FreeGaza

Susan Abulhawa "you Have Crossed All Lines"

2024-12-06T00:00:00-05:00

This brilliant speech is probably the most powerful piece of rhetoric about this conflict. This speech will go down in history. Please watch and continue to share. Bless this woman for her strength and courage, it’s hard to believe her truth is not shouted from the rooftops. Israel is committing genocide, and it’s played out every day on social media. It’s heartbreaking.

BREAKING, December 26, 2024: The video has apparently been removed, but her brilliant words have not. Here is the text from the video.

As she says in the speech, “This debate is ultimately about the humanity and worth of Palestinians.”

https://braveneweurope.com/susan-abulhawa-address-to-the-oxford-union-on-israels-genocide

Susan Abulhawa "you Have Crossed All Lines" was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on December 06, 2024.

"susan Abulhawa You Have Crossed All Lines"

2024-12-06T00:00:00-05:00

As she says in the speech, “This debate is ultimately about the humanity and worth of Palestinians.”

https://youtu.be/nW5U_ZqGmZU?si=s8WcIrECCZzmhiid

"susan Abulhawa You Have Crossed All Lines" was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on December 06, 2024.

The Legacy Of Vangelis Pissias

2024-11-23T00:00:00-05:00

By Paul Larudee

The recruitment of Vangelis Pissias to the project to break the siege of Gaza by sea began sixteen years ago, when our beloved friend and collaborator, Riad Hamed, was tragically found dead at the bottom of a lake in Texas, his hands and legs tied. He was part of our movement, and he had used his experience as a logistics professional in West Asia to inspect potential boats for the project.

We had to find another way. So we asked another friend, Georgia Milonaki, to help. She introduced us to Vangelis. I didn’t know him. We communicated only by encrypted email in very short phrases. “Here is a picture of a boat that is suitable. If you approve, send €9999 to person A and another €9999 to person B and another €9999 to person C, etc.” We found donors and sent the money without knowing more than the name and email address. Several months later, I arrived in Greece and met Vangelis at the house of Mikhalis and Litsa Tiktopoulos.

As you know, we succeeded in breaking the siege of Gaza on August 23, 2008, and we could not have done it without Vangelis. He died a national treasure to many in Greece, and for good reason. He was undoubtedly born with great leadership and organizational skills, but he developed them much further in the underground resistance to the repressive Greek dictatorship, 1967-74. Afterwards, he became a university professor of marine hydrology, but continued to lead the struggle for justice in Greece and throughout West Asia, borrowing on his upbringing in the large and historical Greek community in Alexandria, Egypt, which lent him a measure of proficiency in Arabic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suBW3uf-qmc&t=4s

Vangelis had the mind of a general, an engineer and a philosopher. He managed to keep the entire project of boat construction and logistics totally secret until the last minute, and thwarted the Israeli attempts to shut it down. He had contacts and allies everywhere - in Crete, Cypress, in Gaza, even in the tiny island of Kastelorizou, which played an unexpectedly important role.

It was an extraordinary accomplishment, and I was privileged to be at his side for much of it. Of course, all of us made it happen, but without some of us, the project would have succeeded nevertheless. Without Vangelis, I’m not so certain; he was as close to being indispensable as I can imagine. He continued in the subsequent voyages to Gaza and the 2010 Flotilla, which was attacked by Israeli troops, with a loss of ten passengers. At one point during the arrest of the remaining hundreds, Vangelis and I found ourselves in a sizeable holding room. He was injured with a broken leg. But when a group of Israeli uniformed thugs attacked me (for insolence, I guess), he fought them, anyway. I practice nonviolence, but he thought it was foolishness.

But mostly we were alike. Vangelis was more than a colleague and collaborator for me. He was a friend or brother, perhaps even a twin brother, since we were born only three months apart. We loved analysis, strategy, planning, how to change things, how to fight injustice through practical means, how to defy the powerful in ways they do not expect. This was our entertainment and our joy. We enjoyed doing the impossible, and I know many of you enjoy the same. And of course, we enjoyed good food, good wine, good music and good company, especially at a particular obscure restaurant in Athens where the food was so good that the owner refused to put a sign outside for fear of attracting too many people.

That restaurant no longer exists, and now neither does my brother, Vangelis. He was a champion, a general, a genius, and a dear friend and brother to thousands of people everywhere. We shall all miss him.

I visited him last year for what became the last time. We last spoke in July. The world is poorer without him.

The Legacy Of Vangelis Pissias was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on November 23, 2024.

Our Love To Gaza

2024-08-28T00:00:00-04:00

Greta Berlin, Kathleen Elliott Sheetz Greeves

On August 28, 2008, our two small boats left Gaza. In all the planning we’d done before leaving for Gaza, we never thought to plan what we’d do if we arrived. We never had to worry, for Palestinian hospitality overwhelmed us.

Our 6 days were filled with opportunities to visit hospitals, Rachel Corrie’s memorial site, speak at Universities, visit a brand-new museum… and eat. Oh, how we ate. And we watched theatre productions, talked to children, and danced, and danced. We were filled with relief that we’d made it. Palestinians were filled with joy when we arrived.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TT8G2AjYG-s…

This 13-minute video is raw footage of some of the events during the days we were there. There is no narration, just a wash of images set to music. We never thought the scenes would become an archive of what Gaza looked like before Israel destroyed everything. And, we have no idea what’s happened to the children, who are now in their 20s and 30s. Their faces are forever frozen in time.

In the museum segment in the film, we were invited to view a private collection belonging to Jawdat Khoudary. After we left, he opened the “National Museum of Archaeology” for the people of Gaza. And a bit of good news in all the horror and destruction, he had loaned his most precious pieces to Switzerland just before the blockade, so they are in storage there.

We carried 8 Palestinians back to Cyprus that day. And we arrived four more times. But this day, August 28, 2008, will never be forgotten by those of us on the boats and those Palestinians who welcomed us.

Videographers: Katherine Elliott Sheetz Greaves, Courtney Sheetz

Our Love To Gaza was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on August 28, 2024.

We Were Given Palestinian Passports

2024-08-02T00:00:00-04:00

By Free Gaza

On the day our first successful flotilla left Gaza, August 28, 2008, we were presented with Palestinian passports. The 44 of us who received them treasure them. The brutal assassination of Ismail Haniyeh has shocked us all. He was very humble when we met him in 2008, lived modestly in a refugee camp in Gaza, and was not ostentatious the way Abbas and the PA were when they tried to take over Gaza after Hamas won the election. Abbas had a mansion in Gaza. Haniyeh had a modest 3-bedroom house.

Here are just some of the comments from our passengers on that first trip. “The news today about the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh was truly shocking - here’s my view for what it’s worth. I met Ismail Haniyeh several times in Gaza and interviewed him once … becoming one of the few western journalists to do so … that’s what journalists do for a living: interview interesting people. So please don’t insult my intelligence by calling me a terrorist sympathiser, that’s just lazy and ignorant. Any journalist worth their salt would have jumped at the same interview.” Yvonne Ridley

Kathleen O’Connor Wang was demonstrating in Washington DC and talked about how we all received our passports from Haniyeh. https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0UIty4rcQg/ said, “I am in mourning.”

We were so thrilled that day, August 28, 2008. Haniya gave diplomatic Palestinian passports to 44 international peace activists who returned to Cyprus with a few Palestinians residents on board. We thought we’d opened a sea lane from Cyprus to Gaza. In fact, we were able to sail into Gaza four more times before Israel began attacking us. Here are a few more photos of very happy passengers.

Our deepest sympathies go out to the Palestinians of Gaza and to the remaining family members of this kind and quiet man who had been working on a ceasefire resolution before being assassinated by Israel.

We Were Given Palestinian Passports was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on August 02, 2024.

Of Course Israel Threatens Us

2024-05-28T00:00:00-04:00

A New Post

This piece was a diary entry that I wrote in 1971 Greta Berlin

In 1969, we came back from Syria completely regenerated, with a long list of things the Palestinians needed, especially medical. I could still teach and manage the charity we’d set up, PALAID and Ribhi finally realized he could do a lot if he was willing to talk to the media in Chicago. For the rest of 1969 and 1970, we were on TV all the time talking about the Middle East, Palestine and our work.

TV crews would come to our home and set up cameras to capture Ribhi with his American wife and two adorable children. He wasn’t fired from his engineering job. His fellow engineers thought it quite fascinating he was on TV. We organized seminars and invited the Ambassadors from Syria and Iraq to come and speak. The cachet of having a 501c3, a charity, was really helpful. Over those two years, we became one of the major faces in Chicago of the Palestinian quest for recognition and justice.

That all changed in September 1970 when members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) hijacked four airliners flying to New York City and London. Three were forced to land at Dawson’s Field, a remote desert airstrip near Zarqa, Jordan which then became the PFLP’s “Revolutionary Airport”. By the time it was all over, one hijacker had been killed and one injury reported. The media was on the phone to us the minute the hijackings occurred. We knew nothing, but I had already taught Ribhi how to use their questions to talk about why these hijackings would occur, the frustration of not being heard by the international community and the desire to return home to Palestine.

But there was a terrible downside to being known. We started getting phone calls from Jewish fanatics. Our phone number was listed, because it was the main contact for PALAID. The calls would come in between 2 and 3 am almost every other night They’d swear at us, call us all kinds of names, then hang up. Then, it got worse.

“If anything happens to any of those people on-board those airplanes, something will happen to your kids.”

“You’d better be ready if something happens. I’d worry about your kids if I were you.”

“You want to sacrifice your kids for a bunch of camel jockies?”

We called the police. They said nothing could be done about the threats unless something happened,so we shouldtake the phone off the hook at night or unplug it from the wall.

(There were no cell phones then, and if we disconnected, what if something happened to us?) One policeman suggested buying a whistle and putting it next to the phone, then blow into the receiver. We might break their eardrums, but they’d probably stop calling. I bought a whistle and did exactly that, waiting for the next callers. blowing the whistle as often as they called. The calls stopped, but when I took my children for a walk to our local beach, someone followed us, threw garbage at us as we crossed Sheridan. THat was enough for me and for Ribhi.

