Mon 12 Oct 2009
Presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney detained by Israel
Posted by admin under 2009 Fall Features
Humanitarian aid envoy to Gaza seized
by Lewis Pollis, Green Party of Ohio, with contributions from Wendy Kenin, Green Party of California
Cynthia McKinney before boarding the 'SS Dignity' | AP Photo/Petros Karadjia
Green Party 2008 presidential candidate and former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney was part of a number of naval expeditions to bring humanitarian aid to victims in the Gaza Strip. After their boat was rammed and fired upon by the Israeli military in previous trips, McKinney and others from the Free Gaza Movement ended up detained for over a full week in an Israeli jail on their most recent voyage this summer.
While boats, the “Free Gaza” and “Spirit of Humanity” were docked at their last stop in Larnaca, Cyprus before heading to Palestine to bring much needed supplies to Gazan civilians effected by the Israeli assault, the crew received a letter from the Cyprus Port Authority stating the boats had failed their safety inspections and could not depart. However McKinney said the letter was written before the ships even arrived. McKinney said she had second-hand knowledge from a Cypriot government official that Israel had pressured Cyprus to prevent the boats from leaving. Israeli Foreign Ministry documents later reported via the Cypriot Embassy in Tel Aviv that authorities of the Republic of Cyprus had permitted the “Spirit of Humanity” to head for Port Said in Egypt.
On June 29, four days after their intended departure date, the ships set sail for the Gaza Strip. At 1:30 the next morning, when the boats were within 25 miles of Gaza, the Israeli Navy surrounded the “Spirit of Humanity.” The Israelis disabled the “Spirit of Humanity’s” navigation equipment and threatened to fire on the ship if it did not turn around, according to FreeGaza.org, an organization that arranged for the “Spirit of Humanity” to come to Gaza.
From the trapped ship, the 21 passengers expressed their outrage. “We are unarmed citizens aboard an unarmed boat,” said McKinney, who also demanded Israeli officials “call off their attack dogs.” Chairperson of the Free Gaza movement, Huwaida Arraf said, “We have traveled from Cypriot waters to international waters and will enter Gazan waters. We’ve never gone near Israel. … No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry documents released June 30 about the “Spirit of Humanity” naval protest stated the ship’s intention to “break the siege” was a “mere provocation” since Gaza had been receiving supplies through legal existing channels. The ministry referred to the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement claiming the territorial waters off the Gaza coast are under Israeli security control with a distance limit for foreign vessels of 12 nautical miles from the coast.
Later that day, the Israeli army boarded the “Spirit,” seizing the boat and arresting the passengers. On June 30, Israeli police issued a 24-hour administrative detention order, and the passengers appeared before the border authority July 1, resulting in custody warrants and subsequent deportation orders. The Israel Entrance Law mandates a 72-hour hold before deportation to allow for detainees to appeal deportation orders. According to Israeli official documents, 96 hours after the arrests the Border Control court reaffirmed the detention judgments.
McKinney and the other envoys were taken to Gi’von Prison in Ramle and charged with illegally entering Israel, Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire told Democracy Now July 2 from her prison cell. When describing life in jail, the group focused more on the plight and unjust imprisonment of some of the other inmates who did not have strong grassroots followings to demand release.
During the height of the detention on July 3, the Green Party of Israel issued a letter calling for the immediate release of former U.S. Congressional member Cynthia McKinney, who is “one of the leaders of the United States Green Party,” and did not “present any security threat to the State of Israel.”
The detainees were deported on July 6 after spending seven days in jail, according to FreeGaza.org.
This voyage was not the first time McKinney had attempted to travel to Gaza and met with interference and violence by the Israeli military. December 2008, while trying to bring medical supplies to Gazan victims of Operation Cast Lead, her group’s boat was fired upon, then rammed and destroyed by the Israeli Navy. The trip was “an assertion of our human rights and the human rights of the people of Gaza,” she said. McKinney and her fellow passengers were also intercepted on their second trip, a few weeks later.
