Posts Tagged ‘Gaza Flotilla’

“We do not believe the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza,” [Hilary] Clinton told reporters at a news conference with the visiting foreign minister of the Philippines. “We think that it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke action by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.”

–reported by Matthew Lee, Associated Press, Thursday 23 June 2011

Increasingly, a political-moral link is being made between the soon to embark Gaza Flotilla and the 1961 Freedom Riders.

Imagine a local or national politician, Southern or Northern, for that matter, saying the following in 1961: “We do not believe that the so-called Freedom Ride is a necessary or useful effort to assist the Negroes in the South.” Back then, paternalistic politicians would object to direct action being taken by mere citizens, black or white. “Necessary” and “useful” action, by definition, would be that taken by elected officials, who know better, know more, and ought to be trusted by the people they represent.

Then, imagine the politician (governor, senator, administration official) claiming: “It’s not helpful for there to be Freedom Rides that try to provoke action by integrating those buses on Southern highways and creating a situation in which the whites have the right to defend themselves.”

Some whites did “defend” themselves, firebombing one of the buses at Anniston. They further defended themselves when the Freedom Riders arrived at the Birmingham bus station. Whites used baseball bats and iron pipes to teach a lesson to these provocateurs. An FBI informant contributed to the beating. White activists were singled out by the provoked Klansmen for special attention; for instance, Jim Peck required over fifty stitches to deal with wounds he suffered on his head.

In his study of the civil rights years, historian Taylor Branch noted that in a second State of the Union address in May 1961, President Kennedy spoke of his “freedom doctrine,” in words that will sound quite familiar to people today: “The great battleground for the defense and expansion of freedom today is the whole southern half of the globe—Asia, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, the lands of the rising peoples. Their revolution is the greatest in human history. They seek an end to injustice, tyranny, and exploitation.” Unmentioned by Kennedy in his address was either the injustice/tyranny toward blacks in the U.S. south, or the efforts of the Freedom Riders.

The Freedom Riders decided they were not going to be deterred by the violence in Alabama and, so, they continued on to Mississippi, the New York Times stated, “They are challenging not only long-held customs, but passionately held feelings. Non-violence that deliberately provokes violence is a logical contradiction.” According to a Gallup poll that summer, 63% of the American population did not approve of the Freedom Rides.

The Gaza Flotilla is likewise challenging long-held customs and passionately held feelings, such as those of Hilary Clinton and the Obama Administration that Israel can get away with injustice, tyranny, and exploitation against the Palestinians.

And as for the allegedly provocative non-violence of the Flotilla activists, they may be quite familiar with these words from a famous letter by Martin Luther King, Jr. a couple years after the sit-ins and Freedom Rides began to dismantle Jim Crow: “Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.”

For the governments of the United States and Israel, such exposure by the flotilla internationals in solidarity with the Palestinian people is unnecessary, not useful, and, obviously, harmful.

Alabama governor George Wallace said in 1962, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

In so many words and by so many actions, Hilary Clinton and the Obama Administration have likewise proclaimed, unity with Israel today, unity with Israel tomorrow, and unity with Israel forever. Translated: The Gaza Flotilla be damned.

Then, as now, there’s the agenda to maintain domination, pursued by such people as George Wallace, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, and Hilary Clinton.

Then, as now, there’s the agenda to struggle for freedom, pursued by such people as Dianne Nash, Jim Peck, Kathy Kelly, and Alice Walker.

“Don’t give up, don’t give in, don’t give out.”

John Lewis, one of the 1961 Freedom Riders

My friend Hedy Epstein joined the “Move over AIPAC” protests in Washington in late May. While she was there, she paid a visit to the office of her Missouri senator, Claire McCaskill. The 86-year-old Holocaust survivor informed an aide of her upcoming participation in the second Gaza Freedom Flotilla to break through Israel’s vicious siege against the people of Gaza.

The aide to Senator McCaskill told Hedy that the Senator “wants you to be safe.” Yet, if the Senator was like her colleagues, when Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before Congress in May, she gave him 29 standing ovations.

The U.S. government proudly upholds its relationship with Israel. As the U.S. believes itself to be above the law, Israel, as a loyal U.S. ally, enjoys a comparable privilege to consider itself beyond the reach of the law, whether that of the seas or of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Netanyahu is clear about Israel’s intention to maintain the blockade on Gaza and so to keep 1.5 million human beings in desperation. He has been quite explicit that Israel is well prepared to deal with the 15 or more boats and thousand people from 40 countries soon to head toward Gaza.

The women and men who will board the U.S. Boat to Gaza object to the cruel imprisonment and impoverishment of the Palestinians in Gaza. In fact, they are willing to embody that objection and risk their well-being on this mission.

They know full well the lethal means Israel employs consistently and with utter impunity against Palestinians. They also know that global citizens concerned about human rights can be treated similarly, as evidenced by the nine people murdered last year by Israel’s commandos who took over the Turkish boat, the Mavi Marmara.

By her words, actions, and ovations, Senator McCaskill has long demonstrated on whose side she stands. Ms. Epstein is likewise forthright and clear: She is standing with a growing number of those struggling for a decent life for the Palestinians, who have been dispossessed and demonized by Israel for over sixty years.

Fifty years ago, the Freedom Riders sought to hasten the end of segregation and, by doing so, they faced harassment, beatings, bombing, and defamation. As far as the white supremacists were concerned, the Freedom Riders were subversives.

In 1961 how many American senators expressed solidarity with such “subversive” citizens?

Likewise, those who are willing to defy Israel’s brutal policies and to defend the dignity of the Palestinian people are regarded by Israel and its supporters as subversive.

In 2011 how many American senators can utter one sentence of support for the people soon to board the U.S. boat, known as the “Audacity of Hope”?