Dorothy Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

Dear Friends,

I would have sent this earlier, but took a break to see what Israeli TV news is reporting about the flotilla.  Apparently, the final word is that the Audacity of Hope had to turn back to Greece.  The spokesperson said, however, that the ship will leave on Tuesday.  Will it?  For that to happen the participants are asking our help.  More below.

Today has been a dramatic and upsetting day for the flotilla.  The main drama today has been in Greece, where the Audacity of Hope had hoped to set sail.  Ultimately, Greece bans all boats from leaving her ports to join the flotilla.  The latest is below, an urgent request to call and write.  Please do.  It might not help, but if we sit on our hands and do nothing, that surely won’t help!

There are several messages in item 1.  The latest is on top, by reading down you will have some sense of what the Audacity of Hope participants are feeling.

In addition to the problems that the Audacity of Hope is facing, two boats that were to participate in the flotilla were damaged, one beyond immediate repair.  That is item 2.

In item 3, ‘Waiting for Godot on the Gaza flotilla” Mark LeVine argues among other things that “the flotilla constitutes a provocation, a declaration to Israel that it does not own every aspect of Palestinian existence and that Palestinians too have their international supporters who, if not as militarily and financially powerful as the US government and the various arms of the Israel lobby, are coming into their own as a force to be reckoned with.”

In item 4 Asaf Gefen states in Ynet that Israel has lost the PR war regarding the flotilla, and like some other Israeli commentators believes that Israel would have been smarter to just let the boats get to Gaza.  Very likely true.

Item 5 is a link to a film about Vittorio Arigoni, made before he was killed.  It’s about 50 minutes, well worth watching also for its information on Gaza.

Let’s do our best to help the boats get to sea.  What happens then is another story.  Let’s hope that all the participants will emerge after safe and sound.

Dorothy

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1.   1 – 12:45 pm (NYC time)

Another Greek Coast Guard boat has arrived. It seems that something might be happening fairly soon…no idea exactly what or when.

We are getting reports that people are having a hard time getting through to the Greek Embassy in Washington, DC….that just means lots of folks are making calls!!

It also would be good to have people sending email messages. We understand they are all being forwarded to Athens. Here’s that email address:

nycons@greekembassy.org

Below are some of the other Greek Consulate offices around the U.S. They should all be hearing from us!!

Let’s keep the heat on!!

Leslie

————————-

Consulate General – Chicago

650 North St. Clair Street

Chicago , IL 60611

Telephone: 312.335.3915

Fax: 312.335.3958

Web Address: http://www.greekembassy.org/chicago/

E-mail: chicago@greekembassy.org

Consulate General – San Francisco

2441 Gough Street

San Francisco, CA 94123

Telephone: 415.775.2102

Fax: 415.776.6815

Web Address: http://www.greekembassy.org/sanfrancisco/

E-mail: sfgr@greekembassy.org

Consulate General – Los Angeles

12424 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 800

Los Angeles, CA 90025

Telephone: 310.826.5555

Fax: 310.826.8670

Web Address: http://www.greekembassy.org/losangeles/

E-mail: lagr@greekembassy.org

Consulate General – Tampa

601 Bayshore Blvd., Suite 800

Tampa, FL 33606

Telephone: 813.865.0200

Fax: 813.865.0206

Web Address: http://www.greekembassy.org/tampa

E-mail: grgencon.tam@mfa.gr

Consulate – Atlanta

Tower Place, Suite 1670 3340, Peachtree Rd., N.E.

Atlanta, GA 30326

Telephone: 404.261.3313

Fax: 404.262.2798

Web Address: http://www.greekembassy.org/atlanta/

E-mail: atlanta@greekembassy.org

Consulate – Houston

520 Post Oak Blvd., Suite 450

Houston , TX 77027

Telephone: 713.840.7522

Fax: 713.840.0614

Web Address: http://www.greekembassy.org/houston/

E-mail: houston@greekembassy.org

GET ON BOARD THE U.S. TO GAZA CAMPAIGN

NOVANEWS

VISIT WWW.USTOGAZA.ORG

Thank you for your support

Please distribute widely

July 1st – 11:30 am We urge you to immediately contact the Greek Embassy in Washington, DC at 202-939-1300 and the Greek consulate in your city. Tell them to let The Audacity of Hope leave Athens safely and sail to Gaza. Right now there is a stand off between the boat and the Greek Coast Guard. No one is moving and it is not clear what will happen next. Check our web site and sign up to receive Twitter alerts. www.ustogaza.org   GET ON BOARD THE U.S. TO GAZA CAMPAIGN VISIT WWW.USTOGAZA.ORG TO ENDORSE AND CONTRIBUTE Thank you for your support Please distribute widely

