Anti-Israel Boat Campaign Challenges Israel's "Siege of Gaza"
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Posted: June 30, 2009
The Israeli Navy intercepted the latest attempt by the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) to enter Gaza by boat on June 30, 2009.
FGM's "Spirit of Humanity" boat left Lanarca, Cyprus, on June 29, despite earlier warnings from the Israeli Foreign Ministry that it would not be permitted to sail into Gaza. As the boat approached Gaza, Israeli authorities took control of it and redirected it to the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
FGM organizers issued a series of statements immediately afterwards in which they objected to Israel's actions. Huwaida Arraf, a coordinator of the trip, stated, "Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters." The Cypriot Embassy in Tel Aviv has stated that the FGM group received clearance to leave Lanarca "on the basis of its declaration that its intended destination was the port of Port Said in Egypt."
Arraf is a co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), which has had an active role in promoting Free Gaza's efforts. Adam Shapiro, another ISM co-founder and Arraf's husband, was also aboard the intercepted boat.
Included among the boat's 21 passengers were Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia and the 2008 Green Party presidential candidate, and Mairead Maguire, 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ireland.
Several Arab, Muslim, and far-left groups have expressed support for the group since the boat was blocked by Israel, some calling on the U.S. to intervene on passengers' behalf. For example, American Muslims for Palestine, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Muslim Public Affairs Council issued statements in response to Israel's interception, while the New Black Panther Party and the International Action Center, a self-described "anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist" organization founded by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, have organized or attended events held in protest against Israel's actions.
The June trip marked the first of three planned summer missions to Gaza as part of the group's "Summer of Hope" campaign. FGM is billing the final summer trip, in August, the "anniversary voyage," in honor of the inaugural Free Gaza trip, which sailed around the same time last year.
The "Summer of Hope" campaign is the first since FGM split into two seperate factions due to a series of internal disputes involving fundraising and board elections, among other things. As a result of this split, two different groups now use the moniker "Free Gaza."
One of the groups, which is organizing the "Summer of Hope" campaign, is led by Arraf and five others who were elected to FGM's interim board of directors at a November 2008 meeting in London. Legally called F.G. Human Rights Projects, Ltd., the group is based in Cyprus and accepts U.S. funding through its fiscal sponsor, the Washington D.C.-based American Educational Trust (AET), an anti-Israel group that publishes Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
The second group, whose treasurer is FGM co-founder Paul Larudee, is called the Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees (AIPAC). It is a tax-exempt 501c(3) organization created in fall 2007 in California as a means of excepting donations for FGM's efforts. Larudee, the ISM chapter he leads, and AIPAC share a mailing address in El Cerrito, California (though it is using the acronym AIPAC, the group is unaffiliated with American Israel Public Affairs Committee).
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