{"id":9409,"date":"2009-07-04T08:13:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-04T13:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=9409"},"modified":"2009-07-04T10:35:01","modified_gmt":"2009-07-04T15:35:01","slug":"cynthia-mckinney-letter-from-an-israeli-jail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=9409","title":{"rendered":"Cynthia McKinney: My Letter from an Israeli Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

This letter was originally broadcast<\/a> on WBAIX on July 3rd<\/p>\n

My Letter from an Israeli Prison<\/p>\n

By Cynthia McKinney<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Pirates<\/a>

Pirates of the Mediteranean - the Israeli Navy<\/p><\/div>A funny thing happened to me on my way to Gaza. Before I left for Gaza I was giddy with excitement. The children needed school supplies. It was a last minute, urgent request; please bring crayons for the children. And so I accepted contributions of crayola crayons, number 2 pencils, pencil sharpeners, paint brushes and crayola water colours. When I told people that I was … to buy crayons for the children of Gaza everyone wanted to donate. By the time I left my suitcase could hold no more. So, full of expectations, I entered the airport in the United States headed once again to Larnaca, Cyprus, where the Hope flotilla, consisting of the Free Gaza and The Spirit of Humanity were to embark to Gaza. The Free Gaza was to be donated to the people of Gaza so they could replace some of the boats confiscated and bombed by the Israelis during their Operation ‘Cast Lead’.<\/p>\n

It was a beautiful dream and dream it had to be because I had tried to get to Gaza before.<\/p>\n

At the outbreak of Israel\u2019s Operation \u2018Cast Lead\u2019 [in December 2008], I boarded a Free Gaza boat with one day\u2019s notice and tried, as the U.S. representative in a multi-national delegation, to deliver 3 tons of medical supplies to an already besieged and ravaged Gaza.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

During Operation Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16s rained hellfire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full scale outright genocide. U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs – new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel\u2019s onslaught that Gaza had become Israel\u2019s veritable weapons testing laboratory and the people were guinea pigs used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.<\/p>\n

The world saw Israel\u2019s despicable violence thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international waters. That boat carried the medical supplies … It\u2019s a miracle that I\u2019m even here to write about my second encounter with the Israeli military, again a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

I am now known as Israeli prisoner number 88794… How could I be in prison for collecting crayons for kids and trying to get the crayons to them? The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime and while in the cell block I’ve access to my clothes and a cell phone but not to crayons or any clothing that has the word Gaza on it. <\/p>\n

Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else\u2019s children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza’s children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, Israel must be declared a failed state.<\/p>\n

I am facing deportation from a state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to Israel against my will. I am being held in this prison because I had a dream that Gaza\u2019s children could color and paint, that Gaza\u2019s wounded could be healed, and that Gaza\u2019s bombed-out houses could be rebuilt.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019ve learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it\u2019s incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream. My… cellmates … one is pregnant. They are all in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better. The CIA-installed … put the once proud, never colonized Ethiopia into the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must flee their country because superpower politics became more important than human rights and self-determination.<\/p>\n

My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn\u2019t cheap. Many of them represent their family\u2019s best collective efforts to self-fulfillment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel only after they arrived Israel told them quote \u201cthere is no UN in Israel\u201d unquote.<\/p>\n

The police here have license to pick them up and suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious and proud young women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world\u2019s first Jews and Christians. I believed that marketing and failed to look deeper.<\/p>\n

The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped in Ramle. And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for 6 months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch first Senator and now President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that hope, change, and \u2018yes we can\u2019 were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfillment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.<\/p>\n

It was a slick marketing campaign as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel\u2019s marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.<\/p>\n

We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Junior\u2019s letter from a Birmingham jail. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that I too would one day have to do so. It is clear that taxpayers in Europe and the U.S. have a lot to atone for, for what they\u2019ve done to others around the world.<\/p>\n

What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people\u2019s children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I\u2019m experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. [But] I\u2019m lucky. I will leave this place. Has Israel become the place where dreams die?<\/p>\n

Ask the people of Palestine. Ask the stream of black and Asian men whom I see being processed at Ramle. Ask the women on my cellblock. [Ask yourself:] What are you willing to do?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s change the world together and reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity. I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in Israel as guardian of the Holy Land, resettled in safe homes. I appeal to the United State\u2019s Department of State to include the plight of detained UNHCR-certified refugees in the Israel country report in its annual human rights report. I appeal once again to President Obama to go to Gaza, send his special envoy, George Mitchell there, and to engage Hamas as the elected choice of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free Palestine, and to the women I\u2019ve met at Ramle. This is Cynthia McKinney, July 2nd 2009, also known as Ramle prisoner number 88794.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congresswoman,\u00a0 Green Party presidential candidate, and an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice. The first African-American woman to represent the state of Georgia, McKinney served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1993-2003, and from 2005-2007. She was arrested and forcibly abducted to Israel while attempting to take humanitarian and reconstruction supplies to Gaza on June 30th. For more information, please see http:\/\/www.FreeGaza.org<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This letter was originally broadcast on WBAIX on July 3rd My Letter from an Israeli Prison By Cynthia McKinney A funny thing happened to me on my way to Gaza. Before I left for Gaza I was giddy with excitement. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-2rL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9409"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9432,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9409\/revisions\/9432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}