Today the ‘Irish Ship to Gaza’ group have announced that their vessel MV Saoirse will again be sailing to break the ILLEGAL blockade of the coastal enclave.

MV Saoirse was set to sail as part of  this years ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ but was sabotaged with a damaged prop shaft in port whilst in Turkey. Dr Fintan Lane, national coordinator of Irish Ship to Gaza, who own the vessel, said on the sabotage : “This is an appalling attack and should be condemned by all right-thinking people.  It is an act of violence against Irish citizens and could have caused death and injury.  If we had not spotted the damage as a result of a short trip in the bay, we would have gone to sea with a dangerously damaged propeller shaft and the boat would have sunk if the hull had been breached.  Imagine the scene if this had happened at nighttime.”

He continued: “One of the most shocking aspects is the delayed nature of the sabotage.  It wasn’t designed to stop the ship from leaving its berth; instead, it was intended that the fatal damage to the ship would occur while she was at sea and this could have resulted in the deaths of several of those on board.  This was a potentially murderous act.”

Dr Lane, who was on board Challenger 1 in last year’s flotilla, said: “The Freedom Flotilla is a non-violent act of practical and humanitarian solidarity with the people of Gaza, yet Israel continues to use threats and violence to delay its sailing.  They attacked us in international waters last year; now they are attacking us in Turkish and Greek ports.  There is no line that Israel won’t cross.”

“We will not be intimidated by attacks like this — it simply highlights the aggression that the Palestinian people of Gaza have to put up with on a daily basis.  It strengthens our determination to continue until this illegal and immoral blockade is lifted.”

Follow the Irish Ship to Gaza at:
http://irishshiptogaza.org/

Under the financial pressure of EU bailouts to Greece, following their complicity in the blockade of Gaza earlier this year with the prevention of the ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ vessels moored in Greek ports, Greece and Israel signed a security cooperation agreement. The content of the memorandum was not disclosed

Greek Defense Minister Panos Beglitis, making the first official visit by a Greek defense minister to Israel, and his Israeli counterpart, Ehud Barak, signed a cooperation memorandum on ‘security’ in Jerusalem on Sunday during the first day of Beglitis’ three-day trip.

“I come as my country’s defense minister to state our political will as a government, as well as the majority of the country’s political forces, for the two countries, the two governments, the two peoples, to work together so that we can further develop and deepen our bilateral relations in all sectors of mutual interest and concern,” Beglitis said.

The visit is part of a cooperation memorandum signed last year between Prime Minister George Papandreou and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Last week a Greek Parliament committee approved the purchase from Israel of Rafael-made Spice 1000 and 2000 bomb precision upgrade kits at a cost of $155 million for 400 systems.

Israel’s ambassador to Greece, Arie Mekel, noted the “unprecedented number of high-level visits” between Israel and Greece this year. He said the visit by Beglitis “highlights again the dramatic upgrade of the relations between Greece and Israel for the benefit of both countries.”

Beglitis clarified that his visit concerns bilateral relations with the State of Israel exclusively and is not functioning competitively with other countries in the region.

His visit comes in the wake of the release last week of the United Nations’ Palmer report which said that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip is legal, but that Israel used excessive force when boarding the Turkish-flagged ship Mavi Marmara, leading to the deaths of nine Turkish citizens, in May 2010. Turkey has demanded an apology and, with none forthcoming, said it would ramp up sanctions against Israel.

Beglitis was scheduled to meet Monday with Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres, and also will have a private meeting with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. He met previously with the chief of Israel’s military, Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz.

Barak said he was pleased by the upgrading of the military and defense cooperation between Israel and Greece.

“We are seeing with satisfaction the deepening and widening of relations between us and the Greeks in all sectors, including the security sector, and we desire to see the deepening and widening of this cooperation between the governments, between the Defense Ministries and between our peoples,” Barak said.

Vessel granted permission to sail from Crete to Rhodes but activists say ‘final destination’ is Palestinian territory.

The Dignite al Karama, one of the ships which had intended to take part in a Gaza-bound international freedom flotilla, has left Greek island of Crete with about 10 pro-Palestinian activists on board.

Greek authorities banned all flotilla vessels from leaving the country’s ports earlier this week, but the French ship was granted permission by the coast guard to sail to Rhodes on Saturday, Reuters reported.

But an activist on board said the boat’s final destination was Gaza.

