The Sumud flotilla has reached its goal; next is the Freedom Flotilla

One more has been added to the crimes against humanity of every kind that the genocidal bandit Israel has been committing for two years. The interference with the Sumud (steadfastness) flotilla by the conscience awakened on a global scale against these crimes, through yet another act of banditry, blocked the humanitarian aid initiative trying to reach the people of Gaza, whom it has been keeping under blockade, bombing, or killing by starvation for two years. By committing violence against entirely civilian volunteers who represent the conscience, honor and dignity of humanity against savagery and barbarism, it also made an attempt on their freedom.

In essence, far from making the resistance give up in the face of all its crimes of a magnitude to outrage consciences, committed before the eyes of the whole world for two years, it has made it even stronger, and remains far from achieving the goal it declared from the beginning of the war. The Hamas it is trying to destroy continues to resist today as an army as determined as on the first day and more numerous than on the first day. The leadership cadre it killed could not prevent a brand-new, young, faithful cadre from rising up before it each time. Moreover, as all this barbaric aggression continues, the resistance, which at first was confined to Gaza, has gradually taken on a global dimension.

Perhaps it has now stopped the Sumud movement, but this banditry, far from deterring the resistance against it, is already sowing even the next stage of it, which will develop in a more abundant and crowded form. Indeed, immediately after the barbaric Israeli attack on the Sumud flotilla, the "Freedom Flotilla," which aims to break the Gaza blockade, has already prepared to set out. Last Saturday, the "Freedom Flotilla," consisting of 10 ships and carrying humanitarian aid supplies, set sail from the Port of Catania on Italy's island of Sicily. On this flotilla's ships too there are about 60 people of 15 different nationalities.

The new flotilla was launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and "Thousand Madleens." It had in fact been planned to join the ships of the "Resistance Flotilla." The statement issued by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and "Thousand Madleens" included the following words:

"All of these civilian missions show that the call for an end to the Israeli blockade cannot be silenced or deterred."

The International Criminal Court has already ruled that what Israel does in Gaza is the crime of genocide. But the Court's decision also included a ruling that humanitarian aid be delivered urgently to the people of Gaza, which in fact grants every humanitarian aid initiative an immunity under international law as well. No one expects Israel to see to it that aid is delivered to people whom it in no way takes care of, indeed whom it deliberately starves with the intent to kill. But humanity has a responsibility and a right not to turn a blind eye to such inhuman treatment taking place before its eyes, and trying to obstruct people acting with this responsibility constitutes a separate crime (the Geneva Conventions).

On the other side of the matter, the more Israel persists in its crime and raises the bar of these crimes, the more it awakens the global conscience against it, and the anti-Zionist front gradually acquires a global dimension. The Sumud movement is one of the most concrete manifestations of this. In response to the banditry it displayed against Sumud's reaching Gaza, protests with unprecedented crowds took place in all the world's major cities. In Italy, for the first time, trade unions went on a strike with such a demand.

While trying to put Gaza under blockade, Israel found itself under a blockade of conscience throughout the world. In the very apt words of our friend Yusuf Kaplan, the Zionist power that, with its tyrannical hegemony over the world's media, politics and economy, had turned the whole world into Israel, now finds, as the result of what it has done with its own hands, the whole world has become Gaza: a Gaza that shouts its crime in its face, that says it will not surrender and that it will resist.

More than 500 activists took part in the Sumud movement, and they were prevented from reaching Gaza. But what was prevented was only the physical access of the ships to the shore of Gaza. Yet Sumud has already reached where it needed to reach. It has once more exposed to the whole world, in the clearest way, Israeli oppression and the global order of exploitation and occupation behind it. It has raised one level further the wavelength of the will to criticize and resist this order.

There were hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to join this flotilla. Because of organizational difficulties, the number had to be kept very limited. Today those who did not join the Sumud flotilla are continuing to support the flotilla on land, their numbers growing like an avalanche.

The people of Gaza have for two years been subjected alone to the Israeli oppression that is a threat to all humanity. Perhaps they were watching people's solidarity with them in every part of the world and finding morale in it, but for the first time, some people have actually stood up before their oppressors, risking being subjected to their oppression. This is very solid, very objective support for the people of Gaza. We had experienced how valuable a thing this is in the Mavi Marmara incident as well.

Israel had apparently stopped the Mavi Marmara too, but through it, it had with its own hands ensured that the inhuman dimensions of the blockade it carried out in Gaza were thrust before the eyes of the whole world. The waves the Mavi Marmara caused throughout the Islamic world soon brought with them all the Arab Spring revolutions as well. Revolutions that became the nightmare of Israel and of the dictators and crime centers who supported them openly or covertly. In most of these countries, which I visited on various occasions after the revolutions, the revolutionaries themselves told me what state of mind the Mavi Marmara and Erdoğan's "one minute" walkout had created in them.

Today the Gaza resistance has become the keyword of the global freedom movement. There, there are not only people who sit weeping over their wretchedness like sacrificial sheep. There is also a noble resistance that inspires lovers of freedom. The Sumud movement is a very important, very noble movement that acted with this inspiration. It has reached its goal. May it be blessed.