Thursday, August 7, 2008
Sounds like David Bedein had a fun time with the ISM boat people: A Palestinian Boat To Gaza:
...On Monday, a movement known as FreeGaza.org held a press conference in Nicosia which announced that a group of 40 people from all over the world would board two small boats to travel by sea to Gaza, to "break the siege" that Israel has placed upon Gaza.
The boats will probably leave on Friday, on the day designated by Hamas as "international Palestine solidarity day."
The press conference led with an opening statement by an Israeli American [Candian? -S] Jerusalem resident, Jeff Halper, who alleged that Israel was behaving in defiance of international law by closing shipping lanes to Gaza.
Mr. Monir Deeb, a native of Gaza who lives in Los Angeles, explained to the media that he was getting aboard these boats in order to reunite with his siblings in Gaza.
Mr. Deeb described Gaza as a "peaceful community under Israeli military siege" and said that this small convoy was meant to deliver a message to Israel to stop the siege of Gaza.
The Bulletin asked Mr. Deeb about tens of armed Gaza militias which have fired thousands of missiles over the past eight years against Israeli civilian communities that surround Gaza and that the Hamas government is using this period of a cease-fire to regroup and to train for the next attack on Israel.
Mr. Deeb said that he "could not relate to this question," since it was "political," and since his concern was "only humanitarian" in nature...
Nah, nothing political at all. Then there's this:
...Ms. Berlin reported that the operation to bring two boats into Gaza as fully independent of any unknown of foreign entities. Ms. Berlin mentioned that FreeGaza.org had already raised $210,000 of the total budget needed more than $300,000 for the boats.
However, on July 31, the Palestine Information Center issued a press release in which it stated that a member of the Lebanese Parliament had confirmed to Hamas leader Abu Marzook in Cairo that the boats had been provided by Palestinian popular committees by the Hamas. That would mean, in effect, that FreeGaza.org received two sources of support for its work - from American Jewish groups and from the Palestinian popular committees, which are run by Hamas.
I'm not sure what the reference to American Jewish groups is, but a donation from Hamas itself would be a very interesting development.
