Activists have launched a national campaign to send a U.S. boat to Gaza that will sail with a flotilla of ships from Europe, Canada, India, South Africa, and parts of the Middle East this fall. Participants hope to break through the three-year Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. In May, a similar effort comprising six boats was attacked by Israeli military forces. Nine activists on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara were killed and dozens wounded when Israeli commandos boarded the ships, arresting some 700 passengers, and seizing the boats.
The U.S. effort has been endorsed by American Jews for a Just Peace, CODEPINK, Free Gaza Movement, Gaza Freedom March, Granny Peace Brigade, Jewish Voice for Peace, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, the War Resisters League,and WESPAC, among others. Individual endorsers include writer Alice Walker, activist Angela Davis, actor Kathleen Chalfont, Center for Constitutional Rights President Michael Ratner, and Voices for Creative Nonviolence co-coordinator Kathy Kelly.
The boat will be called The Audacity of Hope (irony intended) and funds are urgently needed to purchase the ship, hire a crew, secure licenses, and buy material aid. For more information, see ustogaza.org.
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Thank God !!!
To "Rankin": Thank "God" and Allah too!
According to international agreements (say, the UN Charter which Israel maintains it
did sign) Israel has no "soveregnty" (FM) in territory it invaded by force and rules under
Military Rule (1945). Furthermore, Israel is not entitled to designate a political party
that won in a democratic election. The actions of Israel both recently and throughout
its history are adequate to designate Israel as a terror state. Seizures and blockades
are provocative acts of war. Israel must sign an accord with Gaza guaranteeing its
soverenty and its right to its "self-defense". If Israel is concerned about the "security"
of Israeli citizens, it should consider dismantling the annexation wall,joining a Middle
East Nuclear Free Zone, signing the non-proliferation treaty (all under the UN's IAEA),
dismantle settlements in the West Bank and submit to the rule of an independent
and sovereign Palestine.
We know all of that but who is going to impose International Law on Israel?
Every effort counts especially one that comes directly as a 'boat' from the United States. As US Citizens, we need to do everything possible to help remove this collective punishment and siege of over 1.5 million people.
Are you people in touch with reality? Do you have any idea of what HAMAS actually stands for?
A couple of clues for the clueless: Hamas advocates the destruction of the state of Israel and the imposition of a brutal theocratic regime in its place. It is an enemy of individual liberty as we know it here in the US. It stands for the subjugation of women, the murder of homosexuals, and the death of anyone who decides to leave the mind-prison known as "Islam".
Hamas was born thru oppression of Israeli occupation and with the help of Israeli government to build friction in Palestinian society and bring a civil war among Palestinians. Israel has succeeded in having the religious group Hamas and the Palestinian authority kill each other few years ago in the battle for Gaza. The Israeli government is not happy that the Palestinians have made peace among themselves in order to have one shared goal of freedom and dignity for Palestinian society. The government of Netanyahu wants to keep the noose tight on Palestinian throat so that they wouldn't have a say to their own destiny. Netanyahu would not allow the Palestinians declare their State on the 1967 greenline border which is about 22% of prehistoric Palestine. The Israeli lobby, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has intimidated the Obama administration to veto the resolution at the UN and cut the funding for the Palestinian Authority under President Abbas. The Palestinian Authority is being punished for making peace with their opposition and taking their case to the international community instead of violent confrontation with the Netanyau government where the blood of innocent lives will be spelled. It makes you wonder whether the US government puts Israel's interest before its own and how can... a what should be a foreign lobby such as AIPAC who's loyalty is to Israel before the US control the agenda when it comes to the Middleast
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