Palestine Boat to Gaza

Palestine Coordinating Committee
Dominicans encouraged to support boat to Gaza

U.S. peace activists are raising $370,000 to purchase a boat to sail from a Mediterranean port this coming spring. The Audacity of Hope will be part of an international Free Gaza Flotilla that will challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza by sailing humanitarian aid to Gaza.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that the Blockade of Gaza is a form of collective punishment and “all States have an obligation to allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of all relief consignments, equipment and personnel.”

The Free Gaza Movement has sent nine voyages to Gaza, successfully entering the port five times in 2008. This past spring, a six-boat flotilla was violently stopped by the Israeli Defence Forces. On May 31, nine activists were killed on the Mavi Marmara (at least two being shot at close range as they lay injured, according to the UN report). This flotilla was bringing to Gaza an estimated $20 million worth of food, wheelchairs, books, toys, electricity generators, medicine and building materials prohibited under the Israeli blockade.

This action by Israel has caused several countries to step up and start collecting money to send humanitarian aid boats to Gaza. Norway, Holland, Ireland, England, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Italy as well as the United States plan to send boats in the spring of 2011.

The U.S. Dominican Palestine Coordinating Committee supports the Audacity of Hope and hopes you will too.

For those with mixed feelings about the Israel/Palestine issue, it might be helpful to know that this past October, a Jewish boat attempted to break the naval blockade of Gaza. Glyn Secker, a member of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, explained, “I will not
be associated with the oppression of other people… We were going to put the Israelis in a very difficult situation by being a Jewish boat.” Many Jewish people around the world, including Israeli Jews, are against the Israeli occupation of Palestine and
the Israeli siege of Gaza.

Please support the Audacity of Hope: go to ustogaza.org and make as large a donation as you can afford. It is up to us to send a U.S. boat to Gaza.

Remember our tax dollars make possible the almost $3 billion that the U.S. gives Israel each year. Our money is used for the occupation of Palestine and the blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Tere Auad, OP
Pat Chaffee, OP
Dusty Farnan, OP
Stella Goodpasture, OP
Ceil Lavan, OP
Christopher Matthias
Bernie Wombac, OP