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The SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty left port in Gaza at 3:40 PM, and have
begun their long voyage back to Cyprus. Aboard the ship are seven
Palestinian passengers, including several children. We were able to speak
with Paul Larudee on the SS Liberty just a few minutes ago:

“We’re a little over an hour into our return trip to Cyprus and, unlike
when we came in, there are several Israeli naval vessels in sight. We seem
to be the focus of their activity, the center of their attention so to
speak. However they’re keeping a careful distance, not really approaching
us. We expect to reach the twelve-mile limit around 7 PM this evening, and
then cross over into international waters.

“When we arrived in Gaza last Saturday, it was the first time in forty-one
years that anyone has freely entered Gaza. But our leaving is in a way
even more significant. Last Saturday, two of our Palestinian members came
into Gaza on these boats. Today, seven more Palestinians are leaving with
them. They got exit stamps from the Palestinian government, they boarded
the ships, and soon they’ll be in international waters, and then in
Cyprus. This is the first time, ever, that Palestinians have been able to
freely enter and leave their own country. It’s an incredible step forward,
and a sign of greater things to come.”

–Paul Larudee, aboard the SS Liberty, freely leaving Gaza.

Date : 08-26-2008

(GAZA CITY, 26 August 2008) – The SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty will leave Gaza for Cyprus on Thursday morning at 9:00 am. Several Palestinian students who have been denied exit visas by Israel will travel to Cyprus on the boats. One Palestinian professor will finally be able to go back to teaching in Europe and one young, Palestinian woman will finally be reunited with her husband. Several of the Free Gaza international human rights workers will remain in Gaza to do human rights monitoring.

By freely traveling to Gaza, on Saturday, August 23rd, in two, small, wooden boats, the Free Gaza Movement forced the Israeli government to issue a fundamental policy change regarding their military and economic blockade of Gaza. Until now, Israel has wanted absolute control of Gaza with no responsibility. Israel has managed to maintain this situation, in spite of international law, because its policies have never been challenged.

When the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty approached the waters of Gaza, the Israeli government had to decide whether it wanted to publicly acknowledge that Israel remains an occupying power in Gaza, in which case Israel would be responsible under international law for its actions, including war crimes. In the face of intense, public scrutiny, Israel instead chose to acknowledge the inherent right of Palestinians to freely engage with the world. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign affairs publicly announced that humanitarian and human rights missions to Gaza will no longer be stopped or threatened by Israel. With the end of the Israeli siege of Gaza, Palestinians are free to exercise their rights without fear of being stopped or killed by the Israeli military.

Since the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement will not be entering Israeli territorial waters, and since they will request an inspection from the Gaza Port Authority, they expect no interference on the part of the Israeli authorities when they leave Gaza. By Israel’s own admission, it has no authority to inspect the boats or the passengers when they leave Gaza.

With the collapse of the Israeli blockade, the Free Gaza Movement will quickly return to Gaza with another delegation, and invites the United Nations, Arab League and international community to organize similar human rights and humanitarian efforts. The Free Gaza Movement will continue to work to ensure the free passage between Gaza and the outside world will remain safe and open.

For an illustrated version of this article see here

Really interesting to see the speaker for Israel’s hutzpah and how he reverses the situation : the blockade is enforced by Hamas !

See Part II here

Date: 25 / 08 / 2008 Time: 09:58

A freed Palestinian prisoner is greeted
by relatives in Bethlehem [Ma’anImages]

Bethlehem – Ma’an – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed 198 newly liberated Palestinian prisoners at his headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday.

The scene at the Muqata’a was one of pronouncedly mixed emotions: jubilation at the release of the prisoners, and sadness for the 11,000 Palestinians still in Israeli jails. One Sunday night alone, Israel seized six more Palestinians during a raid in Ramallah.

“We’ll never feel comfortable unless all prisoners are freed and prisons are cleared. There will be no peace without releasing all the prisoners,” said Abbas, speaking to the assembled prisoners, families, and PA officials.

Addressing women prisoners who are still imprisoned, he said, “Your turn will come.”

Turning to the political issues at stake in his negotiations with Israel, he asserted that the status of “Jerusalem, settlements, refugees and borders either can be solved together, at once, or we will not accept other solutions. ”

Most prominent among the freed prisoners is Sa’id Al-Atabah, who spent 32 years in jail. Another senior prisoner released on Monday is Abu Ali Yatta, who spent 28 years in jail, as well as senior Fatah leader Husam Khadir who served six years.