“We hope that we will reach that destination, but for the time being we are sailing within Greek waters,” says Vangelis Pissias, a member of the flotilla’s steering committee.

Eight ships remain blocked in Greek ports while a ninth sits in need of repair in a Turkish port after an apparent incident of sabotage.

Israel was also preparing to expel 120 mostly European activists detained after having managed to fly in Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv in a so-called “flytilla” protest.

On Saturday, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said 120 people had been denied entry and were waiting deportation with one or two days. Others had already been flown out, according to an immigration spokesperson.

Sabine Hadad, the immigration service spokesperson,  said most of the activists were French, with the others being American, Belgian, Bulgarian, Dutch and Spanish.

Israel said it had been monitoring social media site and compiled a blacklist of persons they regarded as “provocateurs” intending to cause disturbances.

Organisers of the “flytilla,” – officially called the ”Welcome to Palestine” campaign - had said up to 800 activists were expected to fly into Ben Gurion airport in a peaceful mission to visit Palestinian families.

Israel provided airlines and foreign security agencies with a list of 342 “unwanted people,” hoping they would be turned back at European airports.

At least 200 activists were halted in Europe by Friday evening, though a few dozen have reportedly managed to enter Israel so far, but further attempts are expected through Saturday.

Israeli authorities said they largely managed to pre-empt the campaign by foreign activists who are demonstrating for the right of access to the West Bank.

A statement from the Public Security Ministry quoted regional police chief Benzi Sau as saying a joint operation by police, the foreign ministry and transport officials “prevented the departure of hundreds of activists at their points of departure for Israel”.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Palestinians and activists marched to the Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank a day after police stopped them from entering Israel.

Scuffles broke out after Israeli soldiers blocked the protesters close to the checkpoint and fired tear gas to disperse them. The activists say they want to draw attention to life under Israeli occupation.

Salah Khawaja, the “Welcome to Palestine” initiative organiser, said: “Today is the announcement of the beginning of a week-long movement against the apartheid system and racial discrimination.

“We have been preparing for this week months ago in the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ initiative to demonstrate to the world that Israel imposes an apartheid and racial system.

“And we have to continue our struggle and resistance to the wall, the occupation and their policies.”

The protest marks the seventh anniversary of the International Court of Justice ruling that declared Israel’s erection of the barrier on occupied land illegal.

Israel has re-routed the barrier several times in response to its own high court rulings on appeals from human rights groups that Palestinians are cut off from vital farmland or services.

The non-binding ruling found that building the barrier on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war was “contrary to international law”, and urged Israel “to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall” in the West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem.

The barrier has also drawn other international condemnation. Even Israel’s main ally, the United States, has called it unhelpful.

Al-Jazeera

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Barghouti said Friday that Israeli “hysteria” over international solidarity would not stop foreign peace activists.

Barghouti, who is head of the Palestinian National Initiative party, said the Israeli government had turned Ben Gurion airport into a “military post” and accused Israeli officials of “violating all international navigation laws that regulate flight.”

He slammed Israel’s pressure on international airlines to prevent activities from traveling to the Tel Aviv-area airport on Friday, and pressure on foreign governments to block ships aiming to sail to Gaza from leaving port last week.

International peace activists “will try to reach us, whether on ground or by air, to participate in the actions of the Palestinian popular resistance,” Barghouti said.

The Israeli government has been “hit with hysteria because of the wide success of the solidarity movement with the struggle of our people,” he said.

Ma’an

Outsourcing, aggressive and vocal diplomacy and ridiculous lies thwarted the flotilla, but they have not taken Gaza off the international agenda.

By Amira Hass

Like an anti-Semitic caricature, Israel has extended its long tentacles around the globe in an effort to stop 10 decades-old ships from sailing to Gaza. Many Israelis interpreted this as a great victory.

The story could be read as follows: The Greek government wanted to save people whom it surely views as eccentrics and professional trouble-makers, even if naive, from a traumatic and perhaps even fatal experience. The Greek foreign minister rejected claims that Israeli pressure led his government to ban the flotilla’s departure. He explained that Greece wanted to prevent a “humanitarian disaster” in the event of a clash between the Israel Defense Forces and the protesters.

