[PAA-Discuss] Fw: [Anna in Palestine] Digest Number 88

[Bart Boyce]

The cruelty of the Israelis and the courage and beauty of the Palestinian men, undaunted
women and even little children , even in their suffering .....moves this reader almost to tears .....



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The Aftermath of the Flotilla From:  Traveling View All Topics | Create New Topic  Message  
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The Aftermath of the Flotilla  
Posted by:      "Traveling" anna.baltzer at gmail.com    travelinganna  
Mon Jun 7, 2010 7:40 am        (PDT) 




The Aftermath of the Flotilla

Last night marked one week since Israel's attack in international waters
on the Mavi Marmara Turkish humanitarian ship bound for Gaza, killing
nine. One by one, the hundreds of witnesses aboard the vessels have been
returning home to tell their stories after being stripped of any and all
footage. By confiscating all non-military evidence of the incident,
Israel has been able to successfully dominate the narrative, at least in
the US where news of the attack had begun to dwindle by the time
witnesses were released. One wonders, if Israel is conveying the whole
story of what happened that night, why eliminate every single other
piece of documentation? What does Israel have to hide?

According to hundreds of eyewitnesses, the Navy shot at the boat and
threw tear gas and sound bombs before boarding the ship, and then hit
the ground shooting. The videos released by Israel show those aboard the
ship attacking soldiers with sticks. Israel claims that the deaths were
an accident, that the soldiers were startled by the sticks and thus
forced to shoot people to defend themselves.

Now let's put things into perspective. In 2005, the Israeli Army removed
8,000 ideological settlers from Gaza, many of them kicking and screaming
with sticks and rocks in hand. The Army managed not to kill or even
shoot a single one of them. Do sticks from Turks hurt more, or is it not
about the sticks at all?

As Dr. Norman Finkelstein pointed out, Israeli officials met for an
entire week prior to the flotilla to plan precisely what they intended
to do. The Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren himself stated that
the Mavi Marmara was simply "too large to stop with nonviolent means."
It's hard to believe that this was an accident.

While the world focuses on the flotilla and Gaza, Israel's restrictions
on Palestinian rights in the rest of Palestine continue to tighten.On
Friday, soldiers surrounded the Old City in Jerusalem to prevent Muslim
men from praying at Al-Aqsa mosque. Only those younger than 15 or older
than 40 were allowed through. Hundreds of men gathered outside the metal
bars installed by the Army around the city gates. Frustrated, many men
sat down to wait to pray on the sidewalk, but soldiers on horseback
pushed through the crowd, forcing the men to scatter.

It's important to note that many Palestinians wait for years to receive
a permit to visit Jerusalem for just one day. Sometimes the permits are
valid only for a few hours. I saw a woman in Beit Sahour whom I'd met in
Syracuse last Fall. She said it's easier for her to travel to New York
than to go 10 miles away to Jerusalem. She said often permits are sent
to the wrong village and families fall over themselves to get the permit
to the right person in time, often failing. At the gates, some men
argued with the soldiers, close to tears, not knowing if they would ever
get another chance to realize a life-long dream of praying at their
country's holiest site.

Eventually, hundreds of men began to gather next to the wall of the Old
City and across the street. If they could not enter, they would pray as
close as they could. As the call to prayer rang out (at least sound can
overcome walls), a noticeable calm came over the space as they bowed
down in unison. The soldiers stood over the group, some filming with
cameras. In the middle of the group were an olive tree and a young child
who stood by himself, watching.

When the prayers ended, those who hadn't brought prayer mats wiped the
dirt off their foreheads and gathered with others across the street
where an imam had started to speak. Lara, a Palestinian delegate in our
group translated bits and pieces of what he said.

The sermon was about the importance of compassion and justice in Islam.
There they were, being denied their religious freedom, and they were
talking about compassion. The imam asked that their prayers be accepted
even though they could not be in the house of God. At one point, he
raised his finger and called out the following: "Someday, we will live
in a place where it doesn't matter what color your skin is, or where
you're from." With every sentence the group resounded in a collective
"Amen."

