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(1,010 words)
From Athens to New York, a Flotilla is a Demonstration with Press Coverage
Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
Often in the last few months, I had the opportunity to answer the
question: why are you attempting to sail to Gaza with the Gaza Freedom
Flotilla?
I always answered by talking about the blockade of Gaza. 1.5 million
human beings are living under restrictions that the International
Committee of the Red Cross has described as illegal collective
punishment against a civilian population, in direct violation of the
Geneva Convention concerning the treatment of civilians under
occupation. The “permanent opening” by the interim Egyptian government
of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt has turned out to be
largely a “nothing burger,” with an average of 400 people crossing a
day, whereas an average of 300 people a day crossed before the
“permanent opening” and 800 people crossed a day before the closure of
Gaza. Construction materials are still largely prohibited.
Palestinians from Gaza still have great difficulty obtaining
permission to travel to East Jerusalem and the West Bank for work,
study, or medical care. Palestinian fishermen are restricted to
fishing within three nautical miles of Gaza’s coast, even though they
were promised twenty miles under the Oslo accord. Israel, with the
collaboration of the U.S. and Egypt, largely prevents Gaza from
exporting its goods to Europe and to the West Bank, although what
preventing the export of strawberries to Europe has to do with Israeli
“security” has yet to be explained to a skeptical world public.
But there is another aspect to the question besides “what are you
protesting”: why this means? You could write to the newspaper, call
Congress, hold a demonstration. Why this means, not some other?
You hold a demonstration on a busy street, because a key objective is
to communicate with the general public, and you can’t communicate with
the general public if they can’t see or hear you.
When we were in Athens, pressing for permission from the Greek
authorities to leave by boat – and also preparing to sail without
their permission – we noted that the Canadian boat had a much better
chance of getting out than we did, because they were in Crete. If they
could slip past the Greek Coast Guard, they might make it to
international waters. But there was little chance of that for us,
docked in Athens – a lot of Greek water separated us from freedom.
It’s as if you and your confederate made a run for the border, but he
was in El Paso and you were in Peoria. When we sailed, we were quickly
intercepted by the Greek Coast Guard commandos and forced to dock at a
military port.
But from the point of view of press coverage, it was better to be in
Athens than Crete. Athens is a convenient place for international
media; Crete, not so much.
While we were in Greece, Athens was erupting in protest against the
European Union/IMF austerity plan imposed as a condition of the
European/IMF bailout of European banks that made bad loans to Greece.
There were two days of general strike while we were in Athens, many
protests, lots of tear gas, even a few buildings set on fire. As we
awaited permission to leave – or a decision to execute our plan to
leave without permission – we worried we would lose our media
contingent. On our American boat, we had 36 passengers, four crew, and
10 journalists. Some of these were TV journalists from the major
networks and others were print journalists from major publications.
They weren’t going to stay indefinitely while we held press
conferences. They needed action. Fortunately, Synagma Square – the
“Tahrir Square” of the Greek protests against the EU/IMF austerity
plan, across the street from the parliament building – was a short
distance from the hotels where the American passengers on the U.S.
boat to Gaza were staying. “Go cover the anti-IMF protests,” we said.
“We’ll let you know before we leave.” And when we did leave, all the
journalists were on board.
With our flotilla, we put the issue of Gaza back on the international
stage, raising the political price of the blockade and of the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. We showed that
a few hundred peace activists, largely from North America and Western
Europe, mostly middle-aged and many of them Jews, could force the
Israeli and U.S. governments to publicly answer for their blockade of
1.5 million people.
This protest was not an isolated event, but part of a continuum with
other actions to put the question of Palestine on the international
agenda. A few days after most of the Americans returned home, hundreds
of activists from Western Europe and North America flew to Israel to
participate in the Welcome to Palestine “flytilla,” attempting to
visit protests in the West Bank. The Israeli government’s reaction was to
block these activists from flying to or entering Israel, because
they intended to commit the “crime” of visiting Palestinians in the
West Bank. This dramatized the fact the West Bank is also under a form of
closure, with the Israeli government deciding who may enter and leave.
In this broad sense, the next “flotilla” – a diplomatic “flotilla” –
will be in September, when Palestinians present their application for
membership to the United Nations as a member state. It’s a flotilla in
the sense that it’s the many countries of the United Nations uniting
against the strong few, and it’s also a flotilla in the sense that
it’s a protest with press coverage. Indeed, plans are underway to
produce an actual flotilla to sail to the UN. But even if that doesn’t
take place, there will be demonstrations around the United States and
around the world on September 15 in support of Palestine’s application
for membership. The demonstration in Champaign-Urbana will be at 5pm
on September 15 at the Champaign County Veterans Memorial, Broadway
and Main, Urbana. The national website is www.september15.org.