Indeed, a Greek police officer – one of those who tried (in vain ) to discover from passengers on the Tahrir who was piloting their ship – did not beat around the bush. We wanted to save you from the Israeli army, he told one of them. The Jew of the blood libel, of whom one must be wary, has been replaced by an Israeli navy commando.

In anti-Semitic caricatures, the cunning Jew is doomed to lose and his control over the world is fated to come to an end. But Israel’s government is revising the caricature and sketching a glorious victory. A war of attrition, in the form of mysterious breakdowns and unprecedented red tape by the Greek authorities, thwarted the flotilla’s original plan to anchor off the Gaza coast. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly thanked the Greek government, he knew full well what he was thanking it for.

We must now await future media leaks to know what exactly Greece received in exchange, other than closer military ties. Perhaps money, to complete the caricature?

This is a convenient time to be using pressure tactics. Greece’s socialist government is in a fragile situation, as the European Union and the International Monetary Fund are forcing the country to adopt an austerity plan that most of its people oppose. True, the fact that Greece has become a subcontractor of the Israeli army did not bring the masses into the streets, but there is no doubt about it: The sympathy of the Greek soldiers who arrested the Tahrir’s passengers and of the bureaucrats who delayed them was with the flotilla and with Gaza, not with their government’s orders. That’s all we need: another country whose government gets along well with Israel in complete opposition to popular sentiment.

The flotilla’s organizers added a term from the world of business and globalization to their description of Israel’s domination of the Palestinians. Israel, they said, was outsourcing the industry of the blockade on Gaza. In exchange for reward, a foreign government – Greece – took on an active role and adopted a deliberate policy of keeping the Gaza Strip one huge prison.

Logic dictates that a government whose policy validates anti-Semitic stereotypes ought to worry Israelis and Jews worldwide. But the Israeli government is doing what its voters want and believe in. For there is one stereotype that has not been recycled here: that of the wise Jew.

Outsourcing, aggressive and vocal diplomacy and ridiculous lies thwarted the flotilla, but they have not taken Gaza off the international agenda. If Israel – which knew full well that there was not one gram of explosives aboard the ships – had let them sail to Gaza, the flotilla would not have preoccupied the international media as it did.

Blocking the flotilla did not discourage the organizers, who are graduates of the anti-apartheid and anti-white supremacy struggles. Rather, it provided ample proof of how white Israel is. As a result, blocking the flotilla only increased their motivation to keep placing the Palestinians’ demand for freedom at the forefront of the international agenda.

The Greek coast guard on the island of Crete has blocked a small French boat carrying activists to the impoverished Gaza Strip, says an organizer. Claude Leostic with the French boat Dignite El Karameh said the vessel “was taken to Sitia in Crete by the Greek coast guard after being stopped in a nearby port while it was refueling,” AFP reported on Thursday. “The authorities are stopping the boat from setting sail for various administrative reasons,” Leostic added. Dignite El Karameh, which is carrying 12 pro-Palestinian activists, departed from a Greek port on Tuesday despite the country’s ban on Gaza-bound aid ships. In a separate development, another French vessel’s attempt to sail to Gaza was also thwarted on Monday by the Greek coast guard officials. The Louise Michel, with 24 passengers on board, was circled by Greek vessels as it started up its engines. Greek coast guards on Monday also intercepted the Canadian Tahrir (Liberation) vessel with at least 50 pro-Palestinian activists onboard. More than 300 activists from 22 countries have signed up to participate in Freedom Flotilla II. Members of the flotilla say the Greek government is blocking the humanitarian convoy on behalf of the Israeli regime. Greece has recently expanded its ties with Israel, as the two sides are currently holding preliminary talks on potential energy deals. The Israeli military attacked the Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea on May 31, 2010, killing nine Turkish nationals aboard the Turkish-flagged MV Mavi Marmara, and injuring about 50 other activists that were part of the team on the six-ship convoy. The Tel Aviv regime has ordered the Israeli navy to use all possible means to prevent the incoming international aid flotilla from reaching the Gaza Strip, but the Gaza Freedom Flotilla II organizers insist that they will push ahead with their aid mission.

TWO SHIPS from the Gaza flotilla are still at sea in international waters and must be allowed reach their destination, a press conference in the European Parliament fronted by Irish MEP Paul Murphy was told yesterday .

