Ship sponsored in part by Carter Center to challenge Israeli blockage of Gaza port:
"Free Gaza" initiative to try and enter Gaza by sea and open port
Date: 19 / 07 / 2008 Time: 14:58
www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=30657
Bethlehem - Ma'an - A small shipping vessel will set sail for Gaza from
Cyprus on 5 August expecting to be illegally detained as it enters Gazan
waters.
The waters off the Gaza Strip are patrolled by Israeli naval vessels, and
Israel enforces a "Fishing Limit" that is 6 nautical miles (11.1 km) from
the Gaza shore. These restrictions on access and borders are enforced
despite the 2005 Israeli "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.
There will be 60 people aboard the "Free Gaza" vessel including a Holocaust
survivor a survivor of the Palestinian Nakba, and members of the
international Palestinian diaspora.
The crew intends to travel into the Gaza strip, past the international
waters boundary, the 1996 Oslo accords boundary (20 nautical miles from the
Gaza coast), the 2002 Bertini agreement boundary (12 nautical miles and 22.2
km from the Gaza coast) and the current "Fishing Limit" imposed by the
Israeli navy since October 2006.
Legally, the group says there should be no problem passing each of these
lines since Israel disengaged from the Gaza strip in 2005 and should no
longer its control airspace and territorial waters.
The initiative hopes to draw attention to the continued de facto occupation
of Gaza. In an interview with Ma'an on Saturday, a spokesperson for the
group in Israel said that the crew expects to be stopped by the Israeli navy
shortly after they cross from international waters into Gazan territorial
waters, which according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea, extend 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from an area's shoreline.
While Israel has not signed the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, they
did sign the Bertini Agreement in August 2002 with the UN, which stated that
Gazan territory extended the full 12 nautical miles from the shore.
In June 2005, Israel unilaterally "disengaged" from Gaza and withdrew all
troops to the 1967 borders. In theory, Gazans control the entire Strip,
excluding approximately 650 meters along the eastern border which is called
a buffer and "no go" zone.
The trip organizers think one of four things will happen to the ship: it may
be stopped as it crosses or approaches the barrier marking the international
waters boundary, in which case the crew is prepared to stay on board for at
least two weeks in protest of the illegal halt of passage. The second
possibility envisioned by the organizers is that the ship will be allowed to
pass into the area, and will be stopped in the territorial waters. In this
eventuality the crew expects to be arrested, and the ship dragged to shore.
A third possibility is that the ship will be sunk by the navy.
The final option is that the ship actually makes it through to the Gaza port
near Gaza City in the north of the Strip.
According to Holocaust survivor and crew member Hedy Epstein, in the event
that they can get through to Gaza they will "open the port, fish with the
fishermen, help in the clinics, and work in the schools."
What Epstein hopes to do on this journey is to "remind the world that we
will not stand by and watch 1.5 million people suffer death by starvation
and disease."
Coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, Palestinian
Legislative Council member and lawyer Jamal Al-Khudari said that he hopes
the arrival of the ship in Gaza will mean an end to the siege. He emphasized
that the ship has a right to enter the local waters and Gazans have the
right to host their guests without Israeli intervention.
Opening a port in Gaza would allow residents to export agricultural
products, and gain control over the goods and material brought into the
region. Currently, all crossing points are controlled by Israel and Egypt.
The truce between Hamas and Israel was supposed to see the blockade and
restriction on essential goods lifted, but food, medical supplies, cement
and fuel are still only trickling in.
The ship was invited to Gaza by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in the
Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, the Palestinian Centre
for Human Rights and the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, and support
for the initiative was provided in part from Carter Center in the US and
Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
If you are media, please email us to reserve a place on the boat or boats;
we intend to have satellite capabilities onboard; we will keep you posted on
dates and locations.
The Free Gaza Movement
405 Vista Heights Road
El Cerrito, CA 94530
www.freegaza.org
friendsofgaza@gmail.com ### ### ###
--
Rebecca Tobias
Program Director
Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Ethics
Malibu, California
310-916-8888
www.RaoulWallenbergInstitute.org
And the work of generosity shall be peace; and the effect of generosity will be quietness and security forever.
