At the United Nations building in New York City on Friday, 23 September 2011, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) addresses the General Assembly in his bid to obtain full recognition of Palestine, as a state, in the United Nations.

As President Obama, and Prime Ministers Cameron and Netanyahu were when they spoke, Mahmoud Abbas is sharply dressed and wears a suit.

There is only one major difference between him and the others, but a crucial one: Mahmoud Abbas gives his speech in Arabic.

Mahmoud Abbas wears the imperialists’ clothes but does not speak the imperialists’ language of choice. Abbas, in the eyes of Obama, Cameron and Netanyahu, represents the “other” — the “majority world” (often mistakenly called “developing world”), the oppressed. He represents the people that, for them, do not count.

For all the talk about the PA bid putting the US and Israel under pressure, for all the nervousness shown by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, US President Barack Obama and the rest, they do not, at the end of the day, care the slightest about it.

They do not care if all the polls in the world showed that the majority of people asked are in favor of recognizing Palestine as a state and they do not care if Abbas wears a suit or not.

Abbas could have worn Arafat’s famous kuffiyeh, the checkered scarf that has become a Palestinian nationalist symbol; the result would have been the same. In their heads, there will always be masters (them) and servants (the others). Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinians, today, still represent the other.

And the other does not have a voice, even at the UN.

The UN is one of the most undemocratic bodies in the world. After all, five permanent members have the right to veto anything they disagree with. The decisions of those five members, the masters — United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China — overrule the actions that the rest of the world is sometimes willing to take.

In a way, this arrangement mirrors internationally what goes on in most countries: A powerful elite living the high-life and making decisions for everyone else while the majority of humanity is struggling to make ends meet.

The UN is therefore part of the problem and will never bring justice to the Palestinians. It is precisely this body which exacerbated in 1947 the mess the Palestinians are currently in by passing a resolution calling for the partition of Palestine without the consent of its indigenous people. Thus, the UN violated the Palestinians’ right to self-determination at the very moment other colonized peoples were exercising theirs.

Since then, dozens of resolutions have been adopted by the General Assembly and the Security Council upholding the Palestinians’ right of self-determination, demanding an end of occupation and colonization and Israeli withdrawal from occupied lands, and the right of return of the refugees.

Yet without exception, those resolutions have been violated by Israel with total impunity. Why? Because Israel is part of the masters’ clique. Israel is in their club and represents the same interests.

While it is easy to understand the PA’s motivations in making a move at the UN — taking matters for the first time in a long time into their own hands, not succumbing to pressure, making a statement — it has unfortunately very little chance to make any real difference on the ground. By going to the UN, the PA continues to accept the rules of its master/oppressor.

In history, there has never been a case of a master relinquishing power for philosophical and altruistic reasons.

Did the slave masters suddenly decide that it was morally reprehensible to use other people as slaves? Did the segregationists in the US decide that Rosa Parks, after all, should be able to sit in the seat of her choice when going on a bus?

Did white South Africans, after the Sharpeville massacre, think that killing black women, kids and innocents was not what their beloved God or nationalist ideology had in mind? Did Hosni Mubarak after more than thirty years in power think that it was time to have a real democracy in Egypt?

They did not.

Those struggles were won by people’s power. When the people said NO. When the people, despite eventually facing terrible consequences, organized, took on the streets, marched, chanted, went on strike, united, rebelled and said “we will not have it your way any longer.”

What will make the road shorter for the Palestinians — who have already struggled and endured for so long — is to mobilize as much international solidarity as possible, to shift the balance in favor of the people faster.

And this is on the way. Palestinian civil society has done precisely this with its 2005 civil society call for boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS).

All over the world, people acting on the BDS call are building a movement, and building momemtum that no one can control because it comes from the bottom up, is in constant evolution and keeps re-inventing itself. A movement based on human rights and international law.

This movement, accompanied by other initiatives such as the International Solidarity Movement, the Free Gaza Movement, the flotillas and “‘flytilla,” the Viva Palestina convoys, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine and many other creative and spontaneous actions hav isolated and delegitimized Israel, a rogue state, far more effectively than years of endless and fruitless negotiations.

People are taking matters into their own hands; they are writing and making, history. The masters know that this has happened many time in the past. The thought of it happening again sends shivers into their expensive suits.

