Last weekend I travelled to Derry a town in Ireland with a history of conflict, violence, colonisation and reconciliation.
Derry has a walled 'city' in the centre but is much bigger now although it feels like a town and can be walked around easily (the place is a city technically as it has a cathedral). The fortifications were built by settlers from England and Scotland in the early 17th century in order to defend themselves against the indigenous population. There is much history there as can be researched at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry,_Ireland so I won't go into it here. However there are parallels with Israel-Palestine conflict in the struggles in Derry and people look to the peace process in Ireland and progress for clues as to solving conflicts. In Derry here was the Anglo-Irish war or War of Independence between 1919 and 1921 where there was much sectarian violence before partition happened in 1921 and Ireland was divided into North and South.
In the sixties the Catholic community began a civil rights movement in order to address discrimination against the Catholic community and members of the Bogside community and demonstrations were violently attacked by Royal Ulster Constabulary, and ultimately by British Forces placed there, which resulted in the Bloody Sunday killings of 13 civilian demonstrators in 1972. Just last month the final verdict came out into that incident finding the actions of the military to have been unlawful and the quote 'unjustified and unjustifiable' used by David Cameron.
The killing of civilians in a demonstration by military forces is precisely what happened with the Freedom Flotilla. We hope it does not take 38 to get justice for the Mavi Marmara.
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Tuesday, 13 July 2010
Responding to Freda Keet Israeli broadcaster
this is copied from Israel Defender, my response below:
By radio journalist Freda Keet, who responded to a letter by the father of one of the Gaza flotilla participants, published in the Jerusalem Post
To read the letter by Lt Col Lort-Philips go:
http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id286.html
The Editor,
Jerusalem Post
Dear Sir,
In his letter to the Jerusalem Post, with its spirited defence of his daughter Alexandra, a member of the recent so-called “aid flotilla” to Gaza, Lt Col Lort-Philips, describes her as a woman of “maturity, “compassion”, and resolve”.
May I, with all due respect, through your column and with the kind help of the Lt Col, address to her the following few questions.
1) Has she ever organized, helped or encouraged any form of aid-convoy/flotilla to, for example, the Eastern Congo, where the agony of its people is beyond words. Where the rape of women is constant and brutal, and tens of thousands of women are left mentally and physically torn apart? Children live in terror and any aid is either sporadic or non-existent? True it is a dangerous place to go to, but surely for a young woman and her co-workers of such deep “compassion” and “resolve” this should not be a problem.
2) The same for Darfur where the violence and deprivation have been going on now for years with the full knowledge of the world and its compassionate “aid warriors” When the men are asked why they don’t go out of the relative safety of the camps themselves to collect the firewood instead of sending the women ( a ludicrous idea in view of the general attitude to “men’s work” and the place of women in African society ), the men reply: “If we go out we are killed, if the women go out they are only raped”!
3) On the border between Somalia and Kenya is one of the largest refugee camps in the world, well over 300 thousand people, desperate refugees who have fled the savagery of Somalia, living in total isolation squalor and deprivation. There is little or no aid for them, and they are the abandoned, the “Le Miserables” of the world, with no hope and just a few brave aid workers trying fruitlessly and helplessly to offer support.
Could any of the Gaza/ Flotilla aid-workers even find these countries on the map??
And then contrast this with the problems of Gaza. Yes, life is difficult and yes they live under siege and with a repressive Hamas regime, and yes there are shortages and frustrations. But the population of Gaza receives, per capita, more international aid than any other group on earth. They inspire more love devotion and compassion, (that word again!) than any other community. The eyes of the whole world focus protectively upon them, and Gaza has become the darling of the Western world and its favourite cause and passionate rallying cry.
Israel sends through to Gaza regular aid convoys of food and medicine. The UN is a constant presence, as is the Palestinian aid organisation UNWRA and a multiplicity of other international support groups are also present providing aid and help. And still, around the world the protest marches are organised for the “starving” in Gaza. And aid flotillas line up to come to the rescue.
May I finally ask the following questions, addressed to all these “keepers of the world’s conscience”
1) Do you actually have some kind of point system to grade suffering and worthiness for aid convoys/flotillas? If so what is it based upon?
2) Does Africa appear on this list in any place at all, even at the very bottom? Because just as your heart seems to go out to the Gazans so does mine, painfully and passionately go out to the abandoned of Africa!
3) Is Palestinian/Gazan blood considered more valuable, Palestinian “suffering” more worthy than that of ordinary black women and children of Africa?
4) Could it be that there is a reluctance to go to these forsaken places, because it would all be done well off the world stage, without a world audience, well away from the brilliant spotlight of the media , no teams of TV reporters flocking to the scene, no heroic images in newspaper interviews, no moments of fame and glory ? No chance for defiance, no opportunity to galvanise the “troops”?
