It’s not too often I come out of a talk about the blockade of Gaza or the situation in Palestine feeling optimistic and hopeful.
But those are exactly the emotions I felt after seeing retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright and Adam Shapiro of the Free Gaza Movement speak about the flotilla that tried to break the blockade of Gaza.
The All Soul’s Unitarian Church on the Upper East Side was packed with between 200 and 300 people for the event, and there weren’t enough chairs for everyone to sit—a sign of the times.
Wright spoke about her experience being on the Challenger 1 boat that was part of the flotilla and about being taken to a prison in the Israeli city of Beersheba.
Shapiro spoke about the next steps being taken by the Free Gaza movement, and about keeping up the momentum in the larger solidarity movement. Shapiro’s message was that “the tide is turning” against Israeli policy, and that we must keep up the pressure, especially on the American government.
At the end of the talk, there was a lot of excited discussion about bringing an American ship with U.S. citizens to Gaza to break the blockade. Laurie Arbeiter, a local activist, suggested naming the boats “The Audacity of Hope” and “Dreams From My (Palestinian) Father,” after the two books that President Obama has written.
For your listening pleasure, I’ve uploaded Ann Wright and Adam Shapiro’s talk as rough, unedited audio files on Zshare.net.
Click here to download Ann Wright’s talk, and go here to hear Adam Shapiro’s.
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That is a wonderful idea. I love it.
Yeah. Because it would embarrass that slimemold Obama, if for no other reason.
Is it practical, though? You can believe the US government will do anything and everything to stop that boat from even leaving US waters. Up to and including, false charges of “terrorism.”
Alex, glad you’re posting here. Thanks for the report and the audio.
Richard Silverstein has a vid clip of the IDF executing one the passengers of the Mavi Marmara:
link to richardsilverstein.com
Conveniently dark out there.
I wonder how many times an hour this one will be played on US TV?
It was posted here yesterday but we had concluded we couldn’t make out what was happening and to whom. Didn’t we?
Except, Walid, there are people on the boat who can identify it, as well as the cameraman who snuck this footage out.
Pulsemedia has an interview with a young Australian and his wife, who were on the Mavi Marmara.
Blue Pearl posted a link to the same video, I’m highly dubious that it’s an execution, I’m of no doubt about the brutality but that looks like a pump action single shot with no flash or real ‘kick’
I agree. It looks like as pump action. Also strange. I don’t see the supposed flash or the sudden sharp recoil I would expect here. Either this is a small caliber gun with low recoil (so why is it a pump action then?) or it’s a paint ball gun. I have heard at the beginning of the raid commandos were firing paint ball rifles. Is this what’s happening here?
I suspect there aren’t too many weapons experts here on Mondoweiss but if there are any I’d love to hear his comments (or her comments, for that matter).
Thank you very much for the audio. Adam Shapiro seems like what you guys would call a real mensch, no?
Truly wonderful if the ship were to depart from New York Harbor. Think of the media desperately attempting to pretend it did not exist.
would have to go pretty far