FLOAT SOME AND JET SOME

AS ISRAEL BLOCKS ALL ATTEMPTS BY ACTIVISTS TO REACH GAZA

The Israeli navy on Tuesday (19th) prevented the last remaining participant of an international flotilla of ships headed for Gaza. The French yacht, Dignité, had left the Greek island of Kastelorizo last Saturday pretending it was headed for Egypt. The Greek government had stopped the rest of the flotilla leaving port earlier that week (see SchNEWS 779). Four Israeli naval boats enclosed Dignité as it approached, commanding that they quit their efforts to break the sea blockade and threatening to seize control of the boat if they did not obey. There were 16 passengers on board hailing from France, Canada, Greece, Sweden and Tunisia. This time the boat wasn’t carrying aid but was sailing purely to highlight the blockade surrounding Gaza, wishing to breach it as an act of defiance.

This wave of the Freedom flotilla may be the last to try to sail to Gaza. Although over years the flotillas have scored major successes, the human cost to the participants has been immense, culminating in the massacre of 9 Turkish peace activists in June 2010 (See SchNEWS 725).

The worldwide revulsion to this criminal act of brutality brought a partial lifting of the siege, and this has been followed by a free passage agreement with the post-revolutionary government. But since then, European countries have directly allied and coordinated with the Israeli military, and all but the Dignité were left dead in the water, stopped even from leaving port with their legal cargoes of humanitarian aid. With the possible end of the flotillas, the question left is how international activists can continue to creatively defy Israel’s siege of Gaza and the occupation of Palestine.

It certainly won’t be by air. Israel’s detention of international activists attempting to visit the West Bank by plane two weeks ago shows their blockading doesn’t always happen at checkpoints or at sea. Plans of the Welcome to Palestine campaign, who were expecting hundreds of solidarity activists to join them for a week of peaceful education and resistance in the territories, were halted as Israel convinced European airports to bar 200 ‘blacklisted’ travellers from boarding planes to Tel Aviv on Friday 8th.

The activists, many of whom were known to Israeli authorities from previous Palestinian excursions, made no secret of their intentions to visit the West Bank as part of the fly-in. For those who made it to Ben Gurion International, 69 were arrested and detained after questioning, along with six Israelis who had arrived to welcome the so-called ‘flytilla’. The first 36 detainees were deported two days after arrival on Sunday 10th with waves of deportations back to Europe in the following days.