, now in the form of a military blockade controlling Gaza’s sea and sky, punctuated by frequent deadly military incursions, that has starved Gaza’s economy and people to the exact level of cruelty considered acceptable to the domestic population of our own United States, Israel’s staunchest ally.

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June 27, 2011

The international flotilla last year was brutally attacked and the Turkish ship fired on from the air, with a cherry picked video clip of the resulting panic presented to the world to justify nine deaths, one of a United States citizen, most of them execution-style killings. So it’s essential, albeit a bit bizarre, to plan for how we will respond to military assaults. Israeli news reports say that their naval commandos are preparing to use attack dogs and snipers to board the boats. In the past, they have used water cannons, taser guns, stink bombs, sound bombs, stun guns, tear gas, and pepper spray against flotilla passengers. I’ve tried to make a mental list of plausible responses: remove glasses, don life jacket, affix clip line which might prevent sliding off the deck, carry a half onion to offset effect of tear gas, remember to breathe.

Israel Defense Forces are reportedly training for a fierce assault intended to “secure” each boat in the flotilla, the”Freedom Flotilla 2.” As passengers specifically on the U.S. boat, we may be spared the most violent responses, although Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not ruled out such violent responses and has preemptively certified any response we may “provoke” (in sailing from international waters to a coastline that is not part of Israel) is an expression of Israel’s “right to defend themselves.” Israel says it is prepared for a number of scenarios, ranging “from no violence” (which it knows full well to expect) to “extreme violence.” We are preparing ourselves not to panic, and to practice disciplined nonviolence whatever scenario Israel decides to enact.

If they overcome our boat swiftly, they will presumably handcuff us and possibly hood us, before commandeering our ship toward an Israeli port, removing us from the ship, jailing us and (judging from their past actions) deporting us. I don’t know what country I would be deported to, but I would eventually return to the U.S. and to my home city of Chicago, and to a safety I cannot share with the desperate people of Gaza, or friends from throughout this region so troubled by war, much of it instigated by my own country.

The slogan of our flotilla is “Stay Human.” It’s advice that exposure to violence, real or imagined, always tempts us to forget. Young friends I have met in Afghanistan, faced with pervasive everyday precarity I cannot easily imagine, have expressed this idea in a new video which utterly takes my breath away. They ask Gazan youth to hold on to hope and to the capacity for childlike joy:”To friends in Gaza: don’t stay angry for too long, Stay together, and love from us in Afghanistan!”

My fellow passenger John Barber recently visited Gaza, and this morning he told me a harrowing story of a Gazan family, that of a farmer named Nasr, living near the Gazan-Israeli buffer zone. The first attack took place in June 2010. To quote John’s website:

…the Israeli army attacked the family home while the children were playing outside… Nasr’s wife, Naama, was in the front yard when a tank 500 meters from the home fired shells packed with nails at the home. Nasr’s wife, torn to ribbons, bled to death in the yard when ambulances were not permitted down the narrow dirt road to his home.

Ambulance stoppages are a frequent punitive measure used against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

“After the second attack,” which occurred in April 2011:

Nasr’s family moved to a house in the village, near to the cemetery where his wife was buried. One night, around midnight, Nasr woke to find his children gone. He went outside and found them at their mother’s grave.”

The next day he took them away from that village and back to their land, to try and put the past behind them, and await a future they can barely hope will be kind.

I hope that our ship will make it to Gaza. I hope Johnny Barber can again visit Nasr, and that I can visit the family and the trapped young men who sheltered me during the final days of the crushing December 2008 “Operation Cast Lead” bombardment. I hope that our ship will make it out of dock – acting on an “anonymous complaint,” the government here has demanded an inspection of several days before they will allow our (entirely seaworthy) ship to sail. With its world-headline-producing economic troubles, Greece seems incredibly vulnerable to the intense pressure that the Israeli and U.S. governments seem openly prepared to exert: we hope that neither economic nor political blackmail will succeed at stopping our ship from leaving the spot near Athens where it is waiting to receive us.

“Please don’t lose the human capacity for happiness.” My Afghan friends in the video urge us to stay human. Ali, who speaks in the video, has been harassed by Afghan security forces since becoming active with the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers. So has his family. Others of his companions have faced death threats, interrogation, arson and theft. Their persistence encourages and guides me, and I struggle to let their persistence urge me on, because staying human is also about doing what is right.

