The Free Gaza Movement
3 August 2008

Dear Family, Friends, and Supporters,

A dozen volunteers from the UK, Greece, Palestine, Australia, Spain and Ireland are scattered about Greece, getting two boats ready to sail to Cyprus. There we’ll pick up another thirty volunteers before continuing to Gaza. We’re painting the boats, adding bunks, learning to use the sophisticated satellite uplink and a thousand other things to ready the boats and ourselves for the trip.

My fellow volunteers include an 83-year-old Holocaust survivor who will celebrate her next birthday aboard ship, an 81-year-old Catholic nun, an Israeli human rights leader who may face prison for his participation, Palestinians unable to visit their families in Gaza, journalists who will broadcast live from aboard ship, and many more, from at least 17 countries and five religions.

A few days ago, we all had to run down to the ATM machines and banks to put together $20,000 to cover a delayed wire transfer. Our Greek friends had already emptied their bank accounts and our supporters in the U.S. lent another $100,000. Although we raised $200,000 over the past two years, it disappeared quickly when we had to buy the boats and all the electronics.

The idea is simple enough. Get a couple of boats and sail through international waters to the Gaza Strip without entering Israeli or Egyptian territory. Israel claims to no longer occupy Gaza, so why would they object?

Continue reading →

John Bentley, From the Road, 4 August 2008

“I was looking at the Sturgis schedule and noticed that you have a beauty pageant and so I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers from the (mostly male) crowd. “With a little luck, she could be on the only woman ever to serve as both the first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

It is unlikely that Mrs. McCain participated. The “Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant – Bikinis on the Beach” was described by Jim Caple of EPSN as “essentially a topless beauty pageant. And occasionally bottomless, too.”

[Read the post]

Rachel Williams, The Guardian, 5 August 2008

A group of activists including Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth plans to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip by sailing into the Palestinian territory.

Some 46 campaigners, among them several Britons, a Holocaust survivor and an 81-year-old retired Catholic nun from the US, will make the 241-mile crossing from Cyprus in two wooden vessels at the end of the week, carrying medical supplies. The journey takes about 20 hours.

The California-based Free Gaza movement wants to open unrestricted international access to Gaza while delivering a “symbolic” shipment of 200 hearing aids and batteries for a society for deaf children and other supplies such as painkillers. Organisers say they will not pass through Israeli waters and have therefore not notified Israeli authorities of their plans.

But they are prepared for the 21-metre (70ft) Free Gaza and 18-metre Liberty to encounter resistance. The Gaza Strip’s waters are patrolled by the Israeli navy. The boats’ crews will cover as much of the journey as possible under sail to conserve fuel, so they can stay at sea as long as possible if their progress is blocked, British campaigner Hilary Smith said.

“The passengers are prepared to remain on board for weeks or longer if their passage is impeded,” she told a press conference in London. “Gaza is a virtual prison for well over a million Palestinians. It’s been under siege almost continuously for two years. Israel says it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip so the boat will not be asking permission from Israel and will not allow Israel to board the boats.”

[Read the report]

An open letter by Bassam Aramin, co-founder of Combatants for Peace
Translated from the Arabic by Miriam Asnes

Dear Hisam, father of Ahmed, may he rest in peace,

I learned of the death of your son, Ahmed Musa, through a one-sentence newsflash on the Palestinian news station Ma’an last Tuesday: “Ahmed Musa, a young boy, was killed by a bullet of the occupying forces in Nil’in.” I was immediately overcome with shock and grief and bitter tears. And above all, that relentless feeling of powerlessness that I know too well. We Palestinians cannot protect our children from being killed. Not because they are soldiers on the battlefield, but because we cannot imprison them in our homes. They must live their lives, play outside the house, go to school. We tell ourselves that there must be in our land a safe place to protect our little ones. Should not our villages be safe? Should not the courtyards of our homes be safe? And the safest place of all—should this not be the schoolyard?

But our children are still murdered in cold blood in front of our homes, in the heart of our villages and in our schools. For on another black Tuesday a year and a half ago, soldiers of the occupation killed my own beloved ten-year-old daughter. Abir Aramin was shot in the head in front of her school in the village of Anata on January 16th, 2007. Ahmed and Abir passed on the same day of the week, at the same age; both were shot in the head by the same kind of killer: one of the Israeli border patrol guards.

The moment I heard the news of your son’s death, I found myself speaking aloud to him. “Ya Ahmed, please give my regards and my love to Abir. Your two pure souls will meet in paradise. Go in peace, beloved, do not fear for you are not alone—there are others there waiting for you. Ready to greet you are more than a thousand Palestinian children who have been killed since the year 2000. And though I hope with all my heart, Ahmed, that you will be the last victim of these legitimized Israeli war crimes, I cannot help but wonder—who will be killed next?”

Continue reading →

Despite Judge’s Words, Treated Like Violent Criminal

Hanover, VA – August 1, 2008 –
More than two weeks after a federal judge granted Dr. Al-Arian bond, the government has stepped up its abuse of America’s high-profile prisoner of conscience.

Having already prevented Dr. Al-Arian from enjoying even this small concession of justice by placing him under 23-hour lock-down in a prison several hours away from his attorneys, prison officials have become even more brazen in their attempt to psychologically break Dr. Al-Arian by disrupting his already limited phone contact with his family and by flat-out denying his children their requests to visit their father.

Continue reading →