The international flotilla to Gaza led by a group of Turks was implementing international law, specifically U.N. Resolution 1860, though one might have a hard time proving that by reading the U.S. media. And the next flotilla may be led by German Jews!
Americans still deluded into thinking that the politicians in charge in Israel represent anything remotely connected to American values, a look at what a group of German Jews are planning is an eye-opener: in a word, they are sending a ship to run the Gaza blockade [Jewish Ship to Gaza]. Their description of conditions in Gaza:
Gaza is still lying in ruins. Children play on top of heaps of rubble, all that remains of their homes. They have no toys. Their schools have no writing or learning materials. There are long lists of the books they need. They have no warm clothes for the winter, often they have neither gas nor electricity for heating.
Water is in short supply and is contaminated. Damaged plumbing and drainage systems can't be repaired. The hospitals are short of medicines, medical equipment, wheelchairs and prosthetics.
Houses can only be provisionally rebuilt in clay. Essentials for daily survival have to be brought into Gaza through tunnels, often carried by young people who are risking their lives. Soon even these tunnels will be blocked off.
Through the expropriation of their land and the prohibition on fishing, the people of Gaza are denied their basic means of earning a living.
They lack freedom, the right to human dignity and our active solidarity.
"The Palestinians don't need resounding promises of financial support, they need real political solidarity against the occupation!"
If these Jews find the resources to implement their brave plan, one wonders what will happen. They represent a far more formidable threat to Zionist rightwingers than the Turkish flotilla did. In our world, the fact is that Israelis can murder Muslims without retribution, but German Jews? Will Tel Aviv dare to drop commandos onto a boatload of German Jews under the cover of darkness? Perhaps an "accident" at sea with the support of a well-concealed Israeli submarine would be a more effective response. Or maybe the proper fate for a German Jew so contemptuous of authority as to protest the 21st century's "Warsaw Ghetto" must obviously be crazy and must be shut away in a psychiatric hospital "for his own safety," as with Soviet dissidents. Or perhaps Tel Aviv has sufficient muscle to force Germany simply to arrest them all.
No doubt the American defenders of Zionist racism and militarism, e.g., Lin Cheney and Elliot Abrams, will be calling these German Jews terrorists any time now. For Americans who are neither Likudniks nor empire-builders, for Americans who actually believe in American values, these Germans (as well as some very brave Israelis [Veterans Today 6/6/10]) are the Jews whose values we share.
In any event, this is a little story of potentially major significance, so keep watching. If these brave Jews make it to Gaza, a very loud statement of what "values" really are will be heard around the world.
If you care about the kind of world we live in, give them your support.
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Thanks to Juan Cole [Informed Comment 6/7/10] for alerting me to this German Jewish group and thanks to karlof1, a commenter on Cole's site for pointing out the international law relevant to flotillas to Gaza. The key points of the pertinent UN document, Resolution 1860:
“1. Stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza;
“2. Calls for the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment;
“3. Welcomes the initiatives aimed at creating and opening humanitarian corridors and other mechanisms for the sustained delivery of humanitarian aid;
“4. Calls on Member States to support international efforts to alleviate the humanitarian and economic situation in Gaza, including through urgently needed additional contributions to UNRWA and through the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee;
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