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Free Gaza Mission Vows Escalation of Struggle Against Israel
- We Americans are all Palestinians. From the two small boats that landed on August 23, 2008, we grew to six ships in the last flotilla that saw nine of our brothers murdered, and will have nine to twelve ships in the flotilla this Fall as we go back to Gaza. To borrow from Dr. King who gave a beautiful anthem for justice in Washington D.C. that lives on today, the Free Gaza movement knows that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. Let us see the day when we can say: “Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!” -
The international effort to break the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza, shine light on the apartheid system in the occupied territories continues, and gain independence as free men and women will not fail.
Even in the face of mass murder, piracy and assassination, the Free Gaza mission will not back down as a new flotilla prepares for the next freedom voyage to Gaza in which human rights workers will risk their lives for freedom and justice.
Only two-years-old, the Free Gaza mission has changed the world. To the imprisoned, the oppressed, and the murdered in the occupied territories, we say: You are not forgotten. Your suffering will end.
The backlash against us in lies and smears, and the propaganda campaign by Israel has been extraordinary even by the standards of the pariah state.
But as human rights worker, Ken O’Keefe, writes in these pages:
I will not abandon my brothers and sisters who resist war and occupation. By being labeled a ‘terrorist’ myself, I join you, falsely accused and persecuted, the Arabs, the Muslims, Nelson Mandela, the African National Congress, the Founding Fathers of America, the eco-warriors, the people of conscience past and present. And so be it, I am a terrorist in the eyes of the American and Canadian Government who puts me on their so-called ‘terror watch list.’
Veterans Today calls on all American veterans, supporters and advocates to resist Israel’s clear and present danger to the national security of America and the safety of the civilized world. Israel must be stopped, it must be stopped now.
Even as the farce of next week’s direct peace talks are played out, the serious work for justice goes on.
For updates on the forthcoming human rights mission, see Veterans Today, Witness Gaza, the Free Gaza Mission, Cultures of Resistance and Al Jazeera.
From the Free Gaza team:
Two years ago today, 44 people from 17 countries were on the Mediterranian heading toward Gaza. We were in two dilapidated fishing boats, the seas were rough, most of us were seasick, and all of us were worried that Israeli military warships would prevent us from getting into the illegally blockaded port of Gaza.
Israel had blocked our communications equipment; our two captains, long-time seafarers were working off compass and pieces of paper. At 3:00 pm, we saw the shores of Gaza, and no Israeli war ship was there to prevent us from sailing in to the raucus shouts, applause and joy of 20,000 imprisoned Palestinians waiting on shore, covering every inch of standable ground.
Except for a few media outlets in the Middle East, our historic trip was ignored. But we had outsmarted the Israeli military machine that had threatened us with bodily harm, cut off our communications equipment and finally, humphed off to ignore us. They had spent millions of dollars trying to stop us. We had spent $300,000 for the boats, captains, crew and fuel, plus a lot of energy and determination. Israel thought we were a bunch of activists who would go away after the first trip.
They were wrong.
We succesfully went in four more times, taking in another 100+ witnesses, European members of Parliament, charity workers from the Gulf, doctors, activists who stayed to work in Gaza, and Palestinians who just wanted to go home and visit. We brought out 38 Palestinians, including students who had visas to attend universities, yet Israel would not allow them to leave.
Although our accomplishments were small, sailing in with no Israeli attempts to stop us set a precedent. They knew the blockade was illegal. They hoped we would go away.
Today, on the second anniversary of that historic voyage, we are still sailing. As one of our activists said after the Freedom Flotilla was attacked, “We have suddenly become sexy. Everyone wants to go with us. We have requests from media around the world asking us to please save them a seat. Even in the U.S., the media wants to come.” It is tragic that 9 men lost their lives to put the blockade of Gaza on the map and equally tragic that thousands of Palestinians have lost their lives with no reaction from the international community.
We have grown from the five of us who began this initiative to hundreds around the world, from the occupied West Bank to occupied New York to India to Australia. From the two small boats that landed on August 23, 2008, we grew to six ships in the last flotilla, and will have nine to twelve in the flotilla this fall. There are boat initiatives in the U.S., the UK, Belgium, Holland, Australia, Canada and Ireland.
Although many in the Western media have tried to spin the story that the Freedom Flotilla was a Turkish effort, it was not. It was an international one. Of the 650 passengers on board, half were Turkish and the rest came from around the world.The Free Gaza movement spearheaded the flotilla, collected the coalition members and helped them find boats to sail. We were the ones with the experience. Now six members of the coalition have the same experience and are eager to sail again.
Although the supplies on the cargo ships were supplies that Israel has forbidden to the people of Gaza, our primary objective has always been to break Israel’s illegal siege on 1.5 million Palestinians, denying them the right to trade, movement and freedom.
We have accomplished only part of what we set out to do…put the imprisonment of Palestinians of Gaza on the front page. But that is not close to being enough.
