Interview conducted by Mohamad Shmaysani
16/06/2010 Larudee says that plans have been set to break the siege of Gaza by air and announces a new undaunted strategy to press the right of return of Palestinians back to the forefront of events.
Paul Larudee is an American citizen whose visit to Jordan back in 1965 was his first close acquaintance – from a different angle - with what was happening in Palestine.
He got engaged with the cause ever since and gradually learned the price that he, and his peers, would have to pay for defying Israel and defending the rights of the Palestinians.
The linguist and piano technician works with the International Solidarity Movement and the Free Palestine Movement, and was cofounder of the Free Gaza Movement. May 31, 2010 Larudee and hundreds of other activists were taking part in the Gaza-bound Freedom flotilla to deliver tons of aids and supplies to a people that has been under Israeli siege since 2007. It was not his first trip to Gaza or his first encounter with Israeli authorities, it was simply the bloodiest, and it sure will not be his last, he told Al-Manar.com.lb in a special interview.
“I joined our groups that were defending the wheelhouse where the captain was. We locked arms to prevent the Israelis from coming in but they used electric tasers, stun grenades, and batons and they smashed the windows of the wheelhouse and then they tied us.
When it got light, they had removed all the handcuffs. I spoke to some of my Greek friends and got an Ok to jump into water. So I made sure that everybody could see me, because I wanted lots of witnesses, and when the Israeli started coming closer to me, I jumped. My goal was to delay the Israelis and spoil their plans, and encourage the others on the ship to resist.”
Larudee was on board the Sfendoni ship when the raid took place. The Israelis had simultaneously raided the Mavi Marmara, shooting and killing nine Turkish activists. Footage posted on Youtube showed Mavi Marmara activists as showing stiff resistance to the Israeli navy commandos who have apparently killed at least two activists before boarding the ship. The footage also showed that activists had raised a white flag as gun shots could still be heard in the background. Larudee maintained that the Mavi Marmara activists had resisted the soldiers who were invading their ship in international waters. The long-time activist did not rule out the “possibility that the Israeli had been planning to use that kind of force from the beginning.”
Larudee was brutally beaten several times. He did not identify himself as an American, but he confirmed that the Israelis knew who he was. “They identified me and I did not say no,” he said.
When the ships were taken to the Ashdod port Larudee and others refused to sign documents confessing to entering “Israeli territories” illegally, and decided to give the Israelis a hard time, regardless of the price they will have to pay.
“I forced them to carry me everywhere. I wouldn’t open my mouth for most of the time. They were very rough with me. They put my arm behind my back and twisted my joints. This was basically torture.
I screamed, but I also told them that you can tear my arm out and it’s not going to make me walk. So they ended up carrying me. There were cameras there and I was guessing that the Israeli press - that was probably censored afterwards - would use the footage. They seemed nervous about having the cameras there so they hurried to get me through and didn’t want to carry me too much because it was painful and I was screaming and they didn’t try to make it gentle. This was a bad picture for them so they very quickly called a stretcher and they carried me from one place to another but they didn’t like that image either because it looked like someone has been severely injured. So they quickly put me in an ambulance and took me to a hospital.”
In the hospital, Larudee refused treatment and x-rays. He saw the Greek captain of the Sfendoni, Theodorus Boukas, but the Israelis prevented them from talking to each other and kept their American captive without trousers...for quite some time.
“They tore my trousers on the ship. They gave me another pair on the way to Ashdod but they were also torn. It was not decent, and they refused to give me the pants at the hospital and they said well you get a new pair of pants after you leave here. So they took me back to the processing center and they put me in a wheelchair because I wouldn’t walk. Again, I complained about the pants and they refused. I stood up and shouted at them demanding a pair of pants. I think ten to twelve of them they carried me to opposite room, slapped my head against the floor, kicked me in the head and in the ribs, punched me, and twisted my arm. I was screaming my lungs out, but still when they were done and threw me back in the wheelchair, I said: You forgot something, you forgot my pants. You can beat me, you can twist every limb in my body, you can shoot me in the head but I’m not going to stop insisting on having my pair of pants. I actually did this for the benefit of the media who were present there but probably censored. Then they put me in the prison van and after a little while they brought Theodorus Boukas and took us to the Givon prison. However, other foreigners and certainly all the other Americans and Greeks were in different prisons.”
Larudee recounts that, on the second day in prison, he insisted on seeing a representative of his embassy, and when the representative arrived, the prison director wanted the all bruised and pained man to wear a shirt.
“He said: here, I have a shirt for you to wear. So I said: No I’m not going to wear it, so he said: Well, these are the regulations and if you don’t wear it you can’t see the representative. I said: Good, go tell him that you came here for nothing. So he started telling me that this was a nice shirt and these were the regulations, bit I said: Listen, don’t play games with me. I understand why you want me to wear the shirt you don’t want the ambassador and anybody else to see what you have done to me, so am going like this or you can tell the council general that you’re not going to let him see me. He got very angry but he had to let me see the council general.”
Larudee also described the cell the Israelis had put him and Boukas in.