“[The trips] acquired much more significance as the resistance from the Israelis intensified,” McKinney said. “I can’t answer the question of why the Israelis are so afraid of me,” she said.
In an interview during her ‘Gaza Solidarity Triumph Tour’ McKinney told ‘Hip Hop and Politics’ blogger Davey D August 24 she thinks Israel drew attention to its own faults by interfering with the group’s mission. “If I had been allowed to proceed to Gaza, there would not have been any need for any media attention,” she said. “There would not have been the spontaneous demonstrations that erupted around the world…demanding the release of the Free Gaza 21.”
The envoy received no help from the U.S. government. “The Obama administration was silent,” McKinney said. The group had even contacted the White House and State Department before their departure to describe exactly what they planned to do, according to McKinney. “We needed to have safe passage,” she said. “One word from them could ensure that.”
The Green Party of the United States (GPUS), however, gave as much support for McKinney as possible. In addition, Greens throughout the country held protests and wrote letters critical of Israel’s detainment of McKinney. The national office issued a formal statement calling for the release of McKinney and her crewmates as well as stating, “The Green Party of the United States condemned the invasion and massacre of Palestinians and has endorsed the call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israel until the Israeli government guarantees full human rights, including political rights and democracy, for all Palestinians and non-Jewish Israelis.”
“We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip, and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation. We want to uphold Palestine’s right to welcome internationals as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, or otherwise. We have not and will not ask for Israel’s permission. It is our intent to overcome this brutal siege through civil resistance and non-violent direct action, and establish a permanent sea-lane between Gaza and the rest of the world.” FreeGaza.org said in a formal statement.
Gershon Baskin, a member of the Leadership Committee of the Israeli Green Movement Party told the Green Pages, “Cynthia’s comments are all understandable given the situation she was in … We hope that the Quartet will use its leverage to bring about agreement and to see the end of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian lands together with mutual security, environment, water, economic and other agreements that will produce long term vested interests in peace for the benefit of the people of Israel and the people of Palestine.”
McKinney fulfilled her goal on July 15, when Egypt granted the Viva Palestine caravan permission to cross the normally blockaded border into Gaza. “Gaza is beautiful. Gaza is full of life,” she wrote, even though it had been “bombed to smithereens.”
McKinney said that the most important lesson to be learned from her experiences is “some people have human rights that are protected under the law, and other people have an aspiration to have their human rights protected under the law.”
“If I had been allowed to proceed to Gaza, there would not have been any need for any media attention,” she said. “There would not have been the spontaneous demonstrations that erupted around the world…demanding the release of the Free Gaza 21.” Cynthia McKinney
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[...] Presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney detained by Israel Humanitarian aid envoy to Gaza seized by Wendy Kenin, Green Party of California and Lewis Pollis, Green Party of Ohio [...]
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I thought it was a cruel joke to learn that Wendy Kenin, former director of a Zionist organization, would be covering McKinney’s efforts to break the siege on Gaza in Green Pages after it was pointed out to Green Pages that they had neglected this ongoing story in their prior two issues.
It is no surprise that a Zionist would include the perspective of the Israeli military despite their very well documented record of false propaganda. Got to cover “both sides” after all, right? Even when the moral bankruptcy of one side is commonly known as its reach in mainstream media excluding opposing sides is as well? (Please examine the work of Alison Weir at in case you are not aware of the bias that our media subjects us to 24/7.) At the very least, inclusion of various contextual examples of Israeli government disinformation should have been included to help the more naive readers understand the nature of such comments. That would be what responsible journalism and concern with Green values would require. You could have found such examples in a proper coverage of the boat ramming story, for example. And McKinney herself raised the history of the Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty and the subsequent coverup on CNN, but of course, CNN cleaned away that part in future rebroadcasts.