This email was sent to dor_naor@netvision.net.il by ustogaza@gmail.com | Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. US TO GAZA | PO Box 373 | Bearsville | NY | 12409

Jerusalem Post Friday, July 1, 2011 Friday  19:30 IST

Photo by: REUTERS/John Kolesidis

Greece officially bans flotilla ships from departing

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=227498

By HERB KEINON, REUTERS AND JPOST.COM STAFF

01/07/2011

‘Audacity of Hope’ organizers say Greek authorities approach ship shortly after leaving port; unclear how moves will affect overall flotilla plans.

The Greek Ministry of Citizen Protection on Friday issued a statement saying that  the Minister, C. Papoutsis, decided to prohibit the departure of ships flying either Greek or foreign flags “to the maritime area” of Gaza.

“By orders of the Hellenic Coast Guard Head Quarters to all local Hellenic Coast Guard Authorities, all appropriate measures are taken for the implementation of the said decision,”| the statement said

The statement said that the “broader maritime area of eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating” in the Gaza flotilla.

While Cyprus had already banned ships headed for Gaza from leaving their ports, the Greeks had not taken this measure until Friday.

The Greek Coast Guard intercepted a boat carrying US activists soon after they set sail from Greece on Friday to join a pro-Palestinian flotilla to Gaza, one of the activists said.

The boat, dubbed The Audacity of Hope, had just left Perama port, near Piraeus, for the open seas, a Reuters witness said.

Minutes earlier, organizers said that the ship’s passengers were preparing to “non-violently resist any efforts to stop the boat,” saying moments later that the boat “is about to set sail,” followed by a message saying that the ship had departed. Through the boat’s twitter feed, organizers said that a Greek Coast Guard vessel approached The Audacity of Hope as it was pulling away from the dock but then sped away.

A flotilla of boats planning to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is expected to sail next week, after repeated delays that activists blame on Israeli sabotage. Israel has denied the accusations.

“We are just here, two miles off Piraeus. We’ve been stopped by the coastguard, their ship maneuvered in front of us and they are now talking to the captain, they want us to turn around,” Ann Wright, one of the activists, told Reuters.

“We are non-violent, we pose no threat,” she added, saying that the group was informed of the sailing ban just as it was setting off.

It was not immediately clear how the boat’s departure would affect the overall flotilla plans.

=============================

Haaretz,

July 01, 2011

Greek authorities stop American ship taking part in Gaza flotilla

American activists aboard ‘The Audacity of Hope’ leave Perama port in Greece, authorities stop ship shortly after departure.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/greek-authorities-stop-american-ship-taking-part-in-gaza-flotilla-1.370756

By Amira Hass and Reuters

Tags: Gaza Gaza flotilla US

American activists set sail from Greece on Friday aboard a boat set to take part in the pro-Palestinian flotilla to Gaza, defying calls from Israel to cancel and a ban by Athens.

The boat, dubbed “The Audacity of Hope”, left Perama port for the open seas, a Reuters witness said. Greek authorities said earlier on Friday that ships destined to Gaza were prohibited from leaving Greek ports.

Shortly after leaving the port, Greek authorities stopped the boat, and negotiations are currently underway to determine whether the vessel can continue on its way despite the ban.

The Audacity of Hope is one of many boats that is planning to take part in a flotilla aimed at challenging Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. A spokeswoman announced Friday that it will set sail next week, in spite of repeated delays that activists blame on Israeli sabotage.

