Setting Sail to Gaza - April 2008

Volunteers Prepare to Set Sail to Gaza
The Independent Monitor, April 2008

In August 2008, 70-100 people from all over the world and from all ages and walks of life will set sail on the Mediterranean Sea. But this is no summer vacation outing; it’s a mission of mercy. Led by activist Greta Berlin, the volunteers will sail the 20-hour journey from Cyprus to Gaza to bring humanitarian and medical aid to Palestinians.

“We’re going to go between Cyprus and Gaza as much as we can,” says Berlin. “We have 4 doctors on board, and some want to stay and work at the clinics and hospitals. Others will stay to help the fishermen and schools.”

This is not their first attempt to make this journey: “We were supposed to go last summer, and then Hamas took over and then all our support was withdrawn. Within two days we lost all our funding, because they didn’t want to be affiliated with Hamas, and thought their support would mean they were.”

Their intent is to set up a ferry service between Cyprus and Gaza, and to go between the two as much as they can, to bring Palestinians what they need and bring more Europeans in to help. But part of why they’re doing it is because Israel says they don’t occupy Gaza anymore, and they want to challenge that.

“So we don’t need [their] permission to come then,” she says. “We have permission from several Palestinian NGOs. We are not going through Israeli or Egyptian waters. We are going straight from international waters to the Port of Gaza. We are challenging Israel to stop us. They have no right to stop us in international waters, and we’re not going to let them board us if they try.”

They are, however, considering what Israel might do.

“We have had a committee for the past year, that does nothing but work on contingencies. Other organizations, like Greenpeace, have been very helpful with it – bringing up problems and solutions we wouldn’t think of.”

They believe they are more likely to use sabotage, like planting bombs or arms on their boats, than an outward attack at sea, so they will have people with them who are solely there to inspect volunteers, equipment and vessels before anyone boards.

Tentative date to set sail is August 5. They want to sail sometime between Aug. 1-21, because that is when Europe is on vacation, there will be a lot of boats on the Mediterranean, and they may be able to get more boats to join them. Also, the weather is more permitting then, than it will be a couple of months later.

“I want it to look like the storm on Normandy!” she says.

The volunteers range in age from 20-85 and come from 13 different countries, including Israel and Palestine, with two survivors of Nakba and the Holocaust. They will also carry 10-12 journalists and documentarians from around the world. They currently have 70 volunteers on the list, most of whom are veterans of human rights activism and have been there before. But a lot will depend on how many boats they can get and how many people the boats can hold. Money is another issue.

“We’ve got about $70,000 raised but we need about $250,000. People can donate through the website (http://www.freegaza.org), and it is set up as a nonprofit organization now, so the donations are a tax write-off.”

Most of the donations have come from human rights grants, which is encouraging to her.

“By receiving these grants, not only are we recognized as being something worthwhile to do, we’re recognized as being credible.

“The majority of the money we’ve gotten has been from the non-Arab community,” she adds. “We think it’s mostly because they don’t really know we’re doing it. Once they do, we think they’ll be very helpful.”

Berlin, who was shot in the leg by Israeli soldiers in 2003, while trying to tear down the apartheid wall near Jenin with the International Solidarity Movement, is not deterred by the crises she knows she could face on this mission.

“People don’t understand that once you feel it, the calling to Palestine doesn’t go away. It haunts you and no circumstance is scary enough to keep you away,” she explains. “I’d rather die in Gaza, doing something that’s important to me, than safe at home in front of my TV, watching Law & Order.”