And perhaps it is just as well that they don’t go to Africa!. They might encounter conditions that would make them really really “cross”, instead of just plain “cross” which we are told was their reaction to the “flotilla” episode. “Cross”, mind you, in a world gone mad with violence!!!
5) And this question really puzzles me. What is it about the Palestinians/Gazans that has so captivated your devotion and self righteous indignation Alexandra? Could it have something to do with the fact that their “enemy” is the Jews? Such a convenient and well tested scapegoat!
Of course if any of the “flotilla fraternity” have in fact been to African countries offering their compassion and aid, then my apologies and I personally would dearly love to hear about their experiences. And they owe it to the rest of the world to show us that their compassion is genuinely and whole-heartedly for the whole of suffering humanity and not just for Gaza, their own “pet project” with its dubious justifications and questionable motivation.
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Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Is that the best she can come up with?
The article at the bottom of this page was published in Jerusalem Post and my father responded with the following letter, see below...
To: The Editor, Jerusalem Post. 19 June 2010.
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing in reply to Julie Burchill’s article in the Jerusalem Post of 18 June and must declare an interest here since I am the father of Alexandra Lort-Phillips, she of the hyphenated surname present on the Mavi Marmara when the vessel was sailing with the Gaza aid flotilla and boarded by Israeli Special Forces.
Linking the way people behave to the names they have been given – over which of course they had no choice – displays the sort of xenophobic bigotry which can eventually lead to disasters like the Holocaust. Although Miss Burchill’s article may have been written with tongue in cheek, it will bolster many with more sinister and blinkered views of the state of the Middle East at the moment.
Millions deplore the plight of the ordinary Palestinians who live in Gaza at the moment, but unlike most our daughter was inspired to get off her backside and try to do something about it. When she became aware of the appalling deprivation that is going on in the strip, her fury was not only with Israel but also with Hammas, with the political bigots of every hue in the region and with the wider international community’s failure to do anything about it. Her eyes were open to the faults on all sides and it was only her passion to help that led her to find the organisation that appeared closest to taking practical action. On account of this she helped with the Viva Palestina aid convoy over Christmas and New Year last year during which incidentally her co-driver was a Jewish woman!
The red tape and obfuscation that this aid convoy encountered both from Egypt and Israel hardened her resolve to help more with future aid deliveries, hence her presence on the flotilla and her encounter with the Israeli Commandoes. As the London Times following this event noted, ‘Ms Lort-Phillips refused to blame the Israeli commandos for the killings. “They got on board the ship and behaved like soldiers behave. It’s not their fault that they were put in that situation by someone in charge of military strategy,” she said.’ Such a mature take on an event in which she and her friends had been assaulted, killed, injured, abused, robbed and incarcerated is remarkable testimony to a balanced mind grappling with what seems to be an intractable problem.
Treatment of the type described above has made her and millions of others around the world exceptionally cross. It has acted as a recruiting agency for Hammas and others who hope for Israel’s annihilation. She is not one of them. She wants justice, peace and quality of life for the deprived of Gaza whose hardship she has witnessed at first hand.
We her parents instinctively admire much of what Israel has achieved since its foundation and also the focus on culture, scholarship, objectivity and democracy that intelligent Judaism has given the world. The recent intemperate response to well-meaning idealists aided and abetted by articles like Burchill’s has lost Israel many friends. It will continue to do so until they open their eyes and treat those who disagree with them with the sort of humanity with which they have been generally welcomed into the community of nations and the sort of humanity our daughter displayed in the aftermath of the assault on the Mavi Marmara.
We share the pride in her shown by her great Aunt Frances Campbell-Preston, another great and much venerated humanitarian whose generation, and she personally, suffered greatly in the defeat of another ghastly dictatorship that so victimised its neighbours 70 years ago.
Patrick Lort-Phillips.
How the British media get their kicks
By JULIE BURCHILL
06/18/2010 16:38
In Britain, tabloids get excited about roistering royals, fickle footballers and sex maniac MPs. But broadsheet papers only really get excited about Israel.
Talkbacks (22)
Over here in Britain, the tabloid newspapers get excited about roistering royals, fickle footballers, priapic pop stars and sex maniac MPs, among other things. They get excited about celebrity love-rats, three-in-a-bed romps and cocaine hells. They’re pretty excitable all round, bless ’em! But some of the broadsheet newspapers only really get excited – really excited, parasexual excited – about one thing: Israel behaving badly!
Of course, one hack’s bad is another hack’s baaad, and of course my first reaction was, “Ooo, which part of ‘don’t mess with Israel’ don’t these bed-wetters understand?”
On the phone later with my equally philo-Semitic gentile friend, she predicted that “if there’s any English on board, one of them will have a hyphen. You wait and see!”
I must point out here that unlike the situ in your gorgeous country, having a hyphenated name here doesn’t mean you’re the proud son of someone, i.e. Ben-Whoever. Rather, it means that you’re an upper-class, peasant-exploiting, in-bred half-wit.
