The dilemma of the airlines towards Israel

The dilemma of the airlines towards Israel
 By Paul Larudee

Who is right? The Israeli state? The airlines? Or the pro-Palestinian activists of the “Welcome to Palestine” movement who bought their flight tickets very legally with the intention of visiting the occupied Palestinian territories?



Pro-Palestinian activists hold placards to protest being prevented
from boarding flights for which they had bought tickets at
 Atatürk airport in Istanbul. DHA photo



Israel wants to exclude these people from entering through its borders. The activists say they only seek to cross through Israel in order to enter the Palestinian territories. Israel says it will impose fines on the airlines if they bring these people into its territory. The airlines cancel reservations without refunding the denied passengers. Passengers insist that it is illegal to both deny them the right to travel and take their money. Are we in uncharted legal waters?

Nobody denies the right of each state to control its borders. Nor the right of airlines to provide transportation, as well as that of the public to freely purchase this service, according to established procedures.

However, the means by which Israel controls the admissibility of travelers is exceptional. To my knowledge, no other nation requires airlines to search their passenger lists for “excluded” people, much less after they have already bought tickets in good faith.

There is, however, an established protocol for these purposes. It is for that country to require visas for all visitors. Under this protocol, the country determines in advance whom they will allow to enter, and the airline simply checks for the existence of a valid visa in the passport. The airline alerts any passenger that a visa is required prior to travel, which is a very normal request. And voila! No need to blaze a new trail and create disruptions to settle the matter.

Moreover, Israel already employs this protocol, but with other countries than France, Canada, Belgium, etc.. Visitors to Romania, the Philippines, and Eretria, for example, are required to obtain a visa before traveling to Israel, without which airlines refuse to let them board the aircraft. Why not apply the same system more widely, and for the same reason, i.e. toexclude “undesirables”, rather than imposing the responsibility on the airlines?

It is incomprehensible to me why airlines let themselves be pushed around this way. Why are they being made to do the job of Israeli consular authorities? They need to defend their rights without being intimidated by these Israeli thugs.
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The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

by deLiberation

Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Israel bars entry for ‘Welcome to Palestine’ activists

Sunday, April 15th, 2012
 
Israel has refused entry to dozens of activists who arrived in Tel Aviv as part of an international campaign dubbed ‘Welcome to Palestine’. Nine Israeli activists have also been arrested. The organizers say they’d planned peaceful activities like planting trees in the West Bank and have criticized Israel for over-reacting. RT gets the details from Paula Slier in Tel Aviv.
YouTube source

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Pro-Palestinian “Flytillas” Arriving as Israel Prepared to Block Them

Local Editor

Hundreds of Israeli police, many undercover, gathered at Ben Gurion airport on Sunday to block the arrival of activists taking part in a "Welcome to Palestine" fly-in, AFP quoted the Israeli police as saying.

“We have stationed several hundred police in order to maintain order at the airport," Zionist police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told the news agency.

Moreover, the Israeli public radio reported that at least 650 uncover police were deployed in and around the airport with orders “to exercise restraint, but to intercept any troublemakers.”

Organizers of the "flytilla" pro-Palestinian campaign, which is in its third year, had been expecting to welcome up to 1,500 people, more than a third of them from France. However, Israel has been preparing since last week to prevent their entry to the occupied territories.

AFP quoted Sunday organizers of the trip as saying that “a lot of people did manage to board planes and a lot of people have been denied."

"We are expecting 1,500 people from at least 15 countries… but most of them from Europe," campaign organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh said, indicating that they were aware of four carriers which had blocked passengers from travelling.

Also Sunday morning, the Israeli police said four passengers had been detained for questioning after disembarking from an El Al flight from Paris, with Rosenfeld clarifying that they were likely to be deported.


Source: AFP
15-04-2012 - 10:47 Last updated 15-04-2012 - 10:47


Israel Planning to Intercept Pro-Pal Activists at Ben Gurion Airport
Local Editor

The Israeli occupation authorities are mulling a plan to confront foreign activists who will arrive at Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday in solidarity with the Palestinians.

In order to prevent the coverage of this event through the media, a large Israeli contingent wearing civilian clothes will lay siege to the activists in order to prevent them from leaving the airport.

“Police are planning to intercept them at the airport and prevent their entry into the country. Hundreds of police officers are expected to be stationed at the airport ahead of their arrival, most of them unarmed and clothed in civilian dress”, Haaretz said.

