Following my previous post about threats to the Tahrir, the Canadian boat to Gaza, I wrote to New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton and the party’s foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar, demanding that the NDP take a principled stand in support of Canadian participation in the Freedom Flotilla, as their brave colleague Alex Atamenenko, NDP member of parliament, had already done.  I also wrote to Atamenenko, commending him for his courage and integrity.

From Jack Layton’s office came an automatic response, “…Please be assured your comments and views are valued…”  The usual.

From Paul Dewar’s office came a reply which I regard as semi-automatic: “…The NDP does not endorse the flotilla, but it is necessary to respect people’s right to peacefully protest and the protection and safety of all parties involved must be a priority.  We’ve echoed UN concerns about potential clashes between Israeli forces and activists and urge restraint.”

We urge restraint.  Nice.  Safe, comfortable, ineffectual.  Very NDP.

In the introduction to Our Way to Fight, I convey in short form my own sense of how good change happens:

“An Israeli friend speaks of two world-views, the macro and micro.  To me the macro view is an overview, from the war room, the cabinet room, the CEO’s suite.  The micro view is close up, on the street, on the wrong side of the wall, under the bombs.  [Now I would add, on the boat.]  It is the view of this book.

“Acts of resistance and solidarity are often so small, unless you look closely you may never see them.  At some point a person thinks, I can no longer remain silent.  She risks talking to others, and sometimes, something happens.”

When “something happens,” hardly ever is it due to pressure from above, but almost always from below, popular pressure, from the grassroots.  In a historic referendum this past week, Italian citizens defied all the establishment parties and the corporate media to refuse nuclear power and to ban the privatization of water.  The elites were stunned.  Even activists who’ve organized for years on these issues admitted they hadn’t really believed this outcome to be possible.

Meanwhile, from the plush comfort of Parliament Hill in Ottawa, the New Democrats urge “restraint,” equally, from both the Israeli forces and the activists.  The equation of the two is grotesque.  By nature and purpose, the Israeli military forces are about exactly that, force, unparalleled in the Middle East.  Israeli peace activists told me repeatedly that the only effective restraint on their government would be an effective end to the lavish flow of support from western regimes, which Israeli authorities consistently interpret as carte blanche to do as they wish.  True to form, the Israeli regime is now threatening to use even more aggressive force than it did against last year’s Freedom Flotilla, when Israeli commandos murdered nine activists.

The peace and human rights advocates on the Freedom Flotilla will go to Gaza unarmed, on small boats, and face the most powerful military force in the Middle East, fully backed by the most powerful, aggressive military force on the planet, and its faithful allies, including official Canada.

The last thing Flotilla participants need is more restraint.  They are restraint personified.

What they need is support.  They won’t get it from the elites that hold formal power in Europe and North America.  They won’t get it from the current Secretary General of the United Nations, who shamefully declared the Freedom Flotilla a provocation, thus granting implicit permission for Israeli military aggression.  And, sadly, it is clear now that no useful support can be expected from wannabe elites like the NDP.

That leaves us.

As in all campaigns for justice — women’s and civil rights, anti-apartheid, queer liberation, anti-war, pro-choice, environmental — pressure for justice and peace in Palestine-Israel springs from the ground (or water, in this case), from the grassroots, from us.

Since most of us can’t join the Freedom Flotilla in person, here is a practical way to support the Tahrir, due to sail within the next couple of weeks.

For people in other countries, very likely there is a boat that needs your support.  Check the list of Local Boat Initiatives here.

Please pass on this message or the link to this blog to others.

A week ago I wrote about the Tahrir (“liberation”), the Canadian boat to Gaza, which is due to join the 15-boat international aid and solidarity flotilla to Gaza later this month.

Cherna Rosenberg wants to sink the Tahrir.  So do the governments of Israel and Canada.  They are determined to maintain the suffocating isolation of 1.5 million Palestinians forced to live for years under Israel’s inhumane and illegal blockade of Gaza.

Ms Rosenberg, who divides her time between Israel and Canada, filed a suit June 2 in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Toronto, against the Canadian Boat to Gaza and its partner organization Alternatives International, a network of social & political movements struggling for social/economic justice and peace.

Claiming that Hamas, the elected government of Gaza, is a “terrorist organization,” Rosenberg’s New York and Toronto lawyers have demanded an interim and permanent injunction to prohibit either the Canadian Boat to Gaza or Alternatives International “from continuing to raise funds, purchasing equipment or supplies, and purchasing or renting a vessel for the purpose of delivering goods or funds to the Gaza Strip.”

In stark and courageous contrast, federal New Democrat Member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko has taken a conscientious decision to support the Canadian Boat to Gaza.

On June 7, true to form, the right-wing National Post ran a vicious smear article against both the Boat to Gaza and MP Alex Atamanenko.

Please write or call NDP leader Jack Layton, MP Paul Dewar (NDP foreign affairs critic) and other members of the NDP caucus NOW.  Assuming that you support the Canadian Boat to Gaza, tell them you want them to support it too.

Time is short.  Pressure to sink the Canadian boat is intense.  This is a struggle between powerful elites and people who care about peace and justice.  The NDP needs to hear from us.

MP contact information (both in Ottawa and in their ridings) can be found here.