In some extreme cases of overcompensation for what is clearly lacking in other departments, a mere double-barrelled name is considered too, too common, and families will add yet another hyphen – hence the Cave-Browne-Cave (sounds like code for a a pervy sex act) and Vane-Tempest-Stewart (one of the daughters, Annabel, left her husband for a Jew – an exception to the half-witted rule). And imagine how tragic your sense of your own worth must be to actually bother with four surnames (Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) or even five (Temple-Nugent-Brydges-
IF YOU read Agatha Christie’s stories from before she realized she shouldn’t call people names any more (pre-1950s, or maybe the year when her publishers decided that the next printing of Ten Little Niggers should instead be called And Then There Were None would be the watermark), you’ll find loads of dodgy stuff. There’s “men of Hebraic extraction, sallow men with hooked noses, wearing flamboyant jewelry.”
There’s “the long-nosed Mr. Lazarus,” of whom somebody says, “He’s a Jew, of course, but a frightfully decent one.” And Christie was a smart toff!
Jews are very clever and the English ruling class are very stupid, so naturally English Jews have taken from the poshos a bit of the wealth and property that once was theirs, snatched from the peasantry and bequeathed by robber barons long ago. Nowadays their thick, unemployable children can find an outlet for their inborn anti-Semitism in pro-Palestinian protest. And sure enough I turned on the TV the day after the flotilla was floored, and there was a man called Lort-Phillips, bewailing the plight of his sister, one Alexandra Lort-Phillips, late of the ship of fools, who was now hopefully getting what she deserved in Eretz Yisrael.
A few days later a piece turned up on the society page of the Daily Mail explaining that Lort-Phillips is the great-niece of Dame Frances Campbell-Preston, a woman of the bedchamber (not as fun as it sounds) and friend of the late queen mother of England, who inexplicably claimed, “I am very proud of her. She is standing up for her principles.”
Wow, from royalty-flunky to Hamas-groupie in two generations – that’s the spirit that made this country great! At least, though, the old broad has the excuse of being 91 years old to spout such twaddle. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
It was poor Mark Regev, your charming spokesman, who took most of the flak. On BBC’s Newsnight, the female presenter allowed the love boat cheerleader enough time and space to practically make the Gettsysburg Address on behalf of these savage clowns (they came off like a pair of those weird women who write offering marriage to serial killers, to be frank) before subjecting Regev to such a relentless interrogation that he had to plead to be allowed to make his point.
Over on Channel 4, Jon Snow (a respected journalist but rather strange man, who several years ago refused to wear a red paper poppy – the British symbol of respect for fallen soldiers – in the week approaching Remembrance Day on the grounds that doing so was “poppy fascism”) took up the war of words against Regev, becoming as overheated as a teenage fan of Justin Bieber on coming face-to-face with a supporter of Miley Cyrus, claiming that – ahem – the Turkish president might be about to order warships to accompany Turkish aid vessels headed for Israel.
“What are you gonna do, what are you going to do, eh? What are you going to do if Turkish warships show up?” Snow railed, basically doing a Chris Morris “it’s war!” routine which had Regev incredulous. Cut to the end of the show, when Snow had to make a grovelling apology. The Turks had obviously been on the blower; the president never ordered any warships. And Snow had used a heated exchange to provoke and promote some very dangerous propaganda.
Not once did I hear a British interviewer ask any of the so-called secular radicals participating in the flotilla why they are allied with Islamic supremacists who subjugate women, persecute gays, oppress non-Islamic minorities and seek to impose Islam globally. But Sarah Montague on Radio 4 was a breath of fresh air in her interview with a Gaza-groupie:
Sarah Montague: Are you saying that Israeli soldiers who boarded that ship opened fire and there was no provocation for it?
Sarah Colborne: That’s what I am saying, yes.
SM: You saw that. You saw them fire when there was no attack on them?
SC: I saw them, well, I saw them, what I saw was them coming down from a helicopter onto the roof, I saw them trying to board the boat via dinghies.
SM: Were they attacked by those on board?
SC: They – the people on board, as you can see, were trying to stop...
SM: Hitting them with metal bars...
A JEWISH lawyer I know, as level-headed and laid-back a man as you could find, told me that he has never seen the British Jewish community as frightened as it is now. With the honorable exception of people such as Miss Montague and the brilliant Brendan O’Neill on spiked.com (who doesn’t even support the State of Israel, but writes with sparkling contempt of the reason he despises the Gaza-groupies), the British media must take some responsibility for creating this climate of fear. When British Jewish children are beaten up on school buses, as has happened increasingly over the past few years, I hope they feel proud of themselves and their mission to inform and enlighten.
The writer has been a journalist since the age of 17 and an admirer of Israel since the age of 12. The television adaptation of her teenage novel Sugar Rush won an International Emmy in 2006.
