Instead of high-fiving each other for their success in thwarting the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, Israeli officials should be throwing overboard the propaganda hacks who catapulted the flotilla into headline news for weeks and left Israel smelling like rotten fish.
Last year, when the Israeli military killed nine aboard the Turkish ship, the incident made waves around the world. But in previous years, the same international coalition had sent boats to Gaza five times, successfully reaching their destination with a symbolic shipment of humanitarian aid. No blood, no military interception, no story. That's why the advice of many of Israel's best buddies, including the lobby group AIPAC, was to just ignore the flotilla.
But no, the Israeli government refused to listen and instead announced with great bravado that it was prepared to stop the flotilla with lethal force -- including snipers and attack dogs. Smelling blood, the media frenzy began. Before even leaving home, passengers were besieged with press calls inquiring why we were willing to risk our lives and giving us a chance to talk about the plight of the people of Gaza. Worse yet from the Israeli government perspective, mainstream media began bombarding us with requests to come along. With space for only 10 media on our boat, we ended up choosing reps from CNN, CBS, Al Jazeera, AP, The Nation and Democracy Now. Other boats in the flotilla also started scrambling to accommodate more press. Thanks to Israel, we were guaranteed that no matter what happened, the whole world would be watching.
The Israeli government's next blunder was a doozy. It sent a letter to foreign journalists warning them that if they participated in the flotilla, they would be denied entry into Israel for 10 years and their equipment would be impounded. The outcry from journalists and media organizations worldwide was immediate. Israel's Foreign Press Association said the threat "sends a chilling message to the international media and raises serious questions about Israel's commitment to freedom of the press." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to rescind the decision, blaming it on his underlings.
But the blunders continued. A YouTube video of a "gay rights activist" who claimed he was not allowed to join the flotilla because he was gay and linked the flotilla to Hamas was exposed as a hoax disseminated by employees of the Israeli Government Press Office and the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Senior Israeli defense officials told journalists that flotilla activists were intending to dump bags of sulfer on Israeli soldiers to paralyze them and/or light them on fire "like a torch." We countered by holding an open house on the boat, inviting the media to inspect every nook and cranny and meet with nurses, lawyers, musicians, writers, grandmothers and other "terrorists" on board. The Israeli government looked so silly that even cabinet ministers criticized Netanyahu's "media spin" and "public relations hysteria."
Then there was the sabotage of the Irish and Swedish boats, the frivolous lawsuits and legal complaints by the Israeli Law Center (Shurat HaDin), the strong arming of the Greek government to issue a ban on all boats traveling to Gaza, and undoubtedly more dirty tricks that will be exposed in the future.
Through it all, the Israelis helped us turn a potential non-story into a media blitz that has not ended. The passengers are now returning home to the local public spotlight. Rather than being depressed by Israeli maneuvers to prevent the flotilla from reaching its destination, they are more motivated to speak out about the siege of Gaza and bullying tactics of the Israelis. Flotilla organizers are still fighting to get their boats released by the Greek government and vow to try again.
Our modest and peaceful initiative has exposed, for the world to see, the lengths the Israeli government will go to to stop nonviolent international initiatives. We have put the plight of Gaza and the illegality of the siege once again on the radar where it was previously ignored. We have exposed the sad but ultimately unsustainable fact that the Israelis have managed to extend their vindictive siege of Gaza to the shores of Europe and have widened the gulf between the Greek government and Greek popular sentiment with regard to Palestine.
Most importantly, we have given a boost to the larger, massive, multicultural, multinational movement for Palestinian rights. This Friday, hundreds of international activists are flying to Ben Gurion airport where they plan to tell border control agents of their intent to visit Palestine. This "flytilla," as it has been dubbed, has also aroused a hysterical response from the Netanyahu government. Here again, the world's attention will be focused on Israel's control and blockade of movement in and out of the West Bank. The Knesset is on the verge of passing a bill that will effectively outlaw boycotts, a law that will likely only strengthen the resolve and increase the size of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. And then there will be the showdown at the United Nations, when Palestinians will be calling for recognition as a state.
The Israeli government can only continue its egregious violations of human rights and torpedoing nonviolence initiatives for so long. Eventually, justice will prevail and Palestine will be free. And initiatives like the flotilla will be remembered as part of a continuous wave of resistance that helped turned the tide.
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of Global Exchange (www.globalexchange.org) and CODEPINK: Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org). She was a passenger on The Audacity of Hope.
