Free Gaza! Support the Freedom Flotilla II

Canadians to Baird: 'Israel's Gaza blockade is illegal, we will sail to Gaza'

The [url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/johnbon/2011/02/canada-boat-gaza-join-fr... Boat to Gaza[/url] (CBG) is dismissing Foreign Affairs Minister Baird’s misinformation about the upcoming flotilla, and is promising to sail with the Freedom Flotilla II next month. John Baird, newly appointed Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister, has taken to discouraging Canadians from participating in the upcoming flotilla, which aims to break the siege of Gaza.

CBG views Minister Baird’s statement as an attempt to abdicate the Canadian Government’s obligation to ensure the safety of the Canadians who will be on board the flotilla, including the Canadian boat Tahrir, and to justify, in advance, any crimes Israel may commit against peaceful unarmed civilians from Canada and all over the world, as it did a year ago tomorrow.

“We are sailing to change the unjust and illegal situation Israel imposes on Gaza and to challenge the Canadian government’s support for those policies,” said Wendy Goldsmith, CBG steering committee member.

“Baird has characterized the Freedom Flotillas as 'provocative'. How is aid provocative? How is standing up for international law and social justice provocative? How is it provocative to work for the freedom of the 1.5 million Palestinians in the open air prison of Gaza?” asked Ehab Lotayef, a CBG spokesperson.

“What’s provocative is the government of Israel’s impunity and systemic violations of international law,” said Lotayef. “What’s provocative is the Harper government acting as an apologist for all of Israel’s actions, even when they are illegal and immoral, like the siege of Gaza. CBG and the flotilla are nonviolent direct responses to Israeli provocation.”

In his statement Mr. Baird mentions Israel's right to prevent the smuggling of weapons.  "What is he trying to imply?" asked Goldsmith.  "If Mr. Baird has any doubts about our mission or what we will carry, we invite him or any Canadian body to inspect the Canadian Boat to Gaza,” she added.

"We would like to remind Mr. Baird that the [url=http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/update/palestine-update-1406... Committee of the Red Cross[/url], one of the official channels to send aid to Gaza, has itself said: 'all States have an obligation to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief consignments, equipment and personnel [into Gaza],' not just those passing through channels approved by the government of Israel," said Lotayef.

CBG is a civilian to civilian initiative funded by citizens and civil society organizations and did not benefit from any government funding or taxpayers funds, as some media have recently wrongfully reported.

The full list of endorsements and supporting individuals and organizations is online at www.tahrir.ca.

[url=http://www.tahrir.ca/content/canadians-and-others-demand-safe-passage-fr... and others demand safe passage for the Freedom Flotilla II[/url]

Toronto, Thursday May 26th, 2011. Today prominent Canadians from diverse backgrounds united to demand safe passage for the boat sailing to Gaza (tahrir.ca) this spring as part of the Freedom Flotilla II (freedomflotilla.eu) to challenge the blockade which the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Human Rights Council have called "a crime against humanity."

Human Rights activist (Independent Jewish Voices & Not in Our Name: Jews Opposing Zionism) Suzanne Weiss offers the following, "I am proud to stand today, as a Jewish holocaust survivor, in solidarity with the Canadian participants in Freedom Flotilla II in its courageous mission to challenge inhuman Israel's siege of Gaza. We must demand that the Harper government take steps to guarantee the safety of its citizens who are heading to Gaza on a humanitarian obligation."

James Loney is a Toronto writer and member of Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an international violence reduction organization that places teams trained in nonviolence to work in lethal conflict zones. He was kidnapped in 2005 while leading a CPT peace delegation in Baghdad and held for four months. Last month, Loney published a memoir entitled Captivity chronicling his experiences in what is likely the most publicized kidnapping of the Iraq War. Loney states, "When facing injustice, we must choose between the power of violence and the power of nonviolence. Nonviolence leads to a new and transformed social order. The Freedom Flotilla II is nonviolence in action seeking the transformation of the Middle East. We call upon Stephen Harper to support nonviolent change in the Middle East by working to ensure the safe passage of the more than 30 Canadians who will be joining the Freedom Flotilla in late June. One of those Canadians is my friend Harmeet Singh Sooden, whom I was held hostage with for four months in Baghdad. I'm concerned for Harmeet, given what happened on the Mavi Marmara last year."