Frank Barat

Electronic Intifada

At midnight the Palestinian vigil against the predations of nearby Jewish settlers begins. Five students, armed with a pocket-torch, stand guard at the hilltop entrance of the small Palestinian village of Kfar Qusra. Farmers and their wives pitch camp in their fields, watching their flocks.

It is not an even fight. Jewish settlers wield M-16 rifles. Villagers have mobile phones and stones. But after religious zealots from the nearby Esh Kodesh (“Holy Light”) outpost scrawled “Muhammad is a pig” in Hebrew on the walls of the village mosque and rolled burning tyres inside its prayer hall, the villagers decided that the moral high ground was no longer enough. “The age of sumud (stubborn steadfastness) has passed,” says a local businessman. “We must defend ourselves. The whole town is prepared.” At an evening planning meeting, an 85-year-old landowner encourages his sons to abduct the next settler who chops down trees in his olive groves or slaughters one of his sheep.

Outgunned, outnumbered, but now fighting back

So far the new, more robust tactics of the villagers have worked. On September 16th, a week after the attack on the mosque, a Qusra farmer, Fathallah Abu Rayda, spied a band of settlers near his local well, seemingly intent on destroying or poisoning it, and notified the village network. Within minutes the mosque’s loudspeakers had sounded the alarm, and hundreds had gathered to shoo the intruders away. One fled, said villagers, in his underpants. In the panic Mr Abu Rayda was shot in the leg, but they have yet to return.

Mahmoud Abbas’s diplomatic manoeuvring in New York has left many villagers confused. But he may have raised expectations, especially in Area C, the rural 60% of the West Bank, including Qusra, which an “interim agreement” between the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and Israel in 1995 left under Israel’s full control. Ever since, Israel has tightened its grip over Area C, weaving a web of settlements, military bases, roads, separation barriers and checkpoints. Palestinian police in the designated area patrol in plain clothes and unarmed, but are not allowed to use force to restrain the settlers if they seek to impose themselves on the Palestinian villagers either by attacking them or by damaging their property. Settlers now outnumber Palestinians in Area C by two to one; they regard the territory as theirs. Hence their horror at suggestions that the proposed two states should be based on the pre-1967 line, for that would mean their removal.

With Mr Abbas now promising to secure Palestine’s legal right to the land at the UN, other Palestinian villages are also establishing networks to look out for trespassing settlers. A new group called Youth Against Settlements has opened an operations room in Hebron to co-ordinate 300 volunteers who patrol the southern part of the West Bank that surrounds the city by car, by bicycle and on foot. They now scour the land, watching out for settler raids.
In response to the UN bid, Jewish settlers are mobilising too. By day they march about, brandishing large Israeli flags. By night, activists exact what they call “price-tags”, for instance by defiling mosques, in the hope of provoking a conflict which the well-armed settlers feel sure they could win. They have also used their formidable presence in Israel’s combat units and supporters in Mr Netanyahu’s ruling coalition to press home their advantage. To ward off anticipated Palestinian demonstrations in the wake of the UN vote in New York, Israeli soldiers armed with stun-grenades, tear-gas and a foul-smelling liquid known as skunk have moved into settlements near Palestinian towns. If hordes try to enter, says a settler security officer, the settlers are licensed to shoot.

Even before Mr Abbas at last declared his intention to bid for statehood at the UN Security Council, friction was mounting. As Jewish settlers and Palestinian villagers race to fill the West Bank’s remaining open land with orchards and housing, it has been getting increasingly crowded.

Bizarrely, each side, in some respects, feeds the other’s appetite. Settlers pay Palestinian labourers to build their homes; Palestinians use the proceeds to expand their own villages. Zealots on both sides see land as sacred. Qusra’s villagers celebrated their success in chasing settlers away by staging their Friday prayers in the fields, prostrating themselves on the ploughed earth.

Might such rural friction trigger broader unrest? Ramallah, Mr Abbas’s seat of government, is but half an hour’s drive south, provided you get through two checkpoints without being delayed. But its stylish cafés offer an agreeable diversion from Area C’s grim daily grind. Mr Abbas’s men have laboured to harness rural vigilantes to ensure that demonstrations are confined to the West Bank cities they control.