We weren’t afraid for the two of us but we were for our 5 and 3-year-old children. I was suddenly aware of why advocating for a cause could easily be stopped if the advocates had children. My father’s admonition, “When you choose your cause, remember you may have to pay the consequences” rang in my ears for days. We couldn’t walk away from what we were doing, but we were deathly afraid something would happen to our children. I would go into their rooms at night. Ribhi took a hammer and nails and nailed their windows shut, but our daughter’s room had a balcony, and we were on the first floor. Threatening the children we adored was enough to make us completely paranoid.

Fnally, I took a six-week leave of absence from teaching, picked up my children and went to a friend’s house in Rockford, Illinois, hiding there until I thought it would be safe. And even then, we weren’t sure they were absolutely safe.

Later, the little organization that kept terrorizing us, calling us names? They metastasized into The Jewish Defense League, an organization on the US domestic terrorist list. Then, Ribhi and I turned PALAID over to the Holy Land Fund, changed our phone number and worked in the background for most of the 70s. I didn’t return “full-frontal” to justice for Palestine for 17 years.

When we collected names of passengers to go on our first trip to Gaza in 2008, one of the criteria we included is that no one had small children. At the last minute, Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of Tony Blair, asked to join us. Sure enough, her children were threatend, but that’s another story.

Of Course Israel Threatens Us was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on May 28, 2024.

Breaking Barriers For One Shining Moment

2024-02-25T00:00:00-05:00

Join in the commemoration of the 15th anniversary of the Free Gaza Movement with their special documentary. Delve into their remarkable journey, which spans over a decade and a half, filled with captivating details and moving songs. This documentary provides an in-depth look at their unwavering commitment to breaking the Israeli blockade on the Gaza Strip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqwOSswL5kg

The documentary showcases the incredible bravery of those who embarked on perilous journeys across treacherous waters, defying adversity to deliver essential humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. Explore the astonishing challenges they faced and the indomitable spirit that kept them going, regardless of the obstacles in their path.

Beyond its gripping narrative, this documentary serves as a testament to the enduring human spirit and the power of resistance in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. It is a celebration of the Free Gaza Movement’s 15-year journey, marked by hope, solidarity, and determination. Throughout the video, viewers will be moved by the evocative songs that have become anthems for the movement, providing both inspiration and unity to their cause.

Join the celebration, be part of the legacy, and help spread this remarkable story by sharing this video with your friends and family.

Two wonderful translators put this 40-minute tribute to our first sailing to Gaza togehter, then translated it into Arabic. We post today as a remembrance of that first trip and as a tribute to the people of Gaza. Never forget them.

Breaking Barriers For One Shining Moment was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on February 25, 2024.

We Shall Overcome

2023-08-27T00:00:00-04:00

By Greta Berlin and Kathy Sheetz Footage courtesy of Kathy and Courtney Sheetz, @knowyourfootprints

On the occasion of the Free Gaza movement’s 15th anniversary, we’re posting the eleven videos of our journey. We sailed into Gaza that bright afternoon, August 23, 2008, to the cheers of 40,000 Palestinians waiting for us. These videos show our struggles, our optimism, the strength of Palestinians waiting for us, why we sailed, and how we finally arrived.

We hope you enjoy watching them as much as we enjoyed arriving on that day.

On August 22, 2008, 44 human rights activists boarded two small fishing boats and sailed toward Gaza. In spite of constant Israeli harassment, we entered the Port of Gaza to the cheers of 40,000 well-wishers.

For one brief shining moment, Gaza was free.

Episode 1: We begin with this beautiful send-off from Jane Chesterman Jewell.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgv8BJhmNWc&t=13s

Episode 2: We’ve been asked many times why 44 of us were crazy enough to think we could actually sail to Gaza and why we would choose such a risky direct action against the military might of Israel.

We were asked to think about the personal reason we were going. Please share widely as a tribute to the Palestinians of Gaza and those of us who sailed 15 years ago. We hope you enjoy the passionate answers.

https://youtu.be/UnaOfWseozk

Episode 3: Why did we succeed?

We succeeded because we had a tight-knit core that we already trusted, as all organizers had worked with the ISM. In fact, the majority of the 44 passengers were graduates of the ISM. Literally, many of us had faced Israeli settlers and the military when we worked in the occupied West Bank, and nothing…nothing…was going to stop us. We’d already been shot, tear-gassed, arrested and some of us deported. The more they pushed, the more we pushed back.

We succeeded because we never lost sight that our objective was to sail to Gaza. These are just some of the internationals who believed in the dream of sailing to Gaza. George Katsiaficas, Ph.D., Norman Saul, Ph.D. Huwaida Arraf, Co-Founder, ISM, Greta Berlin, Co-founder, Free Gaza movement, Soctt Kennedy. Kathy Sheetz

https://youtu.be/wx49ly4M-Ks

Episode 4: Our first three episodes talked about why we wanted to sail to Gaza. Every passenger had a personal reason. And those reasons solidified our commitment to each other as well as to the Palestinians waiting for us in Gaza.

But what were we actually going in? This episode shows you what those wooden boots looked like, how they were readied for a trip across the Mediterranean and how small they really were.

https://youtu.be/suBW3uf-qmc

Episode 5: The song you hear on this clip was written for us as we got ready to leave. And these are photos of just some of the 44 passengers on board those boats as well as the Palestinians who greeted us when we arrived.

We hope you enjoy this one as it was so joyous.

https://youtu.be/CxSr-4vby98

Episode 6: Listen to the people of Gaza

The first 5 stories were full of joy, anticipation, and frustration as we waited to sail to Gaza. This one reminds us of why we must continue to put pressure on Israel.

During that first trip to Gaza, Kathy Sheetz interviewed Palestinian/American NASA Astro-physicist, Professor Suleiman Baraka. He was waiting to return to the US, and Israel had refused to allow him out of Gaza’s concentration camp. He was finally able to leave because, after our first trip, Israel opened Gaza’s prison gates for a few weeks (to save face). His wife and children were not.

Four months later, during Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Occupation Forces dropped a bomb on his home, killing his 11-year-old son.

Listen to his plea for humanity… as well as the plea of this little girl at the end of the tape to stop the insanity of Israel’s occupation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xHk9_X1Sas

Episide 7: Taking to Hedy Epstein, Holocaust Survivor

“In total by August 2023, at least 208 Palestinians - 36 of them children - have been killed by Israeli fire since the first of the year, a rate of almost one fatality per day.” Why can’t we stop Israeli war crimes? Why can’t we hold their leaders accountable? Why is Israel above international law? What makes Israel that special? Why is the world afraid of Israel? We sailed against all odds of getting to Gaza. Listen to these students in 2008. How many of them are still alive?

Hedy Epstein, “it takes lots of us, hundreds of thousands of us to make changes. But that doesn’t mean that I or anybody else should stop what we’re doing. Because you never know when we will make a difference “

[https://youtu.be/t0Bwb-6T0D0

Episode 8: Leaving for Gaza, August 22, 2008. We were ecstatic to leave Cyprus on that foggy, cool day. 44 of us lined up, got our passports stamped, and boarded the two small boats. We faced 32 hours of uncertainty. After all, Israeli supporters, its military, and the government had been threatening us for over a month.

Our joy far outweighed our fear. Once again, we had no idea that over the next day and a half, we’d face a roiling sea, Israel would cut off most of our communications, and thousands of well-wishers thought we had drowned because we couldn’t contact them.

We left anyhow, escorted out to sea by the Cypriot Coast Guard.

https://youtu.be/RNqlu7CFXIo

Episode 9: All through that terrible night, our two boats rocked, battered by enormous waves, Israel had cut off all communication devices except for Channel 16, which kept saying “They are Lost, they are lost, they are lost.” Passengers were sick. Israeli warships monitored us. When dawn came on August 23, we saw nothing but water, our captains working on compass and walky-talky to guide us toward Gaza.

12 hours later, the shores of Gaza appeared and we kept sailing. Our communications turned back on, and Israel was leaving us alone. We had kept our promise.

We had arrived.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBAkRok-EtI

Episode 10: EPILOGUE - Thanks to Roger Waters for the song

We made three promises to the people of Gaza when we left a week later. 1. We would speak about what we saw the week we stayed. 2. We would take as many Palestinians as we could out of Gaza, 3. We would return.

Over the next four months, we honored all three of those promises, speaking of our adventures to people around the world, taking more than 20 Palestinians out on our boats (most of them students who had scholarships), and 3. returning four more times before being viciously attacked. No boat has sailed back into Gaza since December 2008, but it hasn’t stopped initiatives, from the Women’s Boat to Gaza to the Jewish Boat to Gaza to all of the Freedom Flotilla voyages. All have been stopped, passengers arrested, boats confiscated, and supplies stolen by the Apartheid State of Israel.

The boats WILL continue to sail. WE SHALL OVERCOME.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XdGtjIOo80

Episode 11: What’s Next?

After having shattered the Israeli blockade of Gaza earlier this week, the Free Gaza and Liberty departed for Cyprus on Auguest 28. We took several Palestinians who had been denied exit visas by Israel, Among them were Saed Mosleh, age 14, of Beit Hanoon, Gaza. An Israeli tank shell blew his leg off and he’s with his father to seek medical treatment. (The last we knew, Saed is doing very well in Cyprus) “I can’t believe we’re finally able to leave for medical treatment,” said Khaled Mosleh, Saed’s father. “This is a miracle of God.” Also on board was the Darwish family, who were finally reunited with their relatives in Cyprus. Here is the final video of this 15th anniversary, set to the stirring music of the Palestinian National Anthem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oA82KVPeQ4

We Shall Overcome was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on August 27, 2023.