In a similar development, dozens of pro-Palestinian activists were prevented from boarding Israel-bound flights on Friday, due to the fact that their names appeared on a blacklist distributed by the Israeli occupation government to a number of European airlines.

Last July, a similar “fly-in” took place, with over 300 international activists arriving in the Palestinian occupied territories, and 120 detained.

A letter, obtained by Haaretz, was written by Amnon Shmueli of the Interior Ministry's Population and Immigration Authority to the airlines. The letter threatens punitive steps if the airlines fail to comply with Israeli demands. "A failure to uphold this directive is liable to lead to leveling of sanctions against the airlines."

"This is only a partial list, and additional lists will be sent subsequently. There is a high probability that the entry of additional activists will be prevented, whose names we cannot pass on ahead of time," the letter continues.

After receiving the letter, a number of European airlines, including the German airline Lufthansa, contacted activists whose names appeared on the list and notified them that their tickets had been cancelled and would be refunded.

Police expect between 500 and 1,000 activists will attempt to enter Israel from European countries as part of the solidarity action, called "Welcome to Palestine."

"It never crossed my mind that Israel could stop people with British passports leaving British airports," one of the activists, Norma Turner, told the Guardian.

Jet2.com said it was forced to inform Tel Aviv of the passengers’ names, nationalities, dates of birth and passport numbers.

Source: Israeli Media
14-04-2012 - 13:27 Last updated 14-04-2012 - 13:45

‘Flytilla’ for Palestine hit by arrests as Israel stamps down
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Do not speak, do not resist - Israel rules out non-violence

Jonathan Cook

Jul 18, 2011

It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: "What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?"

The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation's goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

Look out in coming days for a bill to block the work of Israeli organisations trying to protect Palestinian rights; and another draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far-right, with the power to appoint supreme court judges. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right's ascendancy.

The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu's government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.

First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a non-violent political programme - boycott - to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.

As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: "Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs."

Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offence. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who - again uniquely - need not prove they suffered actual harm.

Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages.

Human rights lawyers point out that there is no law like this anywhere in the democratic world. But more than half of Israelis back it, with only 31 per cent opposed.

The delusional, self-pitying worldview that spawned the boycott law was neatly illustrated this month in a short video "ad" that is supported, and possibly financed, by Israel's hasbara, or propaganda, ministry. Fittingly, it is set in a psychiatrist's office.

A young woman, clearly traumatised, deciphers the images concealed in the famous Rorschach test. As she is shown the ink-splodges, her panic and anger grow. Gradually, we come to realise, she represents vulnerable modern Israel, abandoned by friends and still in profound shock at the attack on her navy's commandos by the "terrorist" passengers aboard last year's aid flotilla to Gaza.


Immune to reality - that the ships were trying to break Israel's punitive siege of Gaza, that the commandos illegally boarded the ships in international waters, and that they shot dead nine activists execution-style - Miss Israel tearfully recounts that the world is "forever trying to torment and harm [us] for no reason". Finally she storms out, saying: "What do you want - for [Israel] to disappear off the map?"

The video - released under the banner "Stop the provocation against Israel" - was part of a campaign to discredit the recent follow-up flotilla from Greece. The aid mission was abandoned after Greek authorities, under Israeli pressure, refused to let them sail.

Israel's siege mentality asserted itself again days later as international activists staged another show of solidarity - this one nicknamed the "flytilla". Hundreds tried to fly to Israel on the same day, declaring their intention to travel to the West Bank.

Israel threatened airlines with retaliation if they carried the activists and it massed hundreds of soldiers at Ben Gurion Airport to greet arrivals. About 150 peaceful protesters who reached Israel were arrested moments after landing

Echoing the hysterical sentiments of the woman in the video, Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced the various flotillas as "denying Israel's right to exist" and a threat to its security.

Although Mr Netanyahu's comments sound delusional, there may be a method to the madness of measures like the boycott law and the massive overreaction to the flotillas.

These initiatives, as Mr Tibi points out, leave no room for non-violent opposition to the occupation. Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, has noted that non-violence is essentially "a piece of theatre. [It] needs an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?"

Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli right appear to understand this point. They are carefully dismantling every platform on which dissident Israelis, Palestinians and solidarity activists hope to stage their protests. They are making it impossible to organise joint peaceful and non-violent resistance, whether in the form of boycotts or solidarity visits. The only way being left open is violence.

Is this what the Israeli right wants, believing it offers a justification for entrenching the occupation? By generating the very terror he claims to be trying to defeat, does Mr Netanyahu hope he can safeguard the legitimacy of the Jewish state and destroy hopes for a Palestinian state?