“Israel is doing its very, very best to make sure we don’t get out of port,” spokeswoman Greta Berlin said, speaking by telephone from Greece where some of the ships are moored.

“We want to move the boats by July 5 to get to our rendezvous point no later than July 6 or 7 … We will go with what we have,” she added.

The original plan was to have 15 ships set sail, however the current count stands at nine boats hoping to take part in the mission, Berlin said in her statement.

The flotilla is set to head toward Gaza a little over a year after Israeli marines stormed another pro-Palestinian flotilla that had approached the strip. Nine activists died in the on-board clashes, provoking an international outcry.

========================================

2.   Free Gaza Movement

IRISH SHIP TO GAZA

irishshiptogaza.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 30, 2011

Sabotage of M.V. Saoirse in Turkey

‘an act of international terrorism’

The Irish-owned ship, the MV Saoirse, that was meant to take part in Freedom Flotilla 2 has been sabotaged in a dangerous manner in the Turkish coastal town of Göcek, where it had been at berth for the past few weeks. Visual evidence of the undership sabotage, which was carried out by divers, will be presented today at a press conference in Dublin at 11am in Buswell’s Hotel. Photographs and video footage of the damage are available from the Irish Ship to Gaza campaign.

Concerns for the boat first emerged on Monday evening following a short trip near the Göcek marina and an inspection was carried out by divers and by skipper Shane Dillon on Tuesday morning. Evidence was found that the shaft of the starboard propeller has been interfered with and it was decided to take the boat out of the water for a further visual inspection. On Wednesday, the boat was put on land at a local shipyard and the extent of the sabotage was immediately visible.

The propeller shaft had been weakened by saboteurs who cut, gouged or filed a piece off the shaft. This had weakened the integrity of the shaft, causing it to bend badly when put in use. The damage was very similar to that caused to the Juliano, another flotilla ship, in Greece. The consequent damage would have happened gradually as the ship was sailing and would have culminated in a breach of the hull.

The Irish Ship to Gaza campaign believes that Israel has questions to answer and must be viewed as the chief suspect in this professional and very calculating act of sabotage.

Commenting on the attack from Göcek in Turkey, Dr Fintan Lane, national coordinator of Irish Ship to Gaza, who own the vessel, said: “This is an appalling attack and should be condemned by all right-thinking people. It is an act of violence against Irish citizens and could have caused death and injury. If we had not spotted the damage as a result of a short trip in the bay, we would have gone to sea with a dangerously damaged propeller shaft and the boat would have sunk if the hull had been breached. Imagine the scene if this had happened at nighttime.”

He continued: “One of the most shocking aspects is the delayed nature of the sabotage. It wasn’t designed to stop the ship from leaving its berth; instead, it was intended that the fatal damage to the ship would occur while she was at sea and this could have resulted in the deaths of several of those on board. This was a potentially murderous act.”

Dr Lane, who was on board Challenger 1 in last year’s flotilla, said: “The Freedom Flotilla is a non-violent act of practical and humanitarian solidarity with the people of Gaza, yet Israel continues to use threats and violence to delay its sailing. They attacked us in international waters last year; now they are attacking us in Turkish and Greek ports. There is no line that Israel won’t cross.”

“We will not be intimidated by attacks like this – it simply highlights the aggression that the Palestinian people of Gaza have to put up with on a daily basis. It strengthens our determination to continue until this illegal and immoral blockade is lifted.”

Calling on the government and northern executive to demand safe passage for Freedom Flotilla 2, Dr Lane said: “The Irish government needs to publicly condemn this dangerous act of sabotage but it also should insist on the flotilla being allowed to make it to Gaza unhindered. Israel has no right to interdict the flotilla and even less right to carry out attacks against vessels in Greek and Turkish ports.”

“It is important that everybody make their voices heard in solidarity with the people of Gaza and in support of the flotilla. The Israeli embassy should become a focal point for street demonstrations. These saboteurs came very close to killing Irish citizens.”