I think of Nasr’s children watching their mother die, and I think that if they’re going to stay human then I and my countrymen and women ought to help. We have to become more human than we’ve so far managed to be: We have to make sacrifices to stop the crimes that are ultimately being committed in our names. In different ways, we have to risk the consequences of being where we need to be when we need to be there. We have to stand up to injustice and with the victims of injustice, and rely on our opponents to find their humanity in time, given enough examples of what it can look like.

When we find ourselves, against all odds, staying human, that example surprises us and helps sustain us in hope for the power of humanity. We hope we will be allowed through to Gaza, we hope that the blockade will be lifted, and that in this time when humankind can so little afford the nightmares of greed and ignorance that rend the Middle East and that render our leaders incapable of uniting to address ever-more desperate, ever-more-frightening global crises, we as a species, one with no assurance of its perpetual survival, will somehow find some way to stay human.

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Breaking Blockades for Peace: Kathy Kelly hopes for peace as she books passage on a flotilla to Gaza

Gerald — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:15:04 -0500

Short Information Teaser

By Jenny Tomkins / In These Times

Excerpt

by Jenny Tomkins
June 20, 2011

“Courageous” is not a term that Kathy Kelly would ever use to describe herself, but others might. When the shock and awe campaign was bombarding Baghdad in March 2003, Kelly was not on the streets protesting or at home watching the nightly news. She was in Baghdad with the friends she had made there on 24 previous visits to deliver medical and other supplies during the U.S.-led embargo.

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by Jenny Tomkins
June 20, 2011

Kelly, a co-coordinator of the antiwar group Voices for Creative Nonviolence, has been living her pacifist philosophy for decades now. It began when she was studying for an M.A. in theology, living in Chicago’s Hyde Park. She was struck, she says, by the fact that she “couldn’t just sing pious songs” and “never saw or interacted with poor people.”

So in 1979 she moved to Uptown, a North Side Chicago neighborhood where, she says, she met some of the finest people she knows. Kelly has never looked back. She lives a life of voluntary poverty—not a big stretch, she says, since she was raised by nuns who were never intent on acquiring personal wealth.

In late June, Kelly will travel to Gaza aboard the Audacity of Hope as part of a flotilla challenging the Israeli blockade by delivering aid. Kelly spoke with In These Times about the role of nonviolence in the Middle East, and current U.S. military operations.

Given that human history seems to be a catalog of human violence, can we change?

Ninety percent of our lives are shaped by decisions based on nonviolence. Most people, when they get into a dispute, don’t resort to clobbering the other person or destroying their property. But when it comes to foreign policy I think that many people, not only in the United States but all over the world, tend to step back and say, “Well, these are the problems that we have entrusted to our leaders,” or, “We can’t possibly influence our country’s foreign policy.” And very often the leaders end up following patterns that are utterly reckless and irrational.

And so I wonder if there might not be a point at which, all around the world, we might begin to grapple with the fact that the weapons in our arsenals and the use of those weapons is crippling humanity at a time when the greatest terror we really face is the threat to our environment.

If our leaders take us into irrational wars, what would it have taken for citizens to prevent the war in Iraq?

Well, for instance, in the 2003 protests against the U.S. war in Iraq, I would have liked to have seen people turn out in Chicago on Michigan Avenue, sit down and refuse to leave and, as soon as they were released—if they were arrested—go right back downtown and do it again. Still, people came closer than ever before to stopping a war before it started. And one of the reasons people turned out in massive numbers is that, in spite of the fact that the mainstream media seldom covered realities in Iraq, activists across the United States had been traveling to Iraq and organizing outreach and education events for years, even though the United States was hauling them into courts for violating the economic sanctions against Iraq.

When you look at our senseless military attacks destabilizing the world and preventing us from seeking solutions to real species-threatening world events, like impending climate collapse from global warming, it’s irrational to feel that we’re too comfortable to clamor for change. When people understand this, and understand the impact our choices will have on their children and grandchildren, maybe we’ll have our own Tahrir Squares.

Is nonviolence affecting the peace process in the Middle East?

Palestinians have held sustained demonstrations at the wall for years. On May 15, Palestinian refugees from Syria, Jordan and Lebanon, as well as residents of Gaza, tried to enter Israel. Israeli troops killed 14 people that day and hundreds of people were wounded. But the nonviolent demonstrations continue. Teams of Israeli and Palestinian activists, who have already lost loved ones because of violence, have traveled together to places all over the world to help influence public opinion on behalf of just and fair solutions.

What is your goal in the U.S. Boat to Gaza project?

