09) A CANADIAN'S SOLIDARITY JOURNEY TO GAZA

Victoria activist and People's Voice supporter Kevin Neish recently returned to Gaza, to document the illegal Israeli blockade of Palestinian territory. Here are photos and excerpts from his blog reports on the trip. To find the full account of Kevin's solidarity journey, go to http://kevinneish.wordpress.com/

"For heaven's sake, why are you going back on another flotilla to Gaza?!

            I've heard this comment/question repeatedly since I returned from an Israeli prison after the attack on my ship, the Mavi Marmara, in May 2010. In a nutshell, I'm returning because the illegal blockade of Gaza is still in place. The job is not done.

            I gotta go back or I couldn't live with myself. And it's all my mom and dad's fault. As a little kid, I remember my mother and father repeatedly standing up for just causes. They would stand, almost alone in the 1960s, for Cuba, unions and peace, and against the Vietnam war, nuclear bombs, apartheid South Africa, fascist Spain and book‑burning McCarthyites here in Victoria. They risked financial loss, political and social banishment and physical assaults. And in the end, they usually, eventually, were proven right.

            When I was on the Mavi that night, I thought about them a lot: while watching fellow aid workers be shot, bleed, and die all around me, while having Israeli guns put to my head, while watching others get beaten and while everyone was deprived of human dignity and basic rights for three days.

            I don't remember being scared, I remember being outraged, all the more so when I returned to Canada, to hear Israeli scripted questions from the main stream media. It was a horrific three days, even though I expected that my Canadian passport and white skin would likely get me home safe. All I could think about, was that the Palestinians have gone through all this, and much, much worse, for years and years on end.

            Once you know something, "taken the red pill" (to give that Matrix movie reference), you can't go back. You can't "take the blue pill" and ignore what you've seen and walk away, at least I can't. Sometimes, I feel that I'd give anything to take a blue pill and move into blissful ignorance, just for a while, but this isn't a movie, it can't and shouldn't happen...

            The flotilla against the blockade of Gaza has been deemed illegal by Mr. Harper and we are being sued by Canadian Zionists to try to bankrupt and stop us, but we are doing the right thing. Someone has to do something to make it end, and 40 or so Canadians aboard the Tahrir will try to do the right thing, with a ship full of medicines, witnesses and hope, regardless of Mr. Harper and his Zionist supporters. Hopefully, some Canadians feel the same way and will support us and be a part of our effort. Contact your MP and the media and tell them how you feel. Demand justice. Do the right thing.

            To keep track of the Canadian Boat to Gaza or make a donation, please visit Tahrir.ca.

 

February 23

            Hanna Kawas, from Vancouver's Voice of Palestine on‑line radio show, interviewed me this morning as I sat at the base of the Mavi Marmara memorial in Gaza City harbour. Moments into the interview I looked up and saw in the distance an Israeli warship circling Palestinian fishboats who were just a few miles off shore, well within the new ceasefire agreed 6 mile limit. For the rest of the interview I added a running commentary on the plight of these harassed Palestinian fish boats, until they eventually gave up and sailed back towards port.

            Last week a very similar incident occurred to Mohammed and Mehmed Sadella while only one and a half miles from shore, off Sudania, Gaza. Their ship was machine gunned and then they were forced to strip and swim to the Israeli ship and kidnapped to Ashdod. There they were shackled, hooded, terrorized and finally interrogated to gather information about their friends, family and their neighbourhood, to the point of being forced to identify theirs' and others homes from high resolution satellite photos. It sounds like the old "we know where you live" routine from Hollywood Mafia movies, right down to the IDF offer of "we'll help you if you help us". So it would seem the whole purpose of the IDF capturing 45 Palestinian fishboats, was to gather military intelligence and to terrorize the fishers into becoming collaborators. The Palestinians go fishing for food while the Israelis go fishing for them.

            So the end result is Mohammed and Mehmed have lost their boat, motor, nets and 50 kgs of fish all worth over $7000 and they and 31 members of their extended families have lost all their income. I asked Mohammed how long it will take them to earn that money back. He replied never, as that was the only boat they owned. When my Dad and uncle commercial fished, they had to worry about the weather and uncharted rocks, not bullets and kidnappers.

 

February 24

            Here are a few random photos of Gazan civic works... how they keep things functioning with very little to work with.

            The drinking water that comes out of all Gazan water taps is as salty as sea water. Gaza's ground water aquifer was once replenished from the Hebron hills in the West Bank. But I'm told that Israeli farm water wells have now cut off and hijacked this water, allowing sea water to infiltrate the Gaza aquifer. So Gazan tap water is only "good" for washing and bathing and that is only because there is no other choice. Don't expect any suds from this water, no matter how much soap you use! Drinking water is produced by the government, via a reverse osmosis plant and trucked to thousands of locally made stainless steel tanks, and sold for one shekel (25 cents CAN.) for 20 liters. Yes, due to Israels' blockade, and so control of the economy, Gazans' are forced to use Israeli shekels, whether they like it or not.

            Even with the limited electricity supplies, 8 to 12 hours a day, Gaza City is planning for better days ahead and is now installing street lights. And the horse cart is a necessary and efficient delivery and pick up system all over Gaza, from people, to produce, to building materials and everything in between. And in the background is more construction to replace the destruction from 2008/09 and last November. I witnessed some construction materials coming across the Egyptian border, but I'm told the vast majority of it still has to come through the very expensive, and dangerous, tunnels from Egypt.

