[E-rundbrief] Info 1148 - Swedish Ship to Gaza, 6.10.2012

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1148 - Adam Keller (Gush Shalom, Israel): Crazy 
Country - Between Naples and Gaza - Swedish Ship to Gaza, 6.10.2012.

Bad Ischl, 7.10.2012

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Crazy Country

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Between Naples and Gaza

Blog from Adam Keller (Gush Shalom, Israel)

The city of Gaza is on the shore of the Mediterranean. Like in many 
other coastal cities, there are inhabitants of Gaza who are interested 
in sailing as a sport and hobby. But putting such interests into 
practice is far more complicated in Gaza than in most other coastal 
cities. In 2006 Qatar donated ten small sailing boats to the 
newly-founded Gaza Sailing and Surfing Association, but it took until 
September 2012 for the Israeli military inspectors to make up their 
minds and conclude that there was no security threat involved in 
letting them through.

The boats' arrival in Gaza provided a rare chance for a bit of 
positive news, with the twelve-year-old Darin Kabariti 
enthusiastically telling journalists that she feels completely free 
when launching her sailboat off the Gaza coast.

Not long after the sailing boats' joyous entry into Gaza, the 
22-year-old fisherman Fahmi Abu Rayash was shot near Beit Lahiya and 
hit in the abdomen and foot. At first his wounds were not considered 
fatal but he succumbed after two days in hospital.

What did happen there? According to the Israeli military communiqué, 
he had approached  too close to a forbidden zone, arousing the 
suspicion that he intended to carry out an armed attack. According to 
the Palestinians, he had intended harm to nobody (at least, to none 
but fish). There had not been – and it is very unlikely that there 
will ever be – an impartial investigation. There had been no report of 
his death in the Israeli or international media, and not very much in 
the Palestinian press, either. It is too much of a daily routine. And 
nowadays, Israeli officials have a ready-made answer to anyone who 
asks too many questions about such things: "More horrible things are 
happening all the time in Syria". Which is a matter of undoubted, 
documented fact

The gunboats which are Israeli Navy's own pride and joy continue 
patrolling day and night off the Gaza shore, charged – as they had 
been over more than a decade with making the siege of Gaza, so to say, 
watertight. It is the gunboats' daily job to  prevent Gazan fishing 
boats and Gazan sailing boats and any other kind of Gazan boat from 
venturing "too deep" into the open sea, and to equally prevent any 
other vessel from any other place on Earth from approaching anywhere 
close to the shores of Gaza

And just now, there is such a vessel approaching besieged Gaza from 
the west. Not by stealth – in fact, its approach had been announced 
and heralded many months in advance. The Estelle had been purchased by 
the Swedish “Ship To Gaza” association and had set out last May from 
Finland by a long a complicated route, touching at ports in Sweden, 
Norway, Denmark, Germany, Holland, France and Spain.

The seventeen activists on board – Swedes and Norwegians and also some 
dissident Israelis – had had many interesting experiences en route. 
There were rallies and artistic performances in every port, and they 
participated in a film festival in Bretagne, and in Barcelona the 
well-known artist Manu Chao came to take part in the solidarity 
concert, as did Adeila Guevara, daughter of the legendary Che Guevara. 
And by now they have reached Naples and are engaged in a very full 
program: a concert, and  Catholic Mass celebrated on the pier, and an 
organized tour of the ship for Neapolitan school children, and also a 
visit by Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris, who has declared himself the 
Estelle’s official protector for the length of her stay in Naples. 
Meanwhile Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu's Foreign Minister, is exerting 
considerable pressure on the Italians to block the ship from departing 
– but unlike the case of last year's Freedom Flotilla, blocked at 
Athens, he does not seem to get very far.   .

So, the Estelle will shortly depart on the final lap of its journey. 
It is not so far from Naples to Gaza, as nautical miles go. The 
Israeli Navy gunboats are equipped with high-quality radar, and it is 
not difficult to detect a ship which makes no effort to hide (quite 
the opposite, in fact). And so the outcome, sometime later this month, 
is fairly predictable.

Most probably, it will not be anywhere near the actual shores of Gaza. 
In the past, Israeli Navy gunboats have eagerly gone deep into the 
Mediterranean to intercept Gaza-bound vessels, sometimes, as far as 65 
kilometers from the shore. (In undoubted international waters, but the 
Foreign Ministry's lawyers in Jerusalem have come up with a legal 
opinion explaining why this was OK, digging up some precedents from 
bold actions taken by the British Royal Navy in its bygone proud days 
of empire…)

The Estelle will be sternly warned to turn aside, the activists on 
board will ignore all warnings, and the crack Naval Commandos will 
come aboard. The ship will be towed to the Port of Ashdod, and the 
Swedes and Norwegians aboard will be remanded in custody and charged 
with "Illegally entering Israel" and their plea that they had no 
intention of entering Israel and that Gaza is not Israel will be 
ignored by the learned judges. And the Israelis on board will be 
charged with… Well, there are creative minds in the Israeli Public 
Prosecution, and they will think of something.

Will it end the siege of Gaza? Definitely not. But for at least a few 
days it might remind some people who don't want to be reminded that 
Gaza is still under siege, out of sight and out of mind, and that this 
siege is causing a considerable daily suffering to a million and six 
hundred thousand people, a large part of them children. Even though it 
is quite true that at this moment there is a worse suffering in Syria.

Ongoing reports on the Swedish Ship to Gaza website:
Naples:
http://shiptogaza.se/en/Pressrum/Pressmeddelanden/isreael%E2%80%99s-foreign-ministry-acknowledges-putting-pressure-eu-stop-estelle

Online petition against the Siege of Gaza (English after Hebrew)
http://www.atzuma.co.il/gazapetition

Posted by Adam Keller אדם קלר at 9:09 AM

http://adam-keller2.blogspot.co.il/2012/10/between-naples-and-gaza.html


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