Original audio message available here:

http://freegaza.org/it/home/56-news/984-a-message-from-cynthia-from-a-cell-block-in-israel

This is Cynthia McKinney and I’m speaking from an Israeli prison cellblock in Ramle. [I am one of] the Free Gaza 21, human rights activists currently imprisoned for trying to take medical supplies to Gaza, building supplies – and even crayons for children, I had a suitcase full of crayons for children. While we were on our way to Gaza the Israelis threatened to fire on our boat, but we did not turn around. The Israelis high-jacked and arrested us because we wanted to give crayons to the children in Gaza. We have been detained, and we want the people of the world to see how we have been treated just because we wanted to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza.

At the outbreak of Israel’s Operation ‘Cast Lead’ [in December 2008], I boarded a Free Gaza boat with one day’s notice and tried, as the US representative in a multi-national delegation, to deliver 3 tons of medical supplies to an already besieged and ravaged Gaza.

During Operation Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16’s rained hellfire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full scale outright genocide. U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs – new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel’s onslaught that Gaza had become Israel’s veritable weapons testing laboratory, people used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.

The world saw Israel’s despicable violence thanks to al-Jazeera Arabic and Press TV that broadcast in English. I saw those broadcasts live and around the clock, not from the USA but from Lebanon, where my first attempt to get into Gaza had ended because the Israeli military rammed the boat I was on in international water … It’s a miracle that I’m even here to write about my second encounter with the Israeli military, again a humanitarian mission aborted by the Israeli military.

The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime … I am now known as Israeli prisoner number 88794. How can I be in prison for collecting crayons to kids?

Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else’s children. Israel is the fullest expression of Zionism, but if Israel fears for its security because Gaza’s children have crayons then not only has Israel lost its last shred of legitimacy, but Israel must be declared a failed state.

I am facing deportation from the state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to Israel against my will. I am being held in this prison because I had a dream that Gaza’s children could color & paint, that Gaza’s wounded could be healed, and that Gaza’s bombed-out houses could be rebuilt.

But I’ve learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it’s incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream … like my cellmates, one who is pregnant. They are all are in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the Holy Land. They had a dream that their lives would be better … The once proud, never colonized Ethiopia [has been thrown into] the back pocket of the United States, and become a place of torture, rendition, and occupation. Ethiopians must free their country because superpower politics [have] become more important than human rights and self-determination.

My cellmates came to the Holy Land so they could be free from the exigencies of superpower politics. They committed no crime except to have a dream. They came to Israel because they thought that Israel held promise for them. Their journey to Israel through Sudan and Egypt was arduous. I can only imagine what it must have been like for them. And it wasn’t cheap. Many of them represent their family’s best collective efforts for self-fulfilment. They made their way to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. They got their yellow paper of identification. They got their certificate for police protection. They are refugees from tragedy, and they made it to Israel only after they arrived Israel told them “there is no UN in Israel.”

The police here have license to pick them up & suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious and proud women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of Israel tricked them and the rest of us. In a widely propagandized slick marketing campaign, Israel represented itself as a place of refuge and safety for the world’s first Jews and Christian. I too believed that marketing and failed to look deeper.

The truth is that Israel lied to the world. Israel lied to the families of these young women. Israel lied to the women themselves who are now trapped in Ramle’s detention facility. And what are we to do? One of my cellmates cried today. She has been here for 6 months. As an American, crying with them is not enough. The policy of the United States must be better, and while we watch President Obama give 12.8 trillion dollars to the financial elite of the United States it ought now be clear that hope, change, and ‘yes we can’ were powerfully presented images of dignity and self-fulfilment, individually and nationally, that besieged people everywhere truly believed in.

It was a slick marketing campaign as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel’s marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.

We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s letter from a Birmingham jail. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined that I too would one day have to do so. It is clear that taxpayers in Europe and the U.S. have a lot to atone for, for what they’ve done to others around the world.

