About the Flotilla

Why a risky and seemingly futile effort is worth it.

However improbable as it might presently seem, strategies such as the flotilla, the BDS movement and other forms of militant non-violent resistance do have a chance for defeating the strategy of violence and large-scale imprisonment that has long defined Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories. Just as I write these lines, Haaretz newspaper is reporting that the IDF has admitted that it has "no way to stop mass non-violent protests in the West Bank". And mass here means merely several thousand protesters, nothing like the hundreds of thousands of people necessary to bring down Ben Ali and Mubarak.

According to one IDF official: "A non-violent protest of 4,000 people or more, even if they only march to a checkpoint or a settlement, and especially if the Palestinian police do not deter them, will be
unstoppable." We could similarly imagine the impossibility of stopping the next flotilla if it grows to dozens of boats, or even hundreds.

When coupled with former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's warning that if Palestinians give up the two-state idea and simply demand Israeli passports, Israel will have no choice but to choose between rank apartheid and becoming a true non-sectarian democracy, the way forward to achieving real peace, justice and democracy becomes clear.
(empahsis added)

Israel may claim to be a civilized and democratic nation but its continued occupation and violence against Palestinians belies those claims.

Among the many risking life and liberty on this mission are Veterans For Peace members retired Colonel Ann Wright; former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern; retired Marine Corps Major, Ken Mayers; Nic Abramson and Hedy Epstein, an Honorary VFP member and 87 year-old Holocaust survivor. I am proud to stand with them in their effort.