READ ON

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Date : 08-23-2008

GAZA (23 August 2008) – Two small boats, the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty, successfully landed in Gaza early this evening, breaking the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip.

The boats were crewed by a determined group of international human rights workers from the Free Gaza Movement. They had spent two years organizing the effort, raising money by giving small presentations at churches, mosques, synagogues, and in the homes of family, friends, and supporters.

They left Cyprus on Thursday morning, sailing over 350 kilometers through choppy seas. They made the journey despite threats that the Israeli government would use force to stop them. They continued sailing although they lost almost all communications and navigation systems due to outside jamming by some unknown party. They arrived in Gaza to the cheers and joyful tears of hundreds of Palestinians who came out to the beaches to welcome them.

Two small boats, 42 determined human rights workers, one simple message: “The world has not forgotten the people of this land. Today, we are all from Gaza.”

Tonight, the cheering will be heard as far away as Tel Aviv and Washington D.C.

QUOTES FOR PUBLICATION

“We recognize that we’re two, humble boats, but what we’ve accomplished is to show that average people from around the world can mobilize to create change. We do not have to stay silent in the face of injustice. Reaching Gaza today, there is such a sense of hope, and hope is what mobilizes people everywhere.”
–Huwaida Arraf.

Huwaida is Palestinian-American, and also a citizen of Israel. She’s a human rights activist and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement. In 2007 she received her Juris Doctor from American University in Washington D.C. Currently she teaches Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Al Quds University in Jerusalem. Huwaida sailed to Gaza aboard the SS Liberty.

“We’re the first ones in 41 years to enter Gaza freely – but we won’t be the last. We welcome the world to join us and see what we’re seeing.”
–Paul Larudee, Ph.D.

Paul is a cofounder of the Free Gaza Movement and a San Francisco Bay Area activist on the issue of justice in Palestine. He sailed to Gaza aboard the SS Liberty.

“What we’ve done shows that people can do what governments should have done. If people stand up against injustice, we can truly be the conscience of the world.”
–Jeff Halper, Ph.D.

Jeff is an Israeli professor of anthropology and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), a non-violent Israeli peace and human rights organization that resists the Israeli occupation on the ground. In 2006, the American Friends Service Committee nominated Jeff to receive the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni. Jeff sailed to Gaza aboard the SS Free Gaza.

For More Information, please contact:

(Gaza) Huwaida Arraf, tel. +972 599 130 426

(Gaza) Jeff Halper, tel. +972 542 002 642

(Cyprus) Osama Qashoo, tel. +357 99 793 595 / osamaqashoo@gmail.com

(Jerusalem) Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, tel. +972 547 366 393 / angela@icahd.org

Forty-six international human rights workers are now sailing to Gaza through international waters with one overriding goal: to break the Israeli siege that Israel has imposed on the civilian population of Gaza. Any action designed to harm civilians constitutes collective punishment (in the Palestinians’ case, for voting the “wrong” way) and is both illegal under international law and profoundly immoral.

Huwaida laying roses for 34 USS Liberty soldiers, shortly before departure

Our mission is to expose the illegality of Israel’s actions, and to break through the siege in order to express our solidarity with the suffering people of Gaza (and of the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole) and to create a free and regular channel between Gaza and the outside world.

SEE HERE

Marcel Khalifé : “Would you believe me when I say to you that poets do not die, but only pretend to ?”

For many years, my music has enjoyed a special, and especially gratifying, association with the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish.

Our respective corpora have grown to be reminiscent of each other, so that the name of each of the twain, instantly and without reflection, would evoke the name of the other.

How very appropriate, for all of my musical milestones that punctuate my thirty-year career, beginning with Promises of the Storm and culminating with The Doves Fly, are graced with the lyricism and poignancy that are uniquely Darwishian.

Even before we got to know each other personally, I felt as though Darwish’s poetry, with its divine assertiveness and prophetic cadences, had been revealed to me and for me.

I could nearly savor his mother’s bread that has become iconic to his readers. I could feel the eyes of his Rita as deeply as I could feel the pain that his Joseph suffered at the hands of his treacherous siblings, and I could identify with his passport, which I fancied carried my picture, just as personally as I could identify with his olive grove, his sand, and his sparrows. They were all, at a personal level, mine.

