only a month ago and may david kernell war participated before it was assaulted by israeli commandos ninety minute ariens were murdered in international waters the palestinians have suffered david i understand that you are wrote a letter to president barack obama recently before going on your last live tele and in that letter you put a question to him why are these atrocities east since sixty seven or even before then but certainly since sixty seven there's been no administration united states administration that has under the needs of the palestinians and instead they have  been again and again subservient to the apac the lobby the israeli lobby which is so strong over the years we have allowed the israelis to act with impunity regardless of what they did whether they acted against the united nations resolutions which were trying to prohibit future courses of action such as the settlements or take them to task for atrocities as you describe where fourteen hundred palestinians were killed in the gaza strip totally against fourteen individual light so lopsided now you participated in the flotilla and you were actually on the mavi marmara that was boarded by israeli commandos and had all the bloodshed where you were prompted before leaving home to write this letter and it tells me that you suspected there might be some violence wellies yes that's that's it was always a possibility the first the first time i went which was in two thousand and eight we went into all over fishing boats sixty foot fishing boats they could do top not top speed was six knots and we were threatened with alter to violence by the israelis as we approach gaza and they threaten to blow it out of the water one thing or another we just we determined were going to go on and take our chances all our radio communication was smothered and so we didn't know what they were going to do when the light came up in the morning they announced in our radio reception return they announced they were going to allow brought a limited supplies because we simply were not large enough to carry real meaningful cargo but i think we brought hope and we brought the the understanding that the world has not forgotten the people  and that was the biggest message the biggest cargo that we could possibly and you think that's the threat that israel is really defending against i think they are defending in terms of gaza i think that they have they have multiple deposit was discovered in the waters under the waters that were awarded to gaza by the ice flow accord which allowed them to go out twenty miles for fishing for any sort of economic development basically that was their water supply that gazans had claimed or anything twenty miles out from their shore that's correct and arafat was in power and still alive at that time he came out and lit a flume of natural gas negotiations started with the egyptians putting a pipeline from there into egypt schroen came in in two thousand and said i would never buy any product from the from the palestinians and so what happened in two thousand and has has become more and more stringent the israelis have forbidden any of the fishing boats to go out beyond six miles now three miles an hour less than three miles which means that they they can't fish they can't fish and they can't maintain or demonstrate control of their natural resources in that in that area there you think the israelis are really after just systematically eliminating economics in gaza oh i think that that's that's very true they now say it's because hamas is a terrorist organization and they're trying to stifle them economically as a result of that this was well before before hamas appeared on the scene and sort of before the election that put them in power but i think that their economic throttling is demonstrated  time and again whether it's in not allowing the gazans to export any goods anything that might compete with their own products with their own interests and again and again we see right right now a parallel to that a huge deposit larger than the one that was found in gaza that was discovered last year of the coast of lebanon and now just in the recent days the israelis say it belongs to  lebanese say no no it belongs to us and it's with these deposits they spread out horizontally for some distance so they most both may be right but the israelis are already taking the position that you'll have to fight just to get that natural gas your little children running around with red hair because of the amount attrition and so on wrecks there what exactly motivated you to put yourself on this front line where you have to write a letter that in case you don't come back well i've felt ever since the sixty seven war and the and the absorption of so much of the palestinian land by israel that there was a great injustice being being supported by our government do you think there's a rot or well i don't think they deal with legitimize they they use the argument that guns have been smuggled in from the sea which on a couple of occasions they were but you have a very very limited  you know access a utilization of the that card or for bringing in armaments you have an historic historically significant industry of fishing which brought welfare and also brought brought food and much needed food to gaza so the excuse and always they will find an excuse to justify gross injustice do you think that tragedy despite the the fact that the goods did not get into gaza was to bring the world's attention to the conditions in gaza and the way that israel is prepared to to stop any violation of rules that they make up and why why do you think there were murders had to be on board they had to sequester their selected victims and then they basically just cold blooded we executed them well there was i talked to one person who was up there and  shaken when i finally caught up with him in jail and he said you know i held this man's brains in my hand and it was just totally gratuitous totally unnecessary as in your letter to obama it will go unpunished and it has so far i going on punish and of course this the charade of having an internal investigation of the whole operation is one more absurdity and one more way of covering up just as they covered up with the ghost on ghost when i mean who is a reputation and yet he has the audacity to say let us get at the truth because the truth is not what they're all about we were lied to from the moment i got off that boat until the moment i got on a plane is them books there's no reason to believe that israel conduct an impartial investigation of its own i think i think lying mendacity has become such a second nature to their culture their leadership certainly aren't explained in the sense of otherness that if we don't who speak out against the government and against government policy because on our earlier flu tila's about a third of the passengers were jewish some were israeli citizens others were not  israeli citizen and so yeah that's a whole different category i mean you don't but you know that the end result at least tentatively is that the scenes has been relaxed into gaza from one hundred  twelve i don't i think they're learning and supposedly four hundred again israel can always play the defense card and change that in when they you know the press is off of this issue and they'll probably go back to the same way they've always been are you any anything in by sea they've made it very clear they would allow things in over over land but no it's not they see like they make those over land convoys very difficult as well they did the the one last december they they gave them a very hard time really there is no solution these are the palestinians there's no one state there's no two state possible there's just get out go to lebanon go to syria go to egypt well i'm afraid that it seems like a like a