What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people’s children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I’m experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. [But] I’m lucky. I will leave this place. Has Israel become the place where dreams die?

Ask the people of Palestine. Ask the stream of black and Asian men whom I see being processed at Ramle. Ask the women on my cellblock. [Ask yourself:] what are you willing to do?

Let’s change the world together & reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity. I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in Israel as the guardian of the Holy Land, resettled in safe homes. I appeal to the United State’s Department of State to include the plight of detained UNHCR-certified refugees in the Israel country report in its annual human rights report. I appeal once again to President Obama to go to Gaza: send your special envoy, George Mitchell there, and to engage Hamas as the elected choice of the Palestinian people.

I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free Palestine, and to the women I’ve met at Ramle. This is Cynthia McKinney, July 2nd 2009, also known as Ramle prisoner number 88794.

I was deeply saddened to see that it was our friend Bassam Abu Rahmah that was killed this past Friday, April 17th, 2009, in the village of Bil’in, Palestine. He was killed by an Israeli soldier firing a high velocity tear gas canister into his chest from only 100 feet away! This happened during a non-violent protest at the illegal barrier fence which cut off Bassam’s village land by 60%, so that an Israeli settlement can be built on it.

We, Americans, just paid for this crime when we paid our taxes last Wed, April 15th, with $10 million a day that we give Israel! We, Americans, must inform our leaders of these crimes and re-direct our money to peace making, to building schools and hospitals, and to our own infrastructure. We should not be paying for racist policies of
Israel to wantonly kill Palestinians, as was done under “Operation Lead Cast”, killing 1,400 in Gaza, and as was done to Bassam, and many others in the West Bank. I plead, too, with Israeli soldiers to please gain courage to say no to the illegal and racist commands of the Israeli Military.

In 2007, three Puerto Rican activists, including Tito Kayak, Dara Guadalupe and Ivan Torres and I met Bassam in Bilin, Palestine. He was an enthusiastic, gentle big man with a warm smile and an eagerness to reach out to us internationals. Bassam traded t-shirts with Tito in the patio of the international house. Tito wore the Gush Shalom shirt which has a circle with both the Palestinian and Israeli flags within its circumference, signifying the two peoples living in peace side by side. Tito wore that shirt as he climbed the Israeli surveillance tower unfurling a Palestinian flag
that very day. Bassam wore a shirt from our Catholic community in Puerto Rico, the Community of Jesus the Mediator, commemorating the Feast of the Three Kings.

I’ve included 3 photos of Bassam in attachments. One is with Dara Guadalupe in the yard where we stayed. Bassam is wearing the t-shirt of the three kings and another time with the Gush Shalom t-shirt that he gave to Tito.

I’d like to briefly tell of these three kings who came to Jerusalem from foreign lands to ask where to find the new born king Jesus, that they learned of from the bright star they had followed. The local King Herod, a puppet of the Roman empire, was surprised and jealous to learn of the birth of a new king and asked the three kings to return and
inform him of his where abouts, so he, too, could give homage to the child. After seeing the baby, the three kings were visited by an angel who warned them not to return because Herod wanted to kill the child, so they took a different route home.

There is great significance to this feast in that it is a signal to turn another way, the non-violent way, which is what Bassam and the people of Bil’in have chosen, and as people throughout all of Palestine have chosen in their struggle against the Israeli
occupation for the last 60 years. There are brave Israelis and Internationals standing with our Palestinian brothers and sisters in Bil’in and in many other villages that are under attack, under seige, having their lands taken bit by bit.

The US must stop supporting Israel’s racist policies. We must continue non-violent resistance here in our streets, in our congressional and senate offices, in our local newspaper offices demanding that the story be covered, and in front of our Israeli
embassies. We must not let business go on as usual. No more military aid to Israel. We must hold citizen tribunals on the war crimes of Israel in Gaza and the West
Bank and expose the truth to our own citizens, as we all pay for these crimes.