“And I adore my life because if I die I will be ashamed of my mother’s tears”- Darwish

Perhaps, this is the only time that Mahmoud Darwish felt ashamed and it is because he departed before his mother. He left her the tears to shed but not a poem to eulogize him with.

I am the one who carried his poetry and traveled with it to far away places. I am the one who carried his soil and longing to his mother, his Rita, his olive tree and grape vine. Would you believe me when I say to you that poets do not die, but only pretend to ?

Marcel Khalifé

From al-Oufok here

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

At 8:30 am Cyprus time, the Free Gaza and the Liberty rounded the last corner
of this lovely island, escorted by the Cypriot Coast Guard, and pulled into on
the Northern side of the commercial port in Larnaca.

“We’ve been waiting a long time to unify our group, which has been split
between Cyprus and Crete. We are excited to combine both groups who have worked
so hard on this project and are so enthusiastic about setting out for Gaza. On
the way in today, we had the Cypriot authorities escorting us. Now, it’s time
for the world to escort us to Gaza.” Said Paul Larudee, one of the
organizers.

After a thorough inspection of both boats, the port authority will let the 20
passengers from Cyprus on board to make final preparations, including a
memorial service for the more than 5000 Palestinians who have lost their lives
since September 2000 as well as the 34 sailors aboard the USS Liberty who were
assassinated by Israel in 1967. They, like the Palestinians, will not be
forgotten. That service should be on Thursday, August 21 just before the boats
begin their final journey to Gaza.

“It was exhilarating to watch the boats come in after waiting so patiently
over the past two weeks. Seeing the sail on the Free Gaza followed to port by
the Liberty has been worth the wait. Now we will get the boats ready to sail to
Gaza, because that is our final destination. We are looking forward to going as
soon as possible. ” Said a delighted Fathi Jaouadi, one of the passengers on
board.

The boats will be in port for the next two days for media to photograph. The
human rights workers on board will also be available for interviews.

Their website

by Marty Peretz

I don’t mean to harp on the death of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, and it would be somewhat ghoulish to do so. But this clutching at his remains by the Western press seems to reflect more a desperation by journalists to prove that the Palestinians are a poetic people than the more banal reality of the case. The FT has already reported this story thrice. The Boston Globe also, I think, three times.

The last of these dispatches ironically makes the very point I made in the first of my two previous postings. Or rather a point I quoted Darwish as making himself: A poem about his mother was not about Palestine. It was about his mother, whatever his mourner thinks or feels.

As it turned out the funeral was not the kind of mass mobilization the reporters expected. An article in today’s Los Angeles Times by Ashraf Khalil reports that the crowd was a mere 5,000, much less than would turn out for the interment of any martyred young jihadi in Jenin.

It also turns out that Darwish was a communist. “So what?” you say. But he was a noted communist, and so he was honored by one of the most brutal regimes in history with two prizes: the Lenin Prize and the Stalin Prize. And how many poets did these fathers of the revolution murder? Too numerous to count.

One mourner at the memorial observed that he was a Palestinian Che Guevara, an apt analogy.

And, by the way, according to Thursday’s FT, “hundreds of Palestinians living in Israel were also ferried in on buses.”
article here

One answer I liked :

boneill said:

How, Marty? How was it apt that some know-nothing jackass called him a Che? Back it up. Darwish always humanized the enemy. Even if he didn’t like them, and even if you don’t like his politics, the man as a good poet. Not “good” as in “could write decent verse, but “good” as in hit the painful contradictions of human experience (and with good verse).

Jack, my friend, maybe he wasn’t as brave as Akhmatov or even poor Mandelstem, sent to his horrid grave made insane by a madman’s system. But: who among us is? The comparison is impossible.

Marty, stop writing things that are stupid. Yes, a poem about his mother is just about his mother. That makes him far closer to Camus than Sarte. So why the fuck do you insist on tarnishing him? Have you read anything he has written? Ever?

Seriously, back up how he was Che. Che was a murderous, sociopathic killer, whose “poetry”, or ferocity of prose, is only admired by those who think Jim Morrison is a Deep and Meaningful artist. Darwish was not of that ilk. Your pathologies distort you. Anyone who cares for poetry or art or the complex and hideous contradictions that make us all would at least appreciate Darwish. All you can do is call him Stalin and Che.
August 15, 2008 12:50 AM