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As Al Jazeera described the incident…
…The activists, approximately half of which are French nationals, were destined for the West Bank town of Bethlehem. The campaign name “flytilla”, is in reference to a parallel maritime protest flotilla, most of which was never allowed to leave Greek ports from which the ships were to sail.
According to activists involved in the action, the main goal was to show the injustice and human rights violations imposed on Palestinian community by Israel.
Nearly 100 activists were not allowed to board their Lufthansa Air flights at Charles de Galle airport in Paris on Friday morning.
“We came this morning at 4:30 am to get our 6:30 am flight,” Satina, an activist who asked that only her first name be used, told Al Jazeera, “When we arrived and wanted to check in, they told us to go to another check in point, where there they told us they could not check us in. We grouped together and asked why, but they didn’t give us anything in writing.”
Her group then began demonstrating in front of all the airlines that were not allowing the activists to board, shouting “Collaborators, collaborators!” to condemn the French authorities for their action. In addition to Lufthansa, other airlines that disallowed activists from boarding were Air France, Alitalia, Malev Airlines, easyJet, and Swiss Air.
“We asked why they wouldn’t check us in and they would not give a reason, they simply said we could not board this flight,” Satina added.
Most of the passengers not allowed to board are French citizens with valid passports, according to Satina, who said activists were “supposed to go on two Lufthansa flights and one Swiss Air flight in terminal one, and Air Italia and Air France flights in Terminal two.”
Some tweets of the festivities:
Things are going wild in #Paris at the airport as Policemen assault French #AirFlotilla activists, firing tear gas at their faces.
Video shows #Israeli police arresting activists at BG airport for protesting http://t.co/iIRWPQv #AirFlotilla
…@IDFSpokesperson allowed ppl in terminal to scream, spit on and attack protesters as they were being arrested #airflotilla
As Ma’an reported today, it wasn’t confined to just Ben Gurion and Charles de Gaulle…
…A French activist with the ‘EuroPalestine’ group told Ma’an that Mohammad Al-Amir, Petseyana Leddis and Adrian Rue, who were planning to travel to Ben Gurion airport, had been detained in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport.
“Israel is dictating laws to France by barring its people from traveling,” she said.
She added that the group of 300 activists are waiting “paralyzed” at the airport having being blocked from travel. “We are a very peaceful movement,” she insisted.
At Roissy airport in France, at least nine activists were prevented from boarding a flight of Hungarian carrier Malev to Tel Aviv via Budapest.
Some 50 airline passengers describing themselves as “pro-Palestinian” were prevented from boarding a flight to Israel from Geneva airport on Friday, officials said, prompting flight delays.
Now, for the best coverage of what really happened today in Ben Gurion, 972+’s Joseph Dana
was onsite all day…
Dozens to be deported from TLV airport, 5 Israeli activists arrested
More than 60 ‘Welcome to Palestine’ activists reportedly barred from entering Israel and will spend the weekend in detention facilities, while hundreds others banned from boarding flights; bystanders jeer, assault Israeli activists as police look on…
Despite all those hurdles, some made it all the way to Bethlehem…
‘Welcome to Palestine’ Campaign Supporters and Participants Gather in Bethlehem’s Manger Square
Around 30 activists gathered tonight in Manger Square to celebrate the commencement of the Welcome to Palestine campaign and to welcome its participants.
To begin the demonstration, one of the organizers, Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh gave an update on the current status of the campaign. He said that many of the participants have been detained, and that Israeli security forces have arrested a number of Israelis who went to the airport in support of the campaign.
Following Qumsiyeh’s speech, organizer Sami Awad explained that the campaign’s “purpose is to expose the injustice of the occupation.”
“Internationals who come to Palestine have to lie … to say they’re tourists. They are peace activists, and everybody has the right … to come into Palestine. Israel cannot hide behind this charade of saying they are democratic”, Awad said.
Awad went on to welcome the two Welcome to Palestine participants present in Manger Square, who had arrived from France in the morning, and hoped that they would join in the week’s activities that the organizers have planned.
The two participants, Pascal and Annie, told PNN that they have been conscious of the problems in Palestine for a long time, and that this was their first visit. On what they told the Israeli security upon entry, they said that they were tourists and did not mention Palestine for fear of deportation…
Again, God Bless and God Speed…!
45 Comments
Thanks for the update. I was hoping someone would notice what happened at Charles de Gaulle.
