Paul Larudee: Sailing to Gaza on a Sea of Debt and Optimism

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?

The human rights advocates of the Free Gaza Movement are concerned that the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza are suffering a siege resembling the early days of one imposed on the Warsaw ghetto during WWII. Few people and no goods can exit, and only basic relief supplies can enter. Even this is not enough to keep the sick from dying or the healthy from becoming sick, according to the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office.

The group reasons that while Israel and Egypt might have the right to defend and control their own borders and territory, they would have no authority in international and Gaza territorial waters. Why not try a new tactic, then, to enable free access to and from Gaza, and relieve the pressure on its population, more than half of whom are children?

Of course, turning the idea into reality wasn’t simple at all, which is why we’re maxing our credit cards. Nevertheless, our optimism is boundless as we watch our improbable plans come to fruition. We are told that on the shore in Gaza, 200,000 or more Palestinians will gather to welcome the first boats to arrive freely into Gaza since 1967.

Will Israel stop us? We believe that they will make the apparently reasonable request to inspect the boats first. However that would constitute recognition of Israel’s right to regulate traffic in a territory where they have no sovereignty. The group will have the boats inspected in Cyprus in order to assure that no one is sabotaging the mission, but they insist that they will not voluntarily submit to Israeli authority outside of Israeli territory, even if it means being forcibly stopped. They hope that in such an encounter, Israel will find no benefit in attacking a group of harmless civilians on a quixotic quest, and that this will open the door to more normal lives for the civilian population of Gaza.

Paul Larudee
The Free Gaza Movement
http://www.FreeGaza.org