The Audacity of Hope – the U.S. boat to Gaza

by on August 22, 2010 11
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Phil wrote about the event in the video here and here. Learn more about the U.S. boat to Gaza and donate to help make it happen here.

About Adam Horowitz

Adam Horowitz is Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 11 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. jonah says:
    August 23, 2010 at 4:36 am

    [CENSORED]

    Unconfortable questions are censored on mondoweiss. The systematic censorship of everything that falls outside the anti-Israel/Zionist dogma provides far more evidence of your insane undemocratic bigotry than their publication. It’s now evident that you are not a reliable interlocutor for peace. Your hidden agenda is coming to light, even if – indeed precisely because it makes use of censorship to keep clean the dogma, suppressing dissent.

    As we know after the Stalinist censorship, came the Stalinist purges.

    Beware of pacifists and human rights defenders under false flag.
    [webmaster's note: I sometimes censor and interpolate in comments, as I am doing now; but the phrase Censored injected at the start was not my work, but is Jonah's rhetorical statement]

    • Chaos4700 says:
      August 23, 2010 at 9:06 am

      Anything to not talk about Israel putting Palestinian children “on a diet” and the fact that you Jewish Americans are finding themselves increasingly alienated by an Israel that claims to represent them all, but then has absolutely nothing to do with either Jewish or American values.

  2. jonah says:
    August 23, 2010 at 8:33 am

    - webmaster’s note: I sometimes censor and interpolate in comments, as I am doing now; but the phrase Censored injected at the start was not my work, but is Jonah’s rhetorical statement. -

    Rather weak explanation for your previous censorious zeal, webmaster. Why do you consider the question below worthy to be censored? I don’t want to offend anyone, I raise only some essential questions about the moral integrity of these peace activivists. Here the previously censored text, with some further clarifications.

    - How can we adapt the words of a activist seen speaking in the video (“The more we treat it as an human rightissue, an issue of international law, the more we can move toward alasting peace “) with the actions and intentions of Hamas & Co. – with their terrorism against Jewish civilians, their willingness to annihilate the enemy, their rejection of any peace negotiation, which was once again forcefully reaffirmed yesterday about the nextresumption of peace negotiations? Why the same pacifists do never even remotely allude to the increasing violent repression inside the Gaza strip? And why, if a lasting peace is so important for them, they didn’t lift a finger when every day tens and hundreds of rockets fell on towns in Southern Israel? How do these activists believe to help the Palestinians by supporting organizations which are guilty of war crimes, according to the same Goldstone report, despite its strident bias against Israel?

    From the Report page 474/475, paragraph 1724: ” From the facts available, the Mission finds that the rocket and mortars attacks, launched by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, have caused terror in the affected communities of southern Israel and in Israel as a whole. Furthermore, it is the Mission’s view that the mortars and rockets are uncontrolled and uncontrollable, respectively. This indicates the commission of an indiscriminate attack on the civilian population of southern Israel, a war crime, and may amount to crimes against humanity. ”

    Does the “human rights issue”, the “issue of international law” apply for these pacifists maybe only to Israel? And if no, why the silence on Hamas and its crimes?

    • potsherd says:
      August 23, 2010 at 8:56 am

      Anyone who was concerned about the civilians of Gaza suffering under Hamas rule ought to be on the flotilla breaking the blockade. It is Israel who refuses Gazans the right to leave the place – and escape Hamas if they feel they need to escape.

      Hamas would not exist if it weren’t for Israel’s systematic repression of Palestinians rights.

      And one of the most critical of Hamas is that uberleftist Amira Hass, who condemns repression wherever it exists.

    • Chaos4700 says:
      August 23, 2010 at 9:07 am

      Ignore Jonah. He’s a troll. He wants to steer discussion of this away from The Audacity of Hope.

    • Donald says:
      August 23, 2010 at 10:15 am

      A lot of people on the left criticize Hamas for their brutality, including people here. It’s completely consistent to do that and also criticize Israel and the United States for their cynical and brutal instigation of a civil war among Palestinians.

      I would be opposed to the American government attempting to instigate a civil war among Israelis. It’s the same thing. The current Israeli government is repulsive (actually, they generally are), but it was elected by the Israelis and whether one likes it or not, we shouldn’t be trying to stage a coup. Yet somehow so-called liberals in the US find it perfectly acceptable to do this to Palestinians, to destroy their own democratic system and annoint one faction as the legitimate rulers. The chutzpah and racism are astonishing, or would be if it weren’t such normal behavior on our part. What’s fascinating is that self-described American liberals are totally oblivious to the issue.

      • jonah says:
        August 23, 2010 at 1:26 pm

        Donald,
        - “A lot of people on the left criticize Hamas for their brutality, including people here.”

        I’ve never read a single article or comment in mondoweiss critical to Hamas’ repressive and aggressive rule in Gaza, not a single word. On the contrary: rather suppression (both psychologically and literally) and veiled justification.

        - “criticize Israel and the United States for their cynical and brutal instigation of a civil war among Palestinians”.

        Can you give any reliable evidence to your claims? I hope it is not from Vanity Fair….

        Besides, what about the fact that Hamas is financially supported and armed by the Iranian regime? Also Israel to blame?

        But my point is not Hamas itself: its deeds are well-known and don’t need to be emphatized anymore. What interest me here is the question how can these flotilla pacifists und human rights defenders be so exclusively against Israel and its blockade without apparently being the least aware of the publicity they make, by acting in this partial one-sided way, for militant and repressive groups like Hamas, which are admittedly against any peace negotiations or lasting peace.

        If this is true, it is a glaring and disconcerting contraddiction, a double standard that undermines at the root the credibility of this kind of peace activism. Or is there any evidence that I could be wrong in my assumptions?

  3. jonah says:
    August 23, 2010 at 11:08 am

    “It is Israel who refuses Gazans the right to leave the place – and escape Hamas if they feel they need to escape.”

    Only Israel? Isn’t there also a border to the South? Why don’t you compain about Egypt too?

    “Hamas would not exist if it weren’t for Israel’s systematic repression of Palestinians rights.”

    This answer sounds to me very semplicistic, potsherd. The Hamas is the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its Charter states it beyond doubt:
    “The Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. Muslim Brotherhood Movement is a universal organization which constitutes the largest Islamic movement in modern times. It is characterised by its deep understanding, accurate comprehension and its complete embrace of all Islamic concepts of all aspects of life, culture, creed, politics, economics, education, society, justice and judgement, the spreading of Islam, education, art, information, science of the occult and conversion to Islam. (article 2)

    The Muslim Brotherhood is an radical Islamic movement founded in 1928 in Egypt by the schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna. Leaders of the group in Palestine were Al-Hajj Amin al-Husseini and Izz al-Din al-Qassam. For the history, ideology and activities of the Muslim Brothers in Palestine read here (very informative!).

  4. Chaos4700 says:
    August 24, 2010 at 12:13 am

    How loudly do you expect the Zionists think they have to shriek about Hamas before the expect to drown out the sound of gunfire when the IDF boards this ship?

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