(MintPress) — Throughout human history, often times those who risk their own lives and freedoms for the betterment of their fellow mankind are often met with skepticism and disdain in their own time, but later viewed as heroes.
For example, in the 19th century, many Americans opposed to slavery risked their lives to win freedom for others.
These Americans, most notably among which perhaps is Harriet Tubman, set up the underground railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century black slaves deemed as “fugitives” by the United States for trying to escape to free states in the north of the country and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. Abolitionists, both black and white, free and enslaved, aided the fugitives, at times laying their own lives on the line. Today, we regard these men and women as heroes of our nation’s history.
So, too, does the world regard those who hid Jews from the clutches of Hitler’s Germany during World War II. During the 1930s and 1940s across Europe, many non-Jews, motivated by moral concern and good will, risked their own lives in order to save the lives of Jewish people facing persecution. A tragedy — or shoah, as it is described in Hebrew — which would claim the lives of approximately 6 million Jewish men, women and children, not to mention additional victims like political dissidents and the physically and mentally challenged, deemed as undesirable by the government. They later became known as “righteous Gentiles.”
Today, the Free Gaza movement is following in the footsteps of these activists.
The coalition of human rights activists and pro-Palestinian groups formed to challenge the Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip by sailing humanitarian aid ships to Gaza.
The group, which has been demonized by the Israeli government, has more than 70 endorsers, including Desmond Tutu and Noam Chomsky.
The Free Gaza movement aims to deliver aid to Gaza to get around the Israeli blockade and “to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation.”
The movement has won the support of a number of Jewish groups that campaign for the rights of Palestinians and members of various Christian, Jewish and Muslim religious organizations.
However, the Israeli intelligence community’s position is that the group is comprised of Islamist organizations that pose a security threat to the Jewish state.
The need for aid in Gaza
The land, air and sea blockade on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt was put into place in 2007, after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative election in 2006 and took control of the Gaza Strip, setting up its own government. This triggered Israel to put into place economic sanctions.
Israel says its objective is to hold Hamas “responsible and accountable” for rocket attacks on Israeli territory, and to pressure the group to release Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier held captive for four years. Ultimately, its goal is to bring down Hamas, which it views as a terrorist organization, and to weaken Hamas by constraining its ability to govern through use of the blockade.
However, the blockade has had a disastrous effect on daily life in the region, touching everything from sanitation to schools, agriculture to health care. “Unemployment has soared and blackouts have become common. U.N. statistics show that around 70 percent of Gazans live on less than $1 a day, 75 percent rely on food aid and 60 percent have no daily access to water. Humanitarian aid is in theory allowed in, but U.N. agencies and charities claim that the Israelis have banned any items that are humanitarian in nature but could be put to alternative use. Items said to face delays getting into Gaza include shelter kits, health and paediatric hygiene kits, bedding, kitchen utensils, school textbooks and stationery. The World Bank estimates that 80 percent of Gaza’s imports are smuggled in by tunnel, “ according to an article in the Guardian.
Facing mounting international calls to ease or lift the blockade in response to the Gaza flotilla raid in 2010, where nine activists were killed and many were wounded by Israeli defense forces while sailing an aid ship in international waters on the Mediterranean sea, Egypt and Israel lessened the restrictions starting in June 2010. Israel announced that it will allow all strictly civilian goods into Gaza, but the few goods which do find their way into the area are too expensive and thus out of reach for the people of the region.
Aid attempts
Since August 2008, human rights group Free Gaza Movement has attempted to travel 10 times to Gaza by sea.
On its website, the group says that it successfully delivered aid five times to Gaza in 2008; however, they have been violently intercepted on four voyages, including the 2010 raid.
Following the Gaza flotilla raid, a coalition of 22 NGOs assembled a flotilla of 10 vessels and 1,000 activists to breach the blockade. The vessels docked in Greece in preparation for the journey to Gaza. However, the Greek government announced that it would not allow the vessels to leave for Gaza, and it prevented those who tried to break the blockade.
Organizations such as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), the Perdana Global Peace Organization from Malaysia, the European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza and the Swedish and Greek Boat to Gaza initiatives sent three cargo ships loaded with reconstruction, medical and educational supplies. Multiple passenger boats with more than 600 people on board accompanied the cargo ships. Passengers included members of Parliament from around the world; U.N., human rights and trade union activists; as well as journalists.
Last July, a boat carrying about 50 Americans, among them Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, was turned back by Greek commandos outside of Athens.
At that time, about 500 activists on nine boats, hailing mostly from the U.S. and Europe, joined the ranks of the Freedom Flotillas, but they were detained in Greece. An Irish boat out of the Turkish port of Gocek pulled out, alleging was Israeli sabotage, and a Swedish boat in a Greek port also said its propeller was sabotaged, leaving the activists at bay.
“What we’re experiencing is a microcosm of what the people in Gaza experience every day. They aren’t allowed in or out and can’t get any materials in the country unless Israel allows it,” says Jane Hirschmann, one of the American group’s organizers, told the Christian Science Monitor. “The people in Gaza are not free so what we’re hoping is that the public around the world will see what’s happening, that the U.S. and Israeli government have outsourced the occupation and dragged Greece into enforcing it.”
Just this month, the Freedom Flotilla III, a boat from Sweden, set sail with hopes to break the blockade, reaching Gaza sometime within October. The ship, the Estelle, plans several stops on its way to Gaza in which there will be speakers, concerts and public festivals providing information about the situation in Gaza.
While the United Nations investigative committee concluded in the Palmer Report in September of 2010 that the blockade is legal, Princeton University international law professor Richard Falk has concluded that there exists an “overwhelming consensus” view among qualified international law specialists that both the blockade and its enforcement are illegal.
The findings of the Palmer report on the legality of the blockade were disputed by a panel of five U.N. human rights experts, who said that the blockade amounted to a “flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
The panel said the Palmer report failed to recognize that the naval blockade was part of Israel’s closure policy toward Gaza, which disproportionately affects civilians. Falk said the authors of the Palmer report were poorly qualified to assess legal aspects of the blockade, and that they were politically motivated to find the naval blockade legal.
So, while the blockade remains in place, activists will continue to sail the seas. “We sail as an expression of citizen nonviolent, direct action, confronting Israel’s ongoing abuses of Palestinian human and political rights and will continue to challenge Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza,” the Free Gaza Movement says.