We Succeeded Because We Never Lost Sight

2022-08-22T00:00:00-04:00

by Greta Berlin

Mary Hughes Thompson and I were sitting in the Knight’s Palace in 2005 when Sharon pulled the illegal Israeli settlers out of Gaza. We watched with such joy as they were shoved, pushing and yelling, onto buses and forced to leave Gaaza. Israel loudly proclaimed to the world that Gaza was free.

Within days, dozens of us who had volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement began coming up with ideas on how to get to Gaza. Five of us, all graduates of ISM direct-action decided we’d call their bluff and organized the first flotilla of boats…ok It was two boats…to sail to Gaza.

After all, Gaza was now free, and we didn’t have to ask Israel for permission…and we didn’t.

It took two years of planning. We raised over a $700,000 to buy two dilapidated fishing boats, then started to invite passengers once we knew we actually had boats. 85 people applied, and we took 44 activists from 17 nations and boarded the boats in Cyprus

We succeeded because we had a tight-knit core who we already trusted as we’d worked with the ISM. In fact, the majority of passengers were graduates of the ISM

We succeeded because we never lost sight that our objective was to sail to Gaza, in spite of infighting.

We succeeded because the organizers of Free Gaza all had specialties that fit what we needed. Mary was the banker and took care of all the money, making sure everyone was thanked and every cent was accounted for. I had 35 years of experience in the media, so I was in charge of media relations. Paul had dozens of contacts, spoke pretty good Arabic and Greek and was in charge of the Greeks, Sharon was in charge of passengers on the boats, and Renee was our stage manager. We literally saw what we were doing as a huge production, with actors, sets, lights, protagonists and antagonists and opening night… which kept getting postponed.

We succeeded because three of us organizers were over 65, had run our own businesses and didn’t need to be paid. And we were American. No matter how much I despise our government actions toward Palestine, there is one thing to be said about us Americans. We are the eternal optimists. This direct action never would have gotten off the ground in many other countries because they are too realistic. We were not.

Frankly, we succeeded because Free Gaza was mostly run by women, and we were more prone to delegating and listening.

Our strategy was to bring Palestinians home to Gaza and take Palestinians out who had been accepted to Universities or needed medical attention. Over the next four months, we sailed in four more times, took 17 Palestinians out and brought in Palestinians to see their families.

Musheir Al Farah, one of the Palestinians from Gaza wrote this piece about our first landing. He reminds us all the time why we went and why we continued.

As Gaza started to appear on the horizon, I felt ecstatic; I just could not believe it. I never expected it. After all the threats, I thought we would end up in an Israeli prison. I could not stop my tears. At last, I will be able to visit my mother, Laila’s grave. Laila who always said to people around her, even when she was in good health, “If I die, please tell Musheir that the last words on my lips were his name.”

Yet I couldn’t be at her bedside when she was dying in the hospital where I was born, because of this inhuman and illegitimate siege. My tears continued. Greta was standing next to me. She hugged me, and, in a very emotional voice said, “Musheir, these moments can never be taken away from us.”

No ships had docked in Gaza Port since 1967 and I could see Gaza clearly.: “There is the Beach Camp, there is Omar AL Mukhtar streets. I can see Al Shohada Street. The port is there, right in front of us.” We had reached Gaza against all the odds.

On the morning that our boats were due to depart from Gaza port, I woke up very early and went to Khan Younis cemetery to visit my mother’s grave. It was the first time I had visited the grave. I spontaneously found myself talking to my mother. I couldn’t stop my tears, saying,

Mother, I am here. I am visiting you despite their siege.” I used to joke with my mother. “Do not die when I cannot be with you.” She would laugh and say, “Don’t worry, I will not if you promise to place me in my grave with your own hands.” I had promised to do that but was unable to.

It was a great feeling, a feeling of freedom that I had never experienced. It was the first time in my life that I had visited home without the humiliation of being questioned or interrogated by the Israelis, without being threatened, having my travel documents thrown in my face, and not knowing whether I would be able to get out or not.

It’s a sense of liberation I hope every Palestinian will experience one day. I’m proud of being the first Palestinian from the Occupied Territories to enter Palestine without Israeli permission since 1967.

Our first trip on August 23, 2008, 14 years ago, was a resounding success. No one thought we’d do it, but we did. The Israelis didn’t know what to do with us, because we called their bluff that Gaza was free. They called us ‘aging hippies,’ and sneered at our boats. We took everything they said to us, put it in a press release and sent it out. The closer it got to our sailing, the more media finally paid attention. We were doing something different.

Our successes were certainly more than I’ve listed. But what about the obstacles? They were legion, of course. If I can offer any advice to anyone doing direct action, it’s to stay focused on what you’re doing, have a clear-cut strategy that the media can understand, keep the main organizers to 5 or fewer and completely trust each other.

So, here is a list of just some of the obstacles we faced.

In April 2008, one of the organizers committed suicide after the FBI came after him and his children, leaving us with no access to the $50,000 we had raised. We never got the money back and had to start over. https://www.palestinechronicle.com/riad-hamad-suicide-or-murder/
No matter how much money we raised, it was never enough. Thanks to Mary who put out pleas all the time, we usually made our money deadline.
We had no social media. Everything was organized through gmail.
Israel spied on us, tried to find our boats and leaned on the Cypriot authorities to prevent us from leaving. Our success on the boats was because we publicly named them THE FREE GAZA and THE LIBERTY, but we never changed their Greek names. Second, we put out a press release that said the boats were in Alexandria, Egypt. The port authorities in Egypt kept contacting us and asking us why Israeli authorities were looking for our boats. We never posted where they were until they were unveiled in Crete.
Our boat partners were Greek, old Communist men (no women) who had been trying to get rid of the junta by the generals who had taken over in Greece in the late 60s. If it hadn’t been for Paul, I believe we may not ever have gotten to Gaza. By the time the boats arrived in Cyprus to pick up the remaining passengers, the Americans hated the Greeks, and the Greeks hated the Americans.
We had split up the group into ‘boat people,’ those were the ones bringing the boats down from Greece to Cyprus, 20 in total..and the ‘land people,’ the 24 of us waiting in Cyprus for weeks. By the time the boats reached Cyprus, the boat people didn’t trust the land people and vice versa. It took a couple of days of nothing but meetings between us to sort things out. And it wasn’t easy.
Israeli supporters got hold of those of us in Cyprus putting out press releases and announcements, because our phone numbers were on the releases. They began calling us, threatening us, tracking us and doing the same thing to the port authorities. They would say things like, “there’s a bomb on board one of the boats,” and “do you know how to swim,” and “you will all drown, why don’t you just go home?’ We had four of our passengers who dove down almost every day to check underneath the boats.
The passengers in Cyprus ran out of money because we had planned on being there for a week and ended up staying for a month. We were all living on credit cards.

But our success when I look back on it was, literally, because so many of us had faced Israeli settlers and the military when we worked in the occupied West Bank, and nothing…nothing…was going to stop us. We’d already been shot, tear-gassed, arrested and some of us deported. The more they pushed, the more we pushed back.

https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Sailors-movement-succeeded-ourselves-ebook/dp/B008Y65TSA/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=freedom+sailors&qid=1661204364&sr=8-1 24 of us wrote a book called “Freedom Sailors,” about that first trip And Aki Nawaz, one of the people on board made a movie called “To Gaza with Love.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-8XIjATLZQ Some of the obstacles I haven’t even covered are in that film.

We were successful, because we were at the right time with the right crew and an indomitable spirit that wasn’t going to stop us once we got going.

And Musheir’s last words are the reasons the flotilla still sails, even though no boat has landed there since our last one in December 2008. It may not be easy to see whether direct action has actually made a difference, But it has. To date, Free Gaza sailed nine times and Freedom Flotilla has sailed 12 times. We have been stopped, brutally assaulted, our boats taken from us and passengers thrown into detention, then shipped out of Israel who says we entered illegally, even though we had no intention of ever going into Israel. We went straight from international waters into the waters of Gaza. It was Israel who was the illegal entity. Organizers are talking about another voyage in 2022 or 2023.

We thought up crazy ideas. We’d rent a cargo ship and put 5 or 6 hot air balloons inside, moor it off the coast of Gaza in international waters and hot air ourselves into Gaza. After all, Gaza Freedom Marches broke the siege by land, we broke the siege by water…why not by air?

Would it be possible to walk home? Fly home? Get on board boats and sail into Gaza? All at once? Is everyone willing to take that chance?

Direct action is one of the best ways of achieving that goal, because direct action works. People want to DO something that is tangible. It’s one of the reasons why Palestine Action has been so successful at closing down some of the Elbit sites in the UK. https://www.palestineaction.org/

Musheir said it best….

“It is a sense of liberation I hope every Palestinian will experience one day. I am proud of being the first Palestinian from the Occupied Territories to enter Palestine without Israeli permission since 1967

We Succeeded Because We Never Lost Sight was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on August 22, 2022.

Together We Can Shut Elbit Down

2022-08-21T00:00:00-04:00

Dear Supporters of Justice in Palestine,

My name is Ronnie Barkan and I’m a long-time activist in the Palestinian struggle and a serial disrupter to apartheid representatives.

On Nakba Day, May 2022, nine of us from https://www.palestineaction.org/ took part in shutting down the headquarters of Elbit Systems, Bristol, UK, which is Israel’s largest arms manufacturer and supplier of almost all killer-drones that hover over Gaza.

The press release stated, “Actionists stormed the flagship premises of Elbit Systems, in Bristol, this afternoon; destroying the building’s interior, dismantling offices and equipment, and barricading themselves inside, while others blocked road access to the site. The large group of activists, which includes two Israeli dissidents, have taken direct action against Elbit Systems to demand an end to British complicity with Israeli apartheid.” https://www.palestineaction.org/bristol-nakba/

I’m one of the two Israeli dissidents and that’s why I’m writing to you today. All nine of us were arrested, but seven UK citizens were released after a few days. The two of us from Israel were denied bail and incarcerated for a month before being released under strict bail conditions that we not speak to each other or to the other activists, wear an ankle bracelet and turn in our passports. And we are now prevented from leaving the UK until the court date on April 17, 2023.