But the interim agreements prevent them from operating in Area C, so they are powerless to deter or contain clashes between villagers and settlers. Moreover, the radicals of Hamas, the Islamist group that abhors Mr Abbas and his ruling faction on the West Bank, have a freer hand to stir up trouble. In the past Hamas has sought to undermine Mr Abbas’s diplomatic initiatives. On the eve of talks between Mr Abbas and the Israelis last year, Hamas staged a lethal drive-by shooting near Qusra.

Indeed, the sneers of Hamas against Mr Abbas appeal to quite a few of the villagers. Six years ago Hamas won local elections in Qusra and nearby villages, and could do so again. While lauding Mr Abbas for his recent stand in New York, some Qusra people say he has run to the UN only because he is too weak to act on the ground. All anti-settler monitors say they will abide by his calls for non-violence (though stone-throwing is thought not to count). But a villager adds menacingly, “If Hamas were in charge, not a single settler would dare raid our land.”

The Economist

On Friday, 2 September, a pro-Israeli body at the United Nations released a brazenly unbalanced report concluding that Israel’s four-year  blockade of some 1.7 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip was “legal” and  “within the barometers of international law.”

The scandalous report, dubbed as the Palmer report, also concluded that the manifestly criminal  Israeli assault on a Turkish ship carrying solidarity activists and humanitarian materials  to besieged Gazans, which occurred 18 months ago and   killed at least nine Turkish citizens and injured many others, was also legal.

The report was reportedly prepared by a group of fanatical Zionists who thought that Israel could do nothing wrong and that its victims, whether Turks or Arabs, were either terrorists or sub-humans whose lives had no sanctity whatsoever.

The obscene disregard of truth inherent in that infamous and biased document showed that professionalism and objectivity were the last things on the minds of that commission’s members.

Indeed, the victims of the Gaza siege, which ironically  is yet to be lifted, have every right under the sun  to cry out to the seventh heaven, in anger and bitterness, wondering what right  the Nazi-like entity, Israel, ever had to withhold medicine and  food supplies, fuel and  other  basic necessities from the people  of  Gaza.

To justify its murderous  and  enduring blockade, which killed ( and continues to kill) thousands of innocent  people,  including children,   and devastated the lives  of hundreds of thousands others, Israel invoked  the mantra of arms smuggling into Gaza .

However, the truth of the matter is that under the rubric of preventing the alleged smuggling  of weapons  into the coastal  enclave, Israel repeatedly demonstrated that it was hell-bent  on  starving ordinary Gazans by denying  them badly-needed medicine and  by ruining their originally meager  economy, causing  real starvation with catastrophic proportions.

In fact, some Zionist officials boasted rather gleefully and sadistically about Israel’s ability to make the people of Gaza go on a diet. Unfortunately, the sickening remarks were not prominently featured in the Jewish-controlled American and western press whose coverage of Israeli criminality fell markedly short of basic professional standards.

In the final analysis, when people, including Jews, think, behave and act like the Nazis, these people ought to be compared with the Nazis, let alone treated as the Nazis were treated.

Failing  to hold these comparisons due to “special sensitivities” such as the fear of being  branded “anti-Semitic” is both a betrayal  of  human conscience and professional standards.

Gaza is not  a state, it is  rather an impoverished and heavily-populated  coastal enclave packed  with refugees who had been forced to flee their native towns and villages  at the hands of terrorist Jewish gangs coming from  Eastern  Europe .

Israel claimed ad nauseam it left Gaza for good. However, the truth of the matter is that the Nazi-apartheid regime retained its erstwhile tight control of Gaza’s territorial water, border crossings as well as air space.

And when the Islamic  liberation movement, known as Hamas, won meticulously  internationally observed elections, Israel lost its  composure and decided to  impose draconian  sanctions encompassing  everything  entering  Gaza or  coming  out of the blockaded territory.

The criminal siege, which many courageous  international  observers compared with the Nazi siege of the  Ghetto  Warsaw during the Second  World War, was always made to  produce maximum suffering  and  pain  thanks to a never-ending series of criminal aggressions that mainly targeted innocent civilians.

Israeli leaders, most of them are actually  certified war criminals,  were  quoted on several   occasions  as saying that the targeting of  innocent  Palestinian  civilians by the Israeli  occupation army  was meant to force the civilians  to rise up against their elected government.