tempting reality it's becoming the two state solution i think is what i i think i feel is the most realistic lasting solution that that is available there is even among the palestinians there's misgivings about that the other the one state solution is a very slow process and with demographics are really working for the palestinians because their population would we would see a jewish st it would not be a jewish state anymore and the and the thinking jews are very aware and very concerned about that i talked to an israeli just a couple of days ago who called me because he had read about my my happening my my doings and we talked he was as third generation sabra and and we talked and i asked him at the end of this conversation which went on for three hours i said do you see any hope and he had not voted for netanyahu and so he said i don't i really don't see any hope is that beyond that you know how are is that because of that netanyahu has done everything too well to keep first of all is a priority is to keep his his coalition together at any cost which is the reason i really didn't think this was going to they were going to attack because he was scheduled to come and visit with obama on the day of the attack and i thought you know even he can't be that insensitive but apparently the concern about splitting  books a couple of issues back where they spoke about a poll a very intensive poll in the colleges where they were interviewing young jews here in america and the topic of israel never even came up unless the were prompted to talk about it their disillusionment there their concern with other other issues was paramount israel was not high on their radar compared with their fathers and their father's father so i think there is a groundswell of well apathy if you will but i think just disinterest or disenchantment with with with israel among the younger generation and again it may be a slow and low process slow process to to bring about that disenchantment and transfer it into a political statement or political move where we they would agree to you know to withdrawing our support but when you when you hear terms like no daylight between the united states and israel and we're joined at the hip how do you react i mean does that kind of you were addressing that just a second ago well i i would agree with general petraeus statement of a couple  back when he said that that our alliance with them this this fact that there has been no no daylight between us is causing us the the hearts and minds of the people that we're trying to win over in in afghanistan particularly where throughout the entire muslim world we have the one issue that unites all of islam all of these lama people are is the issue of  palestine and they can fight the sunni can fight the shiite the various factions were always at each other's throats but you say palestine and they all come together and so i think we've got to be aware of this and what it's seven when president johnson ignored the strike on the u s s liberty that was so heinous by the israelis never never any sanctions or punishment for that act but i think some people speculate it was an attempt to blame it on the  bring america into that sixty seven war in cyprus it was on the anniversary of the attack and we put rose petals we name each of the people who were killed and we dropped a rose into the waters of cyprus in the harbor before we left so you know the parallel is is very apt and do you think that christian guilt has a big role to play in this relationship or this being blind towards just how heinous the acts are of the israelis i think the i think the the the holocaust which was a dreadful terrible thing had been has been played like a you know whenever there any any doubt of our wavering policy that's immediately brought out we're not going to suffer through this again and again and i think it's becoming an institution the holocaust as dreadful as it was it's it's played for it's political advantage it's political sympathy and we seem to get a lot of those shows on the holocaust or and frank whatever of israel's having a big problem exactly and it's just usually played like a fiddle and i think but i think people are finally getting tired of other and frank story i mean as you were there's a wonderful story was she's a you know a bright young woman and so on but it again it's just her memory is corrupted by this sort of misuse of of her memory and i understand too that there are many many palestinian and franks that are unsung and by the way it was written by her father i think the scholars now agree that the end frank diary was written i have read it yes and it was subsequently written after that right so there is some industry going on there i do think that economics is playing  again and you have among the most conservative the most vigorous proponents of policy or the the extreme right the extreme orthodox community and they are the most you know demanding of any faction they are not it's not limited to them but they certainly are you know outspoken in deed and in in their political power the religious right of course is to is incredibly supportive the evangelicals are very supportive of israel for biblical reasons driven by a different kind of prophecy that is wholesome but israel is taking a lot of steps in the wrong direction to make that prophecy that armageddon happen and that brings me to a final question if you look ahead and you look at the future does this iran concern you yes it concerns me the  current administration it concerns me but i think to allow israel to to bomb or destroy them i think would be a disaster i think turkey has taken a very interesting position now in terms not only of iran but of the entire middle east and they have abandoned israel as their great ally which they were they were the strongest that's right that's a real cost for his and they have decided it's too costly and allied to have and they could be much more effective much more widespread in their influence turkey as we go throughout the world of islam by abandoning and doing just what they did in sponsoring  the last flotilla we should take a lesson from them and and instead of giving them three billion dollars a year in armaments and in it were already a lot more here it's probably a lot higher well the concessions we make to anybody that the don't age to an israeli charity is is is unique that they have provisions in our tax law which are unique only to israeli citizens it's really ironic here is that the sanctions in iran that are you know sponsored and written invaded anybody well i think i think gradually the the united states is coming to what the people over here are coming to to appreciate those inequities since i came back people whom i have haven't seen or barely knew come up on the street you know i'm so glad you you did this you know we're so proud of you and so on i mean total strangers and so there is a widespread if silent support used to great effect in south africa in bringing down apartheid and i think it can be of great effect here hit him in the pocketbook would you have them join any particular group well the the two groups that are most active here in the states are the free gaza movement which was the original one and then an offshoot of the free palestine movement and so i would urge them to look at their their websites their just look up free  commentators about for the new york times your you're an inspiration you're a moral compass and you were a front line activists i hope the people watching will take that inspiration and will search their own moral compass and will get involved because until this issue is americanised and enough people turn out and even their target churches maybe it we're going to zation we're just going to have more bloodshed in the middle middle east it's been going on for more than