Unfortunately, I don’t qualify for legal aid here and I have to fully cover my legal defence which amounts to £50,000. I’m represented by Kellys Solicitors and Garden Court Chambers who are already in the middle of preparatory work and attending court hearings. My expenses have started to pile up and I’m depending on your help.

The money is raised through CrowdJustice and funds go directly to Kellys Solicitors. If you click on this link, https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/helpronnie/ you’ll be able to help me fight apartheid by donating. I’m proud of the work we’ve done and of the numerous other actionists and supporters who are determined to end the horrendous crimes that take place under our noses. I greatly appreciate your donation and sharing it with your friends, social circles and families. Together, we can shut Elbit down.

Please contact me directly at ronniebarkan@gmail.com if you have any questions or suggestions.

Together We Can Shut Elbit Down was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on August 21, 2022.

They Said We'd Never Make It

2021-08-23T00:00:00-04:00

Greta Berlin

https://themarkaz.org/magazine/sailing-to-gaza-to-break-the-siege

The sun was shining in Cyprus when Free Gaza and Liberty finally pulled out to sea at 9:00 am, and 44 passengers, journalists and crew had this overwhelming feeling of joy. We were finally sailing to Gaza. Crowds lined the dock and cheered us on as Free Gaza cast off her lines and headed out of the port, only to find that Liberty had engine trouble again. We had to wait for two hours as the engineer climbed down into the engine room and fixed the fan belt. Finally, the Cypriot Coast Guard escorted us to the 12-mile limit before sounding their horns and turning back. We were on our way, three weeks late, but finally leaving, sailing 240 miles across the Mediterranean to the imprisoned people of Gaza.

The Israeli government had been threatening us for weeks, demanding that we abort the mission, telling us they could not be responsible for our safety (as though we were somehow sailing to Israel and not to Gaza, a territory that Israel had been telling the world was no longer occupied.) We had found Israel’s Achilles’ heel, and we were exploiting it in the media.

Israel had said it no longer occupied Gaza and had not occupied since the government pulled out its illegal settlers in 2005. Therefore, by Israel’s own admission, Gaza was free to invite anyone who wanted to come and visit, to sail into its port and be welcomed. We were not asking for Israel’s permission. We didn’t need to. Gaza was free, and we were coming.

Our two boats could only travel at 7 knots an hour, so we were in for a long and treacherous voyage, 33 hours until we would arrive, the threats from the Israeli government and its supporters of sinking us, then letting us drown, ringing in our ears. The day before we left, my phone rang.

“Do you know how to swim?” said the muffled voice. “What?” “Do you know how to swim?” he repeated. “What?” Shouting into the phone. “DO YOU KNOW HOW TO SWIM?”

Off the top of my head, I said, “I’m sorry. I can’t hear you. You sound as though you’re under water.” At the time, I thought my answer was pretty funny.

Our high-profile passengers like Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Tony Blair, had been threatened constantly, one caller saying he knew where she lived in France, and she had better go home and watch over her children.

Those of us working with the media had our phone numbers posted on the website as contacts. We often got ‘anonymous phone calls’ in the middle of the night. “There is a bomb on board.” “You will never make it.” “We know how easy it is to sink you.”

We had scuba divers checking the undersides of the boats four times a day, looking for sabotage. Even the Cypriot Coast Guard went under the boats while they were docked in Larnaca. They didn’t trust the Israelis either after the bomb attack in Limassol in 1988, and many in the port authority had talked to us privately, telling us that Israeli agents had been down to the port asking questions.

This afternoon, they had given us a thumbs-up and said we were ready to sail.

We knew the Israeli government was watching us. We knew they wanted to stop us. We also knew the story of the Ship of Return, due to set sail in February 1988 from Cyprus. It was carrying Palestinians and supporters who were sailing back to Haifa to return to their homeland. Israeli frogmen blew up the engine with a mine stuck under the vessel. It was attached to a time fuse, according to port officials in Limassol.1

The blast came less than 24 hours after a car bomb on the waterfront killed three senior Palestinian organizers who were involved in plans for the voyage. There was only one possibility who killed them, and that was Israel. So we took their warnings seriously.

No boat full of internationals had docked in the port of Gaza for 41 years, as Israel tightened the screws of their 20 year illegal blockade ever tighter since 2000, a blockade they said was all about security, and we knew was about stealing the natural gas of Gaza. They just didn’t realize their threats made passengers more determined than ever to sail. We had come on this journey from 17 countries, from Palestine to Pakistan, from the U.S. to Europe. Most of us were activists and had worked in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, some for decades. Threatening us was completely counter-productive.

So far, everything was working, as the boats sneezed and snorted their way across the waves, their diesel engines complaining. The two captains, John Klusmire from the U.S. and the Greek captain, Giorgios Klontsas, were talking to each other on Channel 16, used for transmissions for by ships of the world. Their readings said we might be in for some rough weather but no rain, just choppy constant waves.

We watched Larnaca twinkle into the distance as a cheer went up from both boats, “We are coming.” The journalists from Al Jazeera and Ramattan got on their satellite phones and called ahead to Gaza, “We Are Coming.” It was to be the last set of phone calls made.

Within two hours, beam seas started rolling the two boats around like pieces of debris. Those of us on Free Gaza were doubly pitched from side to side, because the boat had a useless mast that tipped dangerously close to the water as Captain John tried to wrestle it upright. Almost all of us were sick, and the misery was made worse by the spray coming up and over the boat, drenching us and making the deck a slippery mess. We held onto the rails, some even crawled along the outside of the deck, as we tried to navigate to narrow benches set into the sides of the boat and lie down. The Dramamine pills and patches were of little use, as our own fear of what might happen added to our sickness.

After ten hours at sea, the sun began to set, a filmy disk slipping into the water’s edge. We had long lost sight of land and saw no boats. Sharyn Lock, a major organizer from Australia, announced that we were 70 miles away from Cyprus, and we all groaned. It was going to be a long night.

Thirty minutes after the pitch black descended on the two boats, our radio, mobile and satellite phones went dead. The Israeli navy had blocked all communications. We had made plans to keep one satellite phone off at all times, so they couldn’t pick up the number, and we didn’t dare turn that one on until there was an absolute emergency. Captain John said the Israeli communications system would pick up the number almost at once. The only means of communicating with each other over was the low-tech equipment we had brought on board; walkie-talkies. Jeff Halper, chairman of the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions was on board our boat and told us we wouldn’t see or hear the Israelis coming if they decided to attack.

One of the journalists was clutching his camera to his chest and lying on the deck of the boat, determined that, if anyone attacked us, he was going to get footage. My friend, Mary, was propped up in the Zodiac, the little rubber boat used for emergencies. She was throwing up in rubber gloves, tying them neatly at the top, and handing them to me to throw overboard. We had laughed at Kathy Sheetz, the emergency room nurse from California who was on board. She had insisted we buy biodegradable rubber gloves, never thinking they would be used for vomit.

“Here,” Mary whispered, “Throw this one overboard and give me a new one.” The glove bobbed off into the waves. “If the Israelis board, they’ll have to lift me up or shoot me right here in the Zodiac, because I don’t have the strength or will to follow their orders.” I hoped that was not going to happen.

Even though it was August, it was cold on the water, and we had not prepared ourselves for the damp. The water had drenched everything and everyone. We had two options; stay above on the deck and be cold and wet, or go down below to the six cabins and inhale the diesel fuel. The cabins were dry, but the diesel fuel made even the experienced sailors gag. Most passengers chose to stay above.

At 22:00, a fire started in the engine room of the Free Gaza, and Derek was down in the hold covered in ash and soot, trying, with two volunteers, to put out the fire and keep the engine running.

I closed my eyes and thought of the two years it had taken us to buy and board these boats and head out to Gaza. People thought we were insane, and, at the moment, I was beginning to believe they were right. The entire journey had been organized through the Internet, and every passenger coming with us had been recommended by at least two other people. Our original passenger list of 88 had dwindled down to 44 as the voyage was postponed, then postponed again, then postponed again. Everything from the suicide of one of the organizers to running out of money had delayed the trip.

Many of us were veterans, working in the occupied territories, but some, like Mushier Al Farra, an engineer from the U.K., just wanted to go home to see his family. The Israeli government had refused to allow him to attend his mother’s funeral, and he wanted to say his ‘good-byes’ to her. Coming with us was his opportunity to enter Gaza without the humiliating searches from Israeli soldiers that all Palestinians trying to enter or leave Gaza endured.

Since 2006, when we decided we would sail to Gaza, the five of us who had organized this voyage had split our responsibilities; Paul Larudee was in charge of the boats, I was in charge of the passengers, Mary Hughes-Thompson was in charge of finances, and Renee Bowyer and Sharyn Lock were in charge of logistics. We had managed to grow from five dedicated people to over two hundred in two years, working together via Internet with the overriding goal of sailing to Gaza.

I crawled into the other end of the Zodiac to try to get some sleep and decided to calm my own queasy stomach by making lists in my head. I ran over the checklists one more time.

Were all 44 passengers checked in and on board? Yes. The oldest was Sister Ann Montgomery, an 81-year-old nun from the U.S. who had worked in Palestine for the Christian Peacemaker Teams and had also worked in Iraq. The youngest, Adam Qvist, was a 22-year-old Danish activist from the International Solidarity Movement whom I had met in 2007 as he was walking Palestinian children to school in Hebron under the malevolent gaze of the illegal settlers.

Had everyone made out a will? Yes. We had no idea what was going to happen, and Ramzi Kysia, head of our land team in Cyprus, had insisted everyone write a will, then send or give one copy to family or friends and leave a copy with him. Some of the passengers thought we were being overly dramatic. It turned out, two years later when the Israelis murdered nine people on our Freedom Flotilla, that it was a good idea to have a will. We also had to leave a contact number, our passport numbers and country of issue and our wishes for getting rid of our bodies.