Well, there will be 10 to 13 boats. Passengers on the flotilla intend to enter Gaza, deliver letters and humanitarian relief and hear from Gazans about their experiences living under siege. Egypt has decided to open the Rafah border crossing, and this is good news. But, it doesn’t override the fact that Israel is still imposing collective punishment on a civilian population. We are acting on the belief that the Palestinians must have control over their own passageways and points of contact with the world.

The flotilla boats will be a way to focus attention on Gaza. The Israeli government would like to erase awareness of how Israel’s sustained and massive attacks, along with the blockade, have affected Gazan people’s lives.

Do you agree with the Obama administration’s actions in Libya?

We often hear that we are preventing atrocities and later learn that we were deceived. Simply by stopping aid to dictatorial client states around the world, we couldn’t help but do more for democracy than bombing this or that dictator’s people to dust. We are using our wealth and our resources to produce more and more weapons to protect our way of life—an unfair and unjust way of life in relation to the rest of the planet.

I don’t think the United States’ role is to make decisions for people living in Libya about who will govern them or how they will organize their efforts to overthrow their government.

You have expressed grave concerns about our growing use of drones in warfare.

I suppose in the big picture, one of the most important words to focus on is proliferation. In 1945, one nation had the atomic bomb: the United States. Look at our world today. We have not only created a menacing threat to our world but also, when you think of the trillions and trillions of dollars that went into the building of those weapons systems that could have gone to meeting human needs, this proliferation has been a catastrophe for human beings.

Now look at the drones. We are seeing a technology that can be replicated so much more easily than the technology needed to develop nuclear weapons, and right now 49 nation-states have the drone technology. There are more than 250 companies developing different versions of drones. This is like the Lady Gaga of the industry. How much security are we really creating by making this drone usage normative for air forces all around the globe? That should be a situation that gives everybody pause because, of course, these drones can all be weaponized, at least the larger ones. The usage of the drones over the Pakistani skies both for surveillance and for combat has caused intense anger for years. There were 16 efforts to kill Baitullah Mehsud, the tribal leader from North Waziristan. The first 15 attempts killed the wrong person. Under the Obama administration, the use of drones has increased dramatically.

What should President Obama be doing in Afghanistan?

President Obama consistently states that the United States will not tolerate other governments or nonstate entities that violate human rights or invade, attack and occupy other countries, and yet he justifies similar U.S. behavior by saying we must take these actions to protect ourselves. Obama could level with the public and explain that expenditures on the so-called “war on terror” have primarily secured corporate interests in the defense industry, rather than bamboozle the public into thinking that the United States is in Afghanistan to eradicate and dismantle the al-Qaeda network. He should admit that the United States wants to protect the oil pipeline to Asia and thereby have greater influence over the flow of energy resources available to China.

He should acknowledge that the most recent presidential election in Afghanistan was fraudulent and that the United States has been supporting a government in which nearly every ministry is controlled by a warlord with a proven record of human rights abuses.

And, finally, he should consult with the United Nations to learn how the United States could pay reparations for suffering caused in Afghanistan and develop a plan for swift withdrawal of U.S. troops and security contractors. Immediate plans should be undertaken to close the U.S. bases in Afghanistan, and President Obama should inform President Karzai that he will not sign an agreement to establish permanent bases there.

For Gaza, but not against Israel / Chicago Sun-Times

Gerald — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:49:19 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly and Max Suchan Interviewed About What Motivates Them to Join the Flotilla to Gaza

Excerpt

ESTHER CEPEDA
June 20, 2011

In a few days, slightly more than a year since a flotilla of ships attempted to breech Israel’s naval blockade to call attention to the plight of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, 50 passengers, including three from the Chicago area, will sail to the Gaza Strip on a boat named “The Audacity of Hope.” As part of the second international “freedom flotilla,” they’ll attempt the same feat to deliver humanitarian aid in the form of letters of support and friendship

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ESTHER CEPEDA
June 20, 2011

If you recall the ruckus last year’s attempt raised, you’ll understand what danger these 50 activists — including Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Color Purple” Alice Walker, author and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, and Tony-nominated actress Kathy Chalfant — are facing.

The flotilla’s main ship, the Mavi Marmara, was raided, leaving nine humanitarian activists, including one U.S. citizen, dead. The international uproar continues over whether Israeli forces were right to act as they did when boarding the ship.

In the year since that incident, the international and U.S. debate about Middle East politics has been reduced to sound bytes about who is “for” and who is “against” Israel.