“All mainstream French politicians are pro-Israel, but [Dominique Strauss-Kahn] went farther than most, writing: “I consider that every Jew in the diaspora, wherever he is, and thus this holds true for France, should contribute to helping Israel. Moreover that is why it is important for Jews to assume political responsibilities. Not everyone in the Jewish community thinks so, but I believe it is necessary. […] To sum it up, in my functions and in my daily life, through all my actions, I do what I can to contribute my modest stone to the construction of the land of Israel” (from the review Passages, number 35, 2007.)”
http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone05172011.html
Wouldn’t you know, someone dragged out the myth of the Diaspora again.
Mission accomplished. A lot of people are paying attention.
Thanks, CT. Won’t see this in the lamestream media. I’d suggest that we start a citizen’s boycott of Israeli products but the only thing they make is weapons.
Thank you for your excellent updates.
Interesting to see how the Israelis are losing it. Ignoring the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza and the Flytilla to Palestine would have been smart, to avoid drawing even more attention to the Israeli apartheid state and illegal occupation of Palestine, but maybe Israel is like an out-of-control addict, whose acting out is driven by her unconscious hope that someone will force her into treatment. That “someone” is going to have to be the U.S. Jewish community.
How long will the U.S. Jewish community support apartheid? Here is an ad in Yad2, an Israeli listing site for second hand stuff and rentals, for an apartment in occupied East Jerusalem. (Remember that 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab Israelis.)
Ad reads:
“Beautiful apartment including table and chairs. Wall closets. Breathtaking view. For Jews.”
You can read all about it at http://mondoweiss.net/ today .
Ps, I can’t wait until america goes tits up and israel realizes that they won’t be getting any new weapons of mass oppression
Wow. Larry Derfner, an Israeli journalist, wrote this about what he saw at Ben- Gurion Airport yesterday:
“Anybody who belives the platitude that the people want peace, it’s just the leaders who want war, should have been at Ben-Gurion Airport today. It’s a good thing those Free Palestine activists got arrested; otherwise, the little mob that formed spontaneously would have punched them up pretty good.
“Only minutes after I got to the Arrivals hall, a few activists stood in front of the phalanx of reporters and cameramen, held up their little signs and started chanting “Israel Apartheid” and ”Free Palestine!” (I’d written previously here that they were foreign activists who’d just gotten off a plane; I’ve learned since that they were Israelis.) The cops tore the signs from their hands and started pushing them toward the exit. After the first couple of minutes of watching in shocked silence, people in the terminal started to boo. Men were cursing loudly – “sons of bitches,” “garbage,” and things in Arabic I didn’t understand.
“A couple of dozen people, mainly men but also a few women, followed very close behind the tightly-bunched demonstrators, cops and reporters to the police van. “Throw them in the garbage,” shouted one woman. An old man tried to get at one of the activists, but the police stopped him.
“I was there ostensibly as a journalist, and I was scribbling notes, but I felt cowardly not saying anything to these nationalist hooligans, so I started telling them in Hebrew, “What are these people doing?” The woman who wanted them thrown in the garbage said, “They’re hurting us!” I said, “They’re talking,” and the little mob turned on me, a couple of the men raised their fists. The woman told me, “Go back home, get out of here.” I said, “I live here.” The cops mistook me for a demonstrator, put me in the police van, but when I showed them my press card, they let me go.
“Let me repeat – the police started off arresting the demonstrators, but very shortly their main task was to keep them from being assaulted. They had to hold back the herd = and that’s what these people were, a herd incited by the idea that these protesters, non-violent protesters trying to get to the West Bank, were a menace, an immediate threat to their security.
“And I do not buy the idea that these people are helpless pawns being manipulated by the government, the media, the right-wing politicians. Most Israelis, even if they wouldn’t join a mob like the one at the airport, want to hear the belligerent rhetoric the opinion-makers are feeding them. They hate anybody who says anything bad about Israel, and take their words automatically as “blood libels.” The opinion-makers know this, and the ones who are popular and want to stay that way tell the people what they want to hear.
“Who’s manipulating whom is a chicken-and-egg question.
“Watching my enraged countrymen at Ben-Gurion, I imagined the daily headlines having been distilled into a kind of political methadrine and mainlined into their veins. Few Israelis would join them in physically going after people chanting slogans. But in their insistence that protesters like these be silenced because their words are acts of violence, of war, of terrorism, they represent the majority. They are an authentic expression of the national will. Theirs is the loudest voice in the land, it’s joined by the voice of Netanyahu, the government, the settlers and most of the media. All competing voices are drowned out.”
http://mondoweiss.net/2011/07/derfner-flotilla-activists-are-bringing-oxygen-to-a-suffocating-nation.html#more-46882
Are you referring to the Babylonian Diaspora of 607 B.C.E or Judean Diaspora of 70C.E.?
