welcome to moral politics i'm your host bill ford all people of conscious must oppose israel's genocide of the palestinians sadly few ever stand up for moral principles especially human rights the freedom sailors of the free gaza movement expose israel's sadistic occupation dr bill dance for freedom sailor himself joins me we discuss the harrowing tales of heroism and the newly released book freedom sailors it's my pleasure to welcome returning us to more politics dr buildings welcome good to be here again bill thanks were you motivated by principle when you set sail as a freedom sailor as a child i said the problem pledge of allegiance and the most important lin e is liberty and justice for all yet our a lot of our alliance with israel seems to go against that principle in that we have israel that's a privileged country and palestinians who are locked up in this cage called human rights activists for palestine that had been involved in exposing the atrocities that were going on in lebanon and it was feared that an impending attack of gaza was next i remember watching that on t v and it actually is what i saw is the reason for my being involved and palestinian rights but we were driven by idealism we were driven by the need to do something rather than just watch the oppression of the palestinian people and remain in despair but you were driven by idealism but weren't you concerned about we stage the boats from greece and the one thing about greece is it has thousands upon thousands of islands and coves and harbors and ships and boats and so it was and we had been the boats were kept in two separate harbors under their original greek names and it was a needed no effort it was done clandestinely and this is because you really did constantly you know having frog month check the bottom of your boat and you had to try to forego something before it became a disaster do you think the mossad actually did shatter you at any time over several times they were by the you know an initially the boats when they were in the dry dock and being developed one was in one harbor called spezza harbor south of our friends and the other one was in a harbor called eritrea north of athens and nobody except for those directly involved with the boats knew where the boats were that's right from seventeen different countries around the world and did you have any idea what you were encountering gunboats an ocean or seeing we knew what the risks were we knew that israel has the fourth largest military in the world and which can concludes an advance navy with high speed war ships and submarines and air surveillance and all kinds of things potential mines at sea there were all kinds of things that we knew that we might encounter and again we relied on inner man national media coverage as our only defense did the electronically jam any communications we had put thousands of dollars into sophisticated real time internet broadcasting because we felt our only defense would be that if they attacked us at sea we could we can broadcast the attack on the international airwaves but they beat us in that tennis match when we wound up seventy miles off the shore of israel in international waters our entire communication systems was jammed and this was in the middle of the night in stormy seas we had a member of the greek parliament aboard our ship the liberty that there are pro palestinian among the majority of the greek and cypriot people that is true the governments however are somewhat different and they're under pressure from international finance for example a couple of years later three years later when we attempted freedom flotilla two the greek government came under tremendous pressure from the americans and the israeli government to stop the departure of our boat from greece and in effect israel export it or outsourced their suppression of maritime law and basically i know in the book you describe these boats rigidity and that there were over overcapacity i think you do have people on board and fan belt belts were giving out in all kinds of just issues the captain and first mate simultaneously coming you know and  gaza i was on board the liberty so i didn't witness that episode myself but grettir berlin who is my coeditor and author several several of the pieces describes that and that remains a mystery to this day they became sick they were they were you know veteran seamen and so they've been at sea a lot so why they became sick all of a sudden was a bit of a mystery actually attribute that to the mossad put mission is not removed sure and there's lots of episodes one of our epstein who who's eighty four years old she's the front comes from a family where all of her members family members were exterminated by the nazis or she was one of our activists and she intended to s with and she had an event a couple days before we left and we have the same suspicion had she been poisoned or she recovered but but as a result of that episode she was not able to sail with us and but but all the time  wondering when bad things happened mysteriously who's behind it and the problem about espionage is you can never be under pressure or one hundred percent sure about anything but i want to go back to the motivation we touched on it slightly about you know the not really just more prevalent at this time again the sailing took place august two thousand and eight but i think a lot of people were impacted by the just the  place in two thousand and six and lebanon and there was a subsequent shelling of picnickers on the palestinian beach which i know also moved me quite a bit but what other ratio that is dead palestinians to dead israelis has been about one hundred to one but the chief thing that motivated us is that gaza is under siege that around two thousand  seven the israeli government declared the entire gaza strip as a hostile an idiot and they really there's always been a siege to some degree but then they really increase the siege they limited what was able to be brought in and out of g elections that were monitored internationally in two thousand and six two thousand and seven and of course so now we're punishing the palestinians for practicing democracy so this is this is