For over 60 years, we have suffered through war and occupation. Seventy percent of our people are refugees, many still living in camps waiting for the day when they will return to their homes. In the West Bank, we live in constant humiliation, as we cross through checkpoints and endure the continued colonization of our land. And, in Gaza our people suffer from a suffocating siege that restricts all movement of goods and people.
Yet, we continue to work toward the day when our families will reunite, when our cities will prosper and our children will be free to fulfill their full potential. We cling to our long-standing aspiration for the freedom to live in peace, prosperity and security in sovereign and independent Palestinian state. We have chosen negotiations as our path toward a just, comprehensive and durable peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), founded in 1964, is the official and sole representative of our people and has participated in numerous negotiations processes on our behalf, a journey which has at times been complicated and painful.
Now we will continue our diplomatic effort to gain international recognition for our state on the 1967 boarders. We will use every peaceful means available to us to achieve our rights. We hope to see the fruits of our labor this September with the admission into the UN of the State of Palestine.
Maybe in this time the definition of some words changed, like "Human rights", "Humanitarian", "Humanity"...
What was they mean? This is one of the definitions that I, like many of you, used to know.
"Human right is; the fundamental rights that humans have by the fact of being human and that are neither created not cant be abrogated by any government. And Humanitarian means; the belief that the sole moral obligation of humankind is the improvement of human welfare."
But now, it seems that something changed to this definition, so what are those words mean today? Let's see.
For more than four years, Israel has imposed a land, sea, and air blockade on the occupied Palestinian Gaza Strip, denying it’s approximately 1.6 million residents adequate access to food, clean water, electricity, medical supplies and other human necessities.
Israel’s blockade of the Palestinian Gaza Strip is an illegal act of collective punishment that violates Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. As the occupying power, Israel is also legally responsible for providing the basic needs of Palestinians who are forced to live under its 44-year military occupation, according to the Geneva Conventions. Through its blockade, Israel has denied Palestinians items such as pasta, coriander, notebooks, and cement to rebuild more than 4,000 homes and buildings destroyed by Israel during its December 2008-January 2009 attack on the Gaza Strip, which killed approximately 1,400 Palestinians.
Watching that immoral blockade, and the silence of the world's governments, group of peace activists, MPs, veterans of struggle against apartheid, colonialism, imperialism, pointless wars and injustice, and there are intellectuals, Holocaust survivors and people of conscience among them, they invented a peaceful way to break the immoral blockade in Gaza by making humanity convoys and freedom flotillas and sailing to Gaza.
Their mission was not only to convoy humanitarian aids to the Palestinians in Gaza, but to emphasis on the illegality of the blockade, and the right of the Palestinian people in Gaza to live freely.
But that doesn't go with the Israeli political system mindset; they blocked the first flotilla in 2010 and attacked its passengers, killed 9 of them.
One year and one month after the first flotilla, the situation in Gaza is still the same, blockade, no passages, no exports or imports, everyday airstrikes, really no life there in Gaza. Thus those activists with many more new members decided to launch the second freedom flotilla for the same goals.
What was the Israeli reaction?
Quickly they turned to the US, and the latter replied "As said, as done". Instead of applauding US citizens sailing on US-flagged ship to break an immoral blockade, the US State Department castigated them for participating in this flotilla. The Obama Administration deemed these peaceful activists to be engaged in "irresponsible and provocative actions" and ridiculously threatened that their cargo delivery letters of solidarity from the United States to the people of Gaza "could violate the US civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration." and Mrs. Clinton gave the green light for Israel to attack the flotilla.
Then the Israelis used every mean to prevent them from sailing to Gaza, threatening them, putting pressure on their governments to stop them, but those heroes were determined to reach Gaza.
Then the Israelis used another method, they sent their Mossad agents and sabotaged a Norway and Sweden ship, two days after that, they sabotaged another ship in Greece, threatened the lives of their passengers.
And again they failed, and the organizers of the flotilla were, despite the snags, determined to fulfill their sacred aim.
Speaking to reporters and passengers alongside the ship, organizer Anne Wright said "we will sail to challenge the naval blockade on Gaza, we have ten ships, we have passengers aged 22-87 ... we have carpenters, retirees, acupuncturists, these are the people that the state of Israel fears."
As of 11:15 am (NYC time), June 1, 2011, there is a stand off between The Audacity of Hope and the Greek Coast Guard. One Greek official told the captain of the US boat that it was unsafe for them to continue to sail. The captain said, given the sabotaged of boats docked in and around Athens, it's not safe to return!
