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NYT: 34 Americans to join new Gaza flotilla
1.       tunci
7149 posts
 04 Jun 2011 Sat 12:22 pm

NYT: 34 Americans to join new Gaza flotilla

03 June 2011, Friday / TODAY´S ZAMAN, ANKARA

                                          Alice Walker

An American ship with 34 passengers, including writer Alice Walker and an 86-year-old whose parents died in the Holocaust, will join a new aid flotilla that pro-Palestinian groups plan to dispatch to the Gaza Strip in late June in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, a leading US daily has reported.
 

The Americans have named their boat “The Audacity of Hope,” lifting the title of a book by US President Barack Obama to make a point, said Leslie Cagan, a political organizer who is the coordinator of the American boat, according to the report published on Thursday by The New York Times.

Cagan told the daily that the American boat is owned by a Greek company and registered in Delaware.

“It will carry letters from Americans to Palestinians, not aid. About a quarter of the passengers are Jewish. Among the crew is a former captain in the Israeli Air Force who refused to fly missions in Gaza,” the report said.

Eight Turkish nationals and one Turkish-American were shot dead in the May 31 raid when Israeli marines stormed the Mavi Marmara, part of an international aid flotilla trying to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip. Furkan Doğan, the 19-year-old Turkish-American, killed on board of the Mavi Marmara had duel citizenship.

Meanwhile, US State Department has reiterated its concerns over the new flotilla on Wednesday, with deputy department spokesman, Mark C. Toner, describing the planned flotilla as “irresponsible and provocative.”

“We´ve raised our concerns with the Turkish government as well, and we´ve also met and said publicly as well as privately, meeting with some of these NGOs, about the risk of attempting to break this blockade,” said Toner at a daily press briefing.

“We have made clear through the past year that groups and individuals who seek to break Israel´s maritime blockade of Gaza are taking irresponsible and provocative actions that entail a risk to their safety. I think I´ve talked about this specifically,” he said, adding: “There are established and efficient mechanisms for getting humanitarian assistance through to Gaza.”

As for whether Israel plans to intervene to stop the flotilla in international waters, Toner said, “I´d have to refer you to the Israeli government as to what their actions may be if people attempt to break the blockade.”

In Turkey, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu reiterated on Friday that the government has not encouraged the flotilla organizers. “Turkey cannot order them not to go either,” Davutoğlu, however, underlined, while speaking in an interview with Kanal 24 news channel.

In a related development, Turkish daily newspaper Hürriyet reported on Friday that the US has been preparing to present a proposal to Turkey and will propose organizing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in İstanbul in exchange for stopping the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish-charity owned ship which was apart of a convoy bound for Gaza and was stormed by Israel on May 31, 2010, from sailing again to Gaza as part of the new flotilla.

The report by the mass-selling daily cited unnamed sources in its report posted from Washington.

US Embassy officials, approached by Today´s Zaman on Friday, declined to comment on the report; while Turkish diplomatic sources said that no such offer which links the Middle East peace process with the issue of aid flotilla, and in particular with the Mavi Marmara, had been conveyed to Ankara.

Israeli officials, approached by Today´s Zaman, briefly said they had not heard of such a proposal.

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