Poet Rafeef Ziadah performs in London, November 12, 2011.

There is nothing I can add, except: more about Rafeef’s life and work in Our Way to Fight, chapter 17, Cracks in the wall.

Please watch/listen here.

The first Freedom Ride in Palestine is underway.  At the moment (9:05 AM EST) Israeli soldiers and police are ordering the Freedom Riders to get off the bus, and they – quite rightly and quite bravely – are refusing.

The international social justice action site, Avaaz, is carrying a live video stream from inside the bus.  Not surprisingly, transmission is patchy.  Even so, you can discern both the voices of repression and the voices of resistance, in several languages.

On the same page, Avaaz is building an international petition to stand in solidarity with the Freedom Riders and their non-violent campaign for human rights.  When I signed a few minutes ago, it already had close to 45,000 signatories from around the world.

The Freedom Riders are in danger.  Whatever happens next, our support is crucial.

Please join the Freedom Riders now, here.

Next Tuesday, November 15, Palestinian activists will attempt to board segregated Israeli public transportation headed from inside the West Bank to occupied East Jerusalem.  This act of civil disobedience is inspired by the Freedom Riders of the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1960’s.

[MR:  Some context.  The first Freedom Ride left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961.  From May through September more than 450 Freedom Riders travelled by public transport throughout the southern states, confronting segregation laws and customs.  They were attacked by Ku Klux Klan-led mobs and police, not infrequently the same people.  Many Freedom Riders were beaten, some badly enough to require hospitalization.  Some ambulance drivers refused to take the wounded to hospital, and some doctors refused to administer medical care. Reporters and news photographers were attacked, their cameras destroyed.  One bus was fire-bombed, and the passengers narrowly escaped.  All but a very few Freedom Riders were arrested, many of them more than once.

The Freedom Rides focused intense national attention on the deeply entrenched racism and violence that enforced segregation.  Finally under pressure from the civil rights movement, Attorney General Robert Kennedy directed the Interstate Commerce Commission to comply with a six-year-old bus de-segregation court ruling which had effectively been ignored until then.  On November 1, 1961, the new policy went into effect throughout the south.

Finally passengers were permitted to sit wherever they chose on interstate buses and trains, “white” and “colored” signs came down in the terminals, separate drinking fountains, toilets, and waiting rooms were consolidated, and the lunch counters began to serve people regardless of race.

Of course there would be obstacles and setbacks.  There still are.  Even so, the Freedom Riders moved mountains.  They were people of immense courage, discipline, and determination.  As are their counterparts in Palestine.]

On November 15, Palestinian Freedom Riders will assert their right to liberty and dignity through peaceful civil disobedience.

The Freedom Riders seek to highlight Israel’s attempts to illegally sever occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank, and the apartheid system that Israel has imposed on Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Several Israeli public transport companies, including Egged and Veolia, operate dozens of lines that run through the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, many of them subsidized by the state. They run between different Israeli settlements, connecting them to each other and to cities inside Israel.  Some lines connecting Jerusalem to other cities inside Israel, such as Eilat and Beit She’an, are also routed to pass through the Palestinian West Bank.

Israelis suffer almost no limitations on their freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory, and are even allowed to settle in it, contrary to international law.  By contrast, Palestinians are not allowed to enter Israel without procuring a special permit from Israeli authorities. Even Palestinian movement inside the Occupied Territories is heavily restricted, with access to occupied East Jerusalem and some 8% of the West Bank in the border area also forbidden without a similar permit.

While it is not officially forbidden for Palestinians to use Israeli public transportation in the West Bank, these lines are effectively segregated, since many of them pass through Jewish-only settlements, to which Palestinian entry is prohibited by a military decree.

On Tuesday November 15, the Freedom Rides begin in Palestine.

[MR:  The more people around the world follow their progress, the more impact the Freedom Riders will have.  Please give this message wings, and stay tuned….]

November 5, 2011.  Six of those arrested from the Freedom Waves boats Tahrir and Saoirse have so far been released, including two journalists and both boat captains.  David Heap, Ehab Lotayef and 19 other activists remain in Israeli prison.

From David Heap:

Dear sisters and brothers, friends and loved ones,

I write to you from cell 9, block 59, Givon Prison near Ramla in Occupied Palestine.  Although I was tasered during the assault on the Tahrir, and bruised during forcible removal dockside (I am limping slightly as a result), I am basically ok.