There is no doubt that the deliberate and planned targeting of innocent children by Israel is a criminal act. Even Israeli human rights organizations, such as B’tselem, admit that it is.

The fact,  that the whoring  press and  TV networks  in New York ,   London ,  or Montreal don’t see it this way doesn’t make the reality of Israeli  criminality any less nefarious.

A genocide or an attempted genocide doesn’t become less evil if and when perpetrated by Jews. This is what Israel’s ignorant supporters in the West ought to realize, the sooner the better.

In light,  one is prompted to treat the Palmer report with the contempt it deserves. In the final analysis, judging murder, including haphazard murder, as legal because Jews are involved is the ultimate expression of moral bankruptcy, dishonesty and maliciousness.

The same thing applies to the other conclusion about the murderous  attack on Marmara, the Turkish aid ship sailing in international waters in May 2011.  That ship was carrying peaceful activists who wanted to reach the shore of Gaza to deliver urgently-needed relief materials, including  milk, to besieged Gazans.

Yet, instead of allowing the ship to proceed to its destination unhindered, the Gestapo-like  Israeli marines ganged up on innocent  and unarmed men and women, riddling  them with bullets from all sides.

The Turks and  other activists onboard Marmara never ever posed any real threat to the Jewish Rambos. How could they possibly do that, unless we adopt the proverbial  criminal  logic that it was the victims’ heads and chests  that hit the bullets, not the other way around, which puts the blames decidedly on the  victims.!

Unfortunately,  the government of Israel resorted to hasbara and lies and stone-walling to escape  responsibility, claiming  that its soldiers’ lives were  endangered, a claim that shouldn’t be dignified by commenting  on it.

Moreover, in an effort to come out clean of this murderous obscenity,  Israel made numerous insinuations about the humanitarian organization that planned and chartered the aid voyage, calling it terrorist.

Well, the Jewish state and its numerous mouthpieces  of mendacity  would automatically call anyone giving the Palestinians a helping hand terrorist even if the  that one were Jesus Christ or Moses, the  son  of Amram.

This is their way of demonizing and  dehumanizing their victims, just as the Nazis did several decades ago.

It is really heartening that the Turkish government has decided to show Israel that Turkish blood is a red line and that Israel could no longer mobilize its Free Mason  tools in Turkey to bully the Turkish leadership to grovel before Jewish feet. These days are over.

The  reported decision to expel the Zionist ambassador from Ankara, along  with the planned   downgrading  of  security relations with the  Jewish Reich in  occupied Jerusalem, should only be the beginning  of  a new strategic approach  on the part  of  Turkey toward Israel, an approach  that must demonstrate  to Jews and non-Jews alike  that Muslims are human beings, too, and have dignity like  everyone else.

By Khalid Amayreh in Israeli-occupied Jerusalem

Palestinian Info Center

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process released a statement on Sunday welcoming the reopening of the International Medical Corps in the coastal enclave.

“UN Special Coordinator Robert Serry welcomes the reopening of International Medical Corps (IMC) today in Gaza. He recognizes the important work of NGOs in Gaza and is confident that a way forward has been reached in the interest of the people of Gaza,” a statement released by the UNSCO office said.

The statement comes as USAID halted humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip on Friday over alleged meddling by Hamas into project activities.

A Hamas official announced Saturday that a compromise had been reached with USAID to maintain the continuation of aid channels.

“We’ve reached a compromise with USAID through the United Nations.”

“We are keen on the continuation of the international institutions’ work and their services to our people,” the Hamas official said.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation delivered Friday to the US State Department an open letter signed by more than 125 groups, including 30 national organizations, and petitions signed by more than 25,000 people urging the Obama Administration not to veto Palestinian UN membership if the issue arises in the Security Council.

A statement issued by the Campaign said National organizations Code Pink, Grassroots International, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Just Foreign Policy contributed petition signatures to the overall count.

“Palestinians have been prevented from exercising their rights to freedom and self-determination on even a portion of their historic homeland due to Israel’s historic and ongoing policies of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, military occupation, and colonization,” said the open letter. “Palestinians have waited more than 63 years for their human rights. We urge you—do not set a timetable for Palestinian freedom by vetoing Palestinian membership in the United Nations.”

