The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza will be sending a large convoy of medical supplies and other aid overland through the Rafah crossing, accompanied by journalists, doctors, activists and some lefty European MPs.
The FreeGaza ships are back as well! These gutsy small craft have been running the Israeli naval blockade since August 2008, successfully reaching Gaza six times. (A seventh voyage in the first few days of the recent "war" was forced to make an emergency landing in Lebanon after the ship was rammed and nearly sunk by Israeli gunboats.) This summer, the FreeGaza movement will be sending a "flotilla" of ships to break the siege at the end of May. Apparently both Cindy Sheehan and Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney (who was on the aborted voyage of the Dignity in December) have both signed on to travel with the fleet.
I don't know their exact timeline, but it would be truly amazing to get to stand on the shores of Gaza and watch these ships arrive!
As profoundly inspiring as these grassroots efforts are, I can't help feeling a twinge of annoyance at the fact that a bunch of poorly-funded activists have to resort to civil disobedience (potentially risking their lives, in the case of the ships) to bring a relatively meager amount of aid to Gaza, while all the aid that Gaza needs could easily be delivered if the borders were opened. And that is ignoring, of course, the fact that Gaza wouldn't need aid at all if it weren't occupied and people were allowed to fish and farm and trade unimpeded. But I guess if I were not angry about these things, I wouldn't be going at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment