Gaza is crumbling under the weight of an Israeli siege backed by the Obama administration. Roughly 80 percent of Palestinians in Gaza now depend on aid. Vast amounts of infrastructure destroyed in the Israeli attacks in the winter of 2008-09 require repair. Thousands of families still live doubled up with relatives or are homeless.

Children are being short-changed educationally because of damaged and horribly overcrowded schools and a lack of textbooks. Their health is compromised by polluted water and food insecurity.

In response, more than 1,000 human rights workers from around the world will sail this June on a dozen boats traveling to the Gaza Strip to highlight this human-made tragedy.

Our boat — the American boat — is named “The Audacity of Hope.” It will be carrying approximately sixty students, nurses, artists, journalists and filmmakers, lawyers, academics and ordinary civilians of many beliefs from around the country. Many of us are Jewish.

Last May, Israeli forces stormed the Turkish humanitarian aid ship Mavi Marmara and killed nine passengers, including an American citizen. A fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights found that the “circumstances of the killing of at least six of the passengers were in a manner consistent with an extra-legal, arbitrary and summary execution.” All the civilian deaths on board the humanitarian vessel were inexcusable. Yet, once again, the Israeli government has threatened to initiate violence against us.

Israel insists it has a right to blockade Gaza, to keep its population on a restricted diet, and to destroy its economy by cutting it off from international trade. The rest of the world disagrees. UN chief Ban Ki-moon has called the siege “unacceptable” and has said it must end immediately. Even US President Barack Obama has termed the siege “unsustainable,” notwithstanding our government’s full support of Israeli policy.

Israel states that the purpose of the blockade is to keep weapons out of the hands of the Hamas government in Gaza. There are many ways to do this without imprisoning 1.5 million people inside an area about twice the size of Washington, DC. Gaza’s children, women, elderly and other civilians pay the price for Israel’s refusal to use international inspections, diplomacy and negotiations to achieve its goal. Under international law, this is known as collective punishment and can be regarded as a crime against humanity.

The US and European governments have not acted to end Israel’s siege. Those of us sailing to Gaza on “The Audacity of Hope” have chosen to support international humanitarian law where our governments have not. We sail as an expression of human solidarity with the beleaguered people of Gaza.

We will be unarmed and nonviolent. Representatives from the media, who are invited to sail with us, will be able to testify to this. The boat’s cargo will be open to international inspections before sailing. Our cargo consists of letters of solidarity to the people of Gaza from thousands of Americans.

As the world witnessed this year in Tunisia and Egypt, human solidarity is far more powerful than the force of arms. Despite the Israeli government’s propaganda against us, we believe that most of the world opposes the attempt to reduce Gaza to desperation and dependence. Dov Weisglass, an advisor to Israel’s former prime minister, put Israel’s effort succinctly. He famously said of the Israeli siege on Gaza: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.” We reject this cruelty.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government has launched a scare campaign, accusing us of being “terrorists” with ties to Hamas, who are “willing to become martyrs.” This is false. Our goal is to end the illegal siege of Gaza and highlight the injustice of Israel’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories.

“The Audacity of Hope” sails in peace and will not be deterred by Israeli threats. Our actions are very much in keeping with the moral impetus that drove Freedom Riders fifty years ago to travel south to stand nonviolently with African-Americans against government-backed violence and Jim Crow discrimination. We intend to promote both Palestinian liberty from Israeli domination and an economic opening to the world for Gaza.

http://electronicintifada.net/content/us-boat-will-sail-gaza-despite-israeli-threats/9985

only thing i can say to that is ..so? the poor Israelies have been getting bombarded on all sides, and deserve some peace. the muslims need to back off for a while, and Israel will too...

regardless, this is gonna be an interesting summer/fall.

Obama's vision for Mideast peace: Israel, Palestine based on 1967 borders with land swaps
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/obama-s-vision-for-mideast-peace-israel-palestine-based-on-1967-borders-with-land-swaps-1.362823


and not long after that was published (I was just reading it)

this pops up:

After Obama speech, Netanyahu rejects withdrawal to 'indefensible' 1967 borders
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/after-obama-speech-netanyahu-rejects-withdrawal-to-indefensible-1967-borders-1.362869

I think the U.S. should send Israel planes and equipment necessary to fight their battles and let them take care of the middle east. In may 1948 Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria attacked the state of Israel and it ended in March of 1949 with Israel being victorious. Israel can handle anyone in the region and we should let em and stay out of it other than selling Israel hulking war machines.

i actually liked what obama said in that top link, it maid a lot of sense, even tho i know nothing of the 1967 borders...

