I can’t get a link, but I gather that the Honolulu Star-Advertiser lately ran an op-ed by flotilla activists Carol Murry and Greta Berlin that included the passages below. It’s a breakthrough whenever any mainstream paper puts this kind of stuff out there:
The boat and its passengers were forced into a locked compound, and our captain was jailed with no food, water, bed or toilet. A group of passengers who fasted in protest over mistreatment of the captain were repeatedly taken by force to the Greek police station and held without charges for hours… When asked, the Greek police said they were acting at the direction of the U.S. Embassy, supposedly charged with protecting, not imprisoning, U.S. citizens.
Ironically, at the same time, Israeli Knesset members passed legislation banning Palestinian calls for economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel and its settlements due to its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory, violations of international law and treatment of Palestinians as inferiors before the law. This legislation mandated monetary penalties for Palestinian or Israeli offenders even if no damages could be proved and is reminiscent of when Martin Luther King Jr. faced a fine or imprisonment under an old anti-boycott law during the Montgomery bus boycott.
….The good news in the overreactions of the U.S. and Israel to Freedom Flotilla 2 and the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement is that both countries have suffered a significant loss to their international standing, a sign of the success of both movements.
…The BDS movement and flotillas cannot be stopped. Both movements will persist until the oppression of Gaza and occupation of the West Bank cease.
