Joodse aktivisten aan boord van nieuwe Gaza vloot

 

Het is nu nog onzinniger dan voorheen, want er is helemaal geen blokkade meer, en zelfs bouwmaterialen komen gewoon de Gazastrook binnen. Het is geen enkel probleem om humanitaire goederen naar Gaza te brengen met Israelische goedkeuring. Men is, net als de vorige boten die naar Gaza voeren, niet uit op het helpen van de bevolking maar het maken van een politiek statement en het demoniseren van Israel. Dat blijkt ook uit deze verklaring van een van de organisatoren:

 

Kuper said the voyage is a "symbolic statement" intended to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians and to underscore what he called Israel's "illegal, unnecessary and inhumane" blockade of Gaza.

 

Dat Joden het oneens zijn over het beleid dat Israel moet voeren tegenover de Palestijnen is geen nieuws. Binnen Israel wordt over deze zaken zeer heftig gedebatteerd, zowel in de media, op straat als natuurlijk in de Knesset. Daar heeft men geen antizionistische organisaties als Jewish Voice for Peace of Jews for Justice for Palestinians voor nodig.

Er is geen blokkade meer van Gaza, maar wat er nog wel is, is een illegaal bestuur door Hamas, dat de vrijheden van de eigen bevolking steeds meer inperkt en geen andere meningen toelaat. Organisatoren van 'Free Gaza boten' spelen Hamas in de kaart en legitimeren haar bestuur. Vorig jaar hebben verschillende activisten speciale Hamas paspoorten aangenomen en lieten zich trots met Haniyeh fotograferen. Ook nu weer geen woord van kritiek op Hamas, dat 1,5 miljoen Palestijnen onderdrukt.

 

RP

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The Jerusalem Post
Jewish activists set sail for Gaza from N.Cyprus
By ASSOCIATED PRESS AND JPOST.COM STAFF
09/26/2010 14:23

http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=189292


UK pro-Palestinian group organizing mission says goal is to show not all Jews support Israeli policies on Palestinians; won't resist boarding.

A boat carrying activists from Israel, Germany, the US and Britain set sail for Gaza on Sunday, hoping to breach Israel's blockade there and deliver aid.

Richard Kuper, an organizer with the UK group Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said that one goal was to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

He said that the boat, which set sail Sunday from northern Cyprus, will not resist if Israeli authorities try to stop it. The trip came nearly four months after Israeli commandos boarded a flotilla of Gaza-bound ships, killing nine activists.

The 33-foot (10-meter) catamaran Irene, carrying a total of nine passengers and crew members, plans to deliver children's toys, medical equipment and other supplies to Gaza.

Boat passenger Rami Elhanan, an Israeli whose daughter Smadar was killed in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Jerusalem in 1997, said it was his "moral duty" to act in support of Palestinians in Gaza because reconciliation was the surest path to peace.

"Those 1.5 million people in Gaza are victims exactly as I am," Elhanan, 60, said in an interview.

Other voyage organizers included the group European Jews for a Just Peace and the US-based Jewish Voice for Peace.

Kuper said the voyage is a "symbolic statement" intended to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians and to underscore what he called Israel's "illegal, unnecessary and inhumane" blockade of Gaza.

"Jewish communities around the world are not united in support of Israel," Kuper said in a telephone interview from London. "Israel's future peace is coming to terms quickly with the Palestinians."

Kuper said the trip was funded entirely by supporters' donations.

According to the organization's website, the boat will fly multicolored peace flags carrying the names of dozens of Jews who have expressed their support for this action, as a symbol of the widespread support for the boat by Jews worldwide.

Organizer Alison Prager said from the boat before it left Cyprus that although many Jews have been on previous "blockade-busting trips" to Gaza, this was the first time Jewish groups have banded together to send a boat of their own.

Passenger Reuven Moskovitz, 82, said that his life's mission has been to turn foes into friends. "We are two peoples, but we have one future," he said.