Maybe you are missing out, but that's exactly what the US is doing since 48.

I know, but there are people who think that we should tell Israel to stop defending themselves.

I think people are saying Israel should stop sucking out our tit when we are bankrupt allready and stop flameing the rest of the middle east. Personaly I dont think Israel wants peace and would rather have war to expand its borders.

The Israelis already offered the Palestinians their own state based
on 1967 borders modified with land swaps and the Palestinians turned
it down and continued terrorist attacks.

This is no big news. Israel has said repeatedly that it has no
opposition to a demilitarized Palestinian state in almost all of
the West Bank and Gaza as long as they are willing to openly accept
Israel as a permanent Jewish state. The only remaining issue is the
exact borders. Israel has repeatedly offered most of the West Bank
and Gaza but will of course insist on cessation of all hostilities
and fully defensible borders which pose no threat to Israeli
security. All the Palestinians have to do is say "Yes" and mean it.



Nothing is preventing the Palestinians from having their own state
tomorrow except the Palestinians...and it has been this way ever since
the abject failures of Arafat at Camp David under Clinton.

Your statement makes 0 sense! Its Hezbolah and the Palestinenans (sp) that fire rockets into Israel and send in suicide bombers, not the other way around. Israel responds to these attacks in a vigorous and efficient manner.

Maybe Obama should go too............

laughable realy drink the cool aid. Imagine if a your neighbores kid threw rocks at your car and in retaliation you opened up with a bazooka.

Not exactly.

Imagine if your neighborhood kids fired 3000 Qassam rockets at
your house and your government did nothing to stop them!

Israel should be held accountable for their actions, and if their actions violate international human right's laws then they should face sanction like any other country.And that is how it will eventually be,since more people are becoming aware of what is REALLY going on over there.......

When there is a will, there is a way!

http://www.freechild.org/PromotingCoexistence.htm


There can be peace and it starts by participating.

Good luck!

and Palestine shouldn't? every peace agreement has been broken by hammas launching rockets into Israel.. but Israel should be punished ...

there is to much anti jew sentiment going on in the world, and comments like these are just not helping anything... why don't you enlighten us on what is really going on over there?

This will help better inform.



Noam Chomsky on Israel, Lebanon and Palestine

By Kaveh Afrasiabi of Global Interfaith Peace

08/07/06 "Information Clearing House" -- --

Do you agree with the argument that Israel's military offensive in Lebanon is "legally and morally justified?"
Noam Chomsky: The invasion itself is a serious breach of international law, and major war crimes are being committed as it proceeds. There is no legal justification.

The "moral justification" is supposed to be that capturing soldiers in a cross-border raid, and killing others, is an outrageous crime. We know, for certain, that Israel, the United States and other Western governments, as well as the mainstream of articulate Western opinion, do not believe a word of that. Sufficient evidence is their tolerance for many years of US-backed Israeli crimes in Lebanon, including four invasions before this one, occupation in violation of Security Council orders for 22 years, and regular killings and abductions. To mention just one question that every journal should be answering: When did Nasrallah assume a leadership role? Answer: When the Rabin government escalated its crimes in Lebanon, murdering Sheikh Abbas Mussawi and his wife and child with missiles fired from a US helicopter. Nasrallah was chosen as his successor. Only one of innumerable cases. There is, after all, a good reason why last February, 70% of Lebanese called for the capture of Israeli soldiers for prisoner exchange.

The conclusion is underscored, dramatically, by the current upsurge of violence, which began after the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit on June 25. Every published Western "timeline" takes that as the opening event. Yet the day before, Israeli forces kidnapped two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother, and sent them to the Israeli prison system where they can join innumerable other Palestinians, many held without charges -- hence kidnapped. Kidnapping of civilians is a far worse crime than capture of soldiers. The Western response was quite revealing: a few casual comments, otherwise silence. The major media did not even bother reporting it. That fact alone demonstrates, with brutal clarity, that there is no moral justification for the sharp escalation of attacks in Gaza or the destruction of Lebanon, and that the Western show of outrage about kidnapping is cynical fraud.

Much has been said about Israel's right to defend itself from its enemies who are taking advantage of Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, thus causing the latest chapter in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Do you agree?