Also speaking from Göcek, the skipper of the MV Saoirse, Shane Dillon, said: “The damage sighted and inspected on the starboard propeller shaft on the MV Saoirse had the potential to cause loss of life to a large number of those aboard. The nature of the attack and malicious damage was such that under normal circumstances the vessel would most likely have sunk at sea. If the ship was operating at high engine revs, the damage done by the saboteurs would have caused the shaft to shear and the most likely outcome would be the rupturing of the hull and the vessel foundering. If, as was intended, the vessel had proceeded to Gaza at reduced revs, the stern tube would have been forced off line and a large and rapid ingress of water would have resulted, sinking the vessel.”

Mr Dillon continued: “The shaft was filmed and photographed when the vessel was lifted from the water on Wednesday afternoon in a shipyard in the Turkish coastal village of Göcek. A local marine engineer inspected the shaft and his opinion was that the interference was the work of professional saboteurs intent on disabling the Saoirse. However, the most shocking aspect of the attack was that its intention was to cause failure of the shaft when the vessel was offshore and this shows a total disregard for human life.”

He ended: “It is also worth noting that the damage inflicted on the Saoirse was identical to that that caused to the Greek/Swedish ship, the Juliano, which was sabotaged in the Greek port of Piraeus a few days ago.”

Pat Fitzgerald, a Sinn Fein member of Waterford County Council and chief engineer on the Saoirse, commented: “We were very lucky to discover this act of sabotage when we did. We felt vibrations from the shaft as we were returning to the berth on Monday evening following a short trip in the bay for refuelling purposes. Close inspection by divers on Tuesday and then on land on Wednesday revealed a large man-made gouge on one side of the propeller shaft. The integrity of the shaft had been compromised and a very serious bend had developed. This could have caused fatalities had we set to sea and almost certainly would have sunk the boat when the engine revs were increased. It was an act of sheer lunacy and endangered the lives of all on board.”

The sabotage has been reported to the harbour master in Göcek and Irish Ship to Gaza are asking for a full investigation by the Turkish police.

The repairs have yet to be fully costed but could be more than E15,000 and they will take some time, meaning that the Saoirse cannot participate in Freedom Flotilla 2.

However, six of the 20 crew and passengers aboard the Saoirse will transfer to another ship in the flotilla. The six Irish who will join the Italian/Dutch ship are Fintan Lane, national coordinator of Irish Ship to Gaza and a member of the Free Gaza Movement; Trevor Hogan, former Ireland and Leinster rugby player; Paul Murphy, Socialist Party MEP for Dublin; Zoe Lawlor of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign; Hussein Hamed, a Libyan-born Irish citizen; and Gerry MacLochlainn, a Sinn Fein member of Derry City Council.

The MV Saoirse will be repaired and used in future flotillas to Gaza if they are needed.

Contacts

Ireland: Claudia Saba at 086 3938821, or Laurence Davis at 086 3605053

Turkey: Phone Fintan Lane (Göcek) at 087 1258325, or 537557811 (Turkish number)

===================

3. Al Jazeera Last Modified: 01 Jul 2011 14:41

Waiting for Godot on the Gaza flotilla

Unlike the existentialist play, Palestinians are facing a meaningful struggle to stay human in the face of oppression.

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/06/201163012414324986.html

Mark LeVine

The flotilla constitutes a provocation, a declaration to Israel that it does not own every aspect of Palestinian existence and that Palestinians too have international supporters [REUTERS]

I left Gaza just as word began to circulate of attempts by various governments – the United States, Greece, Cyprus, and even UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon – to prevent or at least delay the departure of the boats participating in the latest Gaza flotilla. Staring out into the mid-night darkness of the Mediterranean Sea on one of Gaza’s beautiful yet rubbish-strewn beaches, it wasn’t hard to imagine the chaos that would soon unfold if, somehow, the ships manage to get close to shore. Given the violence that greeted the last flotilla, few Gazans I know expect the latest flotilla to make it.

Indeed, for Gazans anticipating the arrival of the supplies, and as important the solidarity, that the latest flotilla would bring, the wait seemed until today likely to end no better than the proverbial wait for Godot. The political theatre that will no doubt surround the flotilla’s approach could similarly rival the absurdity of Beckett’s existentialist masterpiece.