After the prayers, hundreds of women and older men poured out, one of
whom told me he'd seen a man beaten by the Army for calling out against
Israel's attacks on the flotilla. This is likely precisely what the Army
wanted to avoid by keeping Muslims from congregating at the mosque, and
they had been largely successful, at least so they thought.

Just as I was turning to return to the hotel, I heard a chorus of
women's voices coming from inside the city walls. Soon a large group of
women emerged carrying a Turkish flag and singing out familiar calls for
justice and praising those who gave their lives to free Gaza. The
soldiers thought that keeping the men out would be enough, but they had
underestimated the women.

Israel has also underestimated the international civilian community,
which continues to speak out. Day and night, we watch protests around
the world unfold one after another, seemingly stronger and larger by the
day: Japan, Paris, India, Oslo, Australia, and beyond. This is being
called "Israel's Kent State."

Far more significant than protests is the fact that worldwide
disapproval has been transforming into concrete rejection of
normalization with Israel, including major victories for the Palestinian
movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel until it
complies with international law.

This past week, the student body at Evergreen College voted to divest
from "Israel's illegal occupation." Before she was run over by Israeli
soldiers in a US-made Caterpillar
<http://electronicin tifada.net/ v2/article3705. shtml>  bulldozer in Gaza,
Rachel Corrie <http://www.rachelcorrie.org/>  had attended Evergreen.
Along with divesting, students have voted for a "Caterpillar free"
campus. You can support the students by clicking here
<http://www.jewishvo iceforpeace. org/publish/ article_1298. shtml> .

A week before the flotilla, Italy's largest supermarkets COOP and
Nordiconad announced a boycott of the Israeli produce company, Carmel
Agrexco. Four days later, Deutsche Bank
<http://www.israelna tionalnews. com/News/ news.aspx/ 137762>  (Germany's
largest bank, worth more than $1 trillion) announced divestment from
Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm that supplies technology for Israel's
military, settlements, and Wall (as well as the Wall between the US and
Mexico). Deutsche Bank was one of the company's largest share-holders.

The next day, it was announced that Sweden's largest national
pension funds <http://www.jpost. com/Israel/ Article.aspx? id=172146>  were
also divesting from Elbit. (Norway did the same
<http://www.washingt onexaminer. com/economy/ ap/56886737. html>  more than
one year ago.) Going a step further, the Swedish Port Workers Union
announced last Wednesday that it would temporarily stop handling Israeli
cargo in response to the attacks on the flotilla.

On the same day, Britain's largest union, Unite, passed a unanimous
motion
<http://www.thejc. com/news/ uk-news/32579/ unite-votes- boycott-israel> 
"to vigorously promote a policy of divestment from Israeli companies"
and to boycott Israeli goods and services as in "the boycott of
South African goods during the era of apartheid."

Then yesterday, the Pixies canceled of their upcoming concert in Israel
<http://www.cbc. ca/arts/music/ story/2010/ 06/06/pixies- israel.html>  in
response to Israel's attack on the flotilla. Musical artists Klaxons
and Gorillaz canceled as well. This on the heels of cancelations by
Santana, Gil Scott-Heron, Snoop Dog, Sting, and Elvis Costello
<http://www.jpost. com/ArtsAndCultu re/Music/ Article.aspx? id=175847> .

These are but a few of the BDS victories that have happened just in the
last month. The movement that officially began in 2005 crossed its first
threshold in 2009 (having gained in four years the same momentum it took
the BDS movement against South Africa 20 years to achieve), but 2010 has
brought it to a new level.

Last month marked 62 years since 80% of the families in Gaza were
displaced during Israel's creation, the Palestinian Nakba. And this week
marks 43 years since Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and West Bank. The
Occupation has been in place 70% of Israel's life-span so far. It is not
temporary. And it is but one part of the problem. Along with
Israel's discrimination against Palestinians within Israel's
de-facto borders and outside historic Palestine, the Occupation will not
be stopped voluntarily by Israel. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be
demanded by the oppressed." I spoke with a member of Boycott from Within
<http://boycottisrael.info/>  (Israelis supporting the Palestinian BDS
Call) paraphrased a common phrase during the anti-Apartheid struggle in
South Africa: We will bring them to their senses, or we will bring them
to their knees. For Israel, as was the case for the South African
Apartheid government, the former has simply never worked.


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