Isaiah 32:17
This demonstrates awesome courage.
The human spirit is our grace.
Our pride our prayers.
May the light shine
Thank you.
Um, if Zionists were not murderous thieves of Palestinian farmland, orchards, graizing lands, there would be no need to send the palestinians the means to stay alive.
But these guys tell us that it is the Zionist's blockade of aid to Palestinians in Gaza that is the "conflict". Wow, way to sideline the real deal.
Sure, when this important high profile and critical voice from the Jewish community, to address publicly the crimes of zionism in this heroic attempt to bring light to this misery and horror, speaks out; we have a pointless attack directed towards them.
Good going, just what we need to reach rational dialogue. Not.
Type the answer in English: What is four plus one? five
Of course the zionist lobby needs to deny the exposed facade of 'Jewishness' as these later-day nazis cannot stand the light and heat of discovery.
All their pretence of being 'Jewish' is another betrayal similar to the days when they fed their 'fellow' Jews to the nazi death machine.
See:
Lenni Brenner: 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration with the Nazis
These asshole will lie about EVERYTHING.
In constant denial finding yourself trapped in ridiculous inversions of reality to justify the theme of racism that zionism represents?
Try the miricle cure of honesty!
Lenni Brenner a world renouned historian, versus say some lunitic who cites absolutly nothing but the typical zionist dung thrown at any attempt to pull the curtain of zionist lies away from the terror and pogrom of murder towards the people of occupied Palestine.
[shrug]
so what else is new?
Type the answer in English: What is one plus two? three
The lunitic still has nothing but zionist [ un cited, un supported etc ] dung.
Lenni Brenner versus the same psychopathic zionist chump.
Unable to provide any kind of proof from a reputable source that this world renound historian was 'KGB'.
These liars are pathetic;
51 Documents was a masterful work exposing the zionist/nazi working team.
All these assholes have is dung.
Type the answer in English: What is three plus three? six
Who will be the first to have the courage to publically state that "Palestinian nationalism is a failed experiment." "Palestinianism", the political construct that stands for the proposition that the Moslem inhabitants of pre-state Israel are a unified nationality with aspirations towards national self determination, has been shown over and over again to simply not work. It has done nothing for the "Palestinian" peoples` lives. It has acted to un-naturally chill the natural patterns of "Palestinian" emigration to more prosperous country where,as individuals, they could have a reasonable famiy lifeand opportunities instead of being used as cannon fodder for the asprations of Arab Leaders who want to "fight the Jews to the last "Palestinian"life".
As I've stated so many times before...
Any cult that puts quotation marks around a people while not even having a valid excuse for ethnic 'Jewishness'.....
Tom Segev, "An Invention Called 'the Jewish People'"
Dissecting the Politics and Culture of Capitalism ... An Invention Called "the Jewish People" by Tom Segev ... Tom Segev, an Israeli historian, is the author ...
mrzine.monthlyreview.org/segev120308.html
and the repeated rants without basis in reality kinda cinches the notion that zionists are dangerous psychopaths who don't care about the consequences that befall others; especially Jews.
thanks for making this so clear.
Type the answer in English: What is five plus five? ten
what the rest of the world refuses to admit about Islam. From Hamas' Christian Convert: I've Left a Society that Sanctifies Terror:
Masab, son of West Bank Hamas leader and MP Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has become a Christian. He says, "You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas. Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death." "An entire society sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists. In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheikhs tell their students about the 'heroism of the shaheeds.'"
I was yacht sailing captain in the area, 30 years ago, saw the destroyed harbor of Jaffa, visited Cyprus often, sailed to Tel Aviv yacht harbor, Alexandria, Turkish coast. This event is wonderful, it reminds me of the salty Mediterranean sea. I wish you all great good success, open up the Caza, free the people!,