Anton Kuerti, renowned classical pianist and human rights activist, states: "I strongly support the attempt by Canadians to send a highly symbolic shipment of medicine and other necessities to the people of Gaza, who have, for so many years, been strangled by Israel's cruel blockade, making Gaza indistinguishable from a concentration camp. All we hear about from our government is the need to ensure the security of Israel, but there can never be security for anyone in that part of the world as long as the legitimate needs and rights of the Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere are deliberately ignored. Israel's arrogance in attacking boats bringing aid to Gaza in international waters can only further inflame the helpless furor of its essentially unarmed neighbour and prolong the debilitating stalemate which has ruined so many lives for so many decades."

John Greyson, filmmaker, professor and activist who will be among the 32 Canadian delegates on the Tahrir, adds: "I'm getting on the boat because, as a filmmaker, I know how cinema can build bridges between worlds. Cinema can capture the subtleties and contradictions of people's lives, in ways that illuminate and enlighten, that keep us all in a room together listening and talking to one other. I'm joining the flotilla because artists, like all citizens, have a responsibility to speak out in the face of injustice. I can hopefully use the tools of filmmaking to contribute something meaningful to this global movement to end the Israeli siege of Gaza. I'm getting on the boat because the people of Gaza need cameras, so that they can tell their own stories: their dreams, their realities, what it's like to live in an open air prison."

Michael Mandel, Osgoode Law School professor and specialist in international law, explains: "The blockade of Gaza is an act of aggression under international law, as is the continued military and settler occupation of the territory seized in 1967 and the denial for 44 years of the fundamental human rights of the millions of Palestinians living there. The occupation has been condemned by the General Assembly of the United Nations, the Security Council and the International Court of Justice. It also clearly constitutes a grave crime in Canada, contrary to the Canadian Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. I fully support the right of Israel to exist and to defend its legitimate borders within the ample limits of international law, but the blockade of Gaza goes far beyond that and is an integral part of an egregiously illegal occupation that has to end."

Toronto Quaker and peace trainer Lyn Adamson is Co-Chair of Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and will also be on the Tahrir. She states: "We are extremely concerned about the continuing blockade of Gaza and about its severe impact on the people of Gaza. This blockade is ignored by governments around the world, including our own. We support whole-heartedly the second Freedom Flotilla which seeks to deliver essential aid for the people of Gaza and more importantly to challenge the blockade itself through nonviolent action."

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Prize winner (Ireland, 1976), was in Ottawa for the Nobel Women's Initiative, and commented : "I fully support the call to the Israeli government for safe passage for the Canadian Boat to Gaza. The Canadian boat will join at least ten other boats and another thousand people sailing to Gaza to show the people of Gaza that the world has not forgotten them. I also call on the Egyptian government to allow the Spirit of Rachel Corrie to dock in an Egyptian port for them to deliver the sewage pipe to Gaza."

David Heap speaks on behalf of the Canadian Boat to Gaza steering committee: "Despite the campaign of intimidation targeting our Freedom Flotilla partners in different countries, and despite the threats of violence by the Israeli government, we refuse to be intimidated. Where our governments have failed the Palestinians of Gaza, civil society must act instead. We will sail to Gaza next month to non-violently challenge this illegal and inhuman blockade. As the captain of one of the boats in last year's Flotilla replied when hailed and ask to identify their destination: our course is the conscience of humanity. With this in mind, there can be no turning back."

We also note that the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights welcomes the news of the opening of the Rafah crossing but emphasizes that this does not change the key issue, which remains the lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, in compliance with international law.

No support from Libby. 

When I can walk again I will take to the streets.  I am truly disheartened that the convention is in Vancouver and I cannot attend to tell my party what I think. 

