Video of the motion being proposed is above, and full text of the wording that was passed unanimously is below. From CPGB-ML party congress on Saturday 5 June.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla

This congress notes with outrage the massacre of an as-yet-unknown number of peaceful aid volunteers aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010. In an act of piracy that violated international law and the Geneva conventions, as well as all norms of human decency, Israel sent hundreds of fully-armed commandos in a night-time raid to hijack ships that were travelling in international waters and posed no threat whatsoever to Israel’s security.

Congress notes that although the number “nine” has been much publicised as the total of slain victims in this atrocity, many volunteers are still unaccounted for, and organisers believe that the death toll may in fact be closer to 20.

Congress also notes with sadness that it took international peace activists to be killed in large numbers to bring the siege on Gaza into the western media spotlight and make it a high-profile issue on the world political stage, in a way that the deaths of 1,417 Palestinians in the Gaza massacre last year failed to do.

This congress believes that, far from constituting the “provocation” that Israeli zionist politicians have described them as, the volunteers were in fact responding to calls from within the UN itself that, since Israel was not being brought to book for its crimes against Palestine, nor the siege of Gaza being lifted through official channels, then efforts must be made by non-governmental organisations to break the blockade and uphold international law.

This congress further believes that, while this particular aid mission may have been stopped, Israel has utterly failed in its attempt to thereby crush the rising international solidarity movement, but has, on the contrary, only helped it to grow and become more determined. Not only are more ships already being bought and filled, but activists and organisations from all over the world are stepping forward to man them. Far from making itself more secure, Israel’s rabid actions have only succeeded in bringing the day of its own demise closer.

This congress applauds the initiative of Viva Palestina and Free Gaza, who, by land and by sea, have been working to bring the siege to public attention, and who have brought together an international coalition of organisations and activists to further that aim, most notably IHH of Turkey, which made by far the largest contribution to the Freedom Flotilla.

Congress sends a red salute to all those brave volunteers who put themselves in the firing line on every one of the siege-busting missions, and especially to the slain heroes of the Freedom Flotilla, whose names will be recorded in the roll of honour as martyrs not only for Palestine, but for the entire working and oppressed masses of the world in their struggle against imperialist domination. They are the true embodiment of proletarian internationalism.

Congress also welcomes the response of the government of Turkey, which has finally shown the way to other states by offering a naval escort to the next aid ships that sail to Gaza.

This congress resolves to take up the cause of the flotilla martyrs by redoubling its efforts in support of Palestine. We call on all our members to become active in the Palestine solidarity movement: to join PSC and raise awareness of the issue in workplaces, schools, colleges and unions.

This congress calls on the British government and people to demand:

– the immediate release of all those volunteers still held prisoner by Israel;
- the severing of all diplomatic, financial and military ties between Britain and Israel;
- the complete boycott of Israeli goods and institutions;
- an end to British media complicity in Israel’s war crimes;
- an international tribunal to try Israel’s leaders for war crimes committed during the siege and bombardment of Gaza, as well as against the Freedom Flotilla;
- an end to the siege of Gaza;
- freedom for Palestine.

In its desperation to maintain the strangulating blockade on Gaza, Israel’s violent response to a peaceful humanitarian aid mission has instead brought the end of its criminal siege within sight.

Of course, the real trouble for Israel was that it was damned either way. Despite nearly four years of suffocating blockade and daily murder, the Palestinians have not overthrown their elected Hamas leadership in Gaza; a leadership that stands for resistance rather than submission to zionist brutality. Instead, bearing incredible privations with dignity and fortitude, they have held their society together on a shoe-string, shamed Israel and its backers in the court of world public opinion and galvanised the sympathy and solidarity of the world’s people.

As more and more former friends of Israel have fallen away, the chorus calling for an end to the siege has been daily growing, especially since the horrific bombardment of Gaza a year and a half ago.

Allowing the boats to pass would have meant essentially admitting that the siege on Gaza had definitely failed and that the sea was indeed, as humanitarian activists have long pointed out, not Israel’s to control. A regular sea channel into Gaza allowing supplies to come in and out and trade links to be rekindled would drive a final nail into the coffin of Israel’s strangulation policy.