NC: Israel certainly has a right to defend itself, but no state has the right to "defend" occupied territories. When the World Court condemned Israel's "separation wall," even a US Justice, Judge Buergenthal, declared that any part of it built to defend Israeli settlements is "ipso facto in violation of international humanitarian law," because the settlements themselves are illegal.

The withdrawal of a few thousand illegal settlers from Gaza was publicly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. It has now been formalized by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, with the support of Washington, as a program of annexation of valuable occupied lands and major resources (particularly water) and cantonization of the remaining territories, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful piece of Jerusalem will be granted to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned, since Israel is to take over the Jordan valley. Gaza, too, remains imprisoned and Israel carries out attacks there at will.

Gaza and the West Bank are recognized to be a unit, by the United States and Israel as well. Therefore, Israel still occupies Gaza, and cannot claim self-defense in territories it occupies in either of the two parts of Palestine. It is Israel and the United States that are radically violating international law. They are now seeking to consummate long-standing plans to eliminate Palestinian national rights for good.

The United States has refused to call for an immediate cease-fire, arguing that this would mean a return to the status quo ante, yet we are witnessing a "back to the past" re-occupation of parts of Lebanon, and Lebanon's rapid decline to political chaos by the current conflict. Is the US policy correct?

NC: It is correct from the point of view of those who want to ensure that Israel, by now virtually an offshore US military base and high-tech center, dominates the region, without any challenge to its rule as it proceeds to destroy Palestine. And there are side advantages, such as eliminating any Lebanese-based deterrent if US-Israel decide to attack Iran.

They may also hope to set up a client regime in Lebanon of the kind that Ariel Sharon sought to create when he invaded Lebanon in 1982, destroying much of the country and killing some 15-20,000 people.

What will be the likely outcome of this "two-pronged" crisis in Lebanon and the occupied territories, in the near and long-term?

NC: We cannot predict much. There are too many uncertainties. One very likely consequence, as the United States and Israel surely anticipated, is a significant increase in jihadi-style terrorism as anger and hatred directed against the United States, Israel, and Britain sweep the Arab and Muslim worlds. Another is that Nasrallah, whether he survives or is killed, will become an even more important symbol of resistance to US-Israeli aggression. Hezbollah already has a phenomenal 87% support in Lebanon itself, and its resistance has energized popular opinion to such an extent that even the oldest and closest US allies have been compelled to say that "If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance, then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play with fire." That's from King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who knows better than to condemn the United States directly.

What steps do you recommend for the current hostilities to be brought to an end and a lasting peace established?

NC: The basic steps are well understood: a cease-fire and exchange of prisoners; withdrawal of occupying forces; continuation of the "national dialogue" within Lebanon; and acceptance of the very broad international consensus on a two-state settlement for Israel-Palestine, which has been unilaterally blocked by the United States and Israel for thirty years. There is, as always, much more to say, but those are the essentials.

Noam Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the author of numerous books, and his latest is Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy (2006).

Kaveh Afrasiabi is the founder and director of Global Interfaith Peace, and a former political science professor at Tehran University. He is the author of After Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press).

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14404.htm

wow... why don't you post an article from the Israeli perspective?... that article is so slanted it's about to fall over...lol ...everyone knows the muslims hate the jews, and it seems your siding with the muslims...good luck with that...


read this, it explains a few things...
(and it is not slanted)
http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2011/05/20

Published on Friday, May 20, 2011 by The Real News Network
Palestinian Activist Says Obama Speech "Irrelevant"

Omar Barghouti: The US continues to oppose Palestinian basic rights, Arabs will make their own democracy


A response to Obama's speech - from Palestine

Chomsky is an anti-Israel extremist and all of his focus is purely
one-sided Israel bashing.



It is ridiculous and indefensible to on the one hand bash Israel for
trying to protect her citizens in purely defensive actions and at the
same time fail to criticize the Palestinians whose weapons of choice
are bus bombings and sending rockets indiscrimately into cities and
towns.



I will agree that people are waking up. Ever since 911 and the terrorist
bombings in Mumbai, Madrid, London and the like...People all over
the world have a better understanding of what it is like to live under
the threat of terrorists who use the most despicable tactics to try
to force their backward, antiquated and ignorant beliefs on others.

These countries are now in a much better position to understand the
plight of the Israelis and to sympathize with them while not buying
into the twisted and false Palestinian narrative.