On November 7 and 8, The Free Gaza interim board of directors met in London to plan our strategy for 2010 as well as to schedule the next mission to Gaza.FGM is saying explicitly that "this aid" by the donor countries and aid agencies mentioned in the previous sentence "is paying for Israel's occupation."
...Israel’s use of force to stop our last 3 voyages has made it imperative to revise our strategy. Instead of sending one vessel to Gaza, we are working on a flotilla, or mini fleet with more boats, including at least one cargo ship, more people, more supplies, and more media on the high seas. And around the world, tens of thousands of people engaged in the mission. Our intention is to build a truly international fleet that will reach Gaza, or, if stopped, be politically costly for Israel.
...The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed established a Free Gaza fund and secured the money for us to obtain a cargo ship. On this cargo ship, we will take construction supplies to Gaza. We had wanted to travel in October / November so that at least some people in Gaza could start rebuilding their homes before the cold weather hit. Unfortunately we could not meet this deadline.
We have the funds for one cargo ship, and one passenger vessel. However, we need at least one more passenger vessel plus the operating expenses before we can go. In financial terms, we need about €300,000, or someone to donate a passenger vessel and €100,000 in operating expenses (fuel, port fees, crew wages, etc.)
The efforts of the Free Gaza Movement are vitally important; we need to end the blockade, not just deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. While many potential funders recognize the significance of our work, for various reasons they have not come through with funding. Most prefer their financial contributions go toward to humanitarian aid for Palestine. But Palestine is not a charity case! There are hundreds of millions being pumped into Palestine by aid agencies that are unable or unwilling to address the political issues, or by donor countries that shirk their political, legal, and moral obligations, by throwing money at Palestine.
This aid is paying for Israel’s occupation by alleviating Israel of the responsibility to care for the people it occupies. We firmly believe that activists and people who care about Palestine should not be raising money for humanitarian aid but should focus on direct action to confront the Israeli policies that leave Palestinians in need of this aid.
It is very clear: FGM says that money should be spent on pressuring Israel instead of feeding Gazans and that the aid itself is part of the evil that is the nonexistent "occupation" of Gaza.
And, to FGM fanatics, if Gazans do actually starve to death in order to make that greater good happen, all the better. They just won't quite say that part out loud.
They are also very frustrated that money that could go to their vanity boats is going instead to feeding Gazans. They are a very sick class of people.
Something to keep in mind the next time your newspaper refers to Free Gaza as a "humanitarian" or "aid" group. It is nothing of the sort - it is an extremist political organization that is against the UN, Red Cross, Jordan, Qatar and Egypt giving aid to Gazans!
Notice also that these progressive people have no qualms accepting money from an anti-semite.