VIEW ONLINE: http://dev.portside.org/2012-10-12/test-swedish-aid-ship-estelle-leaves-italy-gaza SUBSCRIBE: http://portside.org/subscribe VISIT PORTSIDE.ORG: http://portside.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- test - Swedish Aid Ship Estelle Leaves Italy for Gaza <span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2012-10-11T00:00:00-05:00">October 11, 2012</span> By Stefan Jonsson, Adam Keller, Estelle War Is a Crime, Crazy Country, Ship to Gaza - Sweden (Wed, 2012-10-10 00:00) <ul> <li> <strong><a href="#1">Report from La Spezia, Italy, prior to departure (Stefan Jonsson, Swedish activist)</a></strong></li> <li> <a href="#2"><strong>Between Naples and Gaza (Adam Keller, Israeli activist)</strong></a></li> <li> <a href="#3"><strong>Estelle is now on course towards Gaza (Communique from on board the Estelle)</strong></a></li> <li> <a href="#4"><strong>Passengers who traveled with Estelle (from time of departure in early July from Umeå in northern Sweden)</strong></a></li> </ul> <p><a name="1"><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Swedish Aid Ship to Gaza Picks Up Passengers in Italy</strong></span></a><br /> <br /> By Stefan Jonsson<br /> <br /> October 10, 2012</p> <p><a href="http://warisacrime.org/content/swedish-aid-ship-gaza-picks-passengers-italy">War Is a Crime</a><br /> <br /> <br /> Outside La Spezia train station in Italian Liguria there is an old plane tree. The branches are not strong enough to bear their own weight but are propped up by steel girders that are attached to the concrete foundations. From the tree of life by the station, I walk along winding streets through a town that seems to be both freshly painted and public-spirited. Sheets and garments flutter from clothes lines stretching across backyards and alleyways.<br /> <br /> The streets lead out into the harbour where the water shimmers in the October sunshine. There are crowds of people enjoying a leisurely Sunday stroll on the middle pier on their way to the schooner Estelle. It is moored in La Spezia for a few days on its way from Umeå to Gaza.<br /> <br /> Three plain tables have been set up next to the gangplank. One is selling fairtrade arts and crafts from Morocco. Another is selling sandals produced in the West Bank. The third provides information about a joint project in which La Spezia is helping to build a school in Jenin.<br /> <br /> Volunteers show their support, collect money and work to shape opinion focusing on the plight of the poor and oppressed. This has been a regular feature of everyday European life for decades.<br /> <br /> One of the most compelling features, I might add. Sometimes people's commitment to a cause is motivated by feelings of guilt - about the Holocaust, about colonialism and racism or about the fact that Europe and the western world profit to an unreasonable degree from global inequality. During the days the Estelle is moored at the quay voluntary organisations put on a show of strength in La Spezia, the motto being "La Spezia resta umana" (La Spezia remains human).<br /> <br /> "It's important to help the Palestinians to trade," says the person selling sandals. The young woman providing information about the school in Jenin suggests that the exchange is a logical continuation of La Spezia's history: from anti-fascist resistance to Mussolini to the struggle for global justice.<br /> <br /> During a debate the same evening, Patrizia Saccone, who is responsible for the town's international support and exchange programme, says that "collaborazione" is a simple matter to understand: society is improved by people helping each other.<br /> <br /> Economic research is currently in the process of rediscovering this truth, which is actually obvious but has long been forgotten. From the point of view of economics, altruism makes more sense than individualism.<br /> <br /> This means that ethical responsibility to "others" is finding a solid basis in economic science. Not that ethics needs such a foundation. But it is, of course, helpful that industry and political institutions are presented with scientific proof of the fact that in the long run it is more profitable to collaborate with others than to maximise one's own returns. Nation states and companies have lacked an ethical compass for far too long. Many large companies, such as Lundin Oil, have taken investment decisions that indirectly condemned people to die or to live in misery while politicians often said that economic growth requires sacrifices or casualties. This is the EU's current message to the people of Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal.<br /> <br /> At the end of the 1990s social scientists started talking about "upside-down states". Even if the states were officially democracies, state power and authority had gradually ceased to represent the interests of the people but instead were used to make their own citizens bow down to the requirements of the economic power.<br /> <br /> According to social scientists, this is one of the explanations for the loss of trust in traditional parties and political institutions and of the attempts to invent new political methods of working. Right-wing political parties of discontent are one result of this, the growing global solidarity movement another, and virtual campaign politics over the Internet a third. Everywhere we see citizens - civil society - shaking themselves up.<br /> <br /> Today's solidarity movements are characterised by their lack of borders. Even if the purpose is a national one - for example, to remove a dictator and establish democracy, as in the Arab spring - it presupposes extensive global mobilisation. Another characteristic feature they have is that they make use of the existing political machinery - not to push through political decisions, but in the sense that having this or that politician behind them gives them a sought after media profile. A third characteristic is the movements' powerlessness. They have no institutions or infrastructure, relying instead on fundraising, and are easily crushed if the state or capital gets tough with them.<br /> <br /> That this happens so seldom, and that it only happens when the situation has become urgent or revolutionary, is due in its turn to a fourth characteristic of new movements: they mobilise around a single principle or universal idea that is difficult to call into question. Nation states and politicians align themselves with them in theory, but in practice they ignore them. Climate policy is the best example. A simple idea - the survival of the planet and of mankind - requiring rules and regulations that politicians are unable to carry through because they are bound by more short-term interests.<br /> <br /> Which, of course, makes popular discontent grow even more. And when enough of the discontented get organised and take policy into their own hands, popular movements emerge that strive to renew democracy from the bottom and on a global scale. We are in the middle of this process now, in 2012, at the beginning of a decade which according to many forecasts is going to be marked by popular uprisings and new political initiatives.<br /> <br /> In La Spezia I join the Swedish Ship to Gaza, one of those movements that, asserts a couple of simple principles - all people being of equal value and the right to trade and freedom of movement - and lays bare the ambivalent speeches of the politicians and nation states. What the organisation wants to accomplish is after all what nearly all politicians and nation states have already decided: Israel's blockade constitutes a breach of international law and human rights, and causes unnecessary suffering to one and a half million people. Everyone involved would benefit from the lifting of the blockade.<br /> <br /> But the matter is not just about principles - it is also about power politics and military strategy. Can a volunteer movement win against one of the world's strongest military powers? The most difficult thing the passengers on the Estelle have to deal with is not the idea or the objective; it is the corrosive feeling of powerlessness. Israel is probably going to stop the ship and maintain its blockade - and is the world is going to continue to turn a blind eye to Palestine wasting away, and pretend it isn't happening?<br /> <br /> Ship to Gaza has been called many things - from saviour of the world and political tourists to terrorists and puppets of Iran. Stuff and nonsense. The organisation should rather be seen as an example of the globalisation of political action. So far there are no really global political institutions. But the seed of some new patterns is to be found in the movement of civil society and of popular movements across national boundaries.<br /> <br /> Everything points to the fact that human rights and justice are going to be the focus of the global politics that is dawning. It is hardly likely to be driven by ideologies, or by national or regional interests - but much more likely by different attempts to embody a reality of universal ethical ideals. As the ideals are simple and obvious, it is easy to fundraise around them. The result is the "movement of movements" that certain political philosophers identified as the globalised world's democratic subject: people power on a planetary scale.