Northern Shoveler wrote:

I've spent over 15 years bucking up first Svend and then Bill.  I'm fucking tired of it.  You work your ass off to send  progressive people to Ottawa and you end up with a sycophant like Paul Dewar taking the lead on international affairs.  I might as well not vote if all parties are going to cheer on NATO's ongoing and expanding war for oil and other goodies.  

I am ashamed to be Canadian.  I am ashamed that our citizenry buys the lies from our state media.  I am ashamed that now the NDP is denouncing Syria just like all the other imperialist parties.  But I have nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. 

The level of disappointment being expressed here appears as clear evidence that you've existed for far too long within the same fiction that has so enraptured the general voting population into expecting anything at all from this representation of a democratic society. As NDPP suggests, the pathetic farce has to be either directly confronted, or provided with the contempt that it so richly deserves from where you are, instead of continuing to engage in the futility of relying on this court of jesters and fools in Ottawa for solutions.

[url=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/canadianboattogaza/2011/06/open-letter-n... letter to the NDP: Will you join us in opposing inhumane blockade of Gaza?[/url]

- on rabble.ca

Matt Gurney, of the Notional Pest, wrote:

Mr. Atamanenko, first elected in 2006, has been quite public with his support of the Gazan cause before. He was quick to condemn Israel for the original flotilla incident. He also criticized its military operations against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip in 2008 and 2009. His endorsement of the Canadian Boat to Gaza is therefore logically consistent, if nothing else.

Here it is, Boom Boom: [url=http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/06/07/3088041/lawsuit-seeks-to-bloc... seeks to block Canadian ship in Gaza flotilla[/url]

-------------------------

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6qZs-VJLw]"This is the Freedom Ride of this era" - Alice Walker[/url] (YouTube, 2 minutes)

Wow - she's asking for 1$million - but that has nothing to do with the aid ship as far as I can see.

From the same news story:

"Atamenenko's office confirmed he still supports the flotilla but he isn't speaking to the media."

Obviously he's under a gag order from Layton. This is shameful conduct on Layton's part.

Excellent, laine!

It seems as if Layton is betraying, with record speed, the expectations of the millions who voted NDP for the first time. They did not vote for this crap. Let's hope the party establishment does not succeed in crushing the spirit of the mostly young idealists who were elected and are expected by their electors to be the harbingers of change and the vehicles to crush Harper's agenda.

"We continue to urge the Canadian government to play a balanced and constructive role in the Middle East."

Holy crap. I don't think I've ever read a more misleading statement from an NDP leader in my lifetime. Hasn't Layton been paying attendance to Harper's total and unquestioned devotion to Israel, and Israel's brutality to Gaza?

A CALL FROM GAZA IN SUPPORT OF THE FREEDOM FLOTILLA II : BESIEGED GAZA, OCCUPIED PALESTINE

June 12th 2011 -- We the Palestinians of the Besieged Gaza Strip, on this day, five years after closures began on Gaza, are saying enough inaction, enough discussion, enough waiting - the full siege on the Gaza Strip must end.

Shortly after 2006 democratic election which were supervised by people and bodies from the international community, nations formerly supporting aid and cultural organizations in Gaza withdrew their support. In mid-2007, our borders, controlled by Israel and Egypt, fully closed, locking Palestinians within and preventing imports and exports from crossing our borders.

From December 27 2008 to January 18 2009, Israel waged an all-out slaughter on Gaza, killing over 1500 Palestinians, the vast majority innocent civilians and among them over 430 children, and destroying thousands of homes, businesses, factories and buildings including universities, schools, hospitals and medical care facilities, and damaging vast tracts of our water and sanitation system.

Two and a half years following the cessation of Israel's attacks, almost no homes and few buildings have been rebuilt, our sanitation and sewage system is more dire than ever, raw waste continues to be pumped into our sea -for want of proper treatment facilities -polluting our water and the fish along the coast which fishermen are forced to harvest -banned from entering the 20 nautical miles of sea accorded to Palestinians under the Oslo agreement-contaminating our drinking water and food supply.

