Audaciously Sailing on with Hope

Hagit Borer, who was born in Israel but is now a U.S. citizen, explains why she joined with other Americans on The Audacity of Hope in an attempt to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza – and describes what she believes the journey achieved despite being turned back by Greek authorities.

By Hagit Borer

For 44 years now, the people in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 have been awaiting their freedom. In Gaza, people have been waiting for five years for a release from the largest world’s open air prison; for the resumption of at least some measure of free movement, for the resumption of risk-free fishing and for raw materials, for the re-emergence of commerce and industry.

Since Operation Cast Lead, two and a half years ago, they have been also been waiting for the arrival of construction material that would allow them to rebuild their homes, their schools, their hospitals, their infrastructure, destroyed by Israel. 

Since January 2011, and like the 40 people who were to become my fellow passengers, I have been waiting to sail to Gaza.

For more than a year prior to that, Ann and Jane and Laurie and Helaine and Nic and so many others worked tirelessly on the US Boat to Gaza.  Sometime late last winter, our individual efforts came together to become the stream that was to be The Audacity of Hope.

For more than a year, organizers and passengers in 22 other countries worked continuously to bring about their own sailing to Gaza.  The Free Gaza Movement has now been working for more than four years to bring boats to Gaza.  Starting with one boat, and then another, and another, and finally, in spring of 2010, a flotilla.

Sometime last spring, all these efforts came together to become a Gaza-bound river – the Flotilla II: Stay Human. That river brought us all to Greece, where another powerful river has been running.

 The river that emerged from the popular resistance of the people of Greece to the austerity measures imposed upon them by the government of Greece, and which are in turn, dictated by the IMF, largely controlled by U.S. corporate interests, and by the European Bank.

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