The following article by Gale Courey Toensing appeared on the Litchfield County Times website on June 15, 2011:
I’m honored and delighted to be a passenger on the U.S. Boat to Gaza—The Audacity of Hope—at the end of June. The boat will be part of the international Freedom Flotilla of more than a dozen boats from more than a dozen countries carrying more than 1,000 people. The flotilla’s goal is to end Israel’s illegal blockade of the tiny Mediterranean coastal enclave where 1.5 million people live in an oppressive open air prison imposed by their neighboring state. Some neighbor!
Alice Walker, the African American Pulitzer prize-winning author of “The Color Purple,” will be among the passengers. So will former U.S. Ambassador Col. Ann Wright, who resigned from the State Department in 2003 to protest the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the amazing Hedy Epstein, an 86-year-old Holocaust survivor. Alice Walker compared the Freedom Flotilla to the Freedom Riders of the 1960s civil rights movement when Americans got on buses and headed south to challenge the racist policy of segregation. The Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, she said, “is the Freedom Ride of this era.”
Israel has threatened to use violence against us, even to unleash attack dogs on us, according to the Jerusalem Post, which only makes the comparison between the Freedom Flotilla and the Freedom Riders more apt. Bull Connor, the Commissioner of Public Safety in Birmingham, Ala., back in the 1960s civil rights movement, ordered the use of police attack dogs and fire hoses against unarmed peaceful demonstrators, including children. His notorious legacy is brutality. Ironically, Mr. Connor’s violence actually helped end segregation because it was so widely viewed on national television and people were horrified. With the Internet and 24/7 news cycle, what happens on the international flotilla will be seen around the world almost instantly. Is that the path Israel really wants to take?
Disappointingly, the U.S. hasn’t spoken out to defend its citizens. Asked recently if it was OK with the US government if Israel intervenes in the flotilla, State Department Spokesman Mark Toner didn’t warn Israel not to interfere with U.S. citizens in international waters. Instead, he referred reporters to the Israeli government.
That should be unacceptable to all Americans. Israel’s blockade and occupation of Gaza and other Palestinian lands are illegal according to international law, the United Nations and dozens of human rights organizations. The U.S. unconditionally supports Israel’s illegal actions against Palestinians with our tax dollars. If our government won’t defend Palestinians’ human rights because of some mistaken belief that our relationship with Israel benefits us rather than endangers us, as our own military experts have maintained, or because politicians are afraid of being targeted for non-election by the powerful Israel lobby, then civilians of conscience must speak out.
Palestinians, not the European settlers who are colonizing Palestinian lands, are the indigenous people of Palestine and have inherent rights of sovereignty and self determination under international law and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Israel voted to adopt at the UN General Assembly on Sept. 13, 2007. Palestine is currently prevented by Israel from exercising sovereignty over its land, resources and borders, but sovereignty doesn’t go away; it can be suppressed, but not erased, by an illegal occupation. By sailing to Gaza, we assert and celebrate Palestinian sovereignty and Palestinians’ right to receive guests and visitors from abroad.
Israel has mounted a panic-stricken public relations campaign to stop the flotilla, which would be funny if it were not so sinister. Israel claims that we’re “Islamic terrorists” or “smuggling arms” or we pose a threat to its “national security.” None of it is true. We’re unarmed, completely devoted to non-violence and international law, and open to international inspection.
The only cargo we’ll carry to the children, women and men of Gaza will be hope—very audacious hope indeed in the form of thousands of letters, postcards, e-mails, drawings and other expressions of love, humanity and friendship. I hope (there’s that word again!) readers will join our letter writing campaign, called To Gaza with Love. There’s a video about it at http://ustogaza.org/ featuring Alice Walker, actress Kathleen Chalfant, and others, and instructions on where to send messages. Those interested can also sign up to receive email action alerts during the voyage of The Audacity of Hope and in that way be part of our journey to meet and greet the people of Gaza.