“They put me and the captain, in a very special cell in the prison; a cell with no window and no air. They knew I was diabetic, so I told them that this was not acceptable and that I wanted a room that has air, light and a window otherwise I’ll take no more food , water or medication. What they did was that they emptied an entire wing of the prison so that all the cells around us were empty so that we have no communication with anybody.
The Israeli occupation authorities wanted to prevent Larudee from leaving to Greece, where a great welcome back ceremony was waiting for the activists.
So when they came they didn’t even want to tell us that they are taking us out to put us on the plane. When they got us to the airport I met with the Greeks who had negotiated something. They had actually been speaking to a lawyer so they said it was better for me to leave with them to Greece and that my arrival will be a big thing and how it was better for the cause.
The prime minister sent a special military aircraft to pick up all the Greeks so this was the special arrangement and the Israelis have agreed to this but they hadn’t agreed to me and two other French citizens to be a part of that. But the Greeks insisted. They said that we’re not going without Paul so this was a problem for the Israelis and I finally agreed that it’s okay I don’t have to see my lawyer. but I think the Israelis wanted me to go to Istanbul because in Istanbul I’m essentially nobody because there were nine Turkish people killed and they were expecting them. But if I arrived in Greece, there’s a huge celebration and pictures of me with my wounds. This was big news and that’s why the Israelis didn’t want me to go to Greece. They beat me twice again at the airport.”
After Greece, Larudee flew back to the United States and he was surprised at the US media coverage of the flotilla event because, he says, it’s very difficult to get them to react but they did react.
“I don’t expect much from Fox News, but I think the coverage in general was very useful. Sympathy with the Palestinians and the awareness were growing. The Americans did not buy the story of us being terrorists, militants, or extremists on board the ships. They were convinced that these were aid ships and that everyone on board was unarmed. All this propaganda was happening in some American media but the American people did not buy it.”
“I remember that after the World War II, Truman was asked why he recognized the state of Israel so quickly and within minutes after its declaration, he said well it’s important for us to establish an alliance with our friends to defend us against our enemies in the Middle East. And the response came from George Marshall. He said: Mr. President before the state of Israel we didn’t have any enemies in the Middle East,” Larudee said.
In an article posted in the Huffington post, Larudee wrote an inspiring note, point of view, or maybe a protest. He said: “It is not wise for Americans to be accomplices to Israeli crimes through our veto in the UN or our massive foreign aid, for which we have greater need at home. It is time to take off the rose colored glasses and recognize Israel for what it is: a rogue nation that we need to stop coddling.”
The American activist pointed that if Israel failed to get what it wanted by using force and had plans to get it this time by using more force, then this would be “insanity.”
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting other results, they’ll get the same results. So they aren’t trying to use the same force, they tried to use force with me and I told them that when they use the same force they’ll get the same results. That’s the only thing they know how to do...I prefer to go to Gaza. There’s no way that they’re going to come out of this looking good, nothing they do is going to make them look good even if they let us go to Gaza.
“They are thinking of poor little Israel the tiny little country trying to defend itself, this is the image that they have there (the U.S.). But in terms of motivation, Rachel Corrie and I and others are angry that we are being deceived and we feel it’s necessary that certain things should not be done in our name and that we need to bring the attention of the American people how they’re being lied to and they will be equally angry and will participate with us and get rid of this problem,” he said.
Larudee said he backed an international investigation into the Israeli crime in international waters and added that a group of lawyers in “Israel, the US, and Europe” are working on building a case against Israel. He also said that the obvious place to do that was the International Criminal Court and the country to go for it was Turkey since the ship where the killing occurred was Turkish, the martyrs were Turkish, and the crime scene was international waters.
The American activist announced that there are other plans to break the siege of Gaza, some in the making and others already Okayed.
“We’re working strongly on breaking it by air now with an aircraft in partnership with whoever would be partner and we have done some preliminary studies on how to do that and we’ve been in contact with the authorities in Gaza on how to do this and it’s a very definite plan.
Another plan in coordination with the Palestinian return center in the UK and the Al-Awda in the US is that we’re getting together some 100 Palestinians who have European and North American passports and they will all fly to the airport of Ben Gurion on the same day on different commercial flights. We don’t care if Israel knows; in fact we want everybody to know about the plan.
We’re a little bit quiet about the date and the important thing is that we don’t release the names of the people who are participating. What they do is have copies of the titles of their lands and the photographs of the families living in the lands before 1948 and they will insist on going to their homes. Each one will come from a different city all throughout Europe and North America each one will have a committee in that city that will support them and they will each do an interview before they fly so that they can be released to the press after they arrive. The will be Palestinians to receive them and a legal team and of course the media. They will resist, they’ll almost certainly be put into jail and the Israelis will want to send them back to their homes as quickly as possible, but they’ll resist they’ll refused to go to the aircraft.”
Paul Larudee is a human rights volunteer and a founder of the Free Gaza and Free Palestine Movements. He works as a piano technician in El Cerrito, California.
For more information, go to http://www.freepalestinemovement.org/.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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