Friday, 18 June 2010
Government, meetings, media
This week I went to try to do some practical work for the upcoming Glastonbury Festival. On Monday morning I get a call however from BBC New Channel They want to know if I can get to a studio and arrange a car to pick me up from the festival site to go to Bristol. I get there in time to make some short comments about the fact that Israel have announced they are undertaking an investigation. Well good for them. This is no good for us or the international community and we will not cooperate with it.
I get back to site after getting some wellies and manage to do one hour of work. Also put up the large tent for use during the festival. I also hear from BBC Radio Wiltshire who want to hear my views on the investigation so I make these over the phone. BBC Five Live were going to speak to me as well my but they call back to say the football coverage has taken over....
On Tuesday I am lucky enough to get a lift to the station and onto a train back to London. Osama and I are going to Sheffield today for a meeting with Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. We get there in a couple of hours and during the journey work on statements of the incident for legal purposes - recording carefully and chronologically what happened to us onboard and during out kidnap and detention by Israel. We arrive in good time to get to the meeting and before this Mushir our host takes us to BBC Radio Sheffield for a short interview with their drive time presenter.
The PSC meeting is well attended and we both give our accounts to the group. It is great to see Waqar from Viva Palestina Convoy 3 there - it is a surprise! His friend H also gives us a lift to the station as the last train we can get is at 9.15pm. When we get there the train supervisor tells us we have Chesterfield tickets not Doncaster ones so should not get this train. I listen to her which is wrong. Them we are stuck having missed the last London train. This is a nightmare as Osama has a flight in the morning. In desperation I work out if we can get a lift to Doncaster we could possibly catch the final train. I ring Waqar and he and H return to get us - but instead of taking us to Doncaster they insist on taking us to London! Wow. Amazing wonderful people. So by 1.30am they have returned us home. During the journey I type up Osama's statement and talk about the next convoys with Waqar and H.
Wednesday I need to get to a legal meeting in the afternoon, then meet Paveen and go to Lewisham for PSC branch. I am gutted to find out that Paveen has been a victim of hate crime in her area - a websote has been defaming her, published her address and her tyres were slashed. These are the sorts of people we are up against.
We make it to the meeting and its great to see fifty or so people turn out as well as Frank Barat from Russell Tribunal on Palestine. This is a tribunal originally established by Bertrand Russell to consider the conduct of America in Vietnam with the following justification:
"If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us"
The Russell Tribunal for Palestine was established in 2009.
Thursday
9.30 in the momrning morning a number of the UK volunteers meet up to attend an appointment with Alistair Burt the government's Middle East minister. I download the 15 minutes of footage from Iara Lee's Cultures of Resistance in the Snappy Snaps opposite the FCO to give to the minister.
We enter a large room in the building with a large long table and long windows. The atmosphere is grand and the air echoes slightly. There are a number of people with Alistair Burt, some from consular department, some from his office. The group ask me to go through the account of the attack. I have my notes of the timings and structure but I am not sure if I am able to get across the horror of the experience. After this we put our specific requests to him. We reject the Israeli-led enquiry - he states the government position is to accept it, we ask to see William Hague - he declines, we ask for clarity on what the government is doing about Gaza - he responds in a vague way 'everything that can be done is being done'.
It is a disappointing meeting - what is the point of hearing about our experience when the policy and decisions are already made and nothing specific is told to us about what the government is doing - oh apart from they do agree to publicly demand the missing passports back.
We come out and speak to the press and media about this afterwards.
I get a call from BBC Wiltshire - they would like my response on their Breakfast time show tomorrow morning.
Friday
Early call from BBC Wiltshire Radio - I state how disappointed we are with the government's response, how the blockade needs to be lifted not eased and how the investigation/ report into the incident will have no value.
I get up and see that Fatima Mohammadi has made a report - it is very good -see here.
I get back to site after getting some wellies and manage to do one hour of work. Also put up the large tent for use during the festival. I also hear from BBC Radio Wiltshire who want to hear my views on the investigation so I make these over the phone. BBC Five Live were going to speak to me as well my but they call back to say the football coverage has taken over....
On Tuesday I am lucky enough to get a lift to the station and onto a train back to London. Osama and I are going to Sheffield today for a meeting with Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. We get there in a couple of hours and during the journey work on statements of the incident for legal purposes - recording carefully and chronologically what happened to us onboard and during out kidnap and detention by Israel. We arrive in good time to get to the meeting and before this Mushir our host takes us to BBC Radio Sheffield for a short interview with their drive time presenter.
The PSC meeting is well attended and we both give our accounts to the group. It is great to see Waqar from Viva Palestina Convoy 3 there - it is a surprise! His friend H also gives us a lift to the station as the last train we can get is at 9.15pm. When we get there the train supervisor tells us we have Chesterfield tickets not Doncaster ones so should not get this train. I listen to her which is wrong. Them we are stuck having missed the last London train. This is a nightmare as Osama has a flight in the morning. In desperation I work out if we can get a lift to Doncaster we could possibly catch the final train. I ring Waqar and he and H return to get us - but instead of taking us to Doncaster they insist on taking us to London! Wow. Amazing wonderful people. So by 1.30am they have returned us home. During the journey I type up Osama's statement and talk about the next convoys with Waqar and H.