Our farmers continue to be shot at, maimed and killed by Israeli soldiers along our border, prevented from working, growing and harvesting their land, denying us a rich supply of produce and vitamins. Nutrient deficiencies and malnutrition continue to rise, affecting our children's growth and their ability to study. Our economy is shut down by lack of functioning factories and electricity. Our students hold little to no prospects of exiting for study abroad, even when placements and scholarships have been secured, due to the Israeli control of the Erez crossing and the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing being closed more often than opened. Our ill suffer for want of necessary medications and medical supplies and equipment.

Since 2005, over 170 Palestinian organizations have called for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to pressure Israel to comply to international law. Since 2005, Palestinians have weekly met in villages in the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem, to protest Israel 's occupation policies.

Creative civilian efforts such as the Free Gaza boats that broke the siege five times, the Gaza Freedom March, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, and the many land convoys must never stop their siege-breaking, highlighting the inhumanity of keeping 1.5 million Gazans in an open-air prison.

On the 2nd of December, 22 international organizations including Amnesty, Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, and Medical Aid for Palestinians produced the report ‘Dashed Hopes, Continuation of the Gaza Blockade' calling for international action to force Israel to unconditionally lift the blockade, saying the Palestinians of Gaza under Israeli siege continue to live in the same devastating conditions. Human Rights Watch published a comprehensive report "Separate and Unequal" that denounced Israeli policies as Apartheid, echoing similar sentiments by South African anti-apartheid activists.

The recent announced opening of the Rafah crossing has yet to be fully enacted. Even when open, it will mean little with respect to the imports and exports of goods to and from Gaza and will not improve the plights of fishermen, farmers and Gaza 's unemployment and manufactured poverty rates.

[b]We request that the citizens of the world oppose this deadly, medieval blockade. The failure of the United Nations and its numerous organizations to condemn such crimes proves their complicity.[/b] Only civil society is able to mobilize to demand the application of international law and put an end to Israel 's impunity. The intervention of civil society was effective in the late 1980s against the apartheid regime of South Africa . Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have not only described Israel 's oppressive and violent control of Palestinians as Apartheid, they have also joined this call for the world's civil society to intervene again.

We call on civil society organizations worldwide to intensify the anti-Israel sanctions campaign to compel Israel to end to its aggression. We call on the nations and citizens of the world participating in the Freedom Flotilla 2 to continue their plans to sail to Gaza where they would be welcomed by Palestinians. The civil society initiatives of the Freedom Flotillas are about taking a stance of justice and solidarity with besieged Palestinians when your governments will not. We call on the Flotilla movement to grow and continue to sail until the siege on Gaza is entirely lifted and Palestinians of Gaza are granted the basic human rights and freedom of movement citizens around the world enjoy.

Signed by:

University Teachers' Association
Palestinian Nongovernmental Organizations Network
Al-Aqsa University
Palestine Red Crescent Society in Gaza
General Union of Youth Entities
Arab Cultural Forum
General Union for Health Services Workers
General Union for Public Services Workers
General Union for Petrochemical and Gas Workers
General Union for Agricultural Workers
Union of Women's Work Committees
Union of Synergies-Women Unit
Union of Palestinian Women Committees
Women's Studies Society
Working Woman's Society
Palestinian Students' Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel
One Democratic State Group
Palestinian Youth against Apartheid
Association of Al-Quds Bank for Culture and Info
Palestine Sailing Federation
Palestinian Association for Fishing and Maritime
Palestinian Women Committees
Progressive Students Union
Medical Relief Society
The General Society for Rehabilitation
Afaq Jadeeda Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Deir Al-Balah Cultural Centre for Women and Children
Maghazi Cultural Centre for Children
Al-Sahel Centre for Women and Youth
Ghassan Kanfani Kindergartens
Rachel Corrie Centre, Rafah
Rafah Olympia City Sisters
Al Awda Centre,
Rafah Al Awda Hospital,
Jabaliya Camp Ajyal Association,
GazaGeneral Union of Palestinian Syndicates
Al Karmel Centre,
Nuseirat Local Initiative,
Beit Hanoun Union of Health Work Committees
Red Crescent Society Gaza Strip
Beit Lahiya Cultural Centre
Al Awda Centre, Rafah
Al-Quds Bank for Culture and Information Society
Women section -union of Palestinian workers syndicate
Middle East Childrens' Alliance -Gaza
Local Initiative -Beit Hanoun

..thank you M. Spector. do you have a link to this?

edit to add: found it

http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/canadianboattogaza/2011/06/call-gaza-sup...

