NETWORKERS SOUTH

Ship to Gaza

Texte de Thomas écrit depuis la flottille de la liberté se trouvant au large de Chypre

The last Set.

Maybe one day or another, someone will write the full story of this adventure.
There will be lot of laughs, some real shouting and few tears. But what I can tell
now is that we never imagined that we would have made Israel freak out like that.
Well maybe in some of our best dreams. First, they created an emergency task force
gathering the Israeli Foreign ministry, the Israeli Navy and Commando and the
prisons authorities to handle with the existential threat that us and our few
boats full of humanitarian aids represent. Then, Ehud Barak himself took the time
on his busy agenda to warn us trough Israel media. Now they are announcing that
they will send us in the worst prison of Israel, in the desert near BeerSheva.

These are announcement to make us afraid. And somehow we are afraid. We are afraid
of their warships, afraid of their Apaches and their black dress commando crew.

Who will not be? We are afraid that they will seize our cargo and all the medical
aids, the construction materials, the prefab houses, the school kit, and destroy
them. All this solidarity patiently gathered in so many countries during more than
one year. All these efforts and this wave of love and hope send by normal people,
humble citizen from Greece, Sweden, Turkey, Ireland, France, Italy, Algeria,
Malaysia All of these take as trophy by a state acting like a vulgar pirate
island. Who will not feel some sense of responsibility and afraid of not being
able to do our deed and deliver our cargo to the jailed people of Gaza?

But we now that fear is also in the other side. Because since the beginning of our
coalition, Israel State is making whatever it can to avoid the confrontation with
us. Since the beginning they tried to prevent us to sail, they tried to impeach us
to gather our forces and sail all together to Gaza. They tried to divide us. Their
ideal scenario was to having us split a part, the Irish on one side, the Greek-
Swedish on another side, the Americans on another and the Turkish alone. Of
course, they knew that they couldn`t put pressure on Turkey, neither they could
directly act there. So they concentrate their attack on the Irish and Greek sides
of our coalition. The first set began two weeks ago when they sabotaged the Irish
cargo, obliging it to delay its departure for nearly a week. But, the Irish
repaired as fast as they could and now they are about one or two days behind us.

Then, they put huge pressure on the Greek government, which is weakened by the
economical crisis, to oblige him to not let the Greek Cargo and the Greek-Swedish
passenger boat sail. Because of these pressures we had to delay our trip two times
and ask the Turks, their 500 passengers and the American friends who were ready to
sail to wait for us. Which fortunately they did! Until the last minute before
their departure from Greece we were not sure if the two boats will get the
authorization from the Greek government, but finally the Greek government decided
to take his responsibility and act as a sovereign state and let the cargo and the
passenger boat leave the port of Piraeus in Athens.

The second set took place yesterday, in the Greek Cyprus, where we had arranged
with the government there to pick up a VIP delegation of European and National
parliamentarians from Sweden, England, Greece, and Cyprus. As the two boats from
Greece, the American boat coming from Crete and the 4 Turkish boats were already
all in the meeting point waiting for the VIP delegation to arrive and embark in
our boats, we received the news that our delegation was surrounded by the Cyprus
police in the Port of Larnaka and forbidden to move anywhere. Cyprus, a European
country was forbidding European MP`s to move freely on its soil in complete break
of all legality and European regulations! As we began to negotiate with the Cyprus
government we understood clearly that this sudden change in the attitude toward us
was dictated directly by Israel. From seven in the morning until down, Cyprus
government was lying to us, saying that it was misunderstanding that the VIP were
allowed to embark to any direction they like to go, that it was just a
bureaucratic question that has to be solved. But nothing happen and our
parliamentarians were trapped.

The Cyprus government was acting as a proxy of
Israel and made us losing crucial time. This morning the VIP delegation decided
that the only choice that remained was to go to the port of Formogossa in the
North of Cyprus under Turkish control and from there take a speed boat to reach us
in the meeting point. Of course, because our coalition is formed with Turks and
Greeks and Cypriotes, the North Cyprus which is under Turkish occupation, is a
very big political question. And sending our delegation to take a boat in the port
of Formogossa still under UN embargo is even a biggest political question. This
could have break the back of our Greek and Cypriote friends in the coalition. It
nearly did. But the opposite happened to be true. Our coalition holds still. This
is the Cypriote leading governing party which is about to split, and the 7 Greek
and Cypriote MP`s who were part of the delegation and could not go to the North of
Cyprus are furious against the Cypriote government. A huge debate is going on now
in Greece and Cyprus about what happened and about our Flotilla to Gaza. In one
hour or two, 80% of our VIP delegation will embark on our boats and we will sail
to Gaza as we planned. So we can say that Israel lost the two set it played.

In few hours, the last and crucial set will begin as we will enter the Gaza
waters. Of course, materially it would be very easy for Israel to stop and arrest
us, but the political cost they will have to pay will be huge. Very huge, as all
the tricks and traps they tried put on our road succeed to do only one thing,
raising more and more the awareness of the people all over the world about our
flotilla and the situation of Gaza. And from all of this, we learn something, the
fear is not on our side, but from Israel. They fear us because we represent the
wrath of the people all around the globe. People who are upset with what the
criminal state of Israel is doing to the Palestinians and to every peace lover who
dare to take the side of the oppressed. They fear us, because they know that in
the near future there will be more boats coming to Gaza as there are more and more
people who are deciding to boycott Israel every day.

Thomas Sommer-Houdeville

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