 Jonathan Cook is The National's correspondent in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year's Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism

MK Zoabi removed from Knesset over flotilla participation
Israeli navy encircles “Dignity” at sea

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Gilad Atzmon: Flotilla, Flytilla and the prospect of ‘Civil Society Action’

"The leaders of the two ‘civil society campaigns’ had done their homework....But they had failed to see one thing. They did not grasp the most obvious fact about the Jewish State and its supportive powers around the world..... the Jewish State is not a civilised place, and it is also totally foreign to the notion of civilisation. Once again the Israeli Government provided its critics around the world with a clear lesson about the unique traits of the Jewish State."

Gilad Atzmon: Flotilla, Flytilla and the prospect of ‘Civil Society Action’

It might be argued that the passing week was not very easy on the Palestinian solidarity movement:

Firstly, an international peaceful flotilla aiming to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza did not manage to leave Greek ports. The Greek government had surrendered submissively to Israeli pressure and American Jewish organisations, and blocked the naval enterprise.

Secondly, an international attempt to fly hundreds of activists from all over the world to the West Bank also partially failed, as the Israeli Government had managed to mount just enough pressure to make sure that the project fell apart before it became airborne.[1]

Though it may seem as if the Palestinian solidarity movement suffered a blow, it is actually Israel that was harshly beaten here, for Israel has managed to expose its level of hysteria: it seems that eight old yachts and a few hundred Easyjet passengers have managed to shake the entire Israeli society. Now try to imagine the potential impact of hundred of thousands of Palestinian refugees marching to their homes in Jaffa , Acre Lod , Ramle, Haifa, Beer Shiva and Al Quds.

I guess that the picture is clearer than ever– Israel doesn’t stand a chance. Its fate is doomed. It is just a question of time. It is not a matter of ‘if’ but a question of ‘when’.
But the truth of the matter goes slightly deeper. Both the Flotilla and the Flytilla are exemplary cases of ‘civil society campaigns’– they were intended to mobilise international public support using peaceful and democratic means.

Both campaigns were not aimed to harm Israel’s security in any way; rather, they were there to draw the world’s attention to the situation in Gaza and the West Bank. Their immediate goal i.e. reaching Palestine, was not fulfilled, but their mission is still a clear and significant victory because it proves once again what Israel is all about: the Jewish State is a closed society, a morbid collective driven by ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ (fuelled by vivid imaginary fantasies of destruction). Most importantly, the Israeli government’s desperate measures against the peaceful Flytilla proved to the world that the West Bank is also under siege, and Palestine is closed to visitors.

The leaders of the two ‘civil society campaigns’ had done their homework: they had planned it all for months, orchestrating and coordinating an airlift of different international groups. They had raised the funds, and they operated as you would expect ‘civil society campaigners’ to operate.

But they had failed to see one thing. They did not grasp the most obvious fact about the Jewish State and its supportive powers around the world. As much as they wanted to put into action the most civilised peaceful strategy, they may have failed to grasp that the Jewish State is not a civilised place, and it is also totally foreign to the notion of civilisation. Once again the Israeli Government provided its critics around the world with a clear lesson about the unique traits of the Jewish State.

Israel vs. Civilisation

The word ‘civilisation’ comes originally from the Latin word civilis, related to the Latin words civis, meaning citizen, and civitas, meaning city or city-state.
‘Civilisation’, then, is traditionally grasped as a society that acknowledges and respects notions of ‘civil law’ and ‘citizenship’. Israel is not such a society unfortunately. Most of the people whose homes are on Israeli-controlled land lack basic civil rights just for failing to be Jewish.
It is possible that Israel’s deficiency in that regard is rooted in orthodox Judaism’s defiance of the notions of ‘civil law’ and civilisation. For Rabbinical Judaism, it is the Halacha law that strictly sets the legal rights and duties of the Jew.[2]

Interestingly enough, early Zionism was an attempt to remedy the situation. It promised to ‘civilise Jewish life’. It vowed to erect a Jewish society that respected principles of citizenship and secular civil law. But Zionism was doomed to fail. Already, at its moment of inception, the Jewish State preferred to ethnically cleanse the vast majority of the Palestinian population instead of exercising the theoretical possibility of ‘Jewish civilisation.’