*snerk*

So you are saying Libby is being intimidated, and we are supposed to believe that?????

LMAO

M. Spector wrote:

Boom Boom wrote:

Endorsements: the Canadian Boat To Gaza

Well, Atamanenko is still there, even though he's been silenced.

The fact that Libby Davies isn't there is testimony to the atmosphere of intimidation that must exist in the federal NDP caucus.

While I am surprised that Libby's name wouldn't appear on the endorsement list, she does not strike me as the type who is easily intimidated. I cannot speak for why that would be the case, but to conclude that it must be the result of intimidation is very disrespectful and insulting to Libby.

Um, Libby was the one who was forced by the party to grovel before the media after she had been tricked by a mischievous interviewer into saying that Israel's occupation of Palestine began in 1948 (which of course in fact it did, but truth doesn't enter into the picture apparently).

And new Quebec MP Alexandre Boulerice was an endorser of the Canadian Boat to Gaza until the day after Jack Layton found out about it and told the media the NDP didn't support it. Boulerice's name mysteriously vanished form the list of endorsers the next day, and he has given no explanation.

And the only remaining NDP MP endorser refuses to talk to the media about it.

Now tell me with a straight face that there's no intimidation going on in the NDP caucus with regard to support for the struggle of the Palestinians.

Libby has received a lot of donations from peace activists and Palestine advocates over many elections.  Her outspoken advocacy in areas that others were too timid to enter has earned her the respect of many in this country.  Her and Bill Siksay were sometimes lonely voices speaking truth to the power of oppression but they were welcomed by many of us.

Where is her voice when the NDP is abandoning its anti globalization policies and adopting a pro NATO pro "humanitarian" intervention policy.  If she hasn't been silenced then I would like her not anyone else to tell me why she no longer speaks with a burning desire to see justice and peace for the people of Palestine and Libya. What in the world has changed that has caused her to no longer speak on the important struggles that she used to be so eloquent about?   Why is she not walking the walk any more?

Northern Shoveler wrote:

Where is her voice when the NDP is abandoning its anti globalization policies and adopting a pro NATO pro "humanitarian" intervention policy.  If she hasn't been silenced then I would like her not anyone else to tell me why she no longer speaks with a burning desire to see justice and peace for the people of Palestine and Libya. What in the world has changed that has caused her to no longer speak on the important struggles that she used to be so eloquent about?   Why is she not walking the walk any more?

Good questions. We should ask  her.

M. Spector wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

M. Spector wrote:

Now tell me with a straight face that there's no intimidation going on in the NDP caucus with regard to support for the struggle of the Palestinians.

Where's your evidence to back up the claim? Conversations? Letters? Leaked e-mails? Far as I can see, there is no evidence, just your speculation presented as an iron-clad fact. Is there intimidation going on in the NDP Caucus? I can't say one way or the other because I don't know. I do know that Libby is not the type of person to be intimidated easily, nor does it logically follow that Boulerice was intimidated. You think he was, and you're entitled to that viewpoint, but just expressing that viewpoint doesn't make it a fact because you say it does.

I presented the evidence in detail immediately before the part you quoted. It all came from the media and my own observation of the state of the endorsers list of the CBG from time to time. I have no inside information.

But we have the evidence of 3 NDP MP's whose behaviour resembles that of persons who have been intimidated - all on the same issue - and you have nothing to put on the balance scales on the other side. Excuse me for drawing logical inferences.

Once again, your inference does not a fact make.