Welcoming the solidarity initiative, Hamas leader Ismail Radwan declared that “The occupation’s threat to prevent the Freedom Flotilla from arriving in the besieged Gaza Strip is zionist piracy and a violation of international law … The occupation is concerned about these ships … because they grant legitimacy to engagement with the Palestinian government and confirm that the attempts to isolate Hamas have failed.” (Cited in ‘Hamas accuses Israel of zionist piracy’, 27 May 2010)

And as Jamal Elshayyal pointed out in a blog entry for Al Jazeera, “if this fleet of humanitarians does reach its destination, it could very well set a precedent for others to challenge Israel’s illegal occupation, and the next thing you know Israel’s navy could be confronted by an armada of charities and humanitarian organisations.

“Furthermore, were the Freedom Flotilla to dock in Gaza, Arab governments would be severely embarrassed. After all, if a few hundred people can break the siege and help rebuild Gaza, why can’t some of the wealthiest nations and largest armies?” (‘Israel’s navy will have its work cut out’, 22 May 2010)

This was echoed in Israeli daily paper Yediot Aharonot, which pointed out that “If this flotilla gets through, the way will be open and the closure of the crossings will be meaningless.” (Cited in ‘As aid flotilla approaches Gaza’s shores, Israel takes extraordinary steps to prevent it reaching its destination’, 28 May 2010)

Quite so. But not allowing the boats to pass meant finding some way to stop them that would be acceptable to Israel’s paymasters in Washington. However, perhaps after the ‘Operation Cast Lead’ massacre was allowed to go so completely unpunished, despite arousing the horror of the world’s people and being condemned as a war crime by pro-zionist UN investigator Richard Goldstone, Israel’s leaders have become so used to assuming that the US and Britain will back them whatever, that they have lost their grip on the fact that ultimately, even those governments have to be able to sell their support to a sizeable section of their domestic populations.

The nineteenth century British prime minister Lord Palmerston famously pointed out that ‘Nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests,’ and this dictum sums up imperialist policy in a nutshell. The zionists have for so long been protected and sheltered behind their masters’ voluminous skirts, they have stopped imagining that they might ever be left to fend for themselves.

But if Israel’s actions are so blatant as to make whitewashing impossible, not only Israel but also the US and British ruling classes stand exposed as war criminals before their angry populations – and if that starts to happen, the imperialists may well decide that support for Israel is no longer the most effective way to secure access to and control of the resources and markets of the Middle East.

The fact that this assault was premeditated became clear as other details emerged. Two of the boats in the flotilla, Challenger I and Challenger II, were simultaneously struck with identical steering problems when they tried to leave their anchorage near Cyprus on the evening of Friday 28 May – obviously the result of a sabotage mission (probably by divers), which Israel has now all-but admitted to.

At the same time, the government of Cyprus regrettably bowed to Israeli pressure and refused at the last moment to allow high-profile European MPs and passengers, including Hedi Epstein, a jewish holocaust survivor, to leave the island from its shores to join the flotilla. (Previous sea missions to break the siege have all left from Cyprus.)

Israeli sabotage and threats delayed the flotilla and caused it to change course several times, but ultimately failed to stop it from trying to carry out its mission. Several ships, including the Rachel Corrie, fell behind, however, so that it was actually only a six-boat convoy that the Israelis ambushed under cover of darkness. The boats were still many miles outside Israel’s ‘exclusion zone’ when the attack took place.

Meanwhile, with customary arrogance, born of 60 years of supremacist racism, and of being not only permitted, but actually assisted in wiping brown faces off the map by its backers in the US and Britain, Israel obviously thought that if only unknown muslim Turks were aboard the main ship, no-one in the West would mind much what happened to them, or question the Israeli version of events.

In their usual high-handed and trigger-happy fashion, using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, the zionists may well have hoped that clamping down hard on the flotilla would send a message to the increasingly activist solidarity movement: This is what will happen to you if you try to break the blockade! And no doubt troops schooled in the noble art of anti-civilian combat, who are famous for viewing Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular as less than dogs, saw no problem in firing first and asking questions later – just as we know they were specifically instructed to do during the Gaza massacre last year. Especially when most of those facing them would have looked very similar to the Palestinians they murder with sickening regularity in Gaza and the West Bank.

This is an exerpt. Read the full article here

Palestinians are expert at this, with over six decades of practice at getting on with life after tragedies.

As I’m riding in a taxi two days ago after sunset, the Israeli massacre of flotilla passengers on every radio and tv channel, the driver starts to chat.

“Allah yerhamum, God bless their souls,” he begins. He is friendly but expressionless, doesn’t smile and has fatigue written on his face.

“I’ve got nine martyrs in my family,” he states, same voice, same expression, barely glancing my way.