Follow Medea Benjamin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@medeabenjamin
James Zogby: Politicians Being Dumb and Dangerous on Israel
David Harris: Floating Some Ideas for the Flotilla Folk
Kathy Kelly: Staying Human: Preparing to Sail to Gaza
Nadia Hijab: Freedom Flotilla II: No to a Kinder, Gentler Siege
Gaza flotilla | World news | guardian.co.uk
Greece Blocks Gaza Flotilla Boat - FoxNews.com
Israel to stop Gaza flotilla regardless of cargo | Reuters
Gaza flotilla blind to Hamas | The Australian
Apparent sabotage against Gaza flotilla - CSMonitor.com
Israel warns media over latest Gaza flotilla - Middle East - Al ...
You are making a mountain out of an ant hill. I understand, you feel frustrated and angered by all the efforts, time and money wasted.
I sincerely doubt that the world has been woken up as a result of this recent farce. Those of us who are interested in this topic, will continue to watch and continue to be interested (I hope).
The rest of the world however, is worried about where their next meal will come from, and whether tomorrow they'll still have a job.
A bunch of boats that didn't go anywhere is not a story that resonates in a world full of actual happenings.
I want comments to appear in the order they are posted
I also want the holding back, and dumping hundreds of new posts at one time ended (741 new posts at once on another thread, makes discussion impossible)
Your survey at the top of the comments page would not accept my NO vote
thx
And seems a bit pointless anyway, since we already had the option to sort by favorites or by chronology. Since they will likely keep both options (I hope!!) it seems like a silly way to go about determining people's default preference.
That doesn't even cover the nature of the Occupation, which by any definition would be called a tyrannical regime.
You may dismiss one or two of these, mention that others were never passed (at least THIS time), and so on, but when you add it all up, there is a pattern emerging which should be alarming for Israeli citizens and all people who care about freedom and respect for human and civil rights (that includes the right to dissent).
There is definitely a trend in this Israeli government toward authoritarianism. (Totalitarian is too strong a word). We are actually having similar trends in this country, though we do at least have a Bill of Rights with some teeth in them.
Some of the dismissive comments I have read here remind me of how Gandhi was underestimated by the British, and how the Civil Rights movement was dismissed by almost everyone in the US (North AND South).
And yet change happened, and those who supported tyranny lost. It didn't happen overnight, but it DID happen.
And Israel is not like the Sudan, or the Congo, or Syria, or Burma. There is PLENTY of media access in Israel, and so stories there are going to get heard FAR more than what is happening in those other places simply because it is so difficult for journalists to get there.
It is also going to receive attention even in the US because so much money is sent there from here.
As someone said, people are worried about their jobs, their homes. That is correct.
But how would those people losing their homes feel if they knew their government was doing nothing to help them, but was financing the construction of illegal settlements in Israel?
When cuts are made, what do you think these people are going to tell their Representatives?
Quite frankly the system of endless occupation can not be sustained much longer. That became evident in 1987, with the First Intifada.
No nation can long "govern" a people who are no longer willing to cooperate in their own oppression of their rights. It simply is not sustainable. And the Palestinians are beginning to find this out.
What this incident does is show quite clearly just how effective nonviolent civil disobedience can be.
It is FAR from the end of the story.
1. How much did the flotilla exercise cost, including renting the boats, paying the crew, paying the activists' expenses, etc.? Who supplied those funds? As a peaceful activist with nothing to hide, surely you support transparency in financial dealings. In the absence of complete and documented transparency, people might (justifiably) think that those who are interested in such protests (Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Iran, Syria, etc.) funded it, directly or indirectly.
2. For months now, the Syrian government is waging a war against the Syrian people, which is protests against 50 years of "emergency law" and tyranny. This has so far caused some 1,500 civilian deaths, as well as large numbers of refugees. The carnage is far from over, as the regime is intent on holding onto power. Foreign journalists are not prohibitted from entering Syria, so the carnage might in fact be bigger than what is known already. Are you going to organize a flotilla (or "flytilla") to Syria? If not -- why not?
My bad.
Although I can understand the strong emotions evoked by the Palestinan/Israeli dilemma, such dramatic assertions as the one above lack credility because there is no genocide of the Palestinian people, "slow motion" or othewise! Furthermore, prior to refering to individuals (Israelis) we disagree with as "thugs, we need to keep in mind that there are "thugs" on both sides of the divide and that yelling and demanding that the world bring this conflict to closure is unrealistic because the only ones who can do so are the Palestinians and Israelis, otherwise it will never occur!
If I'm not mistaken, you are in favor of BDS in general. So are you no longer in favor of that?
http://original.antiwar.com/hacohen/2011/07/12/things-you-can-say-things-you-cannot/