            Caterpillar is being boycotted in the "West", due to their supplying armoured bulldozers to the IDF, but the Gazan's have to use what they have as best they can, a la the photo above. Even if you wanted to, you can't smuggle a replacement Komatsu dozer through a Rafah tunnel. Road construction is a little different in sandy Gaza. Once the loose sandy ground has been prepared and compacted by heavy equipment, locally made concrete paving stones are laid. From my own experience with asphalt pavement breaking apart on the sandy soil in Port Renfrew B.C., paving stones are an excellent idea. Much less oil is used, it takes lower technology, it's labour intensive, there's no heavy equipment needed after the initial prep, they're reusable, road repairs are easy and locally done, accessing water and sewer mains is simple and inexpensive and the "cobble" roads look beautiful.

 

February 26

            I spent the morning in a field of peas in Beit Hanoun, Northern Gaza, 500 meters from the Israeli border. Before the November ceasefire agreement this was a shoot to kill area, but now the Palestinians are trying to reclaim and farm this land. Happily everything was peaceful and the international peacekeepers joined in picking peas. I've been told that the rocket just fired from Gaza into Israel, by a Fatah related group, has garnered a lot of media. I only wish the 820 ceasefire breaking incidents of shootings, deaths, hijackings and kidnappings of Palestinians by the IDF, had made similar headlines in the "West". If so, there likely wouldn't be any retaliatory Fatah rocket attacks.

 

February 28

            The average age in Gaza is 17. After the destruction of numerous UN schools in the 2008/09 attacks, all the schools and kids centers in Gaza are running double shifts. I visited a kids community activity center in Beit Hanoun and here are some photos and thoughts about them.

            Kids look the same anywhere in the world. But these kids have grown up fast in a war zone. Like any kid they are proud to show off their "fill in the blanks" drawings.

            But this center is especially for kids suffering from the effects of the Israeli attacks. They are asked to paint what ever they want and it all looks so normal, until you look close. Tanks, ambulances, stick people spewing blood, missiles falling on houses, blob people with guns in their hands, rockets on launchers. And yet more and more horrible memories. It all comes pouring out of these smiling little souls, when a brush is put in their hands and there are no preset lines to paint inside of.

            But after 65 years of these attacks their society and these kids still appear strong and defiant. I believe the Arabic word is "sumud"... steadfast.

 

March 3

            Well I finally got out onto the salt chuck today as part of a 55 boat protest flotilla of Gazan fishers...

            After a year of harassment, shootings, kidnappings, torture and 36 boat hijackings by the IDF, the Gazan fishers decide to protest en masse, heading out of Gaza Port north to the Israeli border.

            Even these smaller craft are worth upwards of $7000 CAN, so when the Israelis steal them, it destroys the livelihood and future for three or more families, and Gazans get less of this much needed food production. The Israelis always attempt to convince the captured fishers to become collaborators, which appears to be the whole purpose of these kidnappings and boat thefts.

            Of particular interest to me, being from a fisher family, was the presence of a female fisher skipper, Madleen Kolab. It seems her father became too crippled to handle the boat, so she stepped into his shoes and into a very male dominated trade, like the B.C. industry several decades ago. Pull starting a 40 horsepower outboard is no easy task for anyone but she obviously knows what she's doing. The Arab media took great interest in her, which seemed to amuse her. Madleen deftly mends nets with a net needle exactly as my father once did, except she uses her hands and her feet! She kindly offered to take me out for a day of fishing, an offer which I very much hope to take her up on. In so many ways Palestinian women are at the forefront of their nation's struggle for freedom. Something you don't see or hear about in our Western media.

 

March 6

            I toured the northern border buffer zone yesterday and took a few photos.

            What was a desert like waste land in November, the Palestinians have transformed into productive land. Before the November ceasefire allowed the farmers back onto this land, all the areas in these photos was within the "shoot to kill" buffer zone. The IDF are still shooting farmers in spite of the supposed ceasefire, but the farmers are willing to take the risk to till their soil.

            The Palestinians are making the desert bloom again. You'll notice that are few buildings or infrastructure, as that was all repeatedly bulldozed since the 2008/09 assault. The farmers are making the bare minimum investments of just mini-green houses and irrigation pipes, as the IDF is still destroying these farms, but even so the production was amazing.

            Strawberries, onions and corn, altogether in one field. The Palestinians are making the best and fastest use of the land with multiple plantings using the same little greenhouses and irrigation pipes. Crops of potatoes, right up to the desert border area, with an Israeli base just over the hill and the smoke stacks of Ashklon Israel in the near distance. The Palestinian sheep don't know the politics involved as they now blissfully graze right up to the Israelis' border wall. The Israeli border looks clearly defined but there are multiple walls, fences and perimeter roads which all eat into Palestinian farm land. An automated machine gun tower, remotely controlled from Tel Aviv, looms over the Gazans' fields. The danger for the farmers is clear and present all the time, night and day.

 

March 14

            Well after 20 hours in the air I'm back home in Victoria and dealing with the jet lag and the culture shock. Less friendly people here and I'm not constantly scanning the skies for F18s and drones. The trip went very well, and I made some very good connections for future work and projects, As such I expect I'll be returning to Gaza some time soon. Later this year hopefully, depending on the situation in Egypt.

(The above article is from the April 1-15, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)