Almost everyone agreed to be buried at sea, although some wanted to be refrigerated and sent to Gaza, a lofty goal considering the refrigerator on board could only hold soft drinks.

Had we all signed a waiver absolving the Free Gaza movement of any liability? Yes. We would not have taken them otherwise. We had no money and no liability insurance. Every cent that we had raised went into the boats, more than $400,000 by the time we finally boarded them. These donations had come from all over the world, from people as outraged as we were that 1.5 million Palestinians were boarded up in an outdoor prison.

Did we all have life jackets and had we been at the safety session run by our irrepressible Irish first mate, Derek Graham? As far as I could tell in the pitch darkness, everyone on board the Free Gaza had on a life jacket.

I looked around the boat, seeing small orange humps on the deck and people leaning over the rails retching, attached to the ‘throw-up lines.’ We could see across to the Liberty, where three of their passengers, wearing orange, were also attached. Derek had reminded us that, under no circumstances were we to throw up without being connected to the line.

“I’m not coming to fetch ye,” he yelled in an Irish accent. “If you’re fucking stupid enough to throw up over the side and go over, you can fend fer yerself.”

Later, he told us that would never have happened, but he knew we were unaware of how dangerous the waves really were, and if he had to scare the crap out of us, that was fine. Except for the ten members of the crew, five on each boat, none of us had any sailing experience, except on a lake.

I drifted off to a fitful sleep, counting rubber gloves, only to be shaken awake an hour later.

“We need volunteers in two-hour shifts. People who aren’t sick, four to a shift, front and back.” Derek demanded, and several of us on board volunteered to stand watch in two-hour shifts, not to look for Israeli gunboats, but to make sure our boats didn’t collide with each other. The only way the crews on board could talk was via walkie-talkie, and they had to be pretty close, almost impossible in the tossing sea.

Seventy-nine year old, David Schermerhorn, a film producer from the state of Washington with years of experience on boats, volunteered for the 1:00-3:00 am shift, along with me, Sharyn, and Vittorio Arrigoni, a veteran of the sea and a long-time activist and journalist from Italy. I went back to sleep for two hours, rocking in the Zodiac that was attached to the deck. At 1:00 am, David woke me up.

“Time for us to stand watch. It’s pretty quiet right now, most are asleep, but you’ll have to be careful at the stern of the boat. One person back there is pretty sick.” I wandered back to the stern and looked out to see if there was anything that could be seen. The stars were out, but, other than the light on the stern of Liberty, there was nothing on the sea. How did the captains even know what was out there? We didn’t have a single electronic device to even tell us if a ship was approaching.

Suddenly, at 1:30 am, Captain John and Derek both got violently ill, incapable of piloting Free Gaza. John and Derek were experienced sailors; John had piloted all of his life on big research ships. Derek had spent a good deal of his time on the sea. Had someone poisoned them? Was someone on board working for the Israelis? That had always been one of our fears; that no matter how much screening of passengers, one could be bought off or blackmailed into doing the bidding of Israel. Was I getting completely paranoid? I held on to the stern, looking at the back lights of Liberty and wondered if Giorgios was sick.

John handed over the boat to David and Vik. And the two boats did their best to stay together, Giorgios, who apparently was fine, stayed on the walkie-talkie. I stood watch along with Sharyn.

As long as we could see the lights of the Liberty, we felt a bit safer. In a couple of hours, John and Derek were fine. We never knew why they got so sick.

During the dark, cold, wet, miserable and frightening night, huddled together, those of us awake tried to stay upbeat. The three toilets down below deck had stopped working. Derek had yelled at us not to put toilet paper down them, but no one remembered.

The fan belt on the engine on the Liberty continued to split, and we could hear the boat coughing as it chugged along. They were, after all, old fishing boats equipped to carry 11 passengers each, and we had 24 on one boat, 20 on the other. The analogy of ‘boat people’ kept running through my head. We didn’t want to face the possibility we might have two boats with no engines, one with no captain. The worst possible scenario would be drifting at sea, unable to even send out a distress call, and having the Israeli navy finally rescue us, laughing at our stupidity.

As one of the organizers of this ship of fools, I began to despair. What had we done? Had we put 44 peoples’ lives in danger for some stupid idea of sailing to Gaza? Was our two years of organizing, the death of one of our primary supporters and the massive debt we had incurred trying to get the boats ready… was all of that going to go into the drink?

A little after 3:00 am, David woke up Ayash Darraji, the Al Jazeera journalist.

“Does your sat phone work?” David asked. “I know we said we wouldn’t take the risk, but we have a really ill passenger on board, our equipment is dead and someone needs to know where we are. Maybe they haven’t jammed the frequency on yours yet.”

Ayash turned on his phone, actually got a tone and called his office. Although we couldn’t have known it out there in the dark, Al Jazeera released the story of our lost boats, the Greeks demanded to know where their MP was, and Israel, backing off, stopped the jamming of our electronics. But it took two hours until the two satellite phones were working and daylight before the navigating equipment was back online.

My shift was more than over, and I was exhausted. It was 4:00 am. That night was one of the longest nights in all our lives. As the dark slowly faded, we could see boat lights in the distance behind us and wondered if they were Israeli gunboats.

I curled up next to Mary in the Zodiac and thought about how it had all started.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008Y65TSA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

They Said We'd Never Make It was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on August 23, 2021.

Save The Bil'in Seven

2021-07-27T00:00:00-04:00

UPDATE ON THESE TRIALS -ISRAELI AUTHORITIES ARE TORTURING THESE YOUNG MEN AGAIN BY MOVING THE DATE OF THE TRIAL FOR THE THIRD TIME - TO OCTOBER 19, 2021 - CAUSING EMOTIONAL TRAUMA FOR THE FAMILIES AND THE YOUNG MEN

Contact: Rochelle Santos email: rochellesantosw55@gmail.com Media Correspondent, Free Gaza movement

New York, July 27, 2021: For almost three months, the military occupation has imprisoned these 7, first in Moscobiyeh jail where they were tortured and then all but one transferred to Ofer prison where they remain. They are from the farming village of Bil’in, occupied Palestine, well known for its nonviolent protests against the Israeli confiscation of their farmland.

Israel has incarcerated them on highly dubious charges in line with a directive,” Operation Law and Order”, launched May 24th.That directive included sweeping arrests and torture of Palestinian prisoners in order to suppress opposition from Palestinian civil society.

                   Israel is torturing these young men into giving false confessions.

A week later, international activists began a petition signed by dozens of well-known activists including Roger Waters, Colonel Ann Wright, Coleen Rowley, Jafar Ramini, Huwaida Arraf, Baroness Jenny Tonge, and Miko Peled. Their names as well as other signers are listed on the petition asking for the release of the Bil’in Seven.

As of this writing, there are nearly 1100 international signatures.

We are asking that charges be dropped against the following;

Abdel-Khaleq Iyad Bernat: Released on 5000 shekels bail until his court hearing. He was under interrogation & tortured, and held in solitary confinement for 55 days underground in Moscobiyeh jail.

Hamza Ghazi Al-Khatib: Sentenced to six months prison time a week after arrest.

Muhammad Ahmad Hamad: Sentenced to six months ‘administrative detention; for allegedly throwing stones.

These four you men listed are all charged with the same ‘security act’ inside a settlement.

Issa Ahmed, Ismail Muhammad Abu Rahman, Jalal Hassan Khatib, Muhammad Iyad Bernat.

This alleged ‘security act’ is setting a bus on fire in the Mod’in Ill’it settlement. Anyone who’s been to Bil’in knows it’s impossible for any Palestinian to get near the barricaded settlement. If they approach the 24-foot wall separating the illegal settlement from Bil’in, they’d have been arrested or shot, as the area is always monitored by CCTV. No Israeli papers have reported the event, except for a settlement paper that did not mention any Palestinians

All the hearings have been scheduled for July 28th. If the hearing date goes as scheduled, we want the officials at Ofer prison as well as the government of Israel to know we are watching and recording, and the press has been notified. As one supporter wrote,

“Free the Bi’lin Seven from Ofer Prison immediately! Kidnapping, torturing innocent Indigenous Palestinians, including minors, not only violates a plethora of international laws & Human Rights; it’s cruel and inhumane. Bi’lin residents are renowned for their peaceful protests and non-violent resistance, wanting peace, justice and freedom to be able to live on their homeland, without brutal occupation.”

https://bit.ly/SaveBilin7

Save The Bil'in Seven was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on July 27, 2021.

If I Don't Steal It Someone else Is Gonna Steal It

2021-07-27T00:00:00-04:00

				Justin, YAACOV Fauci, Illegal Settler in Occupied Palestine

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Joe Catron: 718-395-3419 Lamis Deek: 212-226-3999

July 27, 2021: 602 Bellmore Road, East Meadow, Long Island, New York: Human rights advocates protest Zionist extremist Fauci in Long Island, demand closure of New York groups promoting colonization, ethnic cleansing, and genocide in Palestine

Al-Awda New York: The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, the National Lawyers Guild, and human rights advocates are demonstrating in East Meadow, Long Island to demand the closure of illegal settler groups aiding and abetting New York-based Zionists to invade and colonize Palestinian homes and lands.

Oganizers will hold an action outside the Long Island home of American-born settler, Justin “Yaakov” Fauci, while wearing t-shirts bearing the notorious statement Fauci made as he casually invaded the Al-Kurd home in Sheikh Jarrah, reading,

“If I don’t steal it someone else is gonna steal it.”

“The U.N. Human Rights Commission Rapporteur recently decried settlements as war crimes, and New York private and government actors are actively abetting war crimes, violence and genocide in Palestine with wholesale impunity. This must end if Palestine and the region can ever see peace,” said attorney. Audrey Bomse, a member of Al-Awda New York and the National Lawyers Guild.

“It’s a violation of U.S. federal law for Americans to engage in war crimes and genocide, it is shocking that there is impunity for such open acts of violence, and it is outrageous that New York State actively shelters, promotes and celebrates such violence, which is itself also a crime,” added attorney, Lamis Deek.

