by Jamal Elshayyal Al Jazeera June 6th, 2010

Photo Activists on board the Mavi Marmara within the Gaza Freedom Flotilla

Firstly I must apologize for taking so long to update my blog. The events of the past few days have been hectic to say the least, and I am still trying to come to grips with many of the things that have happened.

It was this time last week that I was on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara, and first spotted Israeli war ships in the distance, as they approached the humanitarian flotilla. Little did I know how deadly and bloody were the events that soon began to unfold.

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Palestinian Trade Union Movement Calls on International Dockworkers Unions to Block Loading/Offloading Israeli Ships Until Israel Complies Fully with International Law and Ends its Illegal Siege of Gaza

Photo Israeli military forces raids the Gaza freedom flotilla.

June 7, 2010 – The Palestinian trade union movement, as a key constituent member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on dockworkers’ unions worldwide to block Israeli maritime trade in response to Israel’s massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla, until Israel complies with international law and ends its illegal blockade of Gaza.

Drunk with power and impunity, Israel has ignored recent appeals by the UN Secretary General as well as a near consensus among world governments to end its siege, putting the onus on international civil society to shoulder the moral responsibility of holding Israel accountable to international law and ending its criminal impunity. Dockworkers around the world have historically contributed to the struggle against injustice, most notably against the apartheid regime in South Africa, when port workers unions refused to load/offload cargo on/from South African ships as a most effective way of protesting the apartheid regime.

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June 7 2010 Tadamon! letter to Fédération des Femmes du Québec (FFQ)

Photo: Alaa Badarneh Palestinian woman clashing with Israeli soldier in 2004 during a demonstration against the controversial security barrier near the West Bank village of Al-Zawiya, north west of Qalqilya city.

Dear Ms. Conradi, Montreal Middle East solidarity collective Tadamon would like to extend its warm congratulations to the members of the Fédération des Femmes du Québec (FFQ) (Québec Federation of Women). At its most recent convention on May 29 and 30, 2010 in Québec City, the Federation’s members voted unanimously in favour of a historic resolution in support of the global campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.

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Gulf News by Abbas Al Lawati, June 4 2010.

Photo Alberto Denkberg An activist, arrested aboard a Gaza-bound ship, places his hands against the window of a bus as it leaves Ella prison in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba June 2, 2010. Israel began expelling all activists seized during a raid on an aid convoy sailing to Gaza that has drawn international outrage and officials on Wednesday vowed to prevent any other ships from reaching the coastal territory.

“Going to get some sleep. Action continues in a couple of hours. Hope we still have internet access.”

That was one of my last few posts on Twitter before the partially successful Israeli media blackout on the Mavi Marmara, the biggest passenger ship on the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza which came under an Israeli attack that killed nine people.

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download document from Omar Barghouti May 31 2010

Photo Gaza sign in Bosnia day after the Israeli massacre of the freedom flotilla.

Only a few days since Israel’s illegal and fatal act of aggression against the Gaza Freedom Flotilla,, BDS-related reactions around the world were quick and qualitatively consequential.

Building on 5 years of international BDS activism since the Palestinian Civil Society Call for BDS was launched on 9 July 2005, a year and a half since Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, when its base criminality and status was revealed to the world, and months after the watershed UN Goldstone report, international civil society’s tolerance of Israel’s impunity and war crimes has grown very thin.

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Georgia Straight by Yves Engler June 2010.

Photo Palestinians waited at a fence for food to be distributed near the rubble of their destroyed homes in eastern Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The area was heavily damaged during the 22-day Israeli bombing during the winter in 2008/2009.

Early Monday (May 31) on the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, at least nine people were killed and dozens more wounded when Israeli soldiers raided a flotilla of ships carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian supplies and more than 600 activists to the Gaza Strip. The activists were trying to break Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza, which has reduced food and medicine entering the tiny coastal territory to a fraction of what is needed.

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guardian.co.uk Tuesday 1 June 2010 by Dorian Jones in Istanbul and Helena Smith.

Photo Protests in Istanbul against Israeli military raid on Gaza freedom flotilla.

Survivors of the Israeli assault on a flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza returned to Greece and Turkey today, giving the first eyewitness accounts of the raid in which at least 10 people died.

Arriving at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport with her one-year-old baby, Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin said Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara, which was the scene of the worst clashes and all the fatalities. Israeli officials have said that the use of armed force began when its boarding party was attacked.

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COSATU Press Statement. June 2010

Photo Larry Towell In Gaza Palestinians struggle to live under Israeli siege.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is outraged at the murder by Israeli commandos’ of at least twenty people – and injuries to a further 60 – as a result of their armed attack on a convoy of ships carrying aid to the people of Gaza last night, 30 May 2010.

COSATU sends its condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives and calls upon the people of the world to condemn this act of Israeli state-sponsored piracy.

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1 June 2010 Amnesty International

Photo Palestinian home destroyed by Israeli missile strike.

Israel’s military blockade of Gaza has left more than 1.4 million Palestinian men, women and children trapped in the Gaza Strip, an area of land just 40 kilometres long and 9.5 kilometres wide.

Mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages have left four in five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. As a form of collective punishment, Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law.

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by Robert Fisk Al Jazeera May 2010

Photo: ActiveStills Palestinians walking along the hills of historic Palestine.

Power and the media are not just about cosy relationships between journalists and political leaders, between editors and presidents. They are not just about the parasitic-osmotic relationship between supposedly honourable reporters and the nexus of power that runs between White House and state department and Pentagon, between Downing Street and the foreign office and the ministry of defence. In the western context, power and the media is about words – and the use of words.

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