For those who say we have no right to challenge Israel, we say we do. If governments refuse to act, we, as citizens of the world, will sail. If Israel says they have the right to stop us, we say they do not. We sail from international waters into the waters of Gaza and never come near Israel. If Israel says it has the right to inspect our cargo, we say the cargo is inspected by certified inspectors at the point of embarcation and does not need further inspection. If Israel says the Palestinians have no right to rebuild their society after Israel bombed it to dust, we say they have every right to rebulid. And international law is on our side, not on the side of the occupier.
If Israel says they have the right to attack us in international waters, citing “security issues”, we say, along with an increasing number of Israelis as well as political analysts worldwide, “It is the violence of the occupation that continues to destroy the hope of any security for Israelis and Palestinians. The upholding of international law is the only way to security and peace for any of us.”
So, happy birthday, Free Gaza. We have much more to do. In partnership with the Palestinians, human rights groups and supporters throughout the world, may we continue to sail.We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support, donations and advocacy.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=46678
Posted by Yanira Farray on Aug 28 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Israel, WarZone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=186274
Egypt intercepts shipment of 190 antiaircraft missiles
By JPOST.COM STAFF
08/28/2010 17:30
Authorities uncover large weapons cache hidden in Sinai, reportedly destined for smuggling into Gaza; more ammunition and explosives seized in Rafah.
Egyptian authorities intercepted a shipment of at least 190 antiaircraft missiles in Sinai probably destined for Gaza on Saturday, Palestinian news Agency Maan reported.
Have you read the article “Fighting the Flesh Trade?” If not, please do. It confirms every fact revealed by the late Dr. William L. Pierce in his various American Dissident Voices broadcasts on the subject of Israel’s White Slave Trade. On December 5, 2001, the article appeared on the Jewsweek.com Web site — complete with accompanying images. I hosted a copy of it on the old Jeffsarchive Web site, until I received an e-mail from a law firm representing Jewsweek, informing me of their intent to sue if the article wasn’t removed immediately. I removed the article, and linked directly to their site. They then removed the article.
I then linked directly to the site of the copyright holder, the Jerusalem Post. By that evening, the Jerusalem Post had also removed the article. Well, that was two years ago. Now the Jerusalem Post has seen fit to re-activate the URL, so you might want to take a gander at what the Jews are doing to the women of our race. Here’s a synopsis:
1. 3,000 White European women per year are smuggled into Israel as sex slaves.
2. They are promised legitimate jobs, but put to work as prostitutes.
3. They are locked in apartments with barred windows.
4. They are relieved of their passports.
5. They are beaten, tortured, and gang-raped (Jewish method of “breaking them in”).
6. They are sold at pimping auctions! – during which they are forced to undress.
7. They are forced to service up to 15 Jews a day, 7 days a week, in Israel’s 400+ brothels.
8. There are 280 brothels in Tel Aviv alone!
9. Pimps and traffickers are ignored by police – prostitution is not a crime.
Of course not all Americans are Palestinians. 99,999% Americans are not. The rest go on shooting sprees in Fort Hood, Texas, fly planes into buildings full of Americans, and try to blow themselves and others among Americans.
Israel is as afraid of women as of the bombs and rockets they can carry to the Hamas, which is not much but enough to prompt an answer and prevent them from doing so. Americans, who were driven out of Vietnam by boys in black pyjamas should know better.
Sceptique is clearly delusional. Major Hasan is an American. There were no Palestinians among those who alledgedly carried out the 9/11 incident. Get your facts straight please. You are clearly an Islamophobe.
And if you believe Jerusalem Post propaganda, I have prime ocean-front property in Kansas to sell you.
By the way, if you had read the news in the Jerusalem Post, you should have noticed it was announced by Egyptian and Palestinian press agencies as well.
Maybe you should change your propaganda channel to more believable ones, such as Scientology or Moonists.
don’t mean to imply that the Jews were the only ones at fault in the White slave trade. Gentile politicians and police officials gladly accepted bribes from the Jews and in return allowed them to carry on their dirty business. And in the United States non-Jewish criminal elements such as the [Italian/Sicilian] Mafia collaborated with the Jews or even ran their own White slave operations. But the trade in White slaves from eastern Europe has been an exclusively Jewish activity for the last 200 years.”
“…tens of thousands of pretty but naive young Russian and Ukrainian women are being swept up by the Jewish gangs – called ‘Russian’ gangs by the New York Times – and shipped off to a life of misery and degradation in Turkey, Pakistan, Thailand, and Israel, as well as to countries in Western Europe, where Jews also control organized crime. The young women, unable to find work in Russia or Ukraine or Poland and facing a bleak future in countries ravaged by decades of communism, are eager for any chance at a better life. They respond to advertisements that offer them work abroad as receptionists or secretaries and also promise free training and transportation. When the girls arrive at their destinations, however, they find something quite different – but by then it is too late. …
“The White slave trade is big business in Israel. Ukrainian authorities estimate that as many as 40,000 Ukrainian women under the age of 30 are taken from Ukraine each year. Some of these women respond to advertisements promising employment abroad, like Irina did, and some are simply kidnapped and smuggled out of the country. Those who try to escape from their Jewish captors are treated brutally. Often they are butchered in front of other captive women to keep the others terrified into doing whatever they are told.”