leading to the outrage among the group can go on foot in people under siege has always been an outrage my father flew in the berlin airlift in one nine hundred forty nine when the soviet union tried to block off for a limb from the rest of the world and so we have the g sea left which unfortunately didn't have the budget of the berlin airlift so we couldn't maintain it but still the principle is the same that people should not be under siege throughout the history of the mediterranean that goes back  seafarers from all the area is of the mediterranean came and go and and went and prospered through international commerce and today that's true except for gaza which has been around for seven thousand years is locked  from the world that isn't our range and the and the fact that most americans are barely aware of it we needed to raise awareness of this fact so just for context this this voyage this first voyage of the free gaza movement that set everything in the motion seven and since that time no boats had been able to come or go into gaza for forty one years straight and certainly after the gas discoveries in one thousand nine hundred ninety had interest  hundred sixty seven there was a u s naval ship called the u s s liberty that was deliberately attacked by israeli forces thirty four american sailors were killed and about one hundred seventy one american sailors several efforts of where americans have been attacked and the the main american public is train kept in the dark other have parker says well for some two thousand and five the israelis pulled about eight thousand settlers off for forty percent of the land in the gaza strip and then they claimed that gaza was free well gaza was not free land access to the world was blocked see access to the world was block gaza harbor by permission of the gaza thora days and no one else when you arrived in gaza harbor the day after and barking what was your cargo when you have one and a half million people and you have two small fishing boats your cargo is limited in so but we did bring a few tangible benefits we brought in about one hundred hearing aids for hearing impaired children at the at fallujah society and we delivered those who brought  kinds of educated people who are educated all around the world but what they don't have is their freedom what they don't have is commerce and when you talk to people from gaza who are eighty percent a dependent this point is that they don't want charity as much as they want their freedom so the they can guide their own destiny you know you you have you mention the crumbling medical infrastructure of gaza and that's directly related to an unnecessary deaths and since this therapeutic agents that are limited such that colleges have to choose between giving one patient a full course of therapy versus giving several patients a partial course of therapy not related to israel's security in any way whatsoever is to say to someone well it does seem to be a little excessively cool and it defies explanation from a purely security standpoint but what i would point out is that israel always uses security as their excuse and their security seems to always come at the expense of palestinian and other people security for example in gaza there is agricultural land believe it or not it's one of the most densely populated places on the planet but on the ripped up and that was all in there's been a three hundred meter security zone that's been expanded into gaza supposedly for israeli security but again it interferes with palestinians ability to be self reliant you know doesn't sound like it has anything to do with israeli security sounds a lot like say to them when i was mentioned in the boat can use the excuse it is true that a few kasam bottle rockets have been fired out of these these orchards that's probably true but again israel security comes at massive you totally interfere with the palestinians six i'm for security of all people not just one people and i don't know how when israel security comes the expense of palestinian security how does that lead to a better future it will those who saw the rockets to harm very few people it's the old are an eyelash dad today it's been about thirteen people in the last twelve friend malnutrition there it's not like they're not getting food they're getting low quantity low quality food they're not seeing vegetables they're not getting a good protein and of course one of the successes of free gaza movement and the subsequent flotilla is that it has increased the president the pressure on israeli authorities to loosen up what kind of foods stuffs are all allowed into gaza but for many years there is malnutrition there's protein deficienc there's kids who have growth growth stunting who are losing their secondary teeth whose cognitive abilities will probably be permanently impaired because during the their growth years they have not been able to sufficient nutrition you also commented that it's like ten to a room in gaza the density is unbelievable it is that land where the arab just used to disappear certainly well certainly be be warehouse my colleague jeff howe who's israeli and has been was on the boats with us describes it as the warehousing of a population but there are various terms banty stan concentration camps to put it in perspective i did i'd worked out the numbers you'd have to take mexico city's population double plop it into king county and it still wouldn't work it would only then just approximate the density book she she describes a british prison where inmates are guaranteed three square meals a day that they have mental health counseling that they have visits from relatives and that they also know when their sentences up and that they committed a crime of the human being they had due process and of course the people in gaza have none of that  gaza as they've they've described is the world large the world's largest prison but if you look at definitions for concentration camp which were initially coined to describe the bantu stands in south africa gaza fits the definition of a concentration camp maybe not the death camps of the nazis where people were systematically exterminated but the fact remains and every