All four settler organizations have a 501C3 status in the US in spite of their funding and encouraging settler violence and confiscation of Palestinian lands. That tax exempt status should be removed.

Michelle Munjanattu, a member of Al-Awda New York noted that “Hempstead County officials are promoting Zionist extremism and punishing speech critical of Israeli violence by imposing the grossly unconstitutional IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.” Under Councilmen Esposito and Blakeman, Hempstead was twinned with an Israeli settler colony built on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank and dedicated a plaza to settler spokesman David Friedman, who calls for the colonization of all of Palestine.

“These councilmen are celebrating anti-Palestinian violence and sending a message to Palestinians that they are not safe in New York or in Palestine. Our government should work to protect all our communities and not exhorting them to export violence, to break US laws, and legislating anti-Palestinian racism. This has to end, and the Hempstead IHRA Executive Order issued must be struck down,” said Suzanne Adely, president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild.

“It’s appalling that government officials like DeBlasio are denouncing an ice cream company for partially withdrawing from Israeli-invaded lands while sheltering war criminal organizations right here in New York,” added Daniel Teehan, a member of Al-Awda New York.

Deek closed the action by saying, “This will be the first of many actions to demand the closure and prosecution of Israeli apartheid and war crime perpetrators. New Yorkers want our taxes to be used to support our communities here instead of being used to destroy communities and commit high crimes in Palestine.”

If I Don't Steal It Someone else Is Gonna Steal It was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on July 27, 2021.

The Enemy Within

2021-07-21T00:00:00-04:00

Every month we post a guest editorial. This month, the piece is by the renowned Palestinian, Jafar Ramini. He can be followed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX8Ex3Erfz0

Growing up in Palestine in the 50s our daily bread was the news of the exploits and achievements of our ‘fedayeen’ - our freedom fighters. Those who were risking their all with a minimum of training and very basic equipment to give the Israeli colonialists on our border sleepless nights.

I was fourteen when I volunteered to go through what was known as ‘the National Guard training’. I even learned the basic skills of handling a gun on an ancient rifle. Not that this training came to anything. What it did was add to my belief that what was taken by force cannot be regained with rhetoric and futile discussions and negotiations. I have lived by that notion ever since.

The Zionist/Apartheid regime in Palestine has proved me right over and over and over again. I always convinced myself that we Palestinians could withstand all that Israel could throw at us and that we would, eventually, prevail. That belief sustained me for most of my adult life, enhanced in the early 1960s by the birth of the properly organised ‘fedayeen’ - The Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Had it not been for my mother begging me not to I would have been there, in the trenches, with them.

You see, I grew up in Jenin with a daily reminder that the occupiers of our land were just there. I could see the lights of the Israeli kibbutz every night blinking at me; a constant reminder of our loss and humiliation.

But that was then. I left Palestine in 1962, got to know most of the operators, most of the men who founded the PLO and after living in London for 53 years I was always at the forefront of our political struggle. “This is the least I can do,” I said to myself. When Yasser Arafat came through London on his way back from that visit to the UN in 1974 I met him and though I was apprehensive over his famous speech about exchanging the gun for the olive branch I kept my council. I wish I hadn’t.

We met again in London in 1993 when he was on his way back from Washington after the signing of the shameful - and since proven to be very damaging - Oslo Accord. Once more, despite the rage in my soul, I listened to those around me and kept silent. Again, I wish I hadn’t. I went to Gaza for the first time in 1999 in an effort to give my fledgling country a helping hand when I came across the corruption and blatant self-serving by the officials I had the misfortune to meet. I went back home bitterly disappointed and decided that I would never be silent again. Not ever.

Those of you, Palestinians and supporters who have heard me speak or read any of my articles, will know that for the best part of 20 years I have never stopped criticising the PA (Palestinian Authority) or Hamas. I have called them both the enemies of Palestine ‘live’ on TV and I have called for the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority and the reconciliation between the forces of Palestinian resistance under one flag, for one purpose. The liberation of our land.

You don’t have to be Palestinian or even a supporter to see the enormous damage that in-fighting and the continuous charade of ‘peace negotiations’ with Israel has done to us. We spend more time, more effort arguing with each other instead of uniting against our enemy.

Gaza has been under tight siege for the last 13 years. Not only from Israel and Egypt but also from The Palestinian Authority. The two million Gazans, despite the inhuman conditions under which these extraordinary people live, still stand fast, refuse to give in and endure whatever is thrown at them. But, they are tired. They are exhausted. They need our support.

The people of the West Bank do not fare much better than their brothers and sisters in Gaza. Living under a relentless Apartheid occupation, every moment and aspect of their lives is controlled. They are imprisoned and tortured and their houses are demolished by the Zionist occupying forces at a whim. We have seen evidence of this, time and time again. But now their oppressors are not just Israeli soldiers but the very Palestinian security forces who are supposed to be there to protect them.

It’s not easy for me to say this, but what I just seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears are first-hand accounts from witnesses which leave me in no doubt that the Palestinian Authority and its apparatus of so-called security enforcement is not actually for the benefit of Palestinians but is an alien force. Palestinian men and women trained and equipped by America and Israel to suffocate the life out of their own people for the benefit of its occupiers.

I spent most of last week and this weekend glued to my screen, listening to Palestinian journalists, lawyers, legislators, human rights advocates and activists regaling us with appalling stories of aggression and brutality by Palestinians on Palestinians. I never thought, in my deepest and darkest of nightmares, that I would see Palestinian security officers, both men and women, dragging Palestinian women by their hair, spitting on them and calling them names. But I did.

All this just two weeks after the activist, Nizar Banat was beaten to pulp and murdered by these same PA thugs simply for daring to speak the truth.   I saw demonstrations against the Palestinian Authority in Hebron, Ramallah, Nablus and Jenin calling for this cowardly regime to end and for Mr Abbas and his thugs to leave. Yet, where is Mr Abbas? He is on his travels again. As if nothing has happened. The ‘President’ of the Palestinian Authority is in Istanbul meeting with the Turkish President, trying to hang on to power. Not only this, but the new American Administration has just despatched a lowly member of the State Department, Mr Hady Amr, to waste yet more of our time trying to revive the dead as a doornail, Two-State Solution.

The Palestinian Authority and its leader are not mandated. They do not speak in our name and do not have our blessings. They have become the enemy within. Time for them to go. The sole custodian of Palestine is the Palestinian nation. Not the PA. Not Hamas. Not the Arabs. And certainly not America or Israel.

The Enemy Within was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on July 21, 2021.

The People Want The Downfall Of The Regime

2021-06-27T00:00:00-04:00

Guest Commentator, Peter Cohen, activist for Palestine

Two days ago, I posted “Time for the PA to go,” very aware that it was a problematic statement coming from a non-Palestinian. I took the fact that only one Palestinian called me out on it while many more voiced approval as a sign of just how uncontroversial such a statement has become. To what extent is it an opinion or merely an observation at this point that the PA does not serve the interest of Palestinians?

What follows are my personal thoughts as someone who’s had the privilege of working in West Bank, including with the PA, for more than 10 years. I apologize in advance for any mistakes or misstatements and welcome any corrections from Palestinians. The real issue is not whether or not Abu Mazen is a good leader (I can’t remember hearing a Palestinian say he is) or whether people who work for the PA are good or bad (I know from personal experience that many are dedicated, hardworking and as frustrated with the current situation as anyone else), but rather the fundamental nature of the PA as a key element in Israel’s broader architecture of oppression, territorial expansion and ethnic cleansing. Demonstration in front of PA Mission in New York, New York, June 25, 2021

For nearly 30 years, the PA has presided over the destruction of the ostensible goal of Oslo - a viable and independent Palestinian State - offloading the daily responsibilities of Occupation to a controlled local leadership, and maintaining the illusion that Palestinians are self-governing. Instead of a state, Palestinians have gotten a status quo; a status quo that is not static, but merely a cover for the ongoing dismemberment of Palestine and dispossession of Palestinians. I remember a city official in Qalqilya opening a meeting with the words: “Qalqilya is a bottle.” And effectively, due to Settlements, closed military zones, bypass roads, and other mechanisms mobilized by the Occupation, this city of more than 50,000 people is now completely walled off, with a single entrance/exit, that can be closed by the IDF at any time, turning the city into a mini-Gaza.

Everywhere one goes in West Bank, one sees this pattern: Palestinian population centers cut off from one another, unable to access their own water, fields and other resources, and increasingly cut off from any possibility of urban growth - even as Jewish Settlements expand, connect, and improve their infrastructure, thanks to massive support and investment from the Israeli State. And, even where Palestinian cities do expand territorially, municipal authorities are prevented by the Occupation from providing infrastructure and services to the new areas.

The Aida Refugee camp in Bethlehem is now by some measures more densely populated than Gaza and being forced to verticalize as a result of having no room to expand. The IDF literally has doors in the wall around the camp to allow APCs to enter at will, District 9 style. If the Nakba left Palestine divided into four separate pieces (‘48, West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem), Oslo has presided over its splintering into many more (I’ve heard the number 16, which sounds about right), which only become increasingly more severed from one another over time. Jerusalem is now completely absorbed into Israel, and the ethnic cleansing of its residents (as we see in Sheikh Jarrah) is well underway.

Area A is up next for formal absorption, with the so-called “Settlement Blocks” already functioning in nearly every way as if they were inside the Green Line (the Green Line being in fact a line only for Palestinians, not for Israelis). Israel will never willingly give up the West Bank Aquifer, the Jordan Valley or the Settlement Blocks and instead proposes “land swaps” (with pieces of the Negev, one presumes?) in compensation. The result of all this is that the so-called “future Palestinian State” is already nothing more than an archipelago of Gazas; walled in, disconnected, prevented from nature urban growth, deprived of as many resources as possible, and completely controlled by the Israeli military, with or without the fig-leaf of the PA.