“Allah yerhamum,” I reply, and begin to learn the details.

He lives just before Deir al Balah, the cental coastal town, and his loved ones were murdered in the brutal ways so many perished from during the Israeli massacre on Gaza last year.

Mohammed (45) and his son Suheil (14) and daughter (18) were the first killed, although the nine were all slaughtered in the same period of time.

“We live near the coast, there was heavy shooting and shelling from the sea,” he explains. I remember it well, remember that all along Gaza’s coast homes, hotels, restaurants (mostly empty anyway) were evacuated. Many were bombed, by F-16s, drones, or from gunboats on the sea.

“After the first missile killed Mohammed and his kids, more missiles fell.”

The driver lost many of his brothers and first cousins in the bombings. He lists their names and ages, carefully, staring ahead.

“After they were killed, ambulances couldn’t reach us. When I tried to go out to collect the injured or the dead, the Israelis shot at me. It was over three hours before an ambulance could get to us.”

He describes one brother who is living, but just barely. Shrapnel to the head and arm, he motions how his brother’s head was torn open. The shrapnel to his wife’s face disfigured her, but she has undergone plastic surgery and healed well.

At no point does he implore for help or ask for anything. He just talks, tells me what I’ve heard from so many Palestinians over the last year and a half.

I was a passenger on the first effort to break the Gaza blockade. Our mission was to show that normal people cared.

Since the military attack on a fleet of civilian ships in international waters, Israel’s well oiled spin machine has imposed a total news blackout about the survivors, taking their phones and denying them access to consular representation. The void has instead been filled with disinformation about the passengers on board the Mavi Marmara ferry. For those of us with colleagues and loved ones of whom we still have no clear news, such lies only exacerbate our anxiety and fury. So, before I have to read another weasel word from politicians about inquiries into the motives of the flotilla, let me shed some light on the kind of people either hospitalised or being illegally held in prisons in the south of the country.

In 2008 I was a passenger on the first ever effort to break the Gaza blockade in a peaceful, non-violent, but very direct way. Tired of the international community’s refusal to act while 1.8 million Palestinians were being systematically denied their human rights on a daily basis, 46 people from all walks of life prepared to sail from Cyprus to Gaza. Kathy Sheetz, a nurse from the US, Therese McDonald, a Scottish postal worker. and Osama Qashoo, a Palestinian film-maker now resident in the UK, were on board then as now. And we too were called “provocateurs” by the Israeli media, “leftwing radicals” and “terrorist sympathisers”.

Our mission was simply to show the population of Gaza that normal people cared about their plight; that we saw their hunger, their fear, their imprisonment, their struggle; and that we – everyday folk with good hearts – would do what we could to bring their plight to the eyes of the world.

Then, as now, our intention was never to go anywhere near Israel’s shores, nor its waters, nor its military. Then, as now, the cargo on our ships was rigorously checked by European port authorities and stamped as free from any weapons whatsoever. We believed, back in those innocent days, that this would not furnish Israel with even the most vapid excuse to board or attack us on the pretext that we were a security threat. Then, they did not. This week, they did.

Let me ask you one final question that’s been troubling me, as sympathy for those apparently fragile Israeli commandos continues to pour in. If you were on a boat in the Mediterranean and hundreds of the world’s most notoriously violent soldiers started falling from the sky, wouldn’t you defend yourself? The brave human beings on the Mavi Marmara were acting in self-defence. And because of this many died. Something of the hopeful child in me died with them.

Ibrahim, son of a Palestinian fisherman, waits for the Freedom Flotilla in Gaza City harbour, 30 May 2010

A demo on the sea today, a day in advance of the anticipated arrival of the Freedom Flotilla, originally comprising nine boats and 700 people. The Flotilla has been delayed by sudden mechanical failures, international complicity, the pull-out of the Cyprus government’s support – and its banning of boats in Cyprus waters – and more despicable but unsurprising political manoeuvring.

But despite Israel’s promised threat to forcibly stop the boats (in international or Palestinian waters, as with the sixth Free Gaza boat voyage (which was rammed by an Israeli gunboat) and abduct all their passengers (as they have previously done), the flotilla streams forward with the 10,000 tons of humanitarian supplies they are bringing to Gaza.