time israel attacks gaza it's like killing fish in a barrel  it's massacres occur with large numbers of civilian deaths because people have nowhere to run families being torn apart and how tragic it is people that are only a few kilometers apart are separated basically and it doesn't sound like that's security sadism there's a story of a young lady who was a gazan who is married to a west bank palestinian and she went through a checkpoint in the west bank one day and they saw that she was born in gaza and they deported her to gaza and she hasn't seen her husband or her two children in in seventeen months at the time that we interviewed her there's all kinds of broken families like that this is a place were arabs can disappear to so  and this stupid conflict with its wall siege and violence is bad for everybody don't israelis see that people would ask me the answer unfortunately is no to be honest we israeli jews are the problem the palestinians long ago accepted our existence in this country as a people and are willing to accept any solution that is asked who want exclusivity over the land of israel it is us who cannot conceive of a single country who cannot accept the national presence of palestinians we talk about arabs in our country and who have eliminated our settlements even the possibility of a two state solution in which we take eighty percent of the land and that's all described in your newly released book freedom sailors who was a catholic nun and daughter of a u s admiral i'm a son of a u s air force colonel and a family doctor in a rural town in washington state we have civil engineers attorneys teachers electricians journalists postal workers information technology experts experience greek mariners a chemist member of the greek parliament amongst our passengers and we have yes people who have years of experience in nonviolent direct action some of us have been to g before but no most had not some of volunteered for the interstate national solidarity movement some of been arrested and deported by israel for being human rights activists some of been denied entry into israel not because we are violent but because we are nonviolent which is even more threatening to the israeli occupiers who want to paint the entire palestinian resistance movement as a bunch of violent terrorists yep or for a bunch of left wing radicals we certainly have our share of talented people so you're a good cross section of society in the anybody listening to the show who read your book know that there is some action that they can take and that brings us to basically do conclusion what does your book history is not cowardly governments with their loyalty to whoever has the strongest military history is made by ordinary people everyday people with a family at home and a regular job with current committed to peace as a great ideal to the call to action ordinary people like ourselves not to hand over your lives to whatever property or is in charge of this time around but to take responsibility for the revolution first at the in a revolution to give love to give empathy is this that will change the world we have shown that peace is not an impossible utopia perhaps we have shown that sometimes utopia can be possible believe this stand firm against intimidation fear and despair and simply remain human and you said that he was murdered in gaza yeah that happened unfortunately in april two thousand and eleven the dorio stayed in gaza after our initial voyage  he was out at sea with some fisherman when the israelis seize that ship and deported him victorio infiltrated back into gaza with the subsequent ship and he was in and out of there but he unfortunately was killed in gaza in april and the people who killed him it's remains mysterious they were his whole point is that the siege will only end if it's challenged and we will keep on challenging we're not done just helper who is well known to fact they don't want to saw the report type problem we're living too well if they just ignore it if arabs can just be disappeared to gaza them all is fine there needs to be pressure from outside for people to come to terms with with what they have created do we need to basically address jews of conscience say refuse to be enemies absolutely refuse to be enemies and and again one of the successes of this country with separation of religion and state may be the holy land should be a place where all people whether they're christian muslim jew agnostic or whatever should have equal rights so it's ordinary people doing extraordinary things  and taking on the threats and not being deterred by israeli threats and israel after all is the only occupying power so there's little doubt who needs to be opposed but it raises the question to american stated foreign policy is in opposition to the objectives of the free gaza movement how do we square that unfortunately yes big but again i think that are the principles for which we say we stand for as americans are being systematically undermined we say we're for democracy but when the palestinians elect their own government that isn't the one we want we tried to put them under siege in desperation worse we say we're from for freedom of press but there are efforts all the time to undermine anyone who has the courage to cross to question the policy of american israeli government both parties democratic or republican woefully silent when it comes to the treatment of the palestinian people because most politicians fear that they can't criticize israel for fear of having campaign funders from the pro israeli lobby undermine their efforts to get reelected but that's a really ominous development that is becoming more and more clear in this country and i think it has more people become i have to this move more people willing to stand up for basic human rights the w moral which is why this show is done and i think we might might be able to have an american national policy not an israeli national policy carried out by america not buildings i want to thank you again for another prince on moral politics a very insightful show thank you for recounting your experiences and those of others in the the for the freedom voyages of the freedom sailors th