“I think when you frame it in terms of this being a human rights issue, of believing the Palestinians have a right to live in dignity without an army imposing restrictions on them, you see we’re not against Israel. We’re really just asking Israel to uphold human rights and international law,” says 22-year-old Logan Square resident Max Suchan, who will be on The Audacity of Hope. He works with Palestine Solidarity Project, a Palestinian-led initiative that organizes unarmed resistance to the occupation.

Suchan told me that one-quarter of the activists setting sail from Greece this week are practicing Jews who, like the other passengers, are critical of Israel’s policies, much as many Americans are critical of some U.S. foreign policies.

Robert Naiman, policy director of Just Foreign Policy, a U.S. foreign policy reform organization, told me that though politics are inextricably linked with this voyage that he’ll be on, “our main concern is simply to raise the profile of the blockade and increase pressure on the U.S. to end the blockade.”

Naiman, an Elmhurst native and current resident of Champaign-Urbana, told me the focus is firmly on “the 1.5 million Gazans who can’t travel, freely work, study or access medical care. They’re prevented from exporting goods, from importing medical supplies; farmers are prevented farming land and fishermen from fishing.”

“As far as being accused of being anti-Israel, we just reject the idea the blockade is premised on: that it’s an economic warfare against Hamas,” Naiman said, referring to the political party that governs the Gaza Strip and is widely recognized as a terrorist organization. “But to believe that all these restrictions on Palestinians are justified you have to erase any distinction between Hamas and the 1.5 million human beings who have nothing to do with Hamas but are living under restrictions.”

Nobel Peace Prize nominee Kathy Kelly, a lifelong Chicagoan and current Andersonville resident, told me she wants the American people, and Chicagoans, to take ownership of our collective role in the Gaza Strip residents’ plight.

“Many people aren’t aware of the very definite connection between the U.S. and Israel’s capacity both to impose the siege and back it up with formidable weapons,” Kelly told me as she prepared for the passage. “Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Caterpillar — these are major companies selling huge weapons systems to the Israeli government and that’s why it takes the stance of no negotiation with Hamas. The U.S. gives the Israeli military $3 billion in foreign military aid every year and the people in Gaza have the right to ask the U.S. ‘How can you keep doing this?’ ”

Those questions will surely come back to the forefront in the coming days. The Audacity of Hope’s passengers are set to arrive in Greece Tuesday and set sail a few days later. No one knows how they’ll fare in the Mediterranean Sea. Israeli military forces have vowed to let no ships cross into Gaza, but one thing is certain: Chicago and the whole world will be watching.

Richard Levy & Kathy Kelly Join US Peace Activists to Sail to Gaza In Humanitarian Flotilla

Gerald — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:39:15 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Watch Interview on Democracy Now

Excerpt

June 20, 2011

Dozens of Americans hope to set sail this week on a U.S.-flagged ship, “The Audacity of Hope,” as part of an international flotilla which aims to challenge Israel’s embargo of the Gaza Strip. Palestinian solidarity activists are setting sail from a number of ports just over a year after Israeli forces killed nine activists on an aid boat called the Mavi Marmara, which was part of the first such international flotilla. Israel says it will again use force to stop the aid flotilla from reaching Gaza. We speak with passengers of the U.S. boat, New York labor attorney Richard Levy and peace activist Kathy Kelly. Levy says the flotilla’s challenge to Israel’s embargo is legal and that it is the blockade that is illegal. “It’s a violation of the Geneva Accords to occupy a country, as has been done here through the control of all its borders, and then block supplies, block people from moving in and out,” says Levy.

Body

June 20, 2011

“Don’t Look Away—The Siege of Gaza Must End”

Gerald — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 10:43:06 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly Prepares to Leave for the Gaza Flotilla

Excerpt

June 16, 2011

In Late June 2011, I’m going to be a passenger on “The Audacity of Hope,” the USA boat in this summer’s international flotilla to break the illegal and deadly Israeli siege of Gaza. Organizers, supporters and passengers aim to nonviolently end the brutal collective punishment imposed on Gazan residents since 2006 when the Israeli government began a stringent air, naval and land blockade of the Gaza Strip explicitly to punish Gaza’s residents for choosing the Hamas government in a democratic election. Both the Hamas and the Israeli governments have indiscriminately killed civilians in repeated attacks, but the vast preponderance of these outrages over the length of the conflict have been inflicted by Israeli soldiers and settlers on unarmed Palestinians. I was witness to one such attack when last in Gaza two years ago, under heavy Israeli bombardment in a civilian neighborhood in Rafah.