Wednesday I need to get to a legal meeting in the afternoon, then meet Paveen and go to Lewisham for PSC branch. I am gutted to find out that Paveen has been a victim of hate crime in her area - a websote has been defaming her, published her address and her tyres were slashed. These are the sorts of people we are up against.
We make it to the meeting and its great to see fifty or so people turn out as well as Frank Barat from Russell Tribunal on Palestine. This is a tribunal originally established by Bertrand Russell to consider the conduct of America in Vietnam with the following justification:
"If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us"
The Russell Tribunal for Palestine was established in 2009.
Thursday
9.30 in the momrning morning a number of the UK volunteers meet up to attend an appointment with Alistair Burt the government's Middle East minister. I download the 15 minutes of footage from Iara Lee's Cultures of Resistance in the Snappy Snaps opposite the FCO to give to the minister.
We enter a large room in the building with a large long table and long windows. The atmosphere is grand and the air echoes slightly. There are a number of people with Alistair Burt, some from consular department, some from his office. The group ask me to go through the account of the attack. I have my notes of the timings and structure but I am not sure if I am able to get across the horror of the experience. After this we put our specific requests to him. We reject the Israeli-led enquiry - he states the government position is to accept it, we ask to see William Hague - he declines, we ask for clarity on what the government is doing about Gaza - he responds in a vague way 'everything that can be done is being done'.
It is a disappointing meeting - what is the point of hearing about our experience when the policy and decisions are already made and nothing specific is told to us about what the government is doing - oh apart from they do agree to publicly demand the missing passports back.
We come out and speak to the press and media about this afterwards.
I get a call from BBC Wiltshire - they would like my response on their Breakfast time show tomorrow morning.
Friday
Early call from BBC Wiltshire Radio - I state how disappointed we are with the government's response, how the blockade needs to be lifted not eased and how the investigation/ report into the incident will have no value.
I get up and see that Fatima Mohammadi has made a report - it is very good -see here.
Friday, 11 June 2010
Its been a hectic week. On the way back in the car I spoke to BBC News Channel for a couple of minutes he came out with a number of the absurd Israeli allegations which I think I was able to deal with. Managed to get some rest at home but this is in between numerous phone calls, going through lists of contacts that my brother has put together, checking email etc.
I can also see some of the reports in the papers that have been kept. The local paper in Wiltshire comes around to get a happy family reunited picture. I speak to Hackney Gazette who plan to publish a story as well. On Wednesday I get a lift with friends Julie and George up to London. I have to get to a legal meeting with the group at 5.30 then on to public meeting organised by PSC and Viva Palestina - again we provide eyewitness accounts (see the others' on the side bar on you tube).
On Thursday I get a couple of calls - one from BBC London 94.9 and the other from BBC Radio Wales. I'm booked in for short interviews. 94.9 Thursday 10th at 6.30 approx, BBC Wales Friday 11th morning.
When I get back I can see that some new footage has come out from Cultures of Resistance - its amazing.
I check my draft emails and I can see the following which is what I wrote at the time of the attack on 31st May that I was unable to send due to satellite jam:
"We are currently surrounded by Israeli warships and unidentifıed aircraft, 14 approachiıng according to most recent info.
We from UK opted to join this flotilla taking humanitarian cargo and people from more than 40 countries which has been organised and led by IHH because they are an international humanitarian aid organisation with more than 15 years experience in increasing the stability and security of areas of the world affected by conflict and humanitarian disaster. They support over 10,000 orphans in Gaza through a sponsorship programme and 16,000 worldwide, they work in 127 countries and are extremely well organised and safe.
The idea that such an organisation could be attempting to undertake a mission to make this area more unsafe or 'look for a fıght' ıs ludicrous.
There is no reason under international law why Israel should interfere, inspect or stop us in any way.
We brought with us from UK a truck load of donations of medical equipment that we put on the IHH cargo ship personally in Istanbul.
The cargo and passengers have all been checked by Turkish or Greek authorities - we know the Israeli government have racist polıcıes......."
I couldn't finish or send it due to the satellite jam.
I can also see some of the reports in the papers that have been kept. The local paper in Wiltshire comes around to get a happy family reunited picture. I speak to Hackney Gazette who plan to publish a story as well. On Wednesday I get a lift with friends Julie and George up to London. I have to get to a legal meeting with the group at 5.30 then on to public meeting organised by PSC and Viva Palestina - again we provide eyewitness accounts (see the others' on the side bar on you tube).
On Thursday I get a couple of calls - one from BBC London 94.9 and the other from BBC Radio Wales. I'm booked in for short interviews. 94.9 Thursday 10th at 6.30 approx, BBC Wales Friday 11th morning.