Commentators on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have long compared the long wait for peace and justice in Israel/Palestine to Waiting for Godot. But the meaning of the waiting could not be more different.

For Beckett, the waitings constitute a rumination on the meaninglessness of human existence despite all our attempts to fabricate semblances of order and purpose. But the protagonists of Godot are at least free to

construct a meaningful narrative for their lives, if they can muster the will. They have the freedom to embrace choice in the context of the larger meaninglessness of life; indeed, life’s innate purposelessness opens the

very possibility of creating a different future than the one seemingly before you.

But if the Israelis have their way, the endless wait in Gaza, and the cccupied territories more broadly, suggests a very different and more pernicious meaning: We own you. We determine what you can or cannot do, where you can and cannot live and go, who can and cannot be part of your lives. You in fact have no freedom save what we give to you; there is no point to your waiting.

And this waiting has been going on a very long time. The Israeli siege of Gaza that defines life in the enclave today did not begin in 2009 with the invasion. Nor did it begin with the gradual closing in of Gaza at the start of the Oslo peace process.

Geography of occupation

Rather, the occupation has always been defined by an ever-tightening siege, with Palestinians increasingly surrounded and hemmed in by settlements, walls, check points, F-16s, Apaches helicopters and the bullets and bombs that rain down from them. They are confined bypass roads, closed military zones, “parks” and other areas built on the ruins of what was there before. Together the geography of the occupation has always constrained their freedom of movement, their livelihoods, even their dreams of a better future.

In such conditions, “staying human,” as the murdered ISM activist Vittorio Arrigoni famously put it, has became one of the most difficult but important acts of resistance, as one of the primary goals and tactics of the occupation has always been dehumanisation.

In this context, the reason the Gaza flotilla has been treated as such a threat by Israel is not the cargo it carries. There are numerous ways Israel could check to ensure weapons are not being smuggled in while

allowing participants to complete their voyage. Nor is the danger ultimately symbolic, as many argue. Rather, the political and strategic implications of the flotilla are quite real. It symbolises that Palestinians and their international supporters refusing to play by Israel’s rules, and forcing the Israeli state to reveal the basic, ugly immorality of an occupation that has always presented itself as a necessary if unfortunate act of

self-defence.

In short, the flotilla constitutes a provocation, a declaration to Israel that it does not own every aspect of Palestinian existence and that Palestinians too have their international supporters who, if not as militarily and financially powerful as the US government and the various arms of the Israel lobby, are coming into their own as a force to be reckoned with.

Most important, the Arab uprisings of the last six months have shown Israel what happens when highly repressive regimes show signs of weakness; within days, for seemingly inconsequential reasons, they can lose control of their populations and even collapse. And for Israel, losing power over Palestinians would mean not merely the end of the occupation, but the end of Israel as an ethnocentric Jewish state.

Contrasting narratives

Israel well understands the stakes if the narrative represented by the flotilla were ever to penetrate into global consciousness, which is why it considers the propaganda war surrounding the flotilla and other acts of non-violent resistance, whether protesting land seizures in villages like Bil’in or the growing academic and cultural boycott, to be as big a threat as Palestinian militancy. It is not surprising, then, that it is a master at the game of “hasbara,” or propaganda – literally, in Hebrew, of explaining itself to the outside world.

Flotilla on the way? Announce you’re letting in a few hundred million dollars in construction materials, so Secretary of State Clinton can faithfully echo your commitment as a justification for opposing the flotilla, while her assistants salute the “established and efficient” mechanisms for getting supplies into Gaza.

Talk of continued siege? Put up a website, such as “Gaza Flotilla 101” with pretty pictures of well-stocked markets filled with smiling children (not like any market I’ve seen in Gaza, but who cares?) and descriptions of how rapidly Gaza’s economy is growing. Add a heavy dose of revelations about how how badly Hamas persecutes Christians and anyone else who doesn’t follow their directives and you’ve created just enough confusion to allow the average American to move on, leaving Israel to do whatever it wants without fear of too much protest.