Officializing this recipe for disaster as a “State” would be to legitimize a crime. Did the world reject South Africa’s cynical attempts to trap its African majority in nominally independent “Homelands” only to let Israel get away with exactly the same trick? The 1947 Partition Plan gave less than a third of the population of Palestine 56% of the land, which was understandably rejected as grossly unfair. Oslo revised that to 22% and today majority population controls about 12%. Even if the 22% promised by Oslo were somehow recovered, it still would be patently unjust.

Israel will never give up control of the borders and key resources. Israel’s Jewish population is likely to decline over time while the walled-in urban ghettoes will only grow. This is the reality within which Palestinians will decide their future. To do nothing is to allow the status quo of ongoing Judaization and “Hafrada” (“Separation”) to advance, making their lives increasingly worse. To accept statehood at this point would be for the majority to accept these disconnected pieces of land, crisscrossed in every way imaginable by Israel, as a final status. To overthrow the PA would likely be to return Area A to a state of direct occupation (essentially its state pre-Oslo, the state of Area C today, or the State of ‘48 Palestine pre-1967, when Palestinians lived under military occupation without citizenship).

What will this future look like for Palestinians? As Arnon Soffer, architect of Sharon’s so-called “Gaza Disengagement,” said in 2004: “…when 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it’s going to be a human catastrophe. … The pressure at the border will be awful. It’s going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day. … Between 1948 and 1967, the fence was a fence, and 400,000 people left the West Bank voluntarily. This is what will happen after separation. If a Palestinian cannot come into Tel Aviv for work, he will look in Iraq, or Kuwait, or London. I believe that there will be movement [voluntary transfer] out of the area. … And Gaza is going to be such a disaster that it will be beyond our capacity to help. There will have to be large-scale international aid. The US will have to pressure Egypt to cede land.”

Soffer, in a twisted way, was a visionary. A truly humanist visionary, Edward Said, wrote 10 years earlier: “…Palestinian self-determination in a separate state is unworkable, just as unworkable as the principle of separation between a demographically mixed, irreversibly connected Arab population without sovereignty and a Jewish population with it. The question, I believe, is not how to devise means for persisting in trying to separate them but to see whether it is possible for them to live together as fairly and peacefully as possible” (Said 1993).

The question today is not so much whether most Palestinians have faith in the PA or the Oslo process (does anyone think they do?) as whether they are prepared to face the uncertainty, disruption and risk of things getting even worse that ending the PA would bring. This is a question only they can answer. And the crowds in the streets of Ramallah chanting “the People want the downfall of the Regime” in the face of armored PA security forces and violent undercover agents are giving their answer to that question.

The People Want The Downfall Of The Regime was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on June 27, 2021.

Great News About Mary's Playground Park

2021-03-30T00:00:00-04:00

We have raised $15,570 for this wonderful project; building a playground/park in Mary’s name in Rafah, Gaza. and will continue to raise funds throughout the year until the project is completed. The URL to contribute is

https://secure.everyaction.com/CrA31jojiEmJVM6MQppEqg2?fbclid=IwAR28osrjH_FDgMeA-5Ezm0F11-FvveYBNmAMvm8mTcim3Pg2xz_yO3Bo2zY

Just click on it and the URL takes you directly to the MECA page.

Here is the message from Dr. Mona AlFarra about plans for the playground/park.

We will be constructing a playground for women and girls to give them a chance to practice different sports and cycling. There will be a plaque or small statue with Marys name on it, and the children will plant a tree in her name. Part of the regular educcational activities will be the story of the 1st boats that entered Gaza on Augut 23, 2008 and the solidarity movement in general. The playground will be a commemeration for Mary and we will name it after her.

Specific objectives

Constructing the first safe and free garden for children
Providing a specific playground to women and girls to practice sports and cycling.
Improving the psychological situation of children and increase social ties to members of the community through hiking, meeting and spending their time in a place of beauty and safe.
Reducing the tension and constant anxiety among children and their families

There will be Sports activities throughout the year (cycling, basketball ,running competitions..)and women’s outdoor activities. We will have awareness programs like (you ask and the doctor answers..) We hope to offer a theatre program as well. Finally, there will be recreational trips from other partner institutions to the playground.

We intend to continue raising money until all of the wishes of MECA are built. Join us in making the dreams come true for women and children

Great News About Mary's Playground Park was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on March 30, 2021.

Playground In Mary's Name

2021-02-22T00:00:00-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Rafa, Gaza, February 22, 2021: The initiative to raise money to honor Mary Hughes Thompson is doing remarkably well. In the first ten days of our funding drive, $8535 has been raised from 94 people around the world.

Mary Hughes Thompson died on February 5 at the age of 87. She’d spent the last twenty years of her life heavily involved in justice for Palestine, volunteering five times with the Christian Peacekeeper Team (CPT) and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the occupied West Bank. She was also the co-founder of the Free Gaza movement and on one of the first two boats to sail into Gaza in 2008, one of 44 internationals to visit this enclave by sea in 41 years.

When asked for specifics on the park, Mona AlFarra, MD, director of Projects in Gaza for MECA replied, “”This playground will be a beautiful place for children of Rafah to play and enjoy and also an act of solidarity where we will keep her memory alive and let the children know about Mary and all the people around the world working for our rights.”

Dr. Mona added,”Mary loved the Palestinian people and supported our rights. She was one of the people who helped break the siege on Gaza with the Free Gaza movement. When she came to Gaza by ship, she brought with her gifts for children and made strong connections to women and children in Gaza. She touched our hearts. Even at the end of her life, Mary was thinking of what she can do for Palestine.”

Donations can be made by clicking the link provided. Help get this project up and running as a memorial to a determined woman for peace. https://secure.everyaction.com/CrA31jojiEmJVM6MQppEqg2?fbclid=IwAR00EogkhuAY6tKjAcQu3UdEPWR9Q-JadyJnPt3ZBIQXLrY9M-jDME_Lqyo

Playground In Mary's Name was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on February 22, 2021.

In Honor Of My Friend

2021-02-07T00:00:00-05:00

by Greta Berlin

Mary Hughes Thompson, 87, died on February 5, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. She is survived by her son, Andy Hughes, 65, and a granddaughter, Selena Hughes, 20, from Guelph, Canada. When we asked her who she wanted donations to go to, she asked us to let everyone know they should go to Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA). They have now set up a page to collect funds to build a playground in her honor in Gaza. Please donate and share.
https://secure.everyaction.com/CrA31jojiEmJVM6MQppEqg2

I also want to talk about her life, at least the life I knew from being her friend, her sister, and her comrade for 19 years. She was a woman of determination, courage and joy. Her life spanned eight decades and three countries. In the last decades of her life, she was an outspoken advocate for justice in Palestine, Iraq and the U.S. I met her in 2003 when she was 69 years old, back from a trip to the occupied West Bank, and I was getting ready to leave for Palestine.

She was born in 1933 in Manchester, England and used to tell us stories about what it was like growing up under the bombs of Hitler, how she learned to knit socks and scarves and caps for the British soldiers. She was only 7, when she learned to knit and she used that talent her entire life, becoming a master knitter, designing patterns and teaching knitting classes in Los Angeles. That was just one of her many talents, though.

At 16, she had to leave school, because everyone did in those days after the war had ravaged Britain. She was the only girl in a family of 9 children when she was growing up (her sister came along 12 years later, too late to help), and she was in charge of taking care of the house, her brothers, and working as well. Her mother used to tell her she was ‘clever’, but Mary was much more than clever. She was smart, funny and could write rings around most people.

When she moved to California in 1963, she’d been married and had a son, Andy. Mary got a job in the film biz, starting as a secretary, working her way up through the ranks, and by the time she was in her 50s, she was a documentary researcher for David Wolper. a writer for “All in the Family” and a member of the Writer’s Guild.

One day she decided she’d like to learn how to fly. She did, got her pilot’s license and bought a small Cessna. She once told me her mom had come to visit her from the UK, and she piled her mom into the plane and flew her to Palm Springs for lunch, just because she could. She flew for years until, in her 50s, she decided that was enough and sold the plane.

When I met her, she was already retired and doing human rights work. She’d been to occupied Palestine with Christian Peacekeepers Team (CPT) and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) twice. At 68, while picking olives in Yanoun, she was attacked by armed settlers, who beat her and took all of her possessions. https://www.wrmea.org/003-january-february/american-woman-beaten-robbed-by-gang-of-settlers.html She had no broken bones, but her arms, back and chest were badly bruised, bleeding and swollen. The settlers had stolen her two passports, air ticket, credit cards, digital camera and approximately $1,000 in cash. Yet, she was determined to return, and she would, several times.

When Bush invaded Iraq, she joined the CPT human rights delegation in 2003 and became a witness there before the carnage began, hoping the US would have second thoughts if they knew how many Americans had gone to Iraq in support of peace instead of war. They left just before the war broke out.

I had contacted her, because I was leaving for occupied Palestine in July of 2003, and she was an invaluable source of information. We realized we lived only a mile apart from each other, and we became fast friends for the rest of her life.

In 2005, we went to Palestine for the Women in Black conference, fooling the Shin Bet interrogators who kept us at the Ben Gurion airport for 8 hours. We had carefully crafted a story about who we were and how we’d get in, saying I was bringing my crippled cousin to the Holy Land so she could walk where Jesus walked one last time. She was in a wheelchair, had borrowed a bottle of heart medication (and put aspirin in it) and had a cane as well. As they kept taking me off into one small room after another, they left Mary in the baggage area, and she got weaker and weaker and smaller and smaller. Mary had done such a good acting job that when they finally let us in, I believed she was ill. We took a cab to Jerusalem, all the time I was asking if she was OK. When it pulled up in front of Damascus gate, she leaped out of the cab, grabbed her roller bag, and took off down the street. It had all been an act, fooling even me. That’s the Mary I’ll remember.