He was one of three MEPs who failed to make it to Gaza when it was alleged that the Irish boat was sabotaged by Israeli agents in Turkey and then Greece imposed a ban on boats sailing there. He and his MEP colleagues, Kyriacos Triantaphyllides, from Cyprus, and Nikos Chountis, from Greece, had been placed in danger by the action of the Israeli authorities, he said.

He said it was “very unlikely” it could be proven the Israeli government had ordered the attack, which placed the life of the sailors on board the Irish ship in danger because the propellers could have damaged the hull at sea. Mr Chountis accused the Greek government of breaking not only international maritime law but also Greek domestic law by preventing the boats from moving in its territorial waters and said this was not the will of the Greek people but its parliament.

The MEPs announced that they had demanded support for the flotilla in letters to the presidents of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, and European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and Baroness Catherine Ashton, who represents the EU on external relations. The letters outlined the case that the three MEPs, who had attempted to peacefully deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, had been prevented from doing so by “severe acts of sabotage” against the Irish and Scandinavian boats.

“We condemn these acts of sabotage which also infringe on the sovereignty of the states where the boats were moored and the states where the ships are registered,” said their letter. “We demand an independent and impartial inquiry into these acts of sabotage and we also expect a condemnation of these acts of sabotage by the Israeli authorities,” the letter added.

“We expect you to vigorously and publicly support those demands,” it said. The letter said they were very concerned about the well-being of many European citizens who had peacefully engaged in the humanitarian mission of the Freedom Flotilla 2.

“In light of these serious events, how do you intend to take up the above mentioned demands through your official and diplomatic contact with the Israeli authorities?” the letter continued. It asked what concrete steps they were willing to take to ensure the protection of all European citizens, including the elected representatives of the European Parliament. At the press conference, the MEPs announced the US captain of the US vessel who was under arrest in Greece had been released but two ships which were part of the flotilla were still at sea in international waters. One, they said, was a French vessel and the other was from Canada and they were demanding these vessels, which were carrying European citizens, should not be interfered with by the Israeli authorities.

A French boat has set sail for Gaza from Corsica in the latest attempt by activists to deliver aid to the Palestinian territory, according to a journalist aboard the vessel.

The Dignite al Karama, which left the western Mediterranean island overnight is, thus far, the only boat in a flotilla organised by pro-Palestinian activists to successfully sail for Gaza, with most confined to ports in Greece.

The vessel’s passengers include Olivier Besancenot, head of the New Left Party in France, French politician and member of the European Parliament Nicole Kiil-Nilsen, and other well-known French personalities.

“We are about 20 minutes from international waters, and when we arrive there, the organisers on the boat will decide what their next move is,” Quentin Girard, a journalist with the French newspaper Liberation, told Al Jazeera from aboard the boat.

Girard said that the activists on the boat want to go to Gaza, but are waiting to decide if they will go once the boat arrives in international waters.

“I think they will go if the international committee for the flotilla encourages them to go,” Girard said.

On trial

Meanwhile, the trial of the captain of a US ship who was arrested by Greek authorities is under way.

That boat, also part of the so-called ‘Freedom Flotilla’, set sail on Friday from the Greek port of Perama and was towed back to shore by the Greek coast guard.

Jane Hirschmann, member of “Jews Say No!” and national organiser for the boat, dubbed The Audacity of Hope, said, ”This is totally a political manoeuvre, nothing illegal about his mission. This has been orchestrated by the Israeli government and probably the US government.”

Greece’s coast guard said on Saturday that the captain of The Audacity of Hope faces charges of trying to leave port without permission and of endangering the lives of the boat’s passengers.

The US boat is one of nine vessels carrying several hundred activists attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.
Some of the passengers on the US ship have remained on board in solidarity with the jailed captain.

On June 24, an anonymous complaint was filed against the ship’s “seaworthiness”. The Israel Law Centre (Shurat HaDin), took responsibility for the complaint in the Israeli media.

‘No matter how long it takes’

Alejandro Fierro, an activist aboard a Spanish boat, Guernica, that is currently in port in Crete, told Al Jazeera that activists from his boat remained fully committed to going to Gaza.

“We have a few people on the boat now, and they will remain on the boat, in Crete, until they can go to Gaza,” Fierro said, “Some people are going back to Spain, but we are going to continue to keep our boat in Crete, and keep people on the boat, until we can sail to Gaza.”

Some of the members of the Spanish boat are currently occupying the Spanish embassy in Athens, and have hung a Palestinian flag from the balcony of the embassy.

