Above photo: Large Passenger ship “Akdeniz” with members of the International team of organizers, nonviolence trainers and media.
While I am in Istanbul, Turkiye with hundreds of international participants from 40 countries who are attempting to sail in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla to break the illegal Israeli naval blockade of Gaza and bring food and medicine to starving Palestinians in Gaza, the survivors of the Israeli/US genocide of Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is brazenly attempting to divert world attention from U.S. complicity in the genocide of Gaza to China’s human rights issues.
Hundreds of thousands of university students in the United States are defying the Biden administration’s blatant attempt to divert eyes away from Gaza by their remarkable stand for Palestine in their camps on college campuses across the country.
Biden and his band of politicos in the White House and in Congress are seriously misjudging the mood of citizens around the world who can see with their own eyes the slaughter Israel and the U.S. are doing to those in Gaza …and the West Bank.
They seriously misjudge the level of animosity toward the U.S. and Israel.
As a retired U.S. Army Colonel and a U.S. diplomat who resigned 21 years ago in opposition to the Bush war on Iraq and one of the coordinators of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla stalled in Turkiye due to the pressure from the U.S., UK and other genocidal countries putting extreme pressure on Turkey to stop the tiny ships of the 2024 Break the Siege of Gaza flotilla, I appeal to what little sanity there may be left in the White House, State Department and Defense Department to end the madness of supporting the genocidal Israeli government.
Their blindness to reality and their loyalty to the State of Israel are extreme dangers to the national security of the U.S.
Our tiny flotilla will sail into the Mediterranean Sea facing an armada of military ships from countries complicit in the genocide of Gaza-the U.S., UK, Germany and of course Israel. We sail because our countries seem impotent to stop the genocide and we as unarmed civilians are willing to call attention to the ongoing genocide by our presence in seas near Gaza, whose ports have been blockaded for decades as a part of Israeli illegal and brutal occupation of Palestine.
We sail facing an armada of ships loaded with food that at least 10,000 military on those ships eat steak, lobsters and ice cream in shipboard cafeterias open 24 hours a day, while they are in sight of hundreds of thousands of starving people. While senior leaders of the militaries seem comfortable with the genocide and starvation of children, brave lower ranking military have taken action.  Airman Aaron Bushnell took his own life in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC because of the U.S. complicity in the genocide of Gaza, “I will not be complicit in the genocide of Gaza, Free Palestine.”  Active-duty Airman Larry Hebert, who has two small children, lobbied the U.S. Congress for two weeks to stop the genocide and then went on a hunger strike in front of the White House where he was joined by veterans from around the country. Larry said, “I saw children killed and starving… they are just like my kids. I have to do something to stop the genocide.” Dozens of Veterans For Peace have lobbied in the U.S. Congress for Ceasefire/Stop the Genocide as Veterans Against Genocide.
Hundreds of U.S. citizens are in the halls of Congress each day demanding an end to the U.S. complicity in the genocide of Gaza. Tragically, instead of stopping the funding of genocide the U.S. Congress and the Biden White House will provide billions of dollars more for more genocide.
Our tiny flotilla sails when governments fail to act. We sail when called by the International Court of Justice for all to do what they can to stop a genocide. We sail for humanity when our governments are inhuman. We sail to save our own consciences.
Ann Wright served 29 years in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves and retired as a Colonel. She was a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. Embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”