Haaretz –  26 September 2010

A boat carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Germany, the U.S. and Britain set sail on Sunday for Gaza, hoping to breach Israel’s blockade there and deliver aid.

Richard Kuper, an organizer with the U.K. group Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said one goal is to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians.

Kuper said the boat, which set sail from northern Cyprus flying a British flag, won’t resist if Israeli authorities try to stop it.

The trip came nearly four months after Israeli commandos boarded a flotilla of Gaza-bound ships. Nine activists were killed in the ensuing clashes. The voyage also came as Israelis, Palestinians and U.S. mediators sought a compromise that would allow Mideast talks to continue after an Israeli settlement slowdown expires at midnight.

Boat passenger Rami Elhanan, an Israeli whose daughter Smadar was killed in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Jerusalem in 1997, said it was his moral duty to act in support of Palestinians in Gaza because reconciliation was the surest path to peace.

“Those 1.5 million people in Gaza are victims exactly as I am,” Elhanan, 60, said in an interview.

Other voyage organizers included the group European Jews for a Just Peace and the U.S.-based Jewish Voice for Peace.

The 33-foot catamaran Irene, carrying a total of nine passengers and crew members, set sail from the Turkish Cypriot north of the island because the Greek Cypriot south imposed a ban on all-Gaza-bound vessels in May, citing vital interests.

Prior to the ban, international activists had used south Cyprus to launch eight boat trips to Gaza, a coastal strip seized by the Islamic militant group Hamas three years ago.

On May 31, eight pro-Palestinian Turkish activists and a Turkish American died when Israeli naval commandos boarded a flotilla of Gaza-bound ships.

The Irene boat planned to deliver children’s toys, medical equipment, outboard motors for fishing boats and books to Gaza residents.

Kuper said the voyage is a symbolic statement intended to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians and to underscore what he called Israel’s illegal, unnecessary and inhumane blockade of Gaza.

“Jewish communities around the world are not united in support of Israel,” Kuper said in a telephone interview from London. “Israel’s future peace is coming to terms quickly with the Palestinians.”

Organizer Alison Prager said from the boat before it left Cyprus that although many Jews have been on previous blockade-busting trips to Gaza, this was the first time Jewish groups have banded together to send a boat of their own.

Kuper said the trip was funded entirely by supporters’ donations.

PRESS RELEASE – 26Sep10

Jewish Boat to Gaza sets sail from Cyprus

A boat carrying aid for Gaza’s population and organized by Jewish groups worldwide has set sail from Cyprus today at 13.32 local time.

The boat, Irene, is sailing under a British flag and is carrying ten passengers and crew, including Jews from the US, the UK, Germany and Israel as well as an Israeli journalist.

The boat’s cargo includes symbolic aid in the form of children’s toys and musical instruments, textbooks, fishing nets for Gaza’s fishing communities and prosthetic limbs for orthopaedic medical care in Gaza’s hospitals.

The receiving organization in Gaza is the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, directed by Gaza psychiatrist Dr. Eyad Sarraj.

The boat will attempt to reach the coast of Gaza and unload its aid cargo in a nonviolent, symbolic act of solidarity and protest – and call for the siege to be lifted to enable free passage of goods and people to and from the Gaza Strip.

The boat will fly multicolored peace flags carrying the names of dozens of Jews who have expressed their support for this action, as a symbol of the widespread support for the boat by Jews worldwide.

Speaking from London, a member of the organizing group, Richard Kuper of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said today that the Jewish Boat to Gaza is a symbolic act of protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the siege of Gaza, and a message of solidarity to Palestinians and Israelis who seek peace and justice.

‘Israeli government policies are not supported by all Jews,’ said Kuper. ‘We call on all governments and people around the world to speak and act against the occupation and the siege.’

Regarding the threat of interception by the Israeli navy, Kuper said ‘This is a nonviolent action. We aim to reach Gaza, but our activists will not engage in any physical confrontation and will therefore not present the Israelis with any reason or excuse to use physical force or assault them.’

Passenger Reuven Moskovitz, 82, said that his life’s mission has been to turn foes into friends. “We are two peoples, but we have one future”, he said.