IDF violently captured "the Marianne" Monday, June 29th. The Swedish flagged 20 meter long, 5 meter beamed pleasure ship “Marianne Av Goteborg” [Callsign:SFDE MMSI:265747430] contacted Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) reporting that three boats of the Israeli navy had surrounded her in international waters, while sailing approximately 115 U.S. statute miles (100 NM) from Gaza coast. After that was lost contact with the Marianne and at 05:11AM (Gaza time) the IDF announced that they had “visited and searched” the Marianne. They had captured the boat and detained all on board “in international waters” they admitted. The only positive content in the IDF announcement was that they still recognize that there is a naval blockade of Gaza, despite Netanyahu's government recently denying that one exists. More info here
VIDEO Teasers and violence: This was not at all 'uneventful' IDF non-violence against Marianne's peaceful sailors. Other members of the current Freedom Flotilla include Joe Meadors who is a survivor of both the Israeli attacks on the USS Liberty in 1967 and the Freedom Flotilla 2010 ship Sfendoni. Meadors testified in the Istanbul case against four Israeli generals that involved 490 victims from 37 different countries. Israel attacked the USS Liberty killing thirty-four (34) U.S. sailors, wounding 174 more and making the then $40-million dollar state-of-the-art signals intelligence platform ship to be declared unsalvageable and sold for scrap.
Retired U.S. diplomat and Col. Ann Wright (formerly of US Army and U.S. State Department) is also reported to be aboard the Marianne. Previously Abby Martin interviewed Col. Wright about the brutal Israeli attack of the Gaza flotilla, May 31, 2010 in which Col. Wright was an activist.
When Gaza's Ark was destroyed in a 2014 attack by Israel, a boat uniquely intended to break the blockade “from the inside out" was lost. The goal of helping to build a sovereign Palestinian economy based on freedom of movement has not changed. Palestinian products from both Gaza and the West Bank were to be exported not only as a symbolic stimulus to the Palestinian economy but to show the world the industrious work of craftspeople and farmers who continue to struggle against the overwhelming odds of occupation, economic strangulation and war. The sailors of the Marianne have allied goals.
© 2015 THE TIMES OF ISRAEL (includes video) reports today, June 30, 2015
The Israeli military reported Monday that the interception occurred without incident and there were no injuries.
The ship docked in military port at Ashdod on Monday night and on Tuesday, former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, Spanish-European parliament member Ana Miranda and Israeli-born activist Dror Feiler, who lives abroad, were expelled from Israel.
(Video) ... aired Tuesday night shows soldiers negotiating with a Knesset member and berating an ex-Tunisian president aboard the boat before using a taser on another activist.
Many activists in Spain have made references to the
Internationale Brigades from Spain’s 1936 fight against Franco fascists in comparing them to Freedom Flotilla III ship "Marianne" going to Palestine.
See picture
The Abraham Lincoln Brigade: During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), almost forty thousand men and women from fifty-two countries, including 2,800 U.S. persons volunteered to travel to Spain and join the International Brigades to help fight fascism. The U.S. volunteers served in various units and came to be known collectively as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade.
Best of all, the men and women never quit as The Lincoln Brigade returned home to continue the good fight — battling Nazism in World War II, opposing U.S. racism at home and U.S. interventions in the Americas, reaching out to Franco's political prisoners, and still marching in 2000, this time to demand the removal of a U.S. Navy that uses Vieques, Puerto Rico as a military firing range.
The Medical Equipment and Solar Panels that are the cargo of the Marianne being shipped into Gaza are now in the Israeli military port of Ashdod. Late Monday, June 29, 2015 the Swedish Foreign Ministry announced that they had presented a protest to Israel on the interception of the trawler Marianne in international waters, according to Ship to Gaza website (with interactive map here).
President Obama, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate, and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry are all being petitioned by persons to intervene in outrageous illegal blockade of 1.8 million human beings in Gaza. Other actions before the latest Israeli piracy is drawing people to quickly sign this petition that started a few days ago.
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VIDEO (in Spanish) Published on Jun 30, 2015 Member of the European Parliament Ana Miranda accused the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) of having committed an act of "international piracy" on Monday during its treatment of the Freedom Flotilla vessel 'Marianne' as she gave a press conference in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid, Tuesday.
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