Name your boat the “Audacity of Hope” and the Israelis will warn you of “dangerous consequences” for approaching Gaza’s territorial waters – which, we shouldn’t forget, have recently been discovered to contain significant petroleum reserves. Israel is safe in the knowledge that the US government will threaten you with imprisonment (if you survive the journey) for “attempting to conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to or for the benefit of a designated foreign terrorist organisation”.

Explaining US support

The stakes are indeed quite high for Israel. But why is the United States so supportive of not merely just the siege of Gaza, but Israel’s willingness to kill American citizens to stop a peace flotilla (one of the activists killed in the last flotilla by Israeli forces was an American, but the Obama administration did not offer the slightest protest)?

Quite simply, the US has almost as much invested in Israel’s full control over Palestinian territory as does the Jewish state. More than any of America’s Arab allies, Israel is the linchpin of the entire US strategic/military system in the region.

A radical change in Israel, its transformation from a militarised, occupation society toward a full democracy – which is precisely what the flotilla aims to help bring about – would pose a mortal danger to US dominance of the region.

Why else would Clinton all but signal that Israel can injure and even kill more Americans with impunity, and that those who support Palestinian rights and non-violent resistance can be subject to secret monitoring by the FBI, and to arrest and prosecution?

This process mirrors the criminalisation of peaceful resistance in Israel, and is even been copied in Europe, where pro-Palestinian activists have been brought up on charges of anti-Semitism in France merely for

broadcasting programs in support of the BDS movement.

The flotilla is among the most important international responses to the siege of Gaza. Another increasingly important strategy is the cultural and academic boycott of Israel, which first gained significant international

currency in the wake of the 2009 invasion. The idea of artists and academics boycotting Israel is among the most contentious strategies of the non-violent resistance against the occupation precisely because the act of collaboration defines the professional life of so many artists and scholars, who see joint work not merely as standing above politics, but as helping to break down political boundaries.

I will discuss the increasingly vitriolic debate surrounding the academic and cultural boycott of Israel more in an upcoming column. Here I will point out merely that the idea of art or science has, or should, remain above the political fray is ludicrous. Both have always been highly politicised, and attempting to neuter them almost always produces bad art or science.

What musician or social scientist would presently go to Libya, Syria or Bahrain to work with government sponsored colleagues while these states engage in such oppression against their citizens? And how would colleagues react if she did? Who would have supported collaborating with Serbian institutions in the mid-1990s, or with official Chinese institutions in Tibet today?

But as long as Israel can portray itself as essentially an essentially “western” and thus “civilised” country, it’s somehow okay to collaborate with institutions and individuals that enable the occupation at many levels. Artists who would never imagine themselves playing Sun City under apartheid, or any number of repressive regimes today, will perform in Tel Aviv without a second’s thought.

Changing the debate

Palestinians refuse to accept these arguments anymore. After two decades of a “peace industry” that has demanded Palestinians work with and through Israelis and accept a discourse of peace that has born only bitter fruit as the price of obtaining funds or support from the West, Palestinians at the grass roots level and their supporters (including a growing number of Israeli Jews, it needs to be pointed out) have had enough, and have retaken control of the methods and language and discourse of resistance.

The boycott movement is, like the flotilla, a direct provocation and a refusal to accept Israel’s terms of reference for discussing or even negotiating around the conflict, or compromise on core principles to reach

a solution, as happened at the very start of Oslo with disastrous results. What the movement reflects is a rights-based rather than solution-oriented discourse, precisely because Palestinians have little hope for a

negotiated solution in the near future without a radical change in the balance of power between the two sides.

However improbable as it might presently seem, strategies such as the flotilla, the BDS movement and other forms of militant non-violent resistance do have a chance for defeating the strategy of violence and large-scale imprisonment that has long defined Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories. Just as I write these lines, Haaretz newspaper is reporting that the IDF has admitted that it has “no way to stop mass non-violent protests in the West Bank”. And mass here means merely several thousand protesters, nothing like the hundreds of thousands of people necessary to bring down Ben Ali and Mubarak.

According to one IDF official: “A non-violent protest of 4,000 people or more, even if they only march to a checkpoint or a settlement, and especially if the Palestinian police do not deter them, will be

unstoppable.” We could similarly imagine the impossibility of stopping the next flotilla if it grows to dozens of boats, or even hundreds.