‘Cause if you are, they are inconvenient truths.
For future reference before regurgitating the propaganda of the party line you might want to do a bit more research.
Yiddish grammar lesson 101: The plural of goy is goyim and originally it was a Hebrew biblical term meaning the ‘nation’ or ‘people’. Later in Yiddish it was and is used to denote a person who is not Jewish. (Wikipedia)
That minor inaccuracy resolved, your comment is full of borscht.
A timely announcement from the Israeli Occupation Archive: the Netanyahu government’s first confiscation of land in the territories.
Israel expropriates Palestinian land in order to legalize West Bank settlement
8 July 2011
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2011-07-08/israel-expropriates-palestinian-land-in-order-to-legalize-west-bank-settlement/
There is an Orwellian background to Netanyahu’s first land confiscation.
So these flytilla demonstrators came at the right time. Are there any questions about why the Palestinians refuse to negotiate?
Thank you for the information in this post.
You know, our debt/deficit could be brought more in line if we didn’t spend so much in Foreign Aide/Military hardware to Isreal. They really don’t use it as intended. Oh yeah, we spend dollars for their welfare in other ways as well. You’d think that if they cared as much about America and our country has theirs, they would try to help ease the pain by paying back.
Oh, nevermind. That is not an attribute the leaders of Isreal follow.
The backlash on this going to be strong. I’ve already heard the following in response to an Israeli saying that if the worst came to the worst they could take dual citizenship and move to Denmark.
The younger generation of Europeans, in my experience, don’t suffer from holocaust angst. They look at what the Zionist settler state called Israel is doing and find it as disgusting and wrong as the South African version of apartheid was. The more that they see Israel interfering in European politics the more hostile to Israel they are becoming.
Israel does most of its trade with Europe. A boycott will hurt and hurt badly.
markfromireland
Did you notice the lack of response from those who support Israel to your comment?
Israel had the moral high ground after the holocaust as well they should. They’ve frittered it away by behaving in ways their erstwhile oppressors used to behave. Anybody that is rational, informed and not ideologically driven can see that. Being anti Israel and being anti Semitic aren’t synonymous.
I have family that survived the holocaust
Nothing makes me angrier than israelis playing the H card to try to guilt trip the rest of us into excusing their more horrifying policies
Noone can harp on being a holocaust survivor while expanding their country with the same strategy Hitler used (my poor poor people were persecuted for so long! We just want our peoples ancestral homeland and for that to happen we need our breathing space, so please world community, ignore me moving my tanks over the border and shooting people, you don’t want to oppress my people again do you? /sob /evil smirk)
Thank you for that. Especially for this: “Being anti Israel and being anti Semitic aren’t synonymous.”
I find that whenever anybody stands against the atrocity they tend to scream anti Semitic. It has become hollow and insulting to people that watch them proclaim Godliness, while slaughtering others.
Yep. Swap “The Holy Land” for the Rhineland and the Sudatenland and the rhetoric is virtually indistinguishable.
You’re welcome but I’ve been trying to point that out for decades. Conflating Israel and Judaism is no different than conflating Islam and Al Qaeda. None.
I would take it in a different direction, in that it is Zionism, as extolled by Bibi, Avigdor Lieberman, and Meir Kahane, and not Judaism, that I dislike…!
Btw, here’s an update…
Airlines: We cannot return pro-Palestinian activists denied entry to Israel
More than 100 political tourists from Europe are waiting in a holding facility to be deported.
The foreign airlines operating in Israel say they will have a hard time flying large groups of pro-Palestinian activists who were refused entry into the country back to their destinations of origin.
A senior official for one of the large European carriers told Haaretz on Saturday that “The airlines will have a hard time dealing all at once with large groups of pro-Palestinian activists that Israel wants to deport.”
France was in a very difficult position. Had it allowed the people to board a plane and leave de Gaulle, it would have born some repsonsibility for any ensuing violence. I doubt that France wants to be accused of fueling violence.
But in their insistence that protesters like these be silenced because their words are acts of violence, of war, of terrorism, they represent the majority. They are an authentic expression of the national will. Theirs is the loudest voice in the land, it’s joined by the voice of Netanyahu, the government, the settlers and most of the media. All competing voices are drowned out.”
Replace Netanyahu with Hitler and National Will with National Socialism.