<br /> <br /> An ethical action in defence of human rights is significant, irrespective of its likelihood of success. If the Estelle does not succeed in breaking Israel's blockade, the ship will still be holding up a mirror to the masters of the world order and showing that they are in breach of the rights and principles to which they themselves have subscribed. And next year there will be another ship.<br /> <br /> On the first Thursday in October we reach the city of Naples, in the shadow of the slumbering volcano Vesuvius. At the same time Israel's efforts to stop the Estelle are intensifying. Ship to Gaza is the nightmare of governments and nation states: thousands of citizens of Europe and the Middle East taking matters into their own hands, forming a unit and reminding those in power of their shortcomings. Ethics have the same relationship to power as the dripping of water has to a stone. The stone gets worn away and disintegrates; the water drains away and flows back, like life itself.<br /> <br /> [<em>Stefan Jonsson is an author, professor of ethnicity REMESO, Linköping University, and a long time employee at Dagens Nyheter's culture editors. http://shiptogaza.se/pressrum/freedom-flotilla-ii/passagerare- sverige/stefan-jonsson</em>]</p> <p> </p> <p><a name="2"><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Between Naples and Gaza</strong></span></a><br /> <br /> by Adam Keller<br /> <br /> October 6, 2012<br /> <a href="http://adam-keller2.blogspot.com/2012/10/between-naples-and-gaza.html">Crazy Country - Adam Keller Blogspot</a><br /> <br /> <br /> The city of Gaza is on the shore of the Mediterranean. Like in many other coastal cities, there are inhabitants of Gaza who are interested in sailing as a sport and hobby. But putting such interests into practice is far more complicated in Gaza than in most other coastal cities. In 2006 Qatar donated ten small sailing boats to the newly-founded Gaza Sailing and Surfing Association, but it took until September 2012 for the Israeli military inspectors to make up their minds and conclude that there was no security threat involved in letting them through.<br /> <br /> The boats' arrival in Gaza provided a rare chance for a bit of positive news, with the twelve-year-old Darin Kabariti enthusiastically telling journalists that she feels completely free when launching her sailboat off the Gaza coast.<br /> <br /> Not long after the sailing boats' joyous entry into Gaza, the 22-year-old fisherman Fahmi Abu Rayash was shot near Beit Lahiya and hit in the abdomen and foot. At first his wounds were not considered fatal but he succumbed after two days in hospital.<br /> <br /> What did happen there? According to the Israeli military communiqué, he had approached too close to a forbidden zone, arousing the suspicion that he intended to carry out an armed attack. According to the Palestinians, he had intended harm to nobody (at least, to none but fish). There had not been - and it is very unlikely that there will ever be - an impartial investigation. There had been no report of his death in the Israeli or international media, and not very much in the Palestinian press, either. It is too much of a daily routine. And nowadays, Israeli officials have a ready-made answer to anyone who asks too many questions about such things: "More horrible things are happening all the time in Syria". Which is a matter of undoubted, documented fact<br /> <br /> The gunboats which are Israeli Navy's own pride and joy continue patrolling day and night off the Gaza shore, charged - as they had been over more than a decade with making the siege of Gaza, so to say, watertight. It is the gunboats' daily job to prevent Gazan fishing boats and Gazan sailing boats and any other kind of Gazan boat from venturing "too deep" into the open sea, and to equally prevent any other vessel from any other place on Earth from approaching anywhere close to the shores of Gaza<br /> <br /> And just now, there is such a vessel approaching besieged Gaza from the west. Not by stealth - in fact, its approach had been announced and heralded many months in advance. The Estelle had been purchased by the Swedish "Ship To Gaza" association and had set out last May from Finland by a long a complicated route, touching at ports in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Holland, France and Spain.