On July 11, the remaining passengers, all women, on the U.S. boat to Gaza, "The Audacity of Hope," swabbed the decks and sweltered. The boat and its 50 passengers had been impounded at the Greek Coast Guard dock following its brave attempt to sail to Gaza to break Israel’s illegal blockade of this small slice of the Mediterranean and deliver 3,000 letters to the children of Gaza.
The Audacity of Hope was one of 10 boats in Freedom Flotilla 2, carrying passengers from 22 countries to support the people of Gaza. The trip was aborted when Greek Coast Guard commandos blocked the boat and pointed cocked and loaded AK47s at the unarmed passengers, including 86-year-old holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein; celebrated author, poet and activist Alice Walker; and a group of musicians, retired military, social workers and others dedicated to ending Israel’s cruel, illegal blockade of Gaza.
The boat and its passengers were forced into a locked compound, and our captain was jailed with no food, water, bed or toilet. A group of passengers who fasted in protest over mistreatment of the captain were repeatedly taken by force to the Greek police station and held without charges for hours, even on July 4 while holding a vigil outside the embassy gates, a small taste of what Palestinians have endured for decades.
When asked, the Greek police said they were acting at the direction of the U.S. Embassy, supposedly charged with protecting, not imprisoning, U.S. citizens.
Ironically, at the same time, Israeli Knesset members passed legislation banning Palestinian calls for economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel and its settlements due to its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, violations of international law and treatment of Palestinians as inferiors before the law. This legislation mandated monetary penalties for Palestinian or Israeli offenders even if no damages could be proved and is reminiscent of when Martin Luther King Jr. faced a fine or imprisonment under an old anti-boycott law during the Montgomery bus boycott.
One of the most distressing aspects of our ordeal came on June 23 when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seemed to give Israel a green light to attack us, despite our being nonviolent activists. She claimed that "it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves."
Both Israel and the U.S. are curtailing the fundamental rights of civilians to express political views through peaceful protest. And, since our government won’t hold Israel accountable for its war crimes and crimes against humanity, it is up to us.
Yet passengers’ rights to express opinions through peaceful protest are being suppressed. The rights of participants to travel directly from international waters to Gaza in peaceful protest were denied by Israeli, American and Greek governmental interference. And rights of Israeli and West Bank citizens who wish to protest Israeli oppression through boycotting illegal Israeli settlement products are also being suppressed.
The good news in the overreactions of the U.S. and Israel to Freedom Flotilla 2 and the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement is that both countries have suffered a significant loss to their international standing, a sign of the success of both movements.
In fact, we intend to return to Gaza. Why? Because according to an Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs report for June 2011, the combination of the blockade and widespread destruction of homes and infrastructure during the "Cast Lead" offensive has generated immense construction and reconstruction challenges. Therefore, overall projects approved since the easing of the blockade in June 2010 only address a minority of urgent Palestinian needs. More important, we will return because Palestinians are not yet free.
The BDS movement and flotillas cannot be stopped. Both movements will persist until the oppression of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank cease.