Notice how no Palestinian organization was contacted for this story. Yet, despite the GPUS call to boycott Israel and divest from Israel, the authors chose to include comments from two Israeli “Green” Parties who are also part of the racist colonial society that must be opposed.
Segregationist Gershon Baskin is allowed to articulate his apartheid policy vision for “peace” in the article, but somehow, *yet again*, the vision calling for full equal rights for Palestinians - including the right of return for Palestinian refugees ethnically cleansed from Israel - which was democratically adopted by the GPUS does not deserve a mention in a GPUS Green Pages article on the topic of Israel/Palestine. That is no coincidence, is it Ms. Kenin?
The authors certainly should have pointed out that neither of these “Green” parties are part of the Global Greens, as Green Pages adviser and boycott subverting Mike Feinstein surely knows. After all, he runs a website that lists all of the members.
I should research exactly why the Green Party of Israel and the Israeli Green Movement are not members of the Global Greens. But perhaps we can find hints from examining the parties themselves.
While it is great that the Green Movement has a bilingual website, choosing English as the second language over Arabic - the language of the indigenous population of the land Israel occupies - demonstrates their commitment to segregation and the genocidal process that the Palestinians face at the hands of Israeli society. Their statements on “citizenship” and “society” grapple with concerns over corruption and reduced civic participation, but don’t quite seem to have space to discuss the situation for Palestinians subject to racist Israeli law - be they those Palestinian citizens of Israel, Palestinians living under the military occupation of Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, or those Palestinians who are illegally and immorally barred from returning to their homes and property in Israel. I guess the Israeli Green Movement can’t be bothered to stand against genocide and colonial conquest. Just put a little more thought into “planning” is all they are asking for, especially when it comes to siting a sky scraper or closing a beach. But those mushrooming colonial settlements meant to push more and more Palestinians off their lands, refusal to recognize Palestinian villages in Israel and the building of the medieval wall separating Palestinians from yet more of their land in the West Bank all escape mention. The Green Movement of Israel has demonstrated their racist and colonial nature and thus are quite deserving of boycott rather than being given voice in US Green Party paper.
A quick review of the Israeli Green Party site finds similar results. They are inclusive of all sorts of *Europeans* living among them and take the time to provide translations of their site in not only English, but also French and Russian. Yet, despite claiming to welcome “Arabs” aka Palestinians living among them, they don’t seem to be able to find the will or resources to have an Arabic translation of their site. Thus we can see that the Israeli “Green” Party is just another pro colonization party meant for whites living on stolen land in West Asia. Check out their vision. The only problem with colonial conquest for them is “security issues” and the prosperity that is thwarted by lack of peace. They were prodded into formation at the accidental deaths of Jewish athletes in 1997. The wholesale slaughter of Palestinians does not seem to be much of a problem for them. I hope every Green after refreshing themselves with the content of the GPUS resolution of boycotts of and divestment from Israel until equal human rights for all are realized will examine the deep racism displayed in the Israeli “Green Party’s” response to that GPUS resolution:
Meanwhile, Kenin and her co-author didn’t bother to contact Mazin Qumsiyeh, a member of the Ct Green Party recently relocated to Palestine. Nor did they reach out to any of the many organizations in occupied Palestine that represent Palestinians.
Looks like Kenin is still busy trying to undermine the call to boycott Israel and the GPUS Green Pages is only too happy to help her. (My previous comments on Wendy’s work can be found following her article here:)
Green is supposed to mean adherence to ten key values which include respect for diversity, social justice, grassroots democracy and non-violence. Apparently in the Green Pages committee, Green means anything - including white washing colonial conquest - goes. Quite sad.
Cynthia McKinney is a person of deep conviction and integrity. She deserves a much better Green Party of the United States. I hope every sincere Green reading this will redouble our efforts to make our party live up to the promise we have made ourselves and the world - starting from the ground up.
Maqaweme Cythia! You are my shero!