The truth of the matter is that the Jewish state has battled with Halacha laws since its moment of birth. On the one hand secular Israelis, Hasbara agents and Zionists disseminate the deceptive image of a Jewish ‘democratic’, ‘civilised and open society’ but on the other hand, the religious institutions in Israel challenge that fictitious deceptive agenda: they clearly argue that if Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish State’, it should give Jewishness some real meaning. They are basically referring to Halacha laws

The outcome of this struggle is clear: by now, Israel has very little respect for the notion of ‘civilisation’ or ‘civil law’. At the most, it mimics some liberal Western symptoms. The Arab MK Azmi Bishara who suggested a few years ago that Israel should become a state of all its citizens ( i.e. a civilisation ), had to run away for his life, and has lived in exile ever since. It is not a secret that Israeli Arabs (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) are second class citizens, and the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank lack any meaningful civil status. They are dwelling in open air prisons. They are subject to Israeli brutality and different forms of racially discriminative laws. Not only that, foreign labour communities in Israel are also totally marginalised, living a life of complete insecurity, with few rights.

The obvious question here then, is whether ‘civil society action’, as we have seen in recent weeks from international solidarity activists, can have any effect at all on a society that so clearly defies the notions of ‘civil law ‘and ‘civilisation’?

Jewish Diaspora and Civilisation

Israel itself is obviously just part of the problem: the Jewish State is supported by some relentless Jewish Lobbies all over the world. These lobbies do manage to push Western governments and political institutions into some very dark corners.

In Britain, for instance, Sheikh Raed Salah, AKA the ‘Gandhi of Palestine’ has been detained for more than a week following the shameful British Government surrender to right-wing Jewish Lobby pressure. Also, the Israeli press was proud to report recently about the incentives offered by Jewish organisations to the struggling Greek government ahead of the Flotilla.
The Israeli Government and its supporting lobbies gathered a while back that it is much cheaper to buy a Western politician than it is to buy a tank.

So, the moral for the rest of us should be clear: though Israel itself defies the notion of civilisation, the above incidents prove that its lobbies around the world still manage to interfere with our respective nations’ civilisations.

Civil Society Action Vs. The Non Civilised

Palestinian Solidarity leaders will have to draw the necessary lessons from the recent events. Civil Society Campaigns do mobilise public support around the world and this is indeed very important. However, such campaigns may be just too weak to bring about a change of consciousness in Israel.
In order to defeat Israel and Zionism, we must first admit to ourselves what Israel is all about: we are combating a unique, racially oriented, expansionist tribal project that has no precedent in history, and this project exceeds beyond its natural geographical boundaries. Israel is not just a territorial quest; it is actually an ideology, and its modus operandi is driven by radical forms of racial supremacy (Jewish chosen-ness). But we should also acknowledge that the Jewish State is not alone: it is supported institutionally by world Jewry.

If we care about Palestine, world peace and the state of our world in general, our task is to stand up openly and identify the kinds of ideology, politics and culture that serve the Jewish State and its interests, both globally and locally. We do not necessarily have to travel to Palestine to combat the Israeli soldiers: it may be better to locate its mercenaries around us, in our media, political institutions, think tanks, academia and economy.

These people and organisations actually interfere with our civilisation, with our most sacred Western values of ethics, pluralism, harmony and tolerance.

---

[1] Those activists that did make it to Israel were very quickly detained and given deportation orders.
[2] It may be argued that Islam also defies the notion of Civil Law. However, unlike Judaism, Islam is a universal precept. It clearly defined respectful measures and approaches towards ethnic and religious minorities.

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Israel's no fly ban for European activists

Sunday, July 10, 2011 at 10:03PM Gilad Atzmon

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Netanyahu Panics — American and European activists Flytilla

When Folks like Kathy Kelly Visit Palestine by Sea or by Air Netanyahu Panics

Kathy Kelly -- Voice for Palestine

“I, and another US Boat to Gaza campaign member, Missy Lane, will head to Tel Aviv, where we plan to be part of a “flytilla,” a new campaign which will bring hundreds of activists together in Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, all of us intent on reaching Palestinian refugee camps and/or visiting Gazan families.” — Kathy Kelly


by James M Wall

When the Israeli government discovered that a large contingent of American and European activists were coming to visit Palestine, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went into his full military stance.
He made one huge mistake. He forgot to ask: What is the enemy’s goal? If he had asked himself that question, he would have known that the overarching purpose of the flotilla and the flytilla was to drawn attention to the harsh and ugly reality that Israel maintains absolute military control over the lives of Palestinians living under occupation in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israeli police detain pro-Palestine activists in Ben Gurion Airport to prevent activists from entering Palestine

Did he not know, could he not have realized, what a burden it is for the New York Times to cover up the harsh and ugly reality of occupation when Israel so dramatically shuts its doors to anyone it brands as “pro-Palestinian”?

