Watching the Flytilla

Arabic classes start in 2 days, I’m doing a lot of hanging out. I haven’t managed to find a home stay, but I’m happy in my hotel. There are a lot of tourists who pop over from Europe, it’s weird to me, they catch a cheap Easyjet flight direct to Amman and have a one week or two week holiday, then fly home.

It’s a great place for intel. Heaps of single female travellers... we now outweigh the pairs and the guys massively, times have changed. And a lot of have come through Israel/Palestine, with stories of interrogation and how they avoided getting stamps in their passports... or failed and got the dreaded stamps.

Here is the deal. Palestine is occupied by Israel. Israel controls all the borders into and out of Palestine, and they really don’t like people visiting Palestine at all. So to get into Palestine, all visitors must pretend that they are only visiting Israel, or going to Bethlehem on a Christian pilgrimage visiting scared sites.

At the moment there is a pro-Palestinian campaign called the Flytilla (in reference to the flotillas that attempted to get to Gaza), International activists are intending to get to Bethlehem. The difference is, they are not going to lie at the border about their intentions. At the border they are saying that they are intending to travel to the occupied West Bank to stand in support of the Palestinians.

Of course they are being stopped at the airport and sent home.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/04/201241545637130915.html
(at the bottom is Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s response... he's a dick)

Israeli nationals at the airport have also been arrested for the crime of holding up "Welcome to Palestine" signs.

Israel also managed to prevent the activists from even leaving their home countries.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/07/2011712891421784.html
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/236403.html

and some airlines are getting in trouble for it
http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israels-behest-woman-removed-air-france-flight-not-being-jewish

This is the 3rd year of the Flytilla, and I think it’s doing a good job of getting people talking and getting media attention to the issues of freedom of movement, and freedom of speech/thought. There has been some good discussion in Israeli media on the left
http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/sights-that-the-flytilla-activists-weren-t-allowed-to-see-1.424717

and on the right
http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?ID=266099&R=R1

Well I assume Jerusalem Post is the right... I might just be confusing right wing with terrible design.

Anyhoo, I won’t be crossing the Israeli controlled border for another month. And after talking to a lot of people travelling through, I have also decided not to join up with the International Solidarity Movement, I don’t know enough about the situation to join any political activist groups, and also word on the ground is that the use of short term international activists can leave negative repercussions for the Palestinians who do not have the choice to leave, long after the internationals have gone.

Instead I have started to apply for longer term volunteer positions teaching English.