Anti-Israel Campaign to Challenge Israel's "Siege of Gaza" Posted: August 12, 2008

Update: The Israeli government allowed the Free Gaza boats to sail into Gaza port on the afternoon of August 23, 2008. The following day, the group met with Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ leader in Gaza. The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the participants for “joining hands” with Hamas.

A campaign seeking to bring international attention to what it calls the "increasing stranglehold of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine" is planning to send a group to Gaza in mid-August.

The Free Gaza Movement, which is affiliated with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), plans to dispatch two ships carrying approximately 50 individuals from 15 countries from Lanarca, Cyprus.  

The ships are named the S.S. Free Gaza and the S.S. Liberty, the latter reportedly to honor the 34 American servicemen on the USS Liberty killed in error by Israeli forces during the Six Day War—an incident often used as a propaganda tool to undermine the legitimacy of Israel.

Organizers, who anticipate that Israeli authorities will try to stop the boats from entering Gaza, thereby validating their claim that Israel still controls Gaza, have indicated their intention to refuse inspection and resist arrest. They are also prepared to remain at sea for up to two weeks in protest against Israel.

Paul Larudee, a Free Gaza Movement cofounder, has described the effort as "an international, nonviolent resistance project to challenge Israel's blockade of Gaza and its denial of Palestinian human rights." Larudee, who is active with the ISM in Northern California, is one of several ISM-affiliated individuals planning to sail to Gaza. Three members of the European Parliament and anti-Zionist professor Norman Finkelstein are also rumored to be participating.

While organizers have indicated that they will bring medical and other supplies to Gazans, they have also stated that the transport of aid supplies "isn't a primary part of our mission." Bill Dienst, a Washington State physician who will be overseeing the trip's medical team, views the trip as a way to draw "international attention" to the "massive violation of human rights" in Gaza. "The rest of the world does not have to ignore this situation, but many of those who have used the phrase 'never again,' fall silent when a new atrocity against Palestinians is under way."

Larudee and Dienst's statements are indicative of the Free Gaza Movement's broader mission, as stated on its Web site, "to break the siege of Gaza… to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation."

The Web site also describes the Gaza Strip as "open-air concentration camp controlled by land, sea and air" and asserts that Israel "withholds food and energy in an attempt to starve [Gazans] into submission." Additionally, it refers to the events preceding the founding of the Jewish State as a "historic injustice."

Since it was announced in May 2007, the Free Gaza Movement has been endorsed by several American groups that seek to present a biased, one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including American Muslims for Palestine, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the International Action Center. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who has a history of promoting anti-Israel efforts, stated his support for the campaign in a June 2008 letter, in which he lamented that Gaza "is suffering under a cruel siege." The Free Gaza Movement also claims to have support from the Atlanta-based Carter Center, which the Carter Center has neither confirmed nor denied.

Organizers are encouraging individual supporters to join a listserve they established specifically to report on the boats' progress, and they claim that real-time coverage of the journey will be broadcast on the campaign's Web site.

The initiative was originally scheduled to sail in August 2007 and then in the spring of 2008, but was delayed both times due to difficulty securing sufficient funds. Since then, organizers claim to have raised $210,000, much of it from donations collected online and at fundraisers in several U.S. cities. Prior to the Free Gaza Movement's launch of its own non-profit organization in October 2007, campaign donations were collected by its fiscal sponsor, the Palestine Children's Welfare Fund. Both groups share an El Cerrito, California, mailing address with ISM's Northern California support group.

The Free Gaza Movement is one of the one of the many efforts being promoted this year as commemorations of the "Nakba," an Arabic word meaning 'catastrophe' or 'disaster' that many Palestinians and Arabs use to refer to the 1948 war and the establishment of the State of Israel.