We returned to occupied Palestine one more time in 2007, traveling through Jordan this time with Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, and journalist, Alison Weir. The adventures we had, the joy we felt getting back in, entering from the Sheik Hussein crossing where most pilgrims entered the Galilee. We were sure we’d be stopped, but the famed Israeli tracking system apparently didn’t reach as far as this crossing. When Mary and I walked through passport control (by then we had new passports), they asked us why we were coming. “I just want to walk the steps of Jesus one more time.” She replied. Well, it worked the first time. It worked this time as well. When they began questioning her, she kept nodding her head and saying “what?” “She can’t hear,” I said. ‘What’d you need to know?” They waved us through. We attended Issa Amro’s wedding, worked in Hebron, went to Bi’lin, documented what we witnessed, wrote PR releases and articles.

She and I were already working on a new project, had been since 2006, sailing boats to Gaza. She was the co-founder of that initiative, and we actually made it to Gaza in 2008. https://www.freegaza.org/How-We-Made-It-In-Spite-Of-Ourselves/ After that August, she worked on the land crew in Cyprus three more times, sending boats back to Gaza, two of them landed successfully.

In 2010, Mary was supposed to be one of the passengers on board the ill-fated Freedom Flotilla I, when the ships were attacked and ten of our passengers murdered by Israeli commandoes who attacked all six ships in the flotilla. When she couldn’t get on board one of the boats, she came back to the Free Gaza office in Cyprus and worked tirelessly for over three weeks, handling media questions from the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

In 2011, she was a passenger on board the Canadian boat to Gaza, also stopped when Israel outsourced the occupation to Greece and demanded the Greek coast guard stop all of our boats leaving from there.

For the past ten years, Mary has written, spoken and advocated for justice in Palestine. Since we could no longer get into Gaza, she became one of several of us boat passengers on board that first successful trip to go out and speak to audiences about what we’d done and what we’d witnessed. When the book about our trip, Freedom Sailors, https://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Sailors-movement-succeeded-ourselves-ebook/dp/B008Y65TSA/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 was released, she toured the West Coast with me, speaking to audiences about that first successful trip.

One of her last messages to those of us who have worked, loved and laughed with her was typical Mary. “> Please don’t be too sad for me. I’ve really had a life filled with so many blessings and so many beautiful friends. So many things I wish I’d done, promises I don’t have time to keep, friends I can’t hug one last time. Please don’t cry for me. I’m filled with gratitude for you. I love every one of you more than you could possibly know. Mary”

Dearest friend, you will be terribly missed by all of us. I’m proud to have known you and call you my friend. May you rest in Palestine.

In Honor Of My Friend was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on February 07, 2021.

Rock The Boat Accepted At Social Change Film Festival

2020-09-03T00:00:00-04:00

For Immediate Release

Los Angeles, September 3, 2020: Kathy Elliott Sheetz Greaves and Courtney Sheetz’s joyous film, Rock the Boat, (Anatomy of a non-violent action) has been accepted at the International Social Change Film Festival as part of their festival lineup. Here is their announcement:

“On behalf of Social Change and the International Social Change Film Festival Film Selection Committee, I wanted to personally thank you for submitting your work for consideration. Your film was selected to be showcased at our 9th Annual International Social Change Film Festival in Chicago, IL.”

The film documents a non-violent voyage across the Mediterranean in August 2008 and is as relevant now as it was then. 44 activists from 17 countries, sailed in two small wooden fishing boats and succeeded against all odds.

It’s filled with the stories of ordinary people who came together to highlight an unjust situation. This kind of non-violent action can be replicated for many initiatives, not just for the action taken by these intrepid sailors.

Watch the Rock the Boat trailer, then watch for the time and date of the film. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClkIvR84-h4&feature=youtu.be

Get on the boat’…join the freedom riders,

For more information on the festival, click on these links https://twitter.com/chisocialchange https://www.facebook.com/ChiSocialChange

Rock The Boat Accepted At Social Change Film Festival was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on September 03, 2020.

How We Made It In Spite Of Ourselves

2020-05-17T00:00:00-04:00

On August 23, 2008, for the first time in 41 years, two small wooden boats landed at the port of Gaza, Palestine. Over the next ten years, 30 boats in 18 voyages would attempt to sail there. Five of those voyages organized by the Free Gaza Movement arrived safely on those shores in 2008 before the Israeli military began to violently attack and hijack the boats, arresting passengers, stealing their possessions, and confiscating medical supplies and other humanitarian aid. They attacked the 2010 Freedom Flotilla, murdering ten passengers on board the Mavi Marmara and injuring more than fifty on all 5 boats in that flotilla.

The story of the first voyage into Gaza and the challenges 44 passengers, and hundreds of supporters faced over the two years they organized are presented in this webinar below. Please click on the link to listen to the four organizers, Greta Berlin, Mary Hughes Thompson, Paul Larudee and Vangelis Pissias tell their story.
You will also see three videos of how the boats were prepared, how they sailed into Gaza that momentous day, August 23, 2008, and a trailer for a new movie, Rock the Boat, directed by Kathy Sheetz, one of the videographers and passengers on board the Free Gaza.

We hope you enjoy the 90-minute story of this remarkable first trip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMG_Gv4I61U&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR2kUbFIn8ibX7f3q746UHCjP09IKqsvo0z9lEEc5r1y0tBuyb_gJpatyaE

These are the bios of the participants for this webinar

Moderator: Ann Wright, (US) Ann is a twenty-nine-year veteran of the U.S. Army who retired as a colonel. She served sixteen years in the U.S. Diplomatic Corps. She resigned from the US government when Bush invaded Iraq. She was on board the Challenger One during the 2010 Freedom Flotilla when Israel attacked the boats, and was the boat leader on the 2016 Women’s Boat to Gaza. She also participated on portions of the 2015 and 2018 flotillas. She is a part of US Boats to Gaza and the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition.

Organizers: Greta Berlin, (US, France) Greta has worked for justice for the Palestinians since the early 1960s and was married to a Palestinian Nakba survivor born and raised in Safad, Palestine. She has been an outspoken advocate for the rights of Palestinians and has spoken and written extensively on the issue. She worked with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the occupied West Bank in 03, 05, and 07. From 1980 until 2011, she was President of GKB Associates, Inc, a private consulting firm teaching professionals how to design presentations and speak to the media.

After the first boat into Gaza returned, she either organized or was in charge of the land and media team for three of the other successful 2008 voyages and was US spokesperson for Freedom Flotilla I when it was attacked in 2010. She is the author/co-editor of Freedom Sailors, a book about the first voyage. Since her retirement in 2011, she has volunteer-taught English in Morocco, Iraq and Spain.

Mary Hughes-Thompson, (US, UK) Mary was born in England and is a retired TV documentarian and writer living in Los Angeles. A licensed pilot, she owned and flew her own plane for several years.

Beginning in 2002 she worked in Palestine with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the occupied West Bank. In November 2002, she was beaten and robbed in Yanoun Village near Nablus by American-Jewish youths from the illegal Itamar settlement. She was a member of a CPT human rights delegation to Iraq in 2003following the US invasion. After the first successful voyage to Gaza, Mary continued to work in Cyprus as part of the Free Gaza land team and was also part of the media team for the Freedom Flotilla I, handling mostly UK/Australia/New Zealand media.

Paul Larudee, Ph.D. (US) Paul was a Ford Foundation project supervisor and Fulbright-Hays lecturer in Lebanon, and US government advisor to Saudi Arabia and has been on the faculty of several universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, He was an organizer with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and co-founder of the Free Gaza movement. He was on board the Liberty, one of the two boats that successfully reached Gaza in 2008, and was also part of the 2010 Flotilla attacked by Israel.

He co-founded the Global March to Jerusalem, the Free Palestine Movement and the Syria Solidarity Movement, and went to Syria with delegations led by Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire in 2013 and 2014. He was one of six US observers of the Syrian presidential elections in June 2014.

Vangelis Pissias, Ph.D. (Greece) Vangelis is professor emeritus of water engineering at the Technical University of Athens. From 1996-2000 he was the project coordinator of the first EU Technical Assistance Programme in the Palestinian Occupied Territories.

After negotiating the purchase of the two fishing boats, Vangelis supervised the repairs and outfitting of the boats and was in charge of bringing them safely from Greece to Cyprus. He has been a long-time activist for Palestine and was part of the Greek underground during the time of the Generals in Greece (1967-1974). He was also on board the boats that were attacked in January 2009, May 2010 (Freedom Flotilla I), July 2011 and September 2012. He is currently a member of the steering committee of «Ship to Gaza-GR».

Participants: Musheir El Farra, (UK, Gaza) Musheir was born in 1961 in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip. He is a political and human rights activist, as well as an engineer in the UK.

He is the Chair of Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in England and was a member of the Executive committee of the National Palestine Solidarity in Britain for six years. For 16 years, Musheir has coordinated and supported three children’s centres in Jabalya, Nussairat refugee camps and Khan Younis. He is an active public speaker in Britain for the rights of the Palestinian people and has published articles in several Arab media. He also wrote the scripts, coordinated and narrated three films on Palestine.

Kathy Sheetz, (US) Kathy is a nurse and videographer and, along with her daughter Courtney, a student, focused on social issues in Haiti. Both decided they wanted to turn their attention to Free Gaza’s innovative action to highlight the illegal blockade of Gaza and were passengers on board the Free Gaza.

After BBC declined to use footage of participants for a documentary, she and her daughter felt they needed to make a film with the footage they had, highlighting nonviolent tactics used –including some used by MLK and Gandhi– as well as introducing some of participants who made this historic journey. The film is called “Rock the Boat’ and will be available for viewing after this webcast.

Additional online events will be held throughout May in memory of the passengers killed and injured on Freedom Flotilla I. https://freedomflotilla.org/news/coalition-statements/online-flotilla-events-during-may-2020/

Since the flotilla planned for 2020 has been postponed, we would ask anyone wanting to donate to these trips, to donate, instead to one of the following organizations for Palestine.

https://donate.unrwa.org/covid-19/~my-donation

https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donation-details/224

https://www.mecaforpeace.org/

How We Made It In Spite Of Ourselves was originally published by FreeGaza Movement at FreeGaza on May 17, 2020.