Ibrahim, 10 or so, is the son of one of Gaza’s unrepresented fishermen, numbering now around just 3000 whereas fishing used to employ over 10,000. The number of reported incidents of Israeli gunboat attacks on Palestinian fishing trawlers and hassakas (small motor or paddled boats) is over 300 since Israel’s war on Gaza. OCHA reports at least two fishermen have been killed and 12 injured by Israeli attacks since January 2009.

(More on Israel’s daily attacks, abductions of fishermen and stealing of boats and equipment can be found at Fishing Under Fire.)

Ibrahim’s father, Khaled al Habil, has on many occassions suffered partial, serious and complete damage to his fishing trawlers. In September 2009, one of his trawlers was targeted by an Israeli gunboat missile, along with intense machine gun fire. The boat burned to charred remains.

But today Ibrahim joins the excitement on the water. He straddles the front of a motor boat, Palestinian flag in hand, other hand raised in victory.

But when the demo is over, Ibrahim will return to his impoverished home (rendered devastated by the siege and Israeli limitations on fishing: down from 20 miles under Oslo, to less than 3 miles under Israel’s unliateral imposition).

The demo returns with an Israeli gunboat pirating Gaza’s waters, machine gun fire reverberating as ever.

Power is out at home, as it will be all over Gaza in stages.

Just when Gaza most needs NGO finance to sustain the basics of existence, charities are pulling out, worried by legal rulings over ‘supporting terrorism’.

by Jasmin Ramsey

The Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert had direct experience of the disturbing health situation at Gaza City’s poorly resourced al-Shifa hospital during Israel’s bombing campaign in December 2008. As health worker and activist since 1981, his most recent visit was last summer. In al-Zaitun, he met the Samoni family, who lost some 30 members during the Israeli offensive. Amal Atteia Samoni had been left in the rubble before her brother found her nearly dead from dehydration and exhaustion. Gilbert and his team were able to nurse the nine-year-old into “Lucky”, the best of the three triage states they used to sort patients; that means that eventually she will bee able to walk and talk.

Lucky hardly describes Amal. Her home was destroyed, and she now lives in a refugee camp amid crumbled infrastructure, with limited access to education or health. Israel’s siege of Gaza prevents everything from school supplies to building materials from entering, and health relief operations are also obstructed. Children like Amal have suffered varying degrees of trauma, but have limited access to counselling.

Gilbert argues that this is due in part to sanctions arranged by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), responsible for administering and enforcing economic sanctions programmes against individuals, countries and groups designated by the US as terrorist organisations, such as Hamas, or affiliated with them. OFAC’s sanctions prevent many NGOs from doing more than providing handouts to Gaza’s population or aiding private organisations.

The sanctions prohibit international NGOs in Gaza from providing money, material and goods, or training and services, to individuals, groups and authorities considered to be affiliated with the Hamas government. Yet 73% of Gazan children are suffering from psychological and behavioural disorders (1). Ayesh Samour, director of the Psychiatric Hospital in Gaza, says: “A dearth of health professionals in the Strip and a lack of access to medical equipment meant children were not getting the help they needed.”

Because of OFAC, Save the Children USA cannot help Gaza service providers, professionals or caretakers funded by the Hamas government, but only those they distinguish as “unaffiliated” with Hamas. And the same is true for any other US-based NGO. There is the difficulty of verifying who is affiliated with Hamas, and the NGOs’ desire to avoid controversy, and with it financial loss. So needy people go without help.

What can happen to non-profit organisations when they are accused of aiding those identified as terrorist organisations? A well-known example was Interpal, the British charity providing relief and development aid to Palestinians, listed in 2003 as a “terrorist entity” by the US Department of the Treasury (2). That year, the UK Charity Commission froze Interpal’s assets while it conducted an investigation, which cleared it of links to Hamas, after a request to the US authorities for evidence supporting their claims went unanswered. Another inquiry was opened in 2006 after a BBC Panorama (TV) programme, accusing Interpal of funding Islamic charities that promote the ideology of Hamas. A second request to the US authorities for evidence was ignored. The inquiry was closed in February 2009.

That was not the end of the story. Stuart A Levey, first Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the US Treasury under George W Bush, is the leading figure behind the US financial war against those it considers harmful to its security objectives. Levey said in a testimony on the 9/11 Commission Report in 2004 that he found it “extremely troubling” that Interpal continued to operate in the UK when the US had listed it as a terrorist organisation. Interpal faced further threats when Lloyds TSB, the clearing bank for the Islamic Bank of Britain (IBB), refused to provide financial services to Interpal and pressured the IBB to close their account. Natwest, part of the Royal Bank of Scotland, had closed Interpal’s account in 2007. Interpal, in its annual report for the year ended 2008, cited several instances of aid services being impeded, and said it suffered a “significant drop by more than 50% in income from overseas trusts due to Interpal’s banking difficulties”. Interpal remains designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, although cleared in the UK, and so faces hardship getting aid to Palestinians.