<br /> <br /> The seventeen activists on board - Swedes and Norwegians and also some dissident Israelis - had had many interesting experiences en route. There were rallies and artistic performances in every port, and they participated in a film festival in Bretagne, and in Barcelona the well-known artist Manu Chao came to take part in the solidarity concert, as did Adeila Guevara, daughter of the legendary Che Guevara. And by now they have reached Naples and are engaged in a very full program: a concert, and Catholic Mass celebrated on the pier, and an organized tour of the ship for Neapolitan school children, and also a visit by Naples Mayor Luigi de Magistris, who has declared himself the Estelle's official protector for the length of her stay in Naples. Meanwhile Avigdor Lieberman, Netanyahu's Foreign Minister, is exerting considerable pressure on the Italians to block the ship from departing - but unlike the case of last year's Freedom Flotilla, blocked at Athens, he does not seem to get very far. .<br /> <br /> So, the Estelle will shortly depart on the final lap of its journey. It is not so far from Naples to Gaza, as nautical miles go. The Israeli Navy gunboats are equipped with high- quality radar, and it is not difficult to detect a ship which makes no effort to hide (quite the opposite, in fact). And so the outcome, sometime later this month, is fairly predictable.<br /> <br /> Most probably, it will not be anywhere near the actual shores of Gaza. In the past, Israeli Navy gunboats have eagerly gone deep into the Mediterranean to intercept Gaza-bound vessels, sometimes, as far as 65 kilometers from the shore. (In undoubted international waters, but the Foreign Ministry's lawyers in Jerusalem have come up with a legal opinion explaining why this was OK, digging up some precedents from bold actions taken by the British Royal Navy in its bygone proud days of empire...)<br /> <br /> The Estelle will be sternly warned to turn aside, the activists on board will ignore all warnings, and the crack Naval Commandos will come aboard. The ship will be towed to the Port of Ashdod, and the Swedes and Norwegians aboard will be remanded in custody and charged with "Illegally entering Israel" and their plea that they had no intention of entering Israel and that Gaza is not Israel will be ignored by the learned judges. And the Israelis on board will be charged with... Well, there are creative minds in the Israeli Public Prosecution, and they will think of something.<br /> <br /> Will it end the siege of Gaza? Definitely not. But for at least a few days it might remind some people who don't want to be reminded that Gaza is still under siege, out of sight and out of mind, and that this siege is causing a considerable daily suffering to a million and six hundred thousand people, a large part of them children. Even though it is quite true that at this moment there is a worse suffering in Syria.<br /> <br /> [<em>Adam Keller an Israeli peace activist, was one of the founders of Gush Shalom; he was imprisoned as a Refusnik, for refusing to serve in the Israeli army in the occupied territories</em>.]</p> <p> </p> <p><a name="3"><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Estelle is now on course towards Gaza</strong></span></a><br /> <br /> October 7, 2012<br /> <a href="http://http://shiptogaza.se/en/Pressrum/Pressmeddelanden/estelle-now-course-towards-gaza">Ship to Gaza - Sweden</a><br /> <br /> <br /> Yesterday, Saturday, just after 17:00 CET, Ship to Gaza and Estelle slipped their moorings from the quay in Naples and took off for Gaza. A demonstration that assembled several hundred participants marched through the central parts of the city and then collected in the port where Estelle loaded the last items and completed the last paperwork. An unparalleled atmosphere of festivity reigned, and people danced, sang and cheered uninterruptedly. When the Italian harbour board let us load the 300 footballs that had been stored in Athens for the last year the enthusiasm knew no bounds.<br /> <br /> In spite of Israeli pressure to stop Estelle from leaving the port the Italian authorities remained unmovable. During the days in Naples the ship was a hundred percent protected. No saboteurs had found their way to the schooner, but loads of enthusiastic sympathizers did. That Estelle now made out for the last stretch of the 5000 nautical miles from the start in the Baltic Sea does of course not mean that we have reached our goal. The blockade is still there. But the resistance is growing, every hour, every day, every week.<br /> <br /> Our claim sounds high and clear: stop the blockade!<br /> <br /> Ship to Gaza - Sverige <a href="http://www.shiptogaza.se">www.shiptogaza.se</a><br /> <br /> Spokespersons:<br /> <br /> Dror Feiler +46702855777<br /> Mattias Gardell +46703036666<br /> Ann Ighe +46709740739<br /> Victoria Strand +46727356564</p> <p> </p> <p><a name="4"><span style="font-size:14px;"><strong>Passengers who traveled with Estelle (from time of departure in early July from Umeå in northern Sweden)</strong></span></a></p> <p><a href="http://shiptogaza.se/aktionen-2012/passagerare">Ship to Gaza - Sweden</a><br /> <br /> <br /> These people have traveled with Estelle during her long journey all the way from Umeå in northern Sweden to the final leg of Gaza. They are listed in alphabetical order.