When I get back I can see that some new footage has come out from Cultures of Resistance - its amazing.
I check my draft emails and I can see the following which is what I wrote at the time of the attack on 31st May that I was unable to send due to satellite jam:
"We are currently surrounded by Israeli warships and unidentifıed aircraft, 14 approachiıng according to most recent info.
We from UK opted to join this flotilla taking humanitarian cargo and people from more than 40 countries which has been organised and led by IHH because they are an international humanitarian aid organisation with more than 15 years experience in increasing the stability and security of areas of the world affected by conflict and humanitarian disaster. They support over 10,000 orphans in Gaza through a sponsorship programme and 16,000 worldwide, they work in 127 countries and are extremely well organised and safe.
The idea that such an organisation could be attempting to undertake a mission to make this area more unsafe or 'look for a fıght' ıs ludicrous.
There is no reason under international law why Israel should interfere, inspect or stop us in any way.
We brought with us from UK a truck load of donations of medical equipment that we put on the IHH cargo ship personally in Istanbul.
The cargo and passengers have all been checked by Turkish or Greek authorities - we know the Israeli government have racist polıcıes......."
I couldn't finish or send it due to the satellite jam.
Monday, 7 June 2010
Now in UK - final hours on MM to follow
I decided to take the flight offered by Turkish Airlines yesterday and come back to UK with the main group of Brits. I intend to return to Istanbul soon however as there are still things to be done in relation to testimonies, lost property and anything else IHH may need help with.
It was wonderful to see supporters, friends and family waiting for us all. There were some cameras and news channels there. I decided to go home with parents who have with my brother done so much to field the media interest and worry about my safety and care.
The days before leaving were something else. On Friday 4th we got up and went to IHH offices, they told us about press conference in another building a short cab ride away so we made our way quickly there. I sat with Nicci Kiwi, and some of the Brits on a stage while brother Bulent (IHH President) held a press conference for Turkish press and TV. He explained how the Israelis had dropped an item on board - this was a list of 16 people from our movement with their names and photographs and the instruction at the top of the page in Hebrew "to be confronted/ challenged/ provoked (not sure of the translation)". The list included the 88 year old bishop Hilarion Kaputce so it is hardly a list of organisers - what were they hoping for in confronting the individuals? After the press conference I walked back to the office and made my way to the funeral of Cevdet Kiliglar - another massive event. In addition George Galloway is here today and he makes a speech to the assembly before the walk of the cortege and crowd to the cemetery. I go in the afternoon to the internet cafe to try to go through the numerous messages. I hear from Mehmet who I met at the forensic centre on arrival back from Israel, he suggests coming out and meeting his friends. Its great to meet them and we have a good conversation about how Mavi Marmara could have done more to keep the lost and injured people safe or planned better - however there is no getting away from the fact that simply the Israeli military turned up and started killing people. I also leave a broadcast on Gaza TV news about my experience onboard here's the report: http://ipad.io/KVB . The guys I'm with are lovely and insist on getting food and drink for me, they are Kurdish Turkish, they say things have improved for Kurdish people under this government in Turkey. I'm given a lovely Kurdish scarf and they jokingly teach me the say "Bijee Kurdistan!" which means "Free Kurdistan". THey say this does not mean a new border needs to be drawn around Kurdistan but that peoples' rights and freedoms should be respected. Absolutely. When I get back to the hotel I am thankful to see that Ken O'Keefe has now arrived in Turkey. He was beaten up by Israeli officers after demanding to be deported to Gaza not Turkey and bearing the brunt of their displeasure, see link for his words directly after arrival, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGlnsIW3zJk .
On Saturday morning again we return to IHH offices. There is a legal team there to advise and assist and we all share our contact details. Next we travel to a police station to make testimonies. This looks like it is taking ages and we are late for a rally. Three of the men killed were from or supporters of the Saadet Party in Turkey, a political party that has arranged an event about the incident and to recognise and remember the men. I go along at the last minute and we are taken in a car that gets stuck in traffic along the way and the closer we get the more I realise this is a massive event. Luckily in the car I manage to scribble down some thoughts about the mission and the men. On arrival we are ushered onto a massive stage in front of a crowd of estimate 20-50,000. Within a few minutes I have been invited onto the platform clutching my notes and have the awesome experience of speaking to the crowd for two minutes - something I will never forget. Afterwards Bulent and then Parveen and other Turkish speakers also speak. We get away from the rally after around an hour with tens of people stopping us for photographs and hugs.
It was wonderful to see supporters, friends and family waiting for us all. There were some cameras and news channels there. I decided to go home with parents who have with my brother done so much to field the media interest and worry about my safety and care.