When coupled with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s warning that if Palestinians give up the two-state idea and simply demand Israeli passports, Israel will have no choice but to choose between rank apartheid and becoming a true non-sectarian democracy, the way forward to achieving real peace, justice and democracy  becomes clear.

Peaceful militancy

For me, the most part of this whole scenario is precisely that despite – or better, because of – its level of militancy and uncompromising politics, efforts like the Gaza flotilla and boycott movements are actually bringing together Israelis and Palestinians in solidarity and comradeship, and as important, producing innovative art and scholarship, that are hard for outsiders to imagine.

The fact is, once you leave your narrow ethnocentric identity beyond, the possibility of building alliances, trust and even deep friendships across the divides of religion and nation becomes strikingly clear. It is what allows well-known Jewish Israeli director Udi Aloni to work with Palestinian actors on a production of Waiting for Godot, and Jews and other non-Palestinians to play a crucial role in the Gaza flotilla or the movements to protect Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

By working together without compromise and for a common goal of full democracy, Palestinians and their supporters from Israel and beyond are in fact taking the revolutionary spirit of the last half year to the next

level. However improbable it might seem today, their success will go a long way toward ensuring the long term survival of the still tenuous revolutions that today surround Israel/Palestine from every direction.

Mark Levine is a professor of history at the University of California, Irvine and author, most recently, of Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Resistance, and the Struggle for the Soul of Islam (Random House 2008) and Impossible Peace: Israel/Palestine Since 1989 (Zed Books, 2009).

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

==================================

4.    Ynet,

July 01, 2011

PR Failure

Israel losing PR war, again Photo: Reuters

Israel lost flotilla war

Op-ed: Best way to counter PR flotilla to Gaza Strip would have been to ignore it

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4089840,00.html

Asaf Gefen

When the first reports surfaced about yet another international flotilla heading to Gaza, it was difficult to understand its aims. After all, the opening of the Rafah Crossing put an end to the halcyon days of Israel’s blockade on Gaza, and we are now hearing about an improvement in the standard of living in the Strip; according to optimistic predictions, it may rise to almost-humane levels this year.

However, slowly we are discovering that the latest flotilla has its own objectives. If the Marmara that took part in the previous sail sought to present Israel’s brutality to the world (and managed to do so, thanks to our kind assistance,) it appears that the current flotilla was meant to present Israel’s stupidity.

At this time already, when it’s still unclear whether and when the ships shall arrive, it appears that this objective had also been fully achieved.

First, at this current stage, which is replete with belligerent Israeli statements, we can see the Israeli government’s impressive willingness to accurately reenact every critical mistake made in the previous round.

This includes virtuous disregard for the fact that the failure in the Marmara affair had to do with the very attempt to stop a symbolic flotilla in a way that would turn it into a much greater symbol; indeed, the thickness of the rope soldiers slid down on to get on board the ship was not the issue.

This conduct is even more bizarre when we realize that this time around there is no chance whatsoever that the ships are transferring something to Gaza that has not been brought into the Strip via Egypt 50 times already since this morning.

Moreover, instead of realizing that the best way to counter a public relations flotilla is to ignore it, Israel’s PR geniuses made sure to promote the event with spine-tingling leaks to the media about flotilla members being equipped with chemical weapons, laser guns and dragons.

The only optimistic aspect of this conduct is the hope that flotilla organizers would realize that they don’t really have to sail here and get seasick and all. Their objective – isolating Israel on the international stage and driving it mad – had already been secured.

========================

5.  [good film.  I watched most but not all of it due to time constraints.  It’s about 50 minutes long.  Dorothy]
Staying Human
Made before his death, this film follows human rights activist Vittorio Arrigoni as he tries to help the people of Gaza.
Staying Human can be seen from Tuesday, June 28, at the following times GMT: Tuesday: 2000; Wednesday: 1200; Thursday: 0100; Friday: 0600; Saturday: 2000; Sunday: 1200.
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2011/06/201162975140291805.html

Worth to see it! All the best! Cornelia
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