Palestinian media is reporting that the Global Muslim Brotherhood together with its European and North American partners has announced the latest Gaza flotilla project, this time called the “Women’s Boat to Gaza.” According to the report:
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) has chosen March 8th, which marks International Women’s Day (IWD), to announce the launch of their Women’s Boat to Gaza (WBG) project.
The Women’s Boat to Gaza will set sail mid-September of this year and plans to dock at a number of Mediterranean ports along its route and arrive Gaza on October the 1st.
The FFC’s fourth mission (FF4) will be sailed by an all women crew and will carry aboard, notable women from all over the world in order to highlight the undeniable contributions which have been made by Palestinian women to the resistance movement. Palestinian women have been central to the struggle in Gaza, the West Bank, inside the Green Line and in the diaspora.
‘One of our goals is to highlight this struggle and the devastating effects it has had on women, often left alone, sifting through rubble to take care of their families when their husbands are imprisoned or murdered’ said Wendy Goldsmith, of the Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign. ‘On International Women’s Day, and on every day, we stand with these brave and resilient women, and will send the Women’s Boat to Gaza to let them know they are not alone and to end the illegal blockade of Gaza.’
WBG is endorsed by renowned women’s organizations from all over the world, among them:
Read the rest here.
The report goes on to identify the following participants in the project:
- Canadian Boat to Gaza
- Freedom Flotilla Italy
- International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza
- IHH – Turkey
- Palestine Solidarity Alliance-South Africa
- Rumbo a Gaza-Spain
- Ship to Gaza Norway
- Ship to Gaza Sweden
- Kia Ora Gaza – New Zealand
- Miles of Smiles
- US Boat to Gaza
In January 2011, the GMBDW editor published a report titled “Turkey, the Global Muslim Brotherhood, and the Gaza Flotilla” that documented the role of the Global Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and the Turkish government in the June 2010 Gaza flotilla that was involved in a violent altercation with Israeli naval forces. Since that time, analyst Ehud Rosen published another report on the unsuccessful 2011 2nd Gaza flotilla that documented the organizers behind that effort:
The second flotilla is coordinated by Muhammad Sawalha, a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure connected to Hamas. Many of the participating organizations can be directly linked with the Union of Good (UoG), a coalition of European charities affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which in 2008 was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury for transferring funds to Hamas. The UoG was initiated by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on a global scale, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000. Other main organizers include the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement (ISM), as well as far-left socialists from Europe and the United States. According to the flotilla’s main organizers, its prime aim is to create provocations and harm Israel’s image.
In March 2015, the GMBDW reported on the third Gaza flotilla whose Global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas sponsorship was documented in a later post. As we reported in June of that year, this third effort was also a failure as the lead ship was denied access to Gaza and was diverted to an Israeli port by Israeli naval forces.
Given the sponsorship of this latest flotilla by IHH, the lead organization in the first flotilla and by the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza, led by Sawalha and involved throughout the flotilla effort, the GMBDW anticipates no better results from this latest effort.