</p> <ul> <li> Amer Sarsour-poet Stockholm</li> <li> Anders Widell-engineer Gothenburg</li> <li> Anders Öberg Activist Umeå</li> <li> Andreas Persson Activist Stockholm</li> <li> Anita Broden-MP (Liberal) Sollebrunn</li> <li> Ann Ighe-Ship to Gaza steering committee Gothenburg</li> <li> Anna Seldén Andreasson Activist Gothenburg</li> <li> Arne Birger Heli-Palesinakomitéen Norway</li> <li> Christian Azar - Professor Gothenburg</li> <li> Camilla Lundkvist Activist Umeå</li> <li> Carina Nilsson councilor (s) Malmo</li> <li> Charlie Andreasson-sailors Gothenburg</li> <li> Conny Nylén activist, photographer, firefighter, instructor sailing Björkö</li> <li> Daniel Särner-engineer and activist Stockholm</li> <li> Dennis Halvordsson activist and journalist Gothenburg</li> <li> Dror Feiler, Gaza Stockholm</li> <li> Elik Elhanan, activist and literary historian, Tel Aviv, New York</li> <li> Emma Norwegian activist Umeå</li> <li> Eva Olofsson-MP (V) Gothenburg</li> <li> Fakun Aznarez-Askapena Spain</li> <li> Felix Falk-Gaza Gothenburg</li> <li> Fermin Muguruza musician, producer and cultural commentator Spain</li> <li> Mr Van der Lippen-professor of sports medicine Oslo</li> <li> Göran Jacobsson journalist LO Work Stockholm</li> <li> Hanan Abu Nasr Activist Gaza</li> <li> Hanna Hanouhe Cinthio artist Lund</li> <li> Herman Reksten Activist Norway</li> <li> Hillevi Larsson-MP (s) Malmo</li> <li> Imanol Agirre-professional Basque pelota players, Spain</li> <li> Ingvar Broden-Sollebrunn</li> <li> Jacob Johnson-MP (V) Uppsala</li> <li> January Wollnik Activist Norway</li> <li> Jeanette Escanilla-District (V) Uppsala</li> <li> Jenny Wrangborg-poet and cold buffet Stockholm</li> <li> Jim Manley, logger and minister, Nanaimo, Canada</li> <li> Joakim Ekedahl Activist Uppsala</li> <li> John JB Brant-engineer / sailor Gothenburg</li> <li> John Anyuru-poet, passengers 2011 Gothenburg</li> <li> Jonas Bergström-Journalist and Author Gothenburg</li> <li> Jonas Jonsson Activist Umeå</li> <li> Jonas Karlin-chef Gothenburg</li> <li> Karin Mattsson Activist Gothenburg</li> <li> Catherine Moberg journalist TCO Stockholm</li> <li> Katja Alheden Activist Gothenburg</li> <li> Kerstin Johansson-Palestinian activist, Malmo</li> <li> Kestin Ferster Activist Sundsvall</li> <li> Kristoffer Lundström-Journalist SVT Stockholm</li> <li> Christopher Synnelius Activist Stockholm</li> <li> Lars Ferster Activist Sundsvall</li> <li> Laura Arau-Rumbo a Gaza Spain</li> <li> Loukas Tribe Ellos Activist Ship to Gaza Greece</li> <li> Luz Garcia Villar nurse Almunecar Spain</li> <li> Madeleine Persson Activist Stockholm</li> <li> Maria Solhed Activist Umeå</li> <li> Maria-Pia Boethius, Journalist Author, Stockholm</li> <li> Marina Duell Activist Gothenburg</li> <li> Martin Fahlén Activist Gothenburg</li> <li> Mattias Gardell, Ship to Gaza Sweden steering Stockholm</li> <li> Mika Jamia captain Finland</li> <li> Mikael Karlsson-Socialist Student League Boras</li> <li> Mikael Löfgren, Ship to Gaza Sweden, steering Gothenburg</li> <li> Moa Johsson Länne Activist Gothenburg</li> <li> Mohammed Qadora-Chairman of the Palestinian Society Malmo</li> <li> Nanna Olofsdotter Activist</li> <li> Niklas Berg Palestinagrupperna Umeå</li> <li> Nils Sjostrom Activist Oslo</li> <li> Olle Katz-Jews for Israeli-Palestinian peace JIPF Stockholm</li> <li> Paul Nicholson Vía Campesina, the leader of Basque peasant union EHNE</li> <li> Per Gunnar Ahlström-mate Lysekil</li> <li> Peter Herthelius-chair Save the Children Gotland</li> <li> Promoe (Mårten Edh) - artist Malmo</li> <li> Rosanna Gunnarsson Activist Gotland</li> <li> Salamaah Abdul Karem-Gaza steering committee</li> <li> Staffan Granér-Ship to Gaza Sweden steering Gothenburg</li> <li> Stefan Jonsson - Professor, Norrköping</li> <li> Stein Asthoy-Fagforbundet Norway</li> <li> Sven Wollter actor Stockholm</li> <li> Soren Sommelius-culture journalist Helsingborg Helsingborg Dagblad</li> <li> Louie Hedlund activist Malmö</li> <li> Wellu Koivisto-sailors Finland</li> <li> Viktor Hariz-journalist, Umeå</li> <li> Victoria Beach, Ship to Gaza Sweden, steering Gothenburg</li> <li> Xabier Ezeizabarrena-Basque nationalist party PNV, Professor of Environmental Law Spain</li> <li> Claudia Mitchell-activist Malmö</li> <li> Oyvind Sagedal-cultural and social commentator, priest Norway</li> </ul> <p> </p> <p> </p> -------------------------------------------------------------------- Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. 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