I didn’t mean to leave anyone with the impression that I’m down on Judaism CTuttle. I’m down on Israel. Zionism is no different than the radical Christian fundies here. Just another group of people who invoke an imaginary deity in order to justify atrocity and to acquire and hold power. Such actions make me wish there was a deity who would be justifiably furious with these people.
I think Sarkozy is going to pay for this in the polls. French reaction to this should be very interesting.
I don’t know about that. France is not particularly hospitable to muslims. And Sarkozy certainly is not but that was well known prior to his election. this is a country than banned religious clothing and very liitle condemnation of that was heard.
‘ensuing violence’… Yeppers, caused by the IDF…
Report: Foreign pro-Palestinian activists clash with IDF in West Bank
Several dozen leftists, including a number of foreign activists who arrived in Israel in recent days as part of the “fly-in”, clashed with Israel security forces during a demonstration in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on Saturday, Channel 10 reported.
According to the report, four foreign activists were taken in for questioning at the demonstration.
Army Radio reported that foreign activists took part in several demonstrations throughout the West Bank on Saturday.
France can’t be responsible for fueling that though. Or doesn’t want to anyway. Greece didn’t either. that was the point.
Also if Isreal isn’t going to allow them in, what would be the point of France allowing them to take off? just to use up thousands of gallons of jet fuel?
So I assume you think Bibi’s logic is sound then…
“Every country has the basic right to prevent the infiltration of provocateurs into its territory,” Netanyahu said during a press conference in Sofia alongside Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.
“Right now there is information of a few hundred people who want to disturb the peace,” he continued. “I don’t know with what level of violence, but we have very reliable information that they want to come and disturb the peace and cause a provocation. We are taking the necessary steps.”
The government came under criticism on Thursday for dispatching hundreds of police to the airport in expectation of the protesters’ arrival.
“If we didn’t take action, we would be asked afterward why we didn’t act,” Netanyahu said. “At the end of the day, it is the government and the relevant authorities who have to prepare. It is okay that all the time we are being questioned and criticized and checked.
In the final analysis, in the running of the country and protecting its borders and the public order, we are operating according to the rules.”
Netanyahu added that there was no “siege” of Gaza, and that if the protesters truly wanted to “free Gaza” they would work to free it of Hamas. There was a “controlled closure” of Gaza to prevent the smuggling of arms and ammunition, the prime minister said.
Yes and no. The reality of the occupation and colonization are just too hard to defend.
Are you kidding? Our gov’t would strip us down to the bone so that they could give money to Israel – you know, that “democracy” in the ME.
The above is a reply to Whatheincorporated.
“there was no “siege” of Gaza”
The bullshit never ends. I thought that “the right to exist” would be the last hasbara line we would have to tolerate.
So you’d be okay with US immigration stopping you from going on a scheduled trip and putting you in detention, because someone told them you were going to a demonstration?
Your comment seems to have come loose from its reference.
I believe it was in today’s NY Times.
UNRWA Report on Gaza, June 2011:
Sounds like Israelis need to get out more.
Actually, France should not let anybody leave the country. There is no knowing what might happen to them.
It won’t be long now.
There’s is error with this logic. In order to get here you have redefine what is violence in order to make the victim the aggressor and and the aggressor the victim.
@Kris who quotes Larry Derfner above: “But in their insistence that protesters like these be silenced because their words are acts of violence, of war, of terrorism”
There is a term that describes this:
DARVO:”Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.”
The same unsound reasoning comes up with idea like these:
Women are forced to wear burkas because the men cannot refrain from raping them if they show skin. or in the US, If you’re dressed like a slut you were asking for it. Women praying on the Wailing wall, putting on prayer shawl and are attacked by Orthodox men, and then the women are arrested.
This removes the responsibility for the aggressors actions as if he couldn’t help himself from reacting to a “provocation”, perhaps lacking the higher reasoning capabilities of Homo sapiens.
William Eddy describes the persuasive blaming tactics of high-conflict individuals:
You’d have to buy into the myth Israel puts forward as a Mad Dog defense, making other nations responsible if the people are allowed to come face to face with the IDF and get hurt. In the real world we put mad dogs down because they are a danger to society.
The person that takes a beating isn’t guilty of provoking violence, unless of course they were actually responding to actual physical violence, not an Orwellian re-defined version of it.
I’d like to note here too that the Palestinians response to extreme state violence and punishment is expected to only be only nonviolence, or some kind of Gandhian god-like level to decades long tolerance of it.
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