Our delegation, three Puerto Ricans and one Irish, were apart of the peaceful demonstration with Israelis, Internationals, media and with the Palestinian people who live in Bil’in, who’s land has been stolen. The Israeli High Court ruled that the barrier fence must be moved to give back the land to the people of Bil’in. We demonstrated to have the land returned peacefully, marching, chanting, singing and holding banners. There is no need for Israeli guns, tear gas or their live bullets. Bassem wore the Gush Shalom t-shirt with the hope of peace for both peoples.

This shooting will not bring peace. Only justice and peaceful tactics will bring peace. Keep on struggling for Peace in Palestine. Please read below and look at other photos of Bassam when he was shot in Friday’s protest.

Salaam, Shalom, Mary Anne Grady Flores

First Published: 15:06 , 04.17.09 Latest Update: 20:55 , 04.17.09 West Bank Clashes Abu-Rahma after being hitPhoto: Lazar Simeonov Palestinian killed in Bilin protest Local demonstrator seriously injured by tear gas canister hit to his chest during anti-fence rally, dies of wounds shortly after reaching hospital. IDF says protest was violent. Demonstrators: We’re like sitting ducks; soldiers fire at anything that moves; army, PA investigating Ali Waked and Anat Shalev Palestinian sources reported Friday that a local demonstrator was killed after being hit in the chest by a tear gas canister during a protest against the separation fence in the West Bank village of Bilin. The man, 30-year-old Bassem Ibrahim Abu-Rahma from Bilin, was evacuated to a Ramallah hospital in serious condition, where he then died of his wounds. The army confirmed the report of Abu-Rahma’s death. Representatives of the IDF and the Coordination and Liaison Authority met with Palestinian officials later in the day as part of the joint investigation into the incident. Palestinians reported that IDF and Border Guard officers used live fire, rubber bullets and tear gas against the protesters, and claimed that the shooting began while those present were in the middle of their Friday prayers. Protest Rally marks 4 years of struggle against fence / Ali Waked Israeli security forces use tear gas against hundreds of protestors in Bilin who gathered to mark four years of struggle against separation fence. According to security forces, protestors threw stones. Protestors say some suffer from smoke inhalation Full Story Protesters said that in recent weeks the military has been increasing the force it uses to disperse protests against the separation fence. The IDF said violent riots broke out in the protest attended by some 100 Palestinians, leftists and foreigners, who threw stones at security forces. The forces responded with crowd control means. A left wing-activist who took part in the demonstration called the IDF’s conduct “murderous,” adding “we are like sitting ducks.” Roni Barkan, a member of the “Anarchists Against the Fence” group, told Ynet that the rally was peaceful and that “no stones were thrown.” “The soldiers, who were standing less than 30 meters (about 100 feet) from us, immediately began to throw stun grenades in our direction,” he said. “A few minutes later I overheard the commander tell the soldiers to prepare to throw tear gas canisters. There were two or three shots, and then Abu-Rahma was hit. I tried to stop the bleeding.” ‘I tried to stop the bleeding.’ Abu-Rahma after being hit (Photo: Lazar Simeonov) According to Barkan, “it seems that since Operation Cast Lead IDF soldiers and commanders have been conducting themselves in an even less moral and humane manner; they are firing at anything that moves.” Coordination and Liaison Authority head Brigadier-General Yoav Mordechai turned to the Palestinian security services and asked to conduct a joint medical examination to determine the circumstances of Abu-Rahma’s death. Last month an anti-fence protest in the nearby village of Na’alin ended with an American citizen seriously injured after being hit by a tear gas canister. Tristan Anderson, 37, from California, was rushed to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer for treatment. Ulrika Jenson, a Swedish left-wing activist who was at last month’s rally, said, “The IDF soldiers stood on the hill and watched the protestors. They fired tear gas canisters at us. “Anderson was hit by one of the canisters and collapsed on the floor, with a big hole in the middle of his forehead. I tried to stop the blood until the ambulance got there, but it was nearly impossible.”