“We will wait no matter how long it takes. We’ve learned patience from the Palestinian people who have been resisting Israeli occupation for 60 years, so we can wait. We are not going to move until our government makes some solution for the Greek government to let us sail away,” Fierro said.

Canadians detained

On Monday, a Canadian boat, the Tahrir, was forced to return to harbour in Crete after an attempt to reach international waters was thwarted by the coast guard, according to onboard activists.

The Tahrir sailed 15 minutes out of harbour before it was intercepted, activists told Al Jazeera.

Jesse Rosenfeld, a reporter with Toronto’s Now Magazine, who was on board the Tahrir when it set sail, told Al Jazeera how the vessel managed to leave port: “In a matter of minutes, the people on the boat turned on the engines while two of the activists kayaked, trying to block the coast guard in port.”

The coast guard ship pursued the Tahrir, using water cannons and eventually boarding the ship, Rosenfeld said.

Ehab Lotayef, spokesperson and coordinator for the Canadian boat, told Al Jazeera from Montreal that the two kayakers and a Canadian-Jewish activist, Sandra Rush, whose name was on the boat papers, were being held.

According to Lotayef, everyone else on the boat remained aboard through the night. On Tuesday, the Greek prosecutor was on board taking statements from the activists.

“They all declared they were all captains of the boat, so that no one person would be charged, and this is causing some problems for the prosecutors,” Lotayef added.

The group of activists in Corfu seemed to have all but exhausted their attempts to comply with the necessary paperwork for getting official permission to leave port.

In a meeting on Tuesday, the Corfu group discussed staging local demonstrations against the Greek blockade of their flotilla, but did not disclose the nature of the planned protest.

Most activists in the group seemed to reject the idea of breaking out of port, while the captain of the ship said he did not want to copy other breakouts out of fear of jeopardising his sailing license.

Al-Jazeera

It has been widely reported and speculated that the reason for Greece’s participation in the suppression of Freedom Flotilla Two may be found in its own economic situation – that the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou, pushing a devastating IMF/EU austerity plan on the Greek people against their will, is so desperate for international financial and economic support that it is willing to serve as the enforcement arm for Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza.

Yesterday, in Vancouver, Canada, a Greek consular official, Georgios Ayfantis, confirmed that this is indeed the case.

In a conversation with a delegation of activists supporting the Tahrir, the Canadian Boat to Gaza, who entered the consulate demanding a meeting about the Freedom Flotilla, Ayfantis asserted that Greece’s economic interests were at stake in stopping the Flotilla, saying that an undersea natural gas pipeline and a natural gas liquidizing plant in Crete were at stake.

The offer Netanyahu made followed on Papandreou’s visit to Israel in July 2010 - the first visit of a Greek Prime Minister in decades - and is sharply at odds with both the growing movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions from Israel, and Greek public opinion, which even the World Jewish Congress concedes is “clearly pro-Palestinian.”

Ayfantis further asserted that the Papandreou government’s enforcement of the Israeli siege was about “interests,” that Greece was afraid of Israel, and that the U.S. – and the Canadian government of Stephen Harper – is backing Israel completely.

The Papandreou government, of course, is no stranger to representing the interests of the International Monetary Fund and the United States (and its ally and partner Israel) at the expense of the Greek people. Greek social movements have been directly involved in supporting the flotilla, negotiating with police, and raising the cause of Gaza, the Flotilla, and Palestine at the mass protests in Syntagma Square against the Papandreou government and IMF-imposed austerity. Greek trade unionists and shipbuilders are working now to repair the Tahrir, which was damaged by the Greek Coast Guard when slammed into a concrete pier after being boarded and commandeered and returned to shore earlier today. Earlier, stevedores working to load the flotilla’s boats were the only workers exempt from the general strike called by Greek trade unions in the last week of June. Greek activists are currently sitting dockside to guard the flotilla’s boats from sabotage.

Derrick O’Keefe, one of the Vancouver organizers of the Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign, led a chant at a weekend emergency demonstration, “Solidarity, Not Austerity!” prompting cheers for Greek workers who were participating in support actions for the flotilla in defiance of the Papandreou government.

