Several American Jews are to board a US boat planning to join a flotilla of about 10 ships seeking to breach Israel's naval blockade of Gaza later this month, an organiser said Monday. "We are seeking justice for Gaza," Leslie Cogan told reporters, noting the boat will have 36 passengers, four crew and nine journalists when it sets sail for the tiny Palestinian enclave. She said 28 percent of the passengers were American Jews.
"It's important that Jews are in this boat... The Jewish lobby in this country is so powerful," said New York labour attorney Richard Levy, himself Jewish. "We cannot support an Israeli blockade which is morally and juridically unsupportable... No more people should be slaughtered in the name of the Jews." The US boat, The Audacity of Hope, will sail from Athens to join around 10 ships carrying some 500 to 600 pro-Palestinian activists from 22 countries, Cogan said.
The boats are expected to leave various Mediterranean ports around June 20 as part of the so-called "Freedom Flotilla II" aimed at breaking the Israeli blockade. Cogan said the American ship will carry some 3,000 messages from the American people to the people of Gaza in what she called "a cargo of friendship, a cargo of peace." They will try and reach the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip a year after a previous attempt ended when Israeli troops stormed the lead ship and shot dead nine Turkish activists.
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