We – Ehab, Michael, Karen from Tahrir, as well as Karen, Kit (U.S.) and Jihan, who we saw briefly this morning – are most concerned about our Tahrir shipmate, Palestinian Majd Kayyal from Haifa, last seen by us at Ashdod being photographed and put in a police car.**

[MR:  Democracy Now broadcast a short interview with Majd Kayyal from aboard the Tahrir just before the Israeli military surrounded the ship.  It starts at 17:07 in this report, which is worth watching in its entirety.]

David Heap continues:  Although Michael and I (among others) were transported in handcuffs and leg shackles, let me stress that we are neither criminals nor illegal immigrants but rather political prisoners of the apartheid state of Israel.

Four people from the Tahrir are imprisoned with 12 Irish comrades from the Saoirse, who have more experience with such issues.  The four of us, Ehab and I (Canada), Michael (Australia) and Hassan (U.K.) have joined with the Irish in their political prisoners’ committee in order to press our collective demands:

– Association in the block – i.e. open cells;

– Adequate writing and reading material;

– Free communication with outside world — i.e. regular phone calls;

– Information about shipmate women held at same prison.

We add one Tahrir-specific demand:  that Israeli state recognize the professional status of Democracy Now journalist Jihan Hafiz (who reported from aboard the Tahrir) in accordance with her credentials from the U.S. government.

All political incarceration is unjust, but let me stress that in duration and conditions, our situation pales in comparison to the plight of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners and to the open air prison of Gaza.

If you have energy to devote to solidarity actions in the coming days, please concentrate on them.  We must get the Tahrir back and continue the Freedom Waves initiative.

Free Majd Kayyal!  Free all political prisoners!  Free Gaza!  Free Palestine!

Anishnabe-debuewin, restons humaine, stay human, in love and struggle,

David

** Majd Kayyal has been released, but it appears David Heap and the other political prisoners have not been told where he was taken.

Several sources have confirmed that the two Freedom Waves to Gaza ships have been illegally boarded and commandeered by the Israeli military in international waters.  Organizers have been unable to communicate with the ships since soon after they were approached by Israeli warships.

The Freedom Waves to Gaza initiative is a non-violent, civil society movement striving to challenge the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Wednesday, the two civilian boats set sail from Fethiye, Turkey.  Together the Canadian Tahrir and the Irish Saoirse are carrying 27 people – including journalists and crew – from nine countries. They intend to bring a symbolic cargo of $30,000 worth of medicine to the Gaza Strip.

The organizers of Freedom Waves to Gaza said they kept the voyage secret until now due to sabotage attacks on a previous effort this past summer, Freedom Flotilla II.  At that time, the Greek government prohibited the departure from Greek ports of any ships, Greek or foreign, for Gaza. The Greek port authorities boarded the Tahrir and seized its licence. There have been strong indications that Greece’s actions may have resulted from international pressure, notably from Israel.

Freedom Waves aims to peacefully challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza, which violates international law and inflicts grave hardship on Palestinians. * [More on this below.]

Please click here to send an email to Canadian political leaders demanding safe passage for the boats, and the safe treatment of all members aboard.

And please forward this message to others.

* [MR:  Many detailed reports document the horrible impacts of the blockade.  Even so, I find this anguished account very compelling.  A refugee from Nazi Germany, Lilian Rosengarten is a Buddhist practitioner, poet, writer and pacifist.  Her article, contributed originally to the Palestine Chronicle, came to me via Australians for Palestine.

Lilian Rosengarten:

Gaza life exists in a cage, an open air prison that has been kept mostly isolated from the world. Its citrus trees have been uprooted.  Flowers are no longer exported.  Nor are vegetables, fruit or olives, formerly a thriving export business.

Since 2000, the Israeli army destroyed 114,000 olive trees.  The rest were destroyed during the 2008-9 war, much of it uprooted from white phosphorous and other chemicals.  Farming is now difficult and in some areas impossible.

Much of Gaza looks like a war zone, bullets holes visible on the sides of buildings.  Gaza is without proper sewage pumps, bombed as they are rebuilt.  Mediterranean waters are infested with raw sewage, while a 3 mile limit, closely watched by the Israeli navy collectively destroys a once flourishing fishing industry, the waters now stagnant from sewage and overfishing.

It is the grimmest of war stories, unimaginable horror where tunnels, miles of mazes function to alleviate the suffering as goods are brought in from Egypt.  Dangerous the tunnels for they are regularly bombed by rockets and missiles.   Continue reading →