The days before leaving were something else. On Friday 4th we got up and went to IHH offices, they told us about press conference in another building a short cab ride away so we made our way quickly there. I sat with Nicci Kiwi, and some of the Brits on a stage while brother Bulent (IHH President) held a press conference for Turkish press and TV. He explained how the Israelis had dropped an item on board - this was a list of 16 people from our movement with their names and photographs and the instruction at the top of the page in Hebrew "to be confronted/ challenged/ provoked (not sure of the translation)". The list included the 88 year old bishop Hilarion Kaputce so it is hardly a list of organisers - what were they hoping for in confronting the individuals? After the press conference I walked back to the office and made my way to the funeral of Cevdet Kiliglar - another massive event. In addition George Galloway is here today and he makes a speech to the assembly before the walk of the cortege and crowd to the cemetery. I go in the afternoon to the internet cafe to try to go through the numerous messages. I hear from Mehmet who I met at the forensic centre on arrival back from Israel, he suggests coming out and meeting his friends. Its great to meet them and we have a good conversation about how Mavi Marmara could have done more to keep the lost and injured people safe or planned better - however there is no getting away from the fact that simply the Israeli military turned up and started killing people. I also leave a broadcast on Gaza TV news about my experience onboard here's the report: http://ipad.io/KVB . The guys I'm with are lovely and insist on getting food and drink for me, they are Kurdish Turkish, they say things have improved for Kurdish people under this government in Turkey. I'm given a lovely Kurdish scarf and they jokingly teach me the say "Bijee Kurdistan!" which means "Free Kurdistan". THey say this does not mean a new border needs to be drawn around Kurdistan but that peoples' rights and freedoms should be respected. Absolutely. When I get back to the hotel I am thankful to see that Ken O'Keefe has now arrived in Turkey. He was beaten up by Israeli officers after demanding to be deported to Gaza not Turkey and bearing the brunt of their displeasure, see link for his words directly after arrival, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGlnsIW3zJk .
On Saturday morning again we return to IHH offices. There is a legal team there to advise and assist and we all share our contact details. Next we travel to a police station to make testimonies. This looks like it is taking ages and we are late for a rally. Three of the men killed were from or supporters of the Saadet Party in Turkey, a political party that has arranged an event about the incident and to recognise and remember the men. I go along at the last minute and we are taken in a car that gets stuck in traffic along the way and the closer we get the more I realise this is a massive event. Luckily in the car I manage to scribble down some thoughts about the mission and the men. On arrival we are ushered onto a massive stage in front of a crowd of estimate 20-50,000. Within a few minutes I have been invited onto the platform clutching my notes and have the awesome experience of speaking to the crowd for two minutes - something I will never forget. Afterwards Bulent and then Parveen and other Turkish speakers also speak. We get away from the rally after around an hour with tens of people stopping us for photographs and hugs.
Thursday, 3 June 2010
Thankful to be back in Turkey with these wonderful people who I trust so much
We landed in Istanbul this morning and went straight to a press conference and health check. We then searched for baggage amongst scattered belongings 'returned' by Israel minus all laptops technology hardware and memory cards that could have contained any evidence of them. I was keeping a diary so I'll put it up here but for now just don't have it in my possession. So the next posts will go back in time a bit. We all attended an awesome funeral for one of the murdered passengers today outside the historıc Fatih Mosque. We walked from the mosque area to the cemetery in a crowd of thousands it was stunning and emotional - I found the lovely Ouassima in the crowd and we stayed together and ate afterwards. People here are amazing - when they find out we were on Mavi Marmara they hug and kiss us and take pictures. Insist on buying water and food for us and getting pictures together. I haven't had any sleep so I'm goıng to lie down now and resume when I can.
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July 10th, 2010 at 6:18 am
The Editor Jerusalem Post
Dear Sir,
In response to questions in a letter you published from Freda Keet questioning me and fellow Gaza flotilla members on our concern for Africa’s humanitarian needs I would like to address her questions directly. Perhaps you could assist through your column.
1)Yes I have volunteered in Africa spending six months there first at a bush school in Zimbabwe providing teaching assistance then travelling on to a mission in South Africa that provided gardening tools donated in UK to pre-schools in the townships of Empangeni, Natal. It is shame that Ms Keet has not checked out the work of IHH with whom I travelled this year. IHH run numerous humanitarian projects in Africa including Congo where food distribution takes place during Ramadan and Qurban periods. The African countries IHH have completed substantial project work in include Ethiopia, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Chad, Cameroon, Sudan Darfur, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Rwanda, Tanzania, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya. 2)In Darfur region alone IHH had completed 44 water wells, one school and five cultural centres. In addition to this in terms of emergency disaster relief five projects in Darfur Sudan have reached more than 100,000 beneficiaries. The total number of wells across 12 African countries is currently 633, with 40 cultural centres and 16 schools also being constructed. In addition to this in the past two years IHH have completed more than 50,000 cataract operations and undertaken more than 200,000 health screenings in African countries. 1580 orphans are supported across eight African countries. Since 2000, in Africa, during Ramadan more than 1 million beneficiaries receives food each year from IHH across 30 countries and during Qurban more than 2 million each year across 40 countries. 3)In Somalia IHH have completed 276 water wells, 13 cultural centres and four schools. In terms of disaster relief in Somalia six projects have reached a total of more than 100,000 beneficiaries.