Indeed, Syntagma Square, which has become the center of the Greek workers’ movement, hosted a mass protest for the Flotilla on July 3. The Square has faced severe police violence and brutality, as well as the massive use of tear gas and chemical gases, mainly purchased from Israel, against protesters. With as little regard as the Greek government has shown for Greek laws and the rights of its people, it is of no great surprise that this same government has seen fit to sell out international law, the right to travel, and the humanity of Palestinians in Gaza for a potential pipeline and natural gas liquidizing plant.

However, wrote Foula Farmakides, “If my experience this week shows me one thing, it is that the authorities are afraid of what has happened in Syntagma Square and in other Greek neighbourhoods over the last 35 days. They do not like the fact that people gather and talk about democracy and the economy, issues that are currently under their control. They don’t want us to share opinions, instead of just accepting the media propaganda. They do not like the fact that in spite of their aggressive efforts, the demonstrators are showing no signs of intimidation….The Greek people will not give up until the government, IMF and ECB leave their country. Less than 12 hours after we were beaten by the police, we reoccupied Syntagma Square.”

In much the same way, Israel fears the flotilla deeply – because the flotilla is a popular representation of international solidarity with Palestinian steadfastness and resistance. For over sixty-three years, Israel has engaged in ethnic cleansing, apartheid, home demolitions, bombings, all-out wars, raids, siege, blockade, mass imprisonment, harsh brutality, and worse. And yet, despite all of these efforts, Palestinians insist on living, on existing, on struggling and resisting. Palestinian refugees insist upon returning home. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza struggle to tear down walls and break sieges. Palestinians inside Israel fight to end apartheid and dismantle the structures of a state based on the denial of their existence and identity.

The flotilla symbolizes growing international solidarity with that steadfastness and creativity. Indeed, the flotilla is so threatening because it is not, fundamentally, a humanitarian aid flotilla – it is a material statement of solidarity and support for Palestinian sovereignty over Palestine’s borders, coasts and ports. It is not a gesture of charity, but a clear statement that the siege will fall, and will be broken. Joe Catron, writing from Gaza, said, ”Ties between Palestinian organizers and the global network of activists supporting them will emerge stronger than ever before. And the siege – along with the colonial project imposing it – will be pushed one big step closer to their final end.”

Indeed, this is not the first time that Israel’s desperation to prevent any such assertion of the illegitimacy of their occupation of Palestine’s land, seas, and borders from taking place has become visible, nor was last year’s massacre on the Mavi Marmara, in which nine activists, including 8 Turkish activists and one American student, were killed in an armed military commando raid on the civilian boat. In 1988, during the first Intifada, Egyptian, Syrian and other Arab actors and artists had joined together with 131 Palestinian deportees forced from Palestine for their organizing in the Intifada, to sail a “ship of Return,” named “Al-Awda,” to the port of Haifa. The ship was sunk in port in Cyprus on  and three Palestinian leaders, Abu Hassan Qasim, Hamdi Sultan and Marwan al-Kayyali, who had worked on the project were assassinated on the same day, February 16, 1988.

While those who planned to sail on Al-Awda were Arab artists and Palestinian deportees, the name of the ship – “Al-Awda” – and its destination – Haifa – evoked the inalienable, fundamental Palestinian right of return, and the reality that Israel’s foundation as a “Jewish state” was built on the bedrock of a stolen Palestinian land and a displaced Palestinian people. In much the same way, the marches of Return on Nakba Day (May 15) and Naksa Day (June 5) this year, mass marches to the borders of Palestine from Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, demanding the right of return of Palestinian refugees, were met with harsh and violent repression, with 20 protesters – simply demanding their right to return to their lands and homes – killed by the Israeli military on each day.

The Flotilla is part of the resilience of the Palestinian people – reflected in the global solidarity movement – that despite nakba after nakba, the struggle and the resistance will continue until the siege is broken, the wall falls, refugees return, Palestine is liberated. And thus, like the general strikes and mass protests of Greece’s workers, it strikes fear in the heart of those who would rule through the power of capital and the force of arms – and inspiration in the hearts of those who would see justice and liberation for Greece, Palestine and the world.

Charlotte Kates is a Palestine solidarity activist in Vancouver, Canada, on unceded Coast Salish Territories. She is a member of the Organizing Committee of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (http://www.usacbi.org) and is active with Al-Awda the Palestine Right to Return Coalition – NY (http://www.al-awdany.org) and the National Lawyers Guild (http://www.nlginternational.org).

Mondoweiss