Jack Layton: Layton.J@parl.gc.ca.  416-405-8914 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            416-405-8914      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Paul Dewar: Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca  613-946-8682 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting            613-946-8682      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

My apologies, in my previous post I provided the wrong link for The story of war, a stunning video about the invasion of Gaza.  Here is the correct link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/mediatownps#p/u/0/b8pzh8tE82w

A few weeks from now, fifty Canadians will join with people from a dozen other countries in a new international aid and solidarity flotilla to besieged Gaza.  The Canadian boat is named Tahrir, the Arabic word for liberation, as in Tahrir Square.

Israel has been pressuring foreign governments to block their citizens from joining the flotilla, or at least to provide advance excuses for Israel to attack it as it did last year’s flotilla, killing nine participants.

Doing his part for Israel yesterday, newly appointed Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared “unauthorized efforts” to break through the siege “provocative.”

“I strongly urge those wishing to deliver humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip to do so through established channels,” Baird said.

By “established channels” he means Israel.  (Though Egypt is finally opening the Rafah crossing to people, goods are still prohibited.)  This would be the same Israel which maintains the siege of Gaza that necessitates the international citizens’ flotillas.  This would be the same siege, illegal by international law, which the current Canadian government continues to justify.  And this would be the same Canadian government which rushed to be first in justifying Israel’s horrific invasion of Gaza in December 2008 that left over 1400 Gazans dead, more than 400 of them children.

During a moving conversation in Our Way to Fight, I ask Dr Ayed Yaghi, head of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Gaza: When so many life-basics are lacking, and so much is determined by the occupation forces, how do he and his co-workers set priorities on the ground?  He replied, “The first priority is to end the siege on Gaza, to open the borders, to let not only infrastructure materials but all products enter Gaza. We need the international community to put more pressure on the Israeli government to end the siege and the occupation.”

A new video about the invasion of Gaza has just been posted on Youtube.   It’s called The story of a war.  Thanks to the excellent US-based blog Mondoweiss for the link.

I found The story of a war harrowing to watch, but absolutely riveting.  It’s finely made, and essential to appreciate why Canadians and others would risk their lives to help do what our governments so consistently and shamefully fail to do: build effective international pressure on Israel to end the illegal siege and occupation.

Please watch The story of a war, do what you can to boost the Tahrir, and pass the video link on to others: http://www.youtube.com/user/mediatownps.

My previous post (#21, Beauty secrets) featured the Israeli research project Who Profits, Ahava cosmetics, and stolen mud.

Who Profits was born from the Coalition of Women for Peace.  This morning a message arrived from the Coalition:  We are under attack.

Founded after the Second Intifada erupted in 2000, the Coalition of Women for Peace brings together a dynamic group of peace and human rights activists, Jewish and Palestinian/Arab Israeli, in their early 20s to late 80s.  Their guiding principle is simple: Together we are more powerful.  They are committed to ending the occupation, creating a more just society, and enhancing women’s inclusion and participation in the public sphere.

Reasonable goals, no?

But in the current right-wing campaign to enforce the dominant agenda in Israel, the Coalition of Women for Peace has become a target for extremist right-wing forces inside and outside the Israeli government.  The escalating attack specifically targets sources of funding for peace and human rights NGOs, including the Coalition.

Last week the New Israel Fund (a liberal umbrella funding body for NGOs) informed the CWP that it would no longer function as its fiscal sponsor. Until the NIF buckled under intense pressure from the right-wing bullies, individual donors from the US, Canada, Europe and Australia could support the Coalition’s work by making tax-deductible donations through the New Israel Fund.  This vital conduit has now been severed.

Another block is added to the Great Wall of Israel.  From a distance, it looks as its enforcers intend it should look: immense and unbreachable.  But close-up, as I experienced it on my travels for Our Way to Fight, you begin to see cracks.

There is no question that the Coalition’s crucial work will continue.  When I met CWP members, it was abundantly clear to me that these women are very determined, and not easy to intimidate.  Even so, their freedom of movement could be constrained if the right-wing attack succeeds.

In a May 23 statement, the Coalition of Women for Peace commented: “Facing a climate of political persecution of peace and human rights defenders, it is our strong belief that our most important asset is the solidarity among activists and civil society organizations and our commitment to shared values of freedom of expression and association.  We find that the decision of the NIF is a dangerous precedent undermining solidarity and commitment to democratic values.”

As I would expect from these strong women, the statement concludes not with a plea but with a challenge: “Will the right-wing attacks on peace and human rights defenders succeed?  That is up to each and every one of us to determine.  Your solidarity is needed now more than ever:

“Please write a check to “Coalition of Women for Peace,” and mail it to P.O.Box 29214, Tel Aviv-Jaffa 61292, Israel.

“Or make a wire-transfer directly to our bank account: Israeli Discount Bank, Hamoshava Branch #062, 21 Emek Refaim St., Jerusalem, Israel. Account number: 967017-512400, Swift Code: IDBLILIT XXX, Account name “Coalition of Women for Peace”.

I don’t intend this blog to become a fund-raising platform, that is not its purpose.  In any case, obviously we could never begin to match the enormous financial power of the Israeli state and its backers, which include — against our wills — most of our governments.  It is also true, and frustrating, that the same relatively few people are always being approached to sustain crucial work for peace and justice across the globe.  That’s how it is.

Nevertheless, as soon as I’ve put up this post I’m sending off a cheque to the Coalition of Women for Peace.  It won’t be much, but it will say unequivocally, I’m with you.

Together we are more powerful.