Josh Ruebner, national advocacy director of the US Campaign, stated that “the American people are ahead of the administration in recognizing that our policy towards the region has failed.”

“Even though the State Department has been unwilling to meet with us yet, we have made clear to the Obama Administration that thousands of people across this country, and a diverse and growing coalition of organizations representing hundreds of thousands more will continue to organize until we end unconditional U.S. support for Israel’s illegal military occupation and apartheid policies toward Palestinians,” he said.

“Through our efforts, the U.S. government will realize what so many people already know: that the way to achieve a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace is to base our country’s policies on human rights, international law, and equality, and not to deny Palestinians freedom and self-determination.”

Other national organizations endorsing the open letter include: the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, American Educational Trust, American Federation of Ramallah, Palestine, American Jews for a Just Peace, American Muslims for Palestine, Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Episcopal Peace Fellowship Palestine-Israel Network, Fellowship of Reconciliation, Friends of Sabeel—North America ,Global Exchange, Interfaith Peace-Builders, Intersect Worldwide, Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church, (U.S.A.), Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)—USA, Middle East Children’s Alliance, Paulist Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations, Peace Action, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship,  Progressive Democrats of America, Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice , Unitarian Universalists for Justice in the Middle East, United for Peace and Justice,  United Methodist General Board of Church and Society, U.S. Peace Council, and War Resisters League.

The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation is a national coalition of more than 350 organizations working to change U.S. policy toward Palestine/Israel to support human rights, international law, and equality.

Palestine News and Info Center

Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian artist whose vibrant political cartoons have made him an inspirational advocate for the people of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. He uses his expressive art to expose injustices around the world including war crimes, apartheid, imperialism, exploitation, the dark underbelly of capitalism and other forms of oppression around the world. The most frequent targets for his derision are the governments of the USA and Israel, and he does not shy away from highlighting their roles in exploiting and oppressing innocent people, whether in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan or anywhere else. They say that a picture tells a thousand words and Latuff’s cartoons certainly do that. He is lauded among political activists and oppressed people who feel he is championing their human rights through his art but he is also the subject of vilification by others – primarily those his art criticises. One of the most inspiring and controversial political cartoonists of our time, Carlos Latuff agree to talk to MEMO about his art, what inspires his drawings and what it all means to him.

Dr. Hanan Cheata: Your art is clearly driven by your strong sense of justice and your personal opinions on issues such as Imperialism, capitalism, war, human rights violations and so on. Have you always been politically minded or was there a particular event or person that inspired you to become so politically engaged?

Carlos Latuff: I believe that working for a Leftist trade union paper for so long (since 1990) has an impact on my views. I learned the meaning of solidarity with the Leftists.

HC: You were born and raised in Rio de Janero in Brazil but have Lebanese ancestry. How far do you think your Arab roots have influenced your world view and your art?

CL: I think no influence at all. I didn’t know my grandfather, he passed away before I could meet him. It’s a matter of internationalism, as Che Guevara used to say. Solidarity with ALL people in the world. But I must say that since my visit to the Occupied Territories of the West Bank I feel attached to Palestine AND the Middle East.

HC: You visited Palestine in the late 1990′s. What is your most enduring memory of your visit there and did that experience change your view on the Palestine-Israel conflict in any way?

CL: What really caught my attention is the enormous difficulties faced by Palestinians under Israeli apartheid, and how they are strong and courageous enough to fight the occupation.
HC: You’ve been blacklisted by Israel and are therefore banned from visiting the Occupied Palestinian Territories again. This in itself surely reaffirms how powerful your images are if a country is willing to ban you on the grounds of your art? How do you feel about this ban?

CL: I fell into the same category of Palestinians in exile, denied entry to Palestine. Sometimes I feel myself a bit Palestinian. I take this ban as a compliment.

HC: You certainly do not shy away from controversy. No topic seems off limits to you but as a result you have become a target, receiving hate mail, on-line abuse and even, on occasion, death threats. Has the personal price you have had to pay for your art been worth it?

CL: Smear campaigns and death threats is nothing compared to what Palestinians have to endure. So it’s OK for me.

Carlos Latuff: I fell into the same category of Palestinians in exile, denied entry to Palestine.

HC: You’ve been accused of anti-Semitism in the past, a slur levelled against many who speak out against the Israeli state. Have such accusations made you more cautious with your art?

CL: No way! These continuous allegations of anti-Semitism against my cartoons, against Palestinian solidarity activists, boycott campaigns, it’s all related to a well-known strategy of the Zionist lobby in
order to silence criticism against Israel.

HC: In a previous interview, when discussing censorship, which is a focus of many of your drawings, you say that if one site bans your pictures, it appears on ten others and that “the web is the theatre for virtual guerrilla tactics”. How important has the internet been in getting your message out to the world?

CL: Without the Internet I could only rely on the mainstream media to spread my artwork and opinions. Now with the Internet I can share my cartoons to all the corners of the world. Without the Internet you would never know about me

HC: What is your view of freedom of expression and art? Is there anything that should be entirely off limits?

CL: Respect, that’s everything we need to have in mind. There’s a BIG difference between criticism and attack. The cartoons about Mohammed, for example, are pure hatred against Muslims, it’s not about criticism or freedom of speech.

HC: You encourage people to distribute your art for free and you do not copyright your material. This seems to reaffirm your anti-capitalist stance. It feels as though your art is intended to be a gift to the oppressed people you draw about. Is this how you feel about it?

CL: The artwork I make for Palestinians, Egyptians and other causes is not professional; it’s an exercise of solidarity. I need for these cartoons reach a large audience because they have a message to deliver that is different from those you see in the mainstream media.

HC: One of the wonderful things about art is the way it transcends barriers of language, race, class and anything else. Your art has been viewed all around the world. Where is your art most well and least well received? For instance, given that American foreign policy is frequently the subject of criticism in your work, has your art been well received there?

CL: The oppressed are those who welcome my cartoons. The oppressors don’t.

HC: Of all of your political cartoons do you have a favourite one and if so why?

CL: The “We are all Palestinians” series where I compare the suffering of Palestinians with that of others throughout history.

HC: Do you plan to continue with this type of work for the foreseeable future or do you have something different planned for the next few years?

CL: The only plan I have is to make something useful for people’s struggles everywhere.

LATUFF ON THE WEB:
http://latuff2.deviantart.com/
http://tales-of-iraq-war.blogspot.com/
http://artintifada.wordpress.com/2009/01/10/latuff-palestine-cartoons/

MEMO

The Canadian boat titled the ‘Tahrir’ which means Liberation in Arabic, is part of a group of humanitarian aid ships from around the world called “Freedom Flotilla Two” which were blocked from leaving port on Friday by Greek authorities.

Organizers say that even though Greek authorities are harassing the passengers on the Canadian boat to Gaza, however the Tahrir will set sail on Monday.

Video of Greek authorities stopping the U.S. Boat to Gaza under the pretense that it was not seaworthy. It later became clear that seaworthiness was never an issue, the Greek authorities had already decided not to let the Flotilla leave from any of it’s ports.

Greek authorities issued a ban Friday on Greek and foreign-flagged ships heading to the Gaza Strip from leaving Greek ports.

A flotilla of nine vessels and several hundred activists have said they want to break Israel’s sea blockade and deliver aid to the Palestinian territory.

Greece’s Civil Protection Ministry said coast guard authorities had been ordered to take “all appropriate measures” to implement the ban. It also said the “broader maritime area of the eastern Mediterranean will be continuously monitored by electronic means for tracking, where applicable, the movements of the ships allegedly participating” in the flotilla.

Witnesses said one of the boats, dubbed the Audacity of Freedom and carrying several dozen Americans, had left port Friday afternoon. Activists said on their Twitter feed that they had been intercepted by the Greek coast guard. Greek authorities did not immediately comment on the report.

Israel has said it will thwart any effort to breach the sea blockade of Gaza, which was imposed on the Palestinian territory after Hamas militants overran it in 2007.

An Israeli raid on a similar flotilla last year killed nine activists on a Turkish ship and each side blamed the other for the violence.

On Thursday, an Irish ship, the MV Saoirse – berthed at the Turkish coastal town of Gocek – said it had to abandon plans to set sail because of what it called Israeli sabotage. Earlier this week, activists said Israeli agents damaged the propeller of a Swedish ship in the Greek port. Israel has refused requests from The Associated Press for comment on the allegations.