So how do nonviolent, unarmed humanitarian activists protect themselves from weapons-wielding attackers? Not very well.
But they don’t have to. Afterward, they don’t even point a finger. And it’s working.
Via too many flat screens to stop, the world audience sees that Israel will stop at nothing to starve off its remaining Palestinians, neither violence, lawsuits, attempted murder, or slander, is too much to keep humanitarians from hindering Israel’s designs on Judea and Samaria.
Now I admit I favor just a little finger pointing, particularly when it’s too early to say, concrete evidence-wise, because that brings out something even less attractive. Accuse Israel immediately and guess what, they’ll indignantly try to put the blame on others. That’s ugly.
And they accuse you of antisemitism, even if you love Jews, but don’t favor the Zionist, mass-murdering variety.
Getting aid to the beleaguered Gazans may prove more difficult than a beeline Mediterranean cruise, but this mountain of a greater Palestinian cause is coming to Mohammed.
Delegitimizing Apartheid Israel is becoming as easy as taking candy from a baby-candy-taker. While the internet hasbarapocalypse foams at the mouth applauding what may or may not have been IDF divers who rigged the MV Saoirse to sink in mid voyage, or what may or may not have been Mossad undercover agents who relieved flotilla participants of their cellphones, the eagerness of Stand-With-Israel fans to stand with such tactics is compounding with self-antisemitism.
It’s becoming more and more clear, with obstacles like the corporate media stacked against critics of Israel, that a nonviolent strategy is tantamount to success against a lawless foe. Remember our TSA considers nail-clippers to be a weapon. your average ocean-going cabin cruiser arms itself with at least a speargun or two if there becomes a need to fend off would-be petty pirates. God forbid the Gaza Flotilla be caught with tools like that.
So how do flotilla activists keep a 24-hour watch against underwater demolition teams? How do elderly activists protect themselves from paid-hoodlums holding them up? The next flotilla will need an entourage of protectors I suppose, if this what happens to this flotilla doesn’t break the blockade of Gaza for good.
Is “Freedom” the same thing as Liberty? Let’s see, ACFU? It has an unfriendly ring to it.
You’re looking at an underwater photo of the starboard propeller of the passenger ship 
Remember 
It promises to be quite a showdown. Israel has repeated that it will let no ship through to Gaza, the IDF has promised “surprises” for the would-be blockade-runners, while this relief convoy is upping the ante with luminaries political and literary. The US boat is carrying novelist Alice Walker and a who’s who of peace activists, no less than Medea Benjamin, Kathy Kelly, Ray McGovern, and Ann Wright. There will be journalists from CBS, CNN and NPR, so you’d think Israel wouldn’t dare jam their signal and superimpose its own news package like it did with the Mavi Marmara, but maybe it won’t have to.
Denver’s GLBT parade was this weekend. Was there a Free Bradley Manning contingent? It may be asking this square state too much for a Queers Against Apartheid, as seen at the coastal festivals. We have a month before Colorado Springs’ pride. My idea at left.
Colorado Springs city administrators have announced they will have to cut down a number of 100-year-old trees in the historic downtown area,
At Juneteenth this weekend, I saw the local Justice & Peace table being manned by young graduates of its “Peace Camp.” I resisted asking them if their religio- pacifist training was being extended to corporations and oligarchs, or was nonviolence a prohibition for just them, the social-justice-minded, idealistic youth? How convenient for an increasingly deaf leadership to require that even the most desperate, urgent protestations remain toothless.
I always thought it misguided that the antiwar community should worry about our soldiers’ PTSD. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: it’s a guilty conscience soldier, you’ve earned it.
So a retired Air Force man has to fess up that he was “Paula Brooks,” editor of the blog LEZ GET REAL. More critically, 
Need a map of PALESTINE? As Palestinians push for a recognition of statehood, and Israelis pretend there’s no such thing as historic “Palestine” and won’t agree on any borders, you might be excused from wondering what a Palestinian nation would look like. Have you seen the proposed 1947 partition? It cut Palestinian leftovers in half, with the non-Jewish pieces (A) intended to be annexed by Arab neighbors or (B) leaving refugee routes for the further attrition of indigenous populations, with no intention of leaving a viable second state. Now Israel wants to settle the whole thing, and won’t even let Google Earth map the region or the “Occupied Territories” for fear a bird’s eye view of the Israeli settler encroachments would be too damning. But it’s all Zionist occupied territory isn’t it? If Israel can claim a right to exist on another’s land, why shouldn’t Palestine? Let Israel exist as an Apartheid enclave in Palestine, until their consciences get the better of them. Meanwhile, a true democracy in a one state solution.
Following a variety of digital trails, internet sleuths have triangulated the source of “missing” Syrian blogger Amina Abdallah Araf al Omari to 
This wasn’t as nefarious as the NEDA hoax which aimed to slam Iran, but it was no doubt partisan. Are these accusations confirmed? So long as MacMaster & Froelicher refuse to answer inquiries, wouldn’t it be prudent to blow their cover as unscrupulous provocateurs, regardless their allegiance? Who but an imposter would think the fight against tyranny lacks for real heroes or victims? 