Ms Keet mentions UN and UNRWA, I am glad she does so, then Director of Operations in Gaza John Ging called for the international community to respond directly with aid because not enough aid had been getting through for him to be able to conduct his work. Speaking at UN in New York on 22nd April 2010 he reiterated the words of Ban Ki Moon in saying “the increases in access are a drop in the bucket” in relation to Gaza, see video at http://vodpod.com/watch/3481843-unrwa-john-ging-a-drop-in-the-bucket-for-gaza. He states “We are not able to accommodate thousands of children seeking a UN education… who by UN resolution have a right to a UN education, all refugees in Gaza have a right to education….we have not been allowed to build a school in Gaza in three years.” His comments are backed up by United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs special focus report May 2010, “UNRWA reports that it has had 24 construction and infrastructure projects, totalling some $109 million in donor funds, frozen as a result of the blockade.” p. 2, ‘Impeding Assistance: Challenges to Meeting the Humanitarian Needs of Palestinians’, May 2010, OCHA, http://www.ochaopt.org The report goes on to say that “sweeping import restrictions imposed by Israel since June 2007 have either prevented the implementation of planned humanitarian projects or resulted in significant delays….restrictions on the import of cement make impossible the reconstruction of 12,000 Palestinian homes damaged or destroyed by Israeli military operations in recent years, as well as a further 20,000 homes needed to accommodate natural population growth in the Gaza Strip.” p.4
The report presents the fact that despite the high influx of donor aid to the region the operations are restricted to basic food and cash support which are inadequate to address the causes of humanitarian need creating greater reliance in future. In addition to the inefficiency this presents to donor countries also reported are additional blockade-related costs including lack of clarity on the goods allowed, restrictions on the number of crossings, restrictions in the containerising of goods and the lack of flexibility in terms of permits and vehicles. Let us not also forget that during Operation Cast Lead on 15th Jan 2009 the main UNRWA compound in Gaza City was shelled resulting in the destruction of hundreds of tonnes of food and medicine despite information on all UN locations being shared with IDF. The Board of Inquiry commissioned by Ban Ki Moon found that the Government of Israel was responsible for the death and injury of civilians in seven incidents during Cast Lead and as a result Israel paid US$10.5 million to the UN in January 2010.
In regards to Eastern Congo I must admit I have not travelled there. Working as a supervisor of social workers in within the local authority in North London for youth offending services within children and families services I have worked with a number of Congolese boys whose childhoods had been disrupted there and who now live in UK. What drives them to join or form gangs in London, such as one gang named ‘Dem Africans’ due to the number of African boys identified as members? Could it be the disruption of their childhoods and the need for identity and a twisted sense of safety? Does this situation not sound similar to that experienced by the children of Gaza who end up joining brigades? Could Ms Keet perhaps direct me to some academic research that shows that reducing the life chances and opportunities for children helps them to become more moderate and better-tempered young people? As John Ging stated, again in his report to UN on 22nd April 2010, “This should be about the people, its time to put the people before the politics. If we do prioritise the people.. focus on the needs of the people…that will make the politics easier moving forward. Ignore the people, abandon the people, leave the people to despair and desperation and that will make the politics more difficult moving forward.”
In relation to Ms Keet’s final questions: 1)No, there is no points system for grading suffering – we rely on UN resolutions and reports to indicate where problems may need resolution. 2)In relation to Africa please refer to the projects undertaken by IHH indicated above and see their website 3)No, there is no consideration of Palestinian blood above that of African – however when looking at statistics indicating at least 6,348 Palestinians and 1,072 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000, it would seem to indicate the value of Palestinian blood appears less than that of Israeli http://www.ifamericansknew.com/stats/deaths.html#source. 4)There is no reluctance to travel to Africa, I have done and so does IHH – I have however been working in my own community in London with disadvantaged groups for the past eight years 5)In suggesting that Jews are my enemy I am very puzzled – considering I work and socialise with Jews regularly in London and particularly in Palestine solidarity efforts where my co-driver on convoy in December 2009 was a Jewish woman – no, simply lawbreakers and human rights abusers are my concern
Finally it is very kind of my father to describe me as compassionate however everyone seems to be missing my selfish motivations – I personally want to live in a safer world. And with Israel carrying on in the ways it does in persecuting the Palestinians with the complicity of Arab, US and UK governments alike, I certainly won’t be. May I also suggest, as she has such clear concerns over the plight of Africans, that Ms Keet seek out the IHH website volunteer application form and complete it offering her services, just as I did.
Yours faithfully, Alexandra Lort Phillips