In its report on the airport blockade, The Times was forced to use a headline that said the visitors were blocked from attending a “conference” in Bethlehem. That did not come out very well for Netanyahu. The Israeli line was that the visitors were blocked because they were a threat to Israeli security. Both the Times and Israel know that “conferences” are held in Bethlehem all the time without all this fuss.

How is this flytilla different? Could it be because this “conference” was clearly intended to draw world attention to Israel’s treatment not only of Palestinians, but also to its behavior toward friends of Palestinians?

The Times inserts a brief observation that Palestine has no airport of its own. And why, pray tell, an astute reader will want to know, is there no airport in Palestine? The Times does not say. It also fails to mention that Israel will not permit Palestinians to build their own airport. Nothing gets built in occupied Palestine without Israeli approval.

In her Friday story, the Time’s Isabel Kershner reported that Israel was aware that the air travelers had been invited by Palestinian activists to come to Bethlehem for a week of “fellowship and actions”.

Most of the foreigners who planned to fly to Tel Aviv and join the “Welcome to Palestine” initiative were either deterred from trying to come or were prevented from boarding flights to Israel by foreign airlines, on instructions from the Israelis.
The Palestinian hosts decried the Israeli measures, but also chalked up a small victory.
Fadi Kattan, a Palestinian organizer, said at a news conference in Bethlehem that he was “pleased — sadly pleased” that the episode had exposed what he described as Israel’s draconian anti-Palestinian policies.

Netanyahu’s initial response to this planned event proved once again that a man in a panic does not think clearly. Instead of letting the party go forward, Israeli authorities put together a “no fly” list of “peace and justice” passengers believed to be “threats” to Israel’s security.
Outside groups are frequently invited to Palestine to travel to Bethlehem and other parts of both Israel and Palestine to talk, pray and plan. Religious types often get through passport control clutching a Bible or a guidebook to the “holy sites”. It also helps if you know the name of an Israeli rabbi, just in case you get into a second round of questioning. But this time was different. Both sides knew the game was on.
Ha’aretz reported:

Over the past few days, hundreds of police officers were deployed in and around the airport near Tel Aviv. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the base of operations at Ben-Gurion with his internal security minister, the police chief, security branch representatives and immigration officials.

Netanyahu demanded that European airport authorities do to air passengers what the Greek Coast Guard did to the flotilla, halt them at the alpha point. Knowing some passengers would make it to Tel Aviv, Netanyahu took personal command of his second line of defense, Ben Gurion airport.
Ben Gurion authorities had to sift through the long line of American and British Bible tour groups, Christian pilgrims, business travelers, and the European Holy Land travelers, to find those dangerous passengers who made it through the security net.

Al Jazeera reported that “of the 600 Tel Aviv-bound pro-Palestine activists who wanted to fly Friday, the majority were prevented from boarding their flights”.

The Palestinians and their international allies had set Netanyahu up. He fell for it hard in his response to the Freedom to Enter flytilla campaign which originated in Bethlehem under local Palestinian leaders like Mazin Qumsiyeh.

Netanyahu’s over reaction to the international flotilla left him looking like the town bully who gets his way with other nations by using his Daddy’s money. In the case of both the flytilla and the flotilla, Netanyahu is the big loser.

Kathy Kelly is shown in action in the picture above, holding her weapon, a microphone. She was one of those passengers who made it to Tel Aviv. She was already well-known to Israeli officials, just as she is well known to her many friends and admirers elsewhere, including those of us in her home town of Chicago, Illinois, where the author of this blog, in the interest of full disclosure, must confess to having known, and admired her, for more than two decades.

Kelly was among the passengers on the Audacity of Hope, the US ship which was sailing to Gaza, when it was intercepted by the Greek Coast Guard. Undaunted, she wrote in The Palestine Chronicle that she would fly to Tel Aviv. She explained her reactions as she prepared to leave Athens:

I leave Greece tonight with sincere regret that I didn’t spend more time learning from these sturdy activists.
I, and another US Boat to Gaza campaign member, Missy Lane, will head to Tel Aviv, where we plan to be part of a “flytilla,” a new campaign which will bring hundreds of activists together in Israel’s Ben Gurion airport, all of us intent on reaching Palestinian refugee camps and/or visiting Gazan families.
Earlier this evening, a group of U.S. activists who’ve been able to remain longer, here in Athens, demonstrated at each of the heavily guarded streets leading to the residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Greece. The Ambassador is hosting a huge festival tonight, in celebration of the U.S. July 4 holiday that commemorates independence.
Several Greek people passing us read our signs seeking freedom for Gaza and asked us to understand that as recently as one year ago, the government of Greece showed no sign of submitting to Israeli or U.S. pressure and allowed international flotilla boats to sail. But, now. they are dependent on the whims of financial elites around the world. The IMF is prescribing draconian measures which will wreck their economy and make them subservient to the dictates of foreign multinationals.

