GAZA BLOCKADE CONTINUES

A group of twenty activists and their boat have been arrested in international waters by the Israeli navy.

The Israelis stated that any international organization could provide humanitarian aid through the crossings to Gaza from Israel.

At The Raw Story, Stephen C Webster reported that Huwaida Arraf, leader of the Free Gaza Movement and coordinator of the mission prior to his arrest by the Israelis said:

“No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel,” he said in a release. “We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children’s toys. Our passengers include a Nobel peace prize laureate and a former U.S. congressperson. Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters.”

Arraf called the intervention a “premeditated attack” and “a clear violation of international law.”

Despite the fact, as the BBC reported the British Government spokeperson said that they would be concerned if British Citizens were arrested in international waters, and despite the fact that the ship had on board a Nobel Prize Winner and former US Congresswoman, the Israelis went ahead anyway. They claimed the vessel had entered into Israeli/Palestinian waters, and that warning had been given.

The BBC reported:

On Monday, a report by the International Committee of the Red Cross described the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza as people “trapped in despair”, unable to rebuild their lives after Israel’s offensive.
Donors have pledged $4.5 billion for reconstruction and rehabilitation in Gaza following the 22-day offensive which left more than 50,000 homes, 800 industrial properties and 200 schools damaged or destroyed, as well as 39 mosques and two churches.

The blockade on the battered and slaughtered Palestinians of Gaza is carrying on violence by other means. Nuclear-armed, little Israel believes itself immune from International Law and standards of human decency and justice. The time for such toleration by other countries is long past since Israel has as much regard to their citizens as for the Palestinians.

Mairead Maguire, who won her Nobel Prize in Northern Ireland but who is no stranger to the plight of the Palestinians posted a copy of a letter she sent to Obama on her website in which she said:

“To visit Palestine is to walk with a people whose lives are being made unbearable by Israeli Policies of ethnic cleansing,” she wrote. “Each year when I visit I ask myself ‘how can the Palestinians bear so much suffering and still have hope?’ The Philosopher Karl Jung says ‘Go into your grief for there your soul will grow’. Being privileged to walk alongside the Palestinian people, one sees so much soul.”

“I appeal to you President Obama, to change USA Policies and stop supporting through military aid, etc, [Israel’s] occupation of Palestine, and to move immediately to help lift the siege of Gaza and say to Israel ‘enough is enough.’ […] Love and hope gives us all courage and belief that peace and freedom is possible.”

ELSEWHERE:

Just to make clear that not all Jewish Israelis are of one mind in relation to the treatment of the indigenous Palestinian people, Ezra Nawi tells his story, via The Nation.

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