VFP members have supported the "Audacity of Hope" ever since the first
donation can for it was passed around. Several VFP members will be
sailing in the next flotilla to Gaza. Ken Mayers, former VFP Treasurer is among them. He wrote
this moving op ed and we wanted to share it with you. For more
information: www.ustogaza.org
Why I am going to Gaza?
by Ken Mayers, Maj., USMC (ret.)
Between 1942 and 1945, 21 members of my mother's extended family are known to have died in German concentration camps: seven in Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia; seven in Riga, Latvia; four in Auschwitz, Poland; two elsewhere in Poland; and one in Sachsenhausen, Germany. Undoubtedly there were others whose place and dates of death are still unknown. Others managed to escape to Israel, where I still have family.
So why am I sailing on "The Audacity of Hope" this June in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza?
The first reason is tied to my ethnic heritage and family history. At a universal and abstract level, I am following this course of action because I believe the blockade is illegal under international law that prohibits the collective punishment of a population. But at a more specific personal level, it is because I believe Israel’s leaders have drawn too narrow an understanding from the great lesson of the holocaust, a lesson often summarized in the slogan, "Never again!"
The narrow understanding can be stated as "Never again shall Jews be subjected to the persecution that culminated in the holocaust." A broader understanding would be, "Never again should any people be subjected to the persecution that culminated in the holocaust."
It is a tragic irony that after a millennium of confinement to the ghettos of Europe, the Jewish state has created the world's largest ghetto in Gaza by blockading its ports, controlling its air space, and with some support from Egypt, imposing tight limits on access and egress by land. But far beyond tragic was the turning of the ghetto into a killing field with Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009. According to a B'Tselem human rights report, "1,389 Palestinians were killed, 759 of whom did not take part in the hostilities. Of these, 318 were minors under age 18." It was not a holocaust, but it was – and remains – dreadful persecution of a destitute, refugee population.
Since Cast Lead, the blockade has continued to devastate the people and economy of Gaza. Although Egypt on Saturday finally re-opened its crossing with Gaza, it is still abiding by old agreements constraining the entry of desperately needed construction materials. As the weapons and armaments used in the attack in large part either came from the United States or were enabled by the $3 billion annual aid given to Israel by our government, the act of attempting to break the blockade is an act of atonement.
The second reason I am sailing to Gaza is tied to my service as a Marine Corps officer from 1958 to 1966 at which point I gave up that career in dismay with American foreign policy.
I took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” My oath had no expiration date. I still feel bound by it and I strongly believe that our policy makers are violating the Constitution in the carte blanche support, financial and military, that they provide to the Israeli government. That support was made abundantly clear when Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech to Congress was loudly applauded even as he backed Israeli colonization of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and misrepresented the fact that Israel has openly discriminatory laws against Palestinians in both Israel and the occupied territories.
It has been almost exactly one year since the Israeli Defense Force attacked the ships of the first International Flotilla on May 31 en route to Gaza, killing nine passengers on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara. We must not let the Israeli government or the American government think that stopping one flotilla will deter our determination to aid the people of Gaza in their pursuit of freedom from Israeli domination.