I have no choice but to board this boat and sail to Gaza

WHEN you read this message, I will be on a small boat with about a dozen other humanitarian activists somewhere in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.

We are headed — along with about 40 other boats — to Gaza, an enclave where Israel is currently carrying out a genocide of the Palestinian people while imposing a near-total blockade of food and medication.

This is a peaceful mission by hundreds of people of diverse backgrounds from all over the world. Our aim is to break the siege and establish a humanitarian corridor into Gaza by sea. Our aim is to ensure the people of Gaza eat.

While killing hundreds of thousands of people and demolishing the entire enclave, Israel is also currently starving about two million people in Gaza. 

This is now officially a famine according to the United Nations, a famine engineered by the Israeli regime, which hopes to kill or expel the entire population to realise Trump’s illegal plan of building a “Riviera of the Middle East” for his billionaire buddies.

Their plan must be stopped. For the past two years, millions of people worldwide have been working hard to end the blockade and stop the genocide. We have been protesting, marching, cycling and even hiking for Gaza. We have organised seminars at universities, panel discussions on Zoom, and photography exhibitions.

We have published detailed reports on the situation in Gaza and written countless op-eds for newspapers just like this one.

Despite Israel’s growing international isolation and the mounting pressure on Netanyahu to end his genocidal campaign, the starvation and killing persist because few countries are willing to defy the United States and directly sanction Israel and intervene to end the killing. 

Meanwhile, the United Nations remains toothless, passing only symbolic resolutions but doing nothing to hold Israel accountable. After two years of relentless activism, many people worldwide have become demoralised, feeling their efforts have yielded little change.

The situation may appear hopeless, particularly given the United States’ consistent military and political support for Israel’s actions, ignoring international condemnation.

But when our collective power is not achieving its goal — even if the consistent pressure of millions has had a demonstrable effect of shifting public opinion against Israel — the worst thing we could do is give up. 

Instead, we need to change our tactics and double down. We need to try something new; take risks with new actions that have never been done before.

At the same time, we need Sumud: steadfast perseverance. It’s time to challenge the enemy in a new way, shift the playing field, and put them on the defensive.

The past few months of genocide have been demoralising, not just for me, but for millions across the world. However, I remain committed to the liberation of the Palestinian people (and of all peoples). 

This means I have no choice but to get on this boat and risk my life because the risk I face is minor compared to the endless horror endured by Palestinians.

I hope that this action, if not the tipping point in the struggle against this genocide, at very least can bring us closer to that decisive moment when change becomes inevitable. 1976 was a year in which the apartheid system in South Africa seemed so entrenched that resistance was deemed futile.

At the time, few predicted the downfall of that regime. Yet it was precisely during that year that the tipping point was reached. When the children of Soweto rebelled and police and security services responded with an outright massacre, the circumstances set off a chain reaction of expanded protest throughout the country and new forms of international activism.

Though the movements were demoralised and in disarray, this moment eventually led to the end of formal apartheid almost two decades later. I believe we are somewhere within or near such a watershed moment.

Zionism has been exposed and the overwhelming majority of the world’s population now sees beyond its lies. The struggle needs to be intensified with novel actions and the Global Sumud Flotilla offers us one such historic possibility.

We need to grab this opportunity and go for it. The risk of inaction is substantial. The worst thing that could happen is for the killing and starvation of Gaza to continue. The potential upside of helping end the genocide makes the danger and risk worthwhile. This is why I feel that I have no choice but to board this boat and sail to Gaza.

History teaches us that it often takes the seemingly irrational hope of a collective to change the world. Nothing else ever has.

Many of us boarding these flotillas are just ordinary people who are sick and tired of being sick and tired. We are outraged by Israel’s genocide, and we resent the fact that the powerful continue to gaslight us into believing that the Palestinian people are somehow responsible for their own oppression. We are just ordinary people who are deeply angered by Israel’s actions and at our own governments' inaction, particularly the failure to take meaningful measures such as cutting all economic and diplomatic ties in response to one of the worst crimes in our lifetime.

Our spirits are lifted knowing that our fleet of boats is not sailing alone: carrying this message of solidarity with Gaza, we have the support of millions across the world.

As ordinary people with no experience sailing across the seas, we should not have to get on this boat and join this dangerous mission to stop the genocide.

But at this point, given the hypocrisy and cowardice of world leaders, we feel we have no choice.

We have been forced to take this direct action ourselves. 

 Moola is a community leader and Chairperson of his local welfare committee. He has extensive experience in international humanitarian missions and draws on decades of service and a faith-rooted commitment to justice.