Break the
Siege of Gaza fundraiser
10 Sep 2010
The fundraiser to assist the purchase of a ship to help break the
blockade of Gaza was a smashing success! Attendance and money collected
both exceeded expectations. Our
website got a total of over 1300 hits (page views) as of 11
September. That's Chris Hedges up in front speaking to our audience.
Hedges is a writer for Truthdig. Here's their official description
of Hedges.
Bill Perry makes a point. Bill has a
Facebook page where he'll be posting films and still photos of this
event. Not necessary to be a Facebook member to access all of it.
Colonel Ann Wright was our headliner speaker. Here's a description of
her latest book "Voices of
Conscience." Remi Kanazi gave a good, furious speech about what
Palestinians have to put up with these days. Here's his website, which has his
videos and includes his latest tweets.
Betsey Piette makes a further point and urges contributors to "dig
deep" as all their contributions will go to a good cause. The primary organization that is
collecting for the ship to Gaza (The ship will be named "Audacity of
Hope") states that:
This is an important moment in history.
In the aftermath of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla massacre and increased
world-wide scrutiny of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, the Israeli
government has mounted a huge public relations campaign spreading the
lie that by letting a few more items into Gaza the blockade has been
lifted. This is not the reality. Gaza is still under siege, vital
building materials and other supplies are banned, exports of goods from
Gaza are denied and neither ships nor people can travel without
permission from Israel, permission which Israel will not give. Gaza is
essentially an open-air prison under a U.S.-backed Israeli blockade.
The audience of our fundraiser represented an unusual coming-together
of Philadelphia's peace community. Pretty much the entire community
turned out and participated. Provided food was so plentiful that
packed-up leftovers were contributed to a homeless shelter. The
speakers all got our audience fired up and motivated, all of the
equipment worked well and we had all the stations covered.