No wonder that many charities take extra measures to abide by OFAC sanctions. This means that fewer non-profits are willing to work in Gaza. If compliant NGOs do remain in Gaza, their options are reduced to working with private organisations or with Gazans not employed by the government. But with an almost non-existent economy, an overwhelming majority of Gazans can only find employment with Hamas.

Gilbert has a solution, yet to be realised: “OFAC could issue a temporary emergency licence to work with both the public and private health clinics, hospitals and schools in Gaza, similar to the licence issued for work in Iran after the Bam earthquake.”

In January Canada – one of the top 10 donors to UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) – became the first western government to halt funding to the agency which provides aid and services to more than four million Palestinians, including those in Gaza. Canada reportedly stopped funding because it claims the agency is not neutral in Gaza and works with Hamas. Was Canada’s change of heart to do with pressure from the pro-Israel lobby?

Gilbert is not alone in claiming that Gaza is worse than before. But he insists on the need for people to work to alleviate the conditions which lead to suffering. He has several healthcare projects in Gaza and elsewhere in the occupied territories, and is working on a scholarship programme between his university and al-Shifa hospital to train doctors. The challenge will be to convince the Israelis to allow Palestinian doctors to travel outside Gaza (not allowed even while Israel was bombing).

Gilbert says there is still hope if people continue solidarity work and lobby harder. In Gaza, hope has become a lifeline. But if the international community does not enforce UN resolutions on illegal Israeli actions, and the outside world decreases or cuts aid, even that lifeline may 
be cut.

Congratulations to Jezza Neumann for making this unusually honest film about the realities of Israel’s criminal war against the Palestinian people. To find a programme like this on mainstream British television is exceptionally unusual, given the British state’s backing of Israel.

The British government and British corporations fund and arm Israel; they give it preferential trade treatment and they give it diplomatic and propaganda support, which normalises and apologises for Israel’s crimes.

We in Britain are all complicit if we don’t stand up against the war criminals. We should refuse to make or move the arms that are sold to Israel; refuse to write or broadcast propaganda that portrays Israel as justified in its behaviour. We should join the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions by refusing to buy Israeli goods and by cutting all links with Israel. Make links with Palestinian communities instead and break down the walls of isolation that Israel is attempting to impose.

The Viva Palestina convoy in December was a massive story all over the world, but the press in the USA and Britain totally ignored it. This is no accident; it’s a deliberate blackout policy. Britain needs Israel to help intimidate the oil-producing governments of the Middle East. This means our government and the corporate and media moguls don’t care what crimes Israel commits; and they don’t want us to know about them.

Hence the media blackout. Hence the BBC trying to pretend that showing the DEC appeal for Gaza was ‘political’. Hence the outrageous criminalisation of young people who protested against the war crimes being committed when Israel was bombarding Gaza last year. Hence the plans to change the law so that Israeli war criminals can travel to Britain with impunity.

This makes it all the more welcome to find a programme like tonight’s Dispatches on Channel 4. Thank you.

And now it’s time to start telling the truth on the news, too. Talk about the illegal occupation when you talk about Palestine. Talk about the ethnic cleansing. Talk about ‘occupied Palestine’, not ‘southern Israel’. Explain that the Palestinians’ right to resist the illegal occupation of their country by a colonial power is enshrined in international law (just as the French had the right to resist Nazi occupation). Talk about Israel’s war crimes. Talk about the deliberate targeting of unarmed civilians by the fourth-largest army in the world. Talk about the destruction of schools and hospitals, the demolition of houses, the bulldozing of farmland, the shooting of fishermen, and the pollution of the land. Talk about babies and children dying due to lack of medical equipment. Talk about babies miscarrying or being born with deformities because of the pollution caused by Israel’s illegal chemical weapons. Talk about the slow strangulation of a people by the illegal and barbaric siege!

Broadcasting pro-Israeli propaganda is a war crime; it’s time we held our media to account for its role in these crimes. Channel 4: you’ve shown that you can broadcast truthful information about Palestine when you want to; please now have the courage to take this further and stop broadcasting lies that help Israel to continue with its dirty work.