Kelly and Missy Lane landed at Ben Gurion, but they were detained by airport authorities. No word yet on what will happen next to the two of them, though a swift return back home is likely.

Kelly, by the way, would be the first to insist that we acknowledge here that she is but one of more than 600 travelers who participated in both the flotilla and flytilla projects. There are many more Kathy Kelly stories among those peace and justice travelers to Palestine. And their number is growing. No wonder Netanyahu is in such a panic.

Here are the beginning words from the citation presented to Kelly from the Justice Studies Association when Kelly was awarded the 2011 Noam Chomsky honor for her work on peace and justice issues:

Kathy Kelly is a long-time pacifist and co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. A tireless activist whose efforts toward peace transcend borders, regions and time zones, writer Studs Terkel wrote of her: “She has visited more countries, cities and small towns not listed in Baedeker’s [travel guide] than anyone I have ever known.”
Born, raised and educated in Chicago – as a student at St. Paul-Kennedy High School, Kelly watched the film Night and Fog which exposed her to the horrors of the Holocaust. She also was exposed to the writings of Daniel Berrigan and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. All of this convinced her to make a commitment never to sit by and watch evil happen.
Now 58, Kelly has spent her life living up to her commitment. Over the last 30 years, she has helped the victims of war wherever they were – whether in Bosnia, Haiti, the West Bank, Iraq or Afghanistan. A war tax resister since 1982, Kelly has perhaps most notably used her resources (financial and spiritual) to provide medicine and other supplies to those trapped by the politics of militarism. Kelly co-founded Voices in the Wilderness, a peace group that highlighted the suffering of Iraqi civilians during the U.N. imposed economic sanctions of the 1990s. (To read the complete citation, click here.)

No American television coverage has yet to emerge from the flytilla. But there is clip available from the English language channel of RT (Russia Television), which provides an interview with Pippa Bartolotti, a British passenger who made it successfully through Ben Gurion passport control.

FLYTILLA ACTIVISTS ARRESTED

See original article at: Wall Writings

---

James Wall is currently a Contributing Editor of The Christian Century magazine, based in Chicago, Illinois. From 1972 through 1999, he was editor and publisher of the Christian Century magazine. He has made more than 20 trips to that region as a journalist, during which he covered such events as Anwar Sadat’s 1977 trip to Jerusalem, and the 2006 Palestinian legislative election. He has interviewed, and written about, journalists, religious leaders, political leaders and private citizens in the region. Jim served for two years on active duty in the US Air Force, and three additional years in the USAF (inactive) reserve. He can be reached at: jameswall8@gmail.com

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Saturday, July 9th, 2011 | Posted by Veterans Today

Gaza 'Flytilla' activists arrested for chanting 'Free Palestine' in Tel Aviv airport

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

Israel under attack from Flytilla

Posted on July 9, 2011 by rehmat1

After successfully sabotaging two ships and blackmailing Athens to stop other aid flotilla sailing to the Gaza Strip – now Benji Netanyahu is faced with the problem how to get rid of the ‘flytilla’ pessengers arriving from several western countries at the Ben Gurion Airport via airlines. Benji paid a visit to the airport security officials before his trip to Romania and insisted that “every country has the right to prevent entry of disrupters and provocateurs at its borders”. I suppose his ‘every country’ do include Iran, Syria, Sudan and Lebanon for arresting and prosecuting US-Israeli hooligans.

Over 600 anti-Gaza blockade protesters from several European countries were denied to board the planes at London, Paris, Geneva and Brussels under Israeli threats that the planes carrying the protesters will be shot down.

The protesters persisted that they will not stop and that more demonstrations will take place to protest against Israel’s blockade of Gaza. They also said that they will take Israel’s threat against foreign airlines to the UN. (watch video below).

The Zionist regime has saved itself from the flytilla attack for the time being while further isolating itself from the Zionist-free nations in Asia, Africa, Middle East and South America.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian