Anti-Israel Boat Campaign Challenges Israel's "Siege of Gaza"
Introduction
Posted: June 30, 2009
The Free Gaza Movement (FGM), a coalition of groups and individuals seeking to challenge what it calls the "increasing stranglehold of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine," is sending multiple boat missions to Gaza this summer as part of its "Summer of Hope" campaign.
FGM organizers, who have sent several boats to Gaza since August 2008, have used the international attention they receive to present their one-sided and biased views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the year leading up to the first mission and in the months that followed, organizers criticized Israel's founding, propagated messages about Israel's brutality and recommended international sanctions against Israel. They ran a highly effective campaign that raised several hundred thousand dollars in funds, and garnered significant international support and media attention.
While the Israeli government allowed the first five boats to sail into Gaza's port without incident, in late December 2008, Israeli authorities intercepted the sixth FGM mission, which was attempting to sail into Gaza during Israel's military action there. Two weeks later, on January 15, 2009, Israel blocked the group's seventh mission.
 FGM efforts have attracted journalists, parliamentarians and other notable participants, including: Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia and the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate; Mairead Maguire, 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ireland; Clare Short, British parliament member and former Secretary of State for International Development; and Lauren Booth, journalist and sister-in-law of England's former prime minister Tony Blair.
FGM's mission, as stated on its Web site, is to elicit international opposition to Israel's policies: "We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want 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."
In press releases and on its Web site, the group has described the Gaza Strip as an "open-air concentration camp controlled by land, sea and air" and asserted that Israel "withholds food and energy in an attempt to starve [Gazans] into submission." It has accused Israel of committing war crimes and Israeli politicians of "vicious racism." Additionally, it has lamented the "accelerated Judaization of Jerusalem" and referred to the events surrounding the founding of the Jewish State as a "historic injustice."
FGM is most significant achievement for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a grassroots movement that spreads anti-Israel propaganda and misinformation and voices support for those who engage in armed resistance against Israel. Several notable ISM figures have been involved in organizing the campaign and the various missions.
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