Jews and The White Slave Trade
Dr. William Pierce
William Pierce? Isn’t that the vicious antisemitic guy who cannot help inventing stupidities about Jews?
Israel does not have a specific law against the sale of human beings. (Michael Specter, “Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women,” New York Times, 11 January 1998).
Up to – 20,000 trafficked women in Israel and more than 280 brothels in Tel Aviv … As customers – demands for slave trade workers who do not have HIV or AIDS …
“Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life…..” (Leviticus 25:44-46)
There are an estimated 20,000 female sex slaves forced into prostitution in Tel-Aviv each year. According to a report released in 2005 by the Knesset Subcommittee on Trafficking in Women, between 10,000 and 15,000 women had been smuggled into Israel over the previous four years to work as prostitutes. According to the report, the women, who were mostly from the former Soviet Union, were sold at public auction for as much as $10,000 and forced to work up to 18 hours a day. On average, the women received only three percent of the money they earned from prostitution, and many were raped and beaten. Most of the women had been smuggled over the Egyptian border and lured from Russia and Eastern Europe on false promises of secretarial jobs.
Israel Sex Slavery Thrives
Israel and the Ugly Slavery Trade
Human rights groups have long demanded actions against the trade in women in Israel. These women many from the former Soviet, are working as prostitutes in a condition of virtual slavery. Many of the Russian women who have ended up in Israel’s brothels, some smuggled into the country from Egypt on the back of camels, expected to find jobs a cleaners and or working in childcare. There are certain places where auctions are taking place. The Israeli police well know the names. They are nightclubs or regular bars. The women are brought there, buyers come and look at their bodies and their teeth, then the bidding starts. They are held by the pimps, beaten and totally isolated
Dozens of brothels and peepshows have sprung up in Tel Aviv and Haifa in the last few years. There are over 20,000 women in prostitution in Tel Aviv. Their customers pay for 45,000 acts of prostitution every day. Women are held in apartments, bars and brothels where they are bought by up to 25 men a day. They sleep in shifts, four to a bed. (Police officials, Michael Specter, “Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women, “New York Times, 11 January 1998, They cannot walk freely. They cannot leave the apartment as they wish. Usually the passports have been taken.
Amnesty International investigation of the trade in Russian women suggests Israel’s police and government officials have largely ignored the abuse.
The arrest of prostitutes is frequent, as illegal workers, the men who brought them to Israel many of whom are Israelis are not arrested. The Justice Ministry spokeswoman Etty Eshed (1998)said the government would think about making legal changes to address trafficking in the “near future” but had no date or plan for doing so. (Elisabeth Eaves, “Israel not the promised land for Russian sex slaves,” Reuters, 23 August 1998)
The Israeli police say they are powerless to stop the flow of trafficked women until the laws change. “They (trafficked women) are very much afraid to come to the police and complain, so the police really can’t do anything,” said a police spokeswoman Linda Menuhin. “Israel has no law against trafficking people, and no law against prostitution.” Rachel Benziman, legal adviser to the Israel Women’s Network, said there are a variety of crimes, rape, abduction, battery, deceit and theft which the authorities rarely bother to prosecute for, even though they have the power to do so. “It’s not a problem of finding the right section in the criminal code. It is more a problem of finding the women who will testify and finding the motivation. she said. (Elisabeth Eaves, “Israel not the promised land for Russian sex slaves,” Reuters, 23 August 1998)
Israel does not have a specific law against the sale of human beings. (Michael Specter, “Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women,” New York Times, 11 January 1998). There is no law related to bringing women from another country into Israel for prostitution. (CEDAW Report, 8 April 1997) If trafficked and prostituted women are caught they are deported. Since 1994, not one woman has testified against a trafficker. (Betty Lahan, director of Neve Tirtsa Prison, Michael Specter, “Traffickers’ New Cargo: Naive Slavic Women,” New York Times, 11 January 1998)
“We Americans are all Palestinians” you must be jocking
Americans hate muslims as you can see clearly these days
muslims pose athreat as they tend to explode among civilians
as to palis nobody wants them saudis kicked them out and arab states
are just using the palis to deflect internal problems
the only chance for palis is to start their country and stop violence
israel will eliminate hamas and hand over gaza to abbas
This is not Israel, Dorothy.
There are no officially second-class citizens like Arabs in Israel.
Israel wants to eliminate Hamas (after creating it). But Israel, not content to steal land, wants to eliminate people from or cleanse much of the region.
As Americans, we should not help the enterprise.
I take it you live is Israel.
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