07/02/15 – David Heap – The Scott Horton Show

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Alright you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, the Scott Horton Show.
On the line I've got David Heap from the Canadian boat to Gaza.
That is the Freedom Flotilla.
Freedom Flotilla 3, I believe it is now.
Welcome to the show, David.
How are you doing?
Good to be here, Scott.
Thank you for having me on the show.
Sure thing.
Very happy to have you here.
Appreciate you joining us, especially on short notice like this.
So can you please tell us what is the latest news?
I guess we can get into a little bit of background later, but first of all, just what's the breaking news of the flotilla there in the Mediterranean?
So as of early Monday morning, the Marianne, the ship that sailed around the coast of Europe from Sweden, was assaulted in international waters and illegally seized by the Israelis, and 18 people on board kidnapped on the high seas in international waters, again a crime in international law.
They were all taken against their will to the Israeli port of Ashtad.
Some of them were expelled quickly, a former Egyptian president, European member of Parliament.
Some of them wound up in jail for a while.
Some journalists were also expelled quickly.
As of today, the two Canadian participants are on their way home, and we're off to meet them at the airport in Toronto, so we're happy to see Bob Lovelace of the Ardoch-Algonquin First Nation and Kevin Nish, a retired marine engineer from British Columbia, arriving today back home safely, finally.
We're still concerned.
There's six or seven people, six Swedes and I believe a Russian journalist, who are still in detention in the Israeli prison at Giv'on, which is, you know, not a good place to be almost, what are we, three or four days later, and the word is they might not get out till the weekend, till Saturday or Sunday or maybe even Monday.
The Swedes, some of them have been there before, and they don't want to leave anybody behind, so they want to go out as much as possible in groups rather than one at a time, because of course that's a safety concern for the people that have sailed together.
They want to come out together.
So that's the situation of the internationals that were on the flotilla.
What we have to keep in mind is that the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza are still inside the world's largest open-air prison, and that's the real purpose of this campaign, to shed the light of the world and the conscience of humanity, bring focused attention on the people that are the reason we're doing all this, because, you know, they need to know that even though the governments of the world have turned their backs on them and ignored their plight, the peoples of the world, civil society organizations like ours haven't forgotten them.
Yeah, no, that is absolutely, of course, the the real point here, but just on the details once again real quick.
How many boats were there, and did the others were just turned away after the first boat was seized, or exactly how'd that play out?
I'm sorry, I'm just behind on the news.
That's fine, that's fine.
I'm just happy to bring you up to speed.
So on Saturday morning there were four boats in the water.
There was Mary-Anne that I just mentioned, and three smaller boats that left ports in Greece to join her.
The plan all along was for them to accompany her for a time so we'd have more internationals involved.
We had people from many more countries involved in that stage.
There were actually two other Canadians on another boat.
The plan all along was for them to turn back before the encounter with the Israeli military, so that we would have some people who were getting out in time to talk to the media and bear witness to what had happened.
Because, of course, the people that are inside don't get to talk to the world, right?
And the Israeli government, the military forces, block all of the FATS phones and all of the radio signals on the boats when this happened, so there's no chance to tell the world what's going on.
So we wanted to have some people...
They lied initially, didn't they, the Israelis, and said, well we just turned the boat back without incident, and they didn't say anything about boarding and seizing anyone.
Yeah, they originally just said, visited and inspected without incident.
But, I mean, what you listeners need to know is that first statement is almost always going to be a lie.
I would assume when you hear a statement like that, that it's not truthful, because that's what an occupier does.
They take people's rights, they take their lands, they take their lives and freedom in some cases, and they lie about it as a matter of routine.
So, I mean, when I was on a boat that was stopped four years ago, they said it was done peacefully, that stopping, and, you know, I was tasered, which isn't very peaceful to me.
And, you know, we know that at least four of the Swedish crew were tasered the other morning when they were boarded, but of course the Israeli military lies about that, because they try to control the message for the first 12 to 24 hours, as I say, by preventing the journalists on board from doing their job, by taking all of the recording equipment and all the broadcasting equipment.