Then they used their influence and pressure to make the Greece government ban the flotilla, On Friday, July 1, 2011, Greece, acting under intense pressure from Israel and the United States, prevented The Audacity of Hope, the US Boat to Gaza participating in the Freedom Flotilla II, Stay Human, from sailing to the occupied Palestinian Gaza Strip.
As if that were not enough, the Israeli government accused them of carrying chemical weapons on the board of the ships with them, to legitimize attacking them, as they make threat to the security of the state of Israel.
Earlier on the same day, the US boat to Gaza - The Audacity of Hope - carrying 3000 letters from the people in the US to the people in Gaza was stopped by Greek Coast Guard. After a stand off that unfolded over several hours a second Greek Coast Guard boat arrived. This boat carried heavily armed Greek commandos and this shifted the dynamic. Soon after a decision was made to bring the boat back to a dock in Athens, not the same one the boat had previously been at.
The captain of the US boat has been charged with disobedience for violating an order barring his vessel from sailing and will attend a court appearance Monday.
As of Saturday John Klusmer was jailed in Athens, he is being charged with two felonies. Klusmer was handcuffed and was jailed after arriving at a police station afternoon. He and the organizers understood the charges to be misdemeanors, but authorities later accused him of two felonies.
These are the chemical weapons that threaten Israel.
"What will Israelis think about when they are spoon-fed scary stories about the flotilla, if not about the use of force? Those activists want to kill the IDF solders? We'll arise and kill them first."
"Are we listening to ourselves? Are we still aware of the awful noise coming from here? Have we noticed how the discourse is becoming more and more violent and how the language of force has just about become Israel's only official language?"
"A group of international activists is slated to sail a flotilla to the shores of the Gaza Strip. Many of them are social activists and fighters for peace and justice, veterans of the struggle against apartheid, colonialism, imperialism, pointless wars and injustice. Just stating that is difficult here, since they have already been described as thugs.”
And even if the entire world's governments united against them, and blocked them from reaching Gaza, they had accomplished their goal of bringing attention to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which has been in full effect for five years after previous restrictions under a policy of closure.
Passengers said the bureaucratic delays, physical blockages and threat of violence were "Just little taste" of what the restrictions on freedom of movements faced by the 1.6 million Palestinians who live in Gaza.
As for 3000 letters from Americans to the people of Gaza, organizers remarked that though the physical cargo might not make it, the flotilla's effort have sent the Palestinians a clear message of support.
What is the most crazy about this, is these are actual humanitarian aid ships, Humanitarian, in the sense of bringing medicine, food, rice, wheat, or something like that, this isn't money which are given to some government or group, these are actual items privately gathered and brought there privately from these people's own money to give to citizens of Gaza, that's actual humanitarian aid.
Those humanitarians are being labeled as criminals and terrorists and Israel must defend itself and etc... and yet this NATO-Obama war in Libya is called "Oh... Sorry we are bombing them for 'Humanitarian' reasons"!!
How the hell is bombing children considered "Humanitarian" where is bringing children something to eat is terrorism?!!
This seems the new definition of our words and a true example of this bizarre world we live in politically.
Really Ghassan Hage, the professor of anthropology and social theory at the University of Melbourne, was right when we said;
"I don't write poems but, in any case, poems are not poems.
Long ago, I was made to understand that Palestine was not Palestine;
I was also informed that Palestinians were not Palestinians;
They also explained to me that ethnic cleansing was not ethnic cleansing.
And when naive old me saw freedom fighters they patiently showed me
That they were not freedom fighters, and that resistance was not resistance.
And when, stupidly, I noticed arrogance, oppression and humiliation
They benevolently enlightened me so I can see that arrogance was not arrogance,
Oppression was not oppression, and humiliation was not humiliation.
I saw misery, racism, inhumanity and a concentration camp.
But they told me that they were experts in misery, racism, inhumanity and concentration camps
and I have to take their words for it:
this was not misery, racism, inhumanity and concentration camps,
Over the years they've taught me so many things:
invasion was not invasion, occupation was not occupation,
colonialism was not colonialism and apartheid was not apartheid.
They opened my simple mind to even more complex truths that my poor brain could not on its own compute
like "having nuclear weapons" was "not having nuclear weapons,"
"not having weapons of mass destruction" was "having weapons of mass destruction."
And, democracy (in the Gaza strip) was not democracy.
Having second class citizens (in Israel) was democracy.
So you'll excuse me if I am not surprised to learn today
that there were more things that I thought were evident that are not:
peace activists are not peace activists, piracy is not piracy,
the massacre of unarmed people is not the massacre of unarmed people.
I have such a limited brain and my ignorance is unlimited.
