Photograph Source: Freedom Flotilla

Many people, armed only with moral and political convictions, would be too intimidated to confront an army or navy directly. But not all.

Twelve nonviolent human-rights activists with the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) are currently sailing a small boat, the Madleen, to Gaza. They hope to create a humanitarian sea corridor through Israel’s illegal blockade. If all goes well, they should arrive this weekend, with “baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.”

They know the danger. Ten volunteers were killed by Israeli commandos when they boarded the Mavi Marmara in 2010. But, as Greta Thunberg said before she embarked last Sunday, “We are doing this because no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying, because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”

How Palestinians See It

The history is important, and one does not have to approve of Hamas’ attack against Israeli civilians in October 2023 to understand that.

During the Nakba in 1948, at least 750,000 Palestinians were violently displaced from their homelands by Zionist paramilitaries and nascent Israeli forces. As Palestinian-Canadian Samah Al-Sabbagh recently told a crowd, those who survived that colonial onslaught left their “homes, land, olive groves, even the freshly baked bread.”

The occupation has never stopped, and now the violence is more high-tech and all-inclusive in its reach. In Gaza, bombs (largely supplied by the United States) have destroyed homes, apartment buildings, schools, universities, hospitals, mosques, churches, and more—leaving thousands buried under rubble. Adding to that nightmare, doctors report the intentional killing of childrenwith high-velocity........

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