Destination: Gaza strip

Pulitzer prize-winning author Alice Walker will take her place this week on the US boat The Audacity Of Hope, which is part of the Freedom Flotilla 2 - Stay Human initiative.

Around 10 boats carrying 500 human rights activists will set sail for Gaza to challenge Israel's ongoing illegal blockade of the Palestinian territory.

The Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara, which was attacked in May 2010 by Israeli special forces who killed nine humanitarian campaigners, will not be part of this year's flotilla.

Announcing last weekend that the Mavi Marmara is unable to sail, the international coalition said that this would expose Israeli government misinformation that the flotilla is exclusively a "Turkish" and "Islamist" effort.

"This is a rainbow coalition of human rights defenders. It does not only concern Muslims but everyone, be they Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, secular or whatever. This is world citizenry united," it asserted.

The coalition added that Israel's siege persists, pointing out that the "established channels" cited by world leaders to suggest that the flotilla is unnecessary do not meet the Palestinian people's needs.

"This month, the health authority in Gaza proclaimed a state of emergency due to an acute shortage of vital medicines," it noted.

"Approximately 178 types of medications and 123 types of medical supplies have run out and an additional 69 types of medications and 70 types of medical supplies are expected to run out within the next three months."

Walker likens the flotilla volunteers to the US freedom riders - mainly young people who travelled to Mississippi 50 years ago to challenge discriminatory laws, including a ban on black and white people sitting alongside each other on buses.

She says that her participation in the flotilla is her way of "paying off a debt to the Jewish civil rights activists who faced death to come to the side of black people in the South in our time of need.

"I am especially indebted to Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman who heard our calls for help - our government then as now glacially slow in providing protection to non-violent protesters - and came to stand with us."

Schwerner and Goodman were murdered, together with young black man James Cheney, by a racist gang, including local police officers.

She recalls asking her Jewish-American husband to explain his involvement in the African American struggle for equal rights, expecting to hear of the example of Martin Luther King, but he recounted a story from his childhood.

On his way home from his yeshiva, where he studied religious texts after school, he was bullied by two boys who snatched his yarmulke and threw it over a fence.

Two black boys intervened, forcing the bullies to climb the fence, retrieve his skull cap, dust it off and return it respectfully to his head.

"It is justice and respect that I want the world to dust off and put, without delay and with tenderness, back on the head of the Palestinian child. It will be imperfect justice and respect because the injustice and disrespect have been so severe, but I believe we are right to try," Walker explains.

"That is why I sail."

Canadian activists have chartered their own vessel for the flotilla, The Tahrir, named after the Cairo square that witnessed the peaceful protests characterised as the Arab Spring.

Canada's Conservative Foreign Minister John Baird has denounced The Tahrir as a "provocation," effectively absolving Israel in advance of any repeat of last year's murderous attack on the Mavi Marmara.

The Canadian Boat to Gaza blogging team points out that, while the Conservative government bombs Libya in the name of "humanitarian intervention," it demonises and excuses threats against the true humanitarian intervention of the flotilla.

"The Canadian government stands today on the wrong side of history," showing itself as the "most uncritically pro-Israel government in the western world," the team added.

However, public responses to the flotilla have been positive, with over 200 organisations and many more individuals backing the initiative.

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a collective of 164 human rights bodies in over 100 countries, also announced that its Quebec affiliate, the Ligue des droits et libertés, has appointed a delegate for The Tahrir to monitor and report on any violation of human rights.

FIDH recalls that the UN Human Rights Council mission of inquiry into the May 2010 incident concluded that Israel's actions "constituted grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law."

It has expressed its alarm that Tel Aviv appears not to have learned anything from last year's events and is determined to block the flotilla from reaching Gaza even though organisers stress that they will be carrying humanitarian aid not weapons.

The human rights body reaffirms the responsibility of the international community to do everything possible to ensure access to humanitarian aid for Gaza's civilian population.

It urges Israel to protect the civilians on board the flotilla ships, to allow it to reach Gaza and to prevent any assault by its troops.

And restating the flotilla's basic aims, the international coalition says: "Our destination is Gaza. Our means are non-violent. Our goal is to lift the illegal siege completely and permanently."