Body

June 16, 2011

In January 2009, I lived with a family in Rafah during the final days of the “Operation Cast Lead” bombing. We were a few streets down from an area where there was heavy bombing. Employing its ever-replenished stockpile of U.S. weapons, the Israeli government sought to destroy tunnels beneath the Egyptian border through which food, medicine, badly-needed building supplies, and possibly a few weapons as well were evading the internationally condemned blockade and entering Gaza.

Throughout that terrible assault, Israel pounded civilians in Gaza, turning villages, homes, refugee camps, schools, mosques and infrastructure into rubble. According to Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem,, the attack killed 1,385 Palestinians, nearly a quarter of them minors, with an uncountable number more to succumb, in the months and years following, to malnutrition, disease, and suicidal despair, the consequences of forced impoverishment under a still continuing siege that salts Gaza’s dreadful wounds by preventing it from even starting to rebuild.

All I could feel at the time was that the people in the Gaza Strip were horribly trapped, almost paralyzed.

The day of the cease-fire, when the sounds of bombing stopped, my young friends insisted that we must move quickly to visit the Al Shifaa hospital in Gaza City. Doctors there were shaken and stunned, after days of trying to save lives in a hopelessly overcrowded emergency room, with blood pooling at their feet. Dr. Nafez Abu Shabham, head of Al Shifaa’s burn unit, put his head in his hands and spoke incredulously to us. “For 22 days, the world watched,” he lamented, “and no country tried to stop the killing.”

He may well be putting his head in his hands again, today as too many of us have stopped even watching. “Human rights groups in Gaza are urgently requesting international aid groups and donor groups to intervene and deliver urgent medical aid to Palestinian hospitals in Gaza,” according to a June 14 Al Jazeera report. “Palestinian officials say that Gaza’s medicinal stock is nearly empty and is in crisis. This affects first aid care, in addition to all other levels of medical procedures.”

After the attack, I visited the Gaza City dormitory of a young university student with two of his friends. It was a shambles. We sifted through broken glass and debris, trying to salvage some notebooks and texts. Their lives have been like that. They’ve since graduated but there is no work. “The Gaza Strip enters its fifth year of a full Israeli blockade by land, air and sea with unemployment at 45.2%, one of the highest rates in the world,” according to a UN aid agency report. (June 14, 2011). Harvard scholar Sara Roy, in a June 2, 2009 report for Harvard’s Crimson Review, noted that :

“Gaza is an example of a society that has been deliberately reduced to a state of abject destitution, its once productive population transformed into one of aid-dependent paupers….After Israel’s December (2008) assault, Gaza’s already-compromised conditions have become virtually unlivable. Livelihoods, homes, and public infrastructure have been damaged or destroyed on a scale that even the Israel Defense Forces admitted was indefensible. In Gaza today there is no private sector to speak of and no industry,”

When the bombing had stopped, we visited homes and villages where the unarmed had been killed. Sabrina Tavernise of the New York Times would later verify that, in the village of Al Atatra, IDF soldiers had fired white phosphorous missiles into the home of a woman named Sabah Abu Halemi, leaving her badly burned and burning to death her husband and three of her children. I visited her in the hospital, watching a kindly Palestinian doctor spend his greatly needed time off sitting at her bedside, offering only wordless comfort as she gripped his hand.

We must not turn away from suffering in Gaza.

We must continue trying to connect with Gazans living under siege.

There is some risk involved in this flotilla. The Israeli government threatens to board each ship in the flotilla with snipers and attack dogs. A year ago the Israeli Navy fired on the Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, from the air, then documented its passengers’ panicked response as their justification for executing nine activists, including one young U.S. citizen, Furkhan Dogan, shot several times in the back and head at close range. It then refused to cooperate with an international investigation.

The Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, amounting to what is internationally recognized as an apartheid system, could end in peace, with Israel abandoning paranoia and racial violence to allow peace. Apartheid ended in South Africa without the wave of bloodshed and reprisals that its supporters claimed to fear as their excuse for holding on to the wealth and power which their system afforded them. They achieved greater peace and safety for themselves and their children by finding the courage to finally allow peace, safety, and freedom to their neighbors. It’s a lesson the U.S. government has all too often missed. This June, the governments of Israel and, (above all), the United States must finally embrace the audacity of hope.

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly