Flotilla II

PIAG’s dispatch for July follows the fate of the second Freedom Flotilla to Gaza that is (today, July 5) languishing in the port of Athens, prohibited from sailing out of the harbor by Greek authorities on the dubious premise that the eight ships carrying humanitarian cargo and well-wishes from friends around the world, are “not seaworthy.”

One of the 320 activists from 22 countries who have booked passage on the flotilla is the novelist and poet, Alice Walker. She writes: “Our boat, The Audacity of Hope, will be carrying letters to the people of Gaza. Letters expressing solidarity and love. That is all its cargo will consist of.

If the Israeli military attacks us, it will be as if they attacked the mailman. This should go down hilariously in the annals of history. But if they insist on attacking us, wounding us, even murdering us, as they did some of the activists in the last flotilla, Freedom Flotilla I, what is to be done?” http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/

Alice Walker’s solidarity with the Palestinian people arises from her conviction that Palestinians are facing the same kinds of racist violence that her grandparents suffered in the U.S South two generations ago. In sailing on the Audacity of Hope, she is “paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the South in our time of need.”

Israel's right wing government has gone to great lengths to stop the flotilla and to convince ordinary Israelis that the ships pose a grave danger to the state. Israeli news has been filled with fear mongering and lies: that the flotilla is a serious threat to Israel’s security; that the ships are full of terrorists; that the Palestinians are doing splendidly without humanitarian assistance, and so on. Writing in Ha’aretz, columnist Gideon Levy – one of the few voices of calm – reflects that Israel has become “a society of force and violence,” both in its actions and its rhetoric. Simply describing the flotilla passengers as “social activists and fighters for peace and justice” is difficult, Levy writes, “since they have already been described as thugs.” The media and government have employed “all the buzzwords: danger, chemical substances, hand-to-hand combat, Muslims, Turks, Arabs, terrorists and maybe some suicide bombers.” This is a recurring pattern, Levy says, “first demonization, then legitimization (to act violently).” http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israel-has-become-a-society-of-force-and-violence-1.370407

In addition to its disinformation campaign, Israel seems to have sabotaged at least one of the ships in the flotilla. Apparently, divers cut a piece out of the propeller shaft of the Irish vessel, an act that would have caused the ship to sink, had it not been discovered in time. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/0630/1224299796875.html

In a message sent to news editors around the world, Israel’s Government Press Office warned international journalists to stay away from the flotilla, lest they be banned from entering Israel for up to ten years, a threat that even Israel’s Foreign Press Association called “a chilling message to the international media,” that raises “serious questions about Israel’s commitment to freedom of the press.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/27/world/middleeast/27israel.html?scp=1&sq=journalists%20gaza%20flotilla&st=cse

The U.S. government, too, has spoken out against the flotilla, calling the nonviolent action “unhelpful,” “unnecessary,” and a “provocation” to the Israeli military, despite the fact that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal according to international law. http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2011/06/166868.htm

Most recently, the Greek government, which is in no position to defy powerful countries that might help save its floundering economy, has refused to let any of the ships docked at the port of Athens to leave the harbor.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/07/201172143643709749.html

Why does such an innocuous mission so disturb the Israeli government and its allies in the Obama administration? Is nonviolent resistance so powerful that it can strike fear into two nuclear armed nations? Apparently so.

In “Waiting for Godot on the Gaza Flotilla,” Mark Levine writes that the political and strategic implications of the unarmed flotilla are quite real. “They symbolize that Palestinians and their international supporters are refusing to play by Israel's rules, and are forcing the Israeli state to reveal the basic, ugly immorality of an occupation that has always presented itself as a necessary if unfortunate act of self-defense. In short, the flotilla constitutes a provocation, a declaration to Israel that it does not own every aspect of Palestinian existence and that Palestinians too have their international supporters who, if not as militarily and financially powerful as the U.S. government and the various arms of the Israel lobby, are coming into their own as a force to be reckoned with. . . And for Israel, losing power over Palestinians would mean not merely the end of the occupation, but the end of Israel as an ethnocentric Jewish state . . .” http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/201163012414324986.html

All this drama reminds me of the outrage that George Fox incurred with his simple act of refusal to take off his hat in the 17th century courtroom to the judge -- or in fact, “to any, high or low.” “Oh, the rage and scorn, the heat and fury that arose!” he writes. “Oh the blows, punchings, beatings, and imprisonments that we underwent for not putting off our hats to men!” Jessamyn West explains in her preface to The Quaker Reader: “The dangerous principle [a judge] sees – and fears – is . . . that of the individual who dares question the authority of the state over the person.”

As Alice Walker waits in Athens for the outcome of this small, yet weighty challenge to the violence of the state, she writes to the people of Gaza – and to us:

The whole world
is watching
Gaza
& it is
wondering how
things
will
turn out.

They are making
it hard
for us to move
Gaza
& sometimes
we are
in despair
but I remind
us
that you
of all people
understand
obstruction.

They know this place
we are in, I say,

of not
being able to move.
They know it
intimately.
This place of stalemate
& stagnation, so unbearable
to any heart
that’s free
is where they
hourly
live.

They will forgive
us
if we do not
arrive
on time.

© Alice Walker, from “Sailing the Hot Streets of Athens, Greece.”
http://alicewalkersgarden.com/blog/