So it's important to have some people who are able to tell the story, bear witness to what's going on, as I say, and increase the amount of international involvement in the flotilla, because what people need to know is that these violent and illegal acts by the Israeli military aren't going to stop the international movement in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza.
In fact, the movement's growing.
We have, for the first time this time, we have people involved from South Africa and people from New Zealand.
There was a Maudi TV journalist crew on board, they just got back, the journalists just got back to New Zealand the other day.
You know, so this movement is spreading and making more links between people-to-people organizations, even while governments, like my government and the government of the States, one in Canada, one in the States, continue to give their support, unconditional support, to Israeli crimes.
All right, now, as you know, it's the population of the United States, and I guess I probably assume Canada too, are just woefully ignorant about this subject.
They couldn't imagine why somebody named David from Canada would have the slightest interest in what's going on in Gaza, and working with people, and getting on a boat, and some kind of blockade against the terrorists, or something.
What is this even about?
Why do you even care, David?
What is it?
So, this is a crime of collective punishment against the civilian population, right?
So this is illegal, under international law, for a long time, since the late 40s, the Fourth Geneva Convention, it says, when an occupying power, which is what Israel is in Gaza, they occupy it, even though the military isn't there every day, they surround it militarily, they control the airspace, and the sea, and almost all of the land access, they control everything about the economy, and the infrastructure in Gaza, they control even the civil registry, if you're going to get an ID card.
So they're an occupying power, in international law, that's very clear.
They're supposed to guarantee a normal life to civilians under occupation, and that's what the Palestinians in Gaza have been losing for the last eight years and counting of this blockade.
They don't have freedom of movement to trade and travel, they're a coastal area, and the Gaza Strip is on the coast of the Mediterranean, they can't access their own sea.
So when we sail, it's not about the stuff that we bring, the small amounts of aid that you can get on these small boats, it's not about, you know, a handful of internationals trying to get to Gaza, it's about bringing the world's attention to this blockade, which is a flagrant violation of, as I say, of international law, and of the human rights of the Palestinians in Gaza.
And it's done with the complicity of our government, right, especially the US and the Canadian governments, who are giving political cover and diplomatic support to Israel to get away with, well, in some cases, murder.
So nobody here was killed, but in 2010, nine Turks and one US citizen were killed, and oddly enough, nobody investigated the death of Ferkhan Gogan from the US, right?
Yep.
So, I mean, these are crimes which are done with the support of your government in mind, and people need to be aware that this is our responsibility as well, that this is going to stop when our government stops supporting the Israeli blockade and the Israeli occupation.
And so when we sail, you know, a small number of us in small boats in the Eastern Mediterranean, not a lot of people can get on board, they're small, small vessels, right?
But a lot of people can get on board with this movement, wherever you are, and whatever your walk of life, because we're really sailing against the government in Ottawa and the government in Washington, right?
Okay, so tell us about that.
What can people do, David?
What groups can they join?
What URLs can they bookmark?
How can they get involved and do something about this?
You want to look for freedomflotilla.org.
In Canada, we're canadaboatgaza.org, which will redirect to terrio.ca.
In the US, you can look for US Boat to Gaza and, you know, Just Foreign Policy has a petition right now calling on JustForeignPolicy.org in the States, calling on John Kerry to, well, we were talking about free access for the flotilla, but more the fundamental issue is freedom of movement for the Palestinians of Gaza.
So these are all civil society organizations in our respective countries that are working to influence people, not just politicians, but grassroots folks in our communities, to change their minds and help them understand that we are also responsible for what's happening there, and it's going to change when people change their minds here about what we want our governments to do.
All right, well, thank you very much for coming on the show, David.
I sure appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.
Thank you for having me.
I hope to speak to you again.
All right, y'all, that is David Heap.
He is at freedomflotilla.com.
Also, check out theusboattogaza.com, and we'll be right back.
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