Community Currency - 06/03/10

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Free Gaza Movement Show. With Dr. Bill Dienst and Darlene Wallach, members of the Free Gaza Movement, a human rights group that in August 2008 sent the first international boats to land in the port of Gaza in 41 years. They sought to break the siege of Gaza, to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip, and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy, and end its support for continued Israeli occupation. Their non-violent/direct action has raised awareness and inspired solidarity towards the plight of the Palestinian people. The Israeli attack upon the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza began in international waters during the night of May 31, 2010. At least 9 people were killed and fifty were injured. Israel took most of their equipment, cameras, cell phones, the boats...and threw 600 people into detention centers in Israel, and have tried to deport most of them, but still holds several people as prisoners. On June 2, 2010, the UN Security Council called for impartial, credible investigation of the Israeli attack upon the boats and requested the immediate release of the ships as well as the civilians. One more boat, the MV Rachel Corrie is still en route to Gaza with Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead Maguire on board, as well as Denis Halliday who was UN Assistant Secretary-General from 1994-98, and awarded the UK Gandhi Peace Prize.

Darlene Wallach is a software engineer from San Jose. She and her sister, Donna, have been tireless activists for years working on a number of causes, especially those for peace and justice in the Middle East. In 2002 Darlene was one of eight International Solidarity Movement activists arrested by Israeli Forces and began fasting to protest her illegal arrest. Her sister, Donna, also joined the others on the first ship that sailed in August 2008.

Dr. Bill Dienst is a Family and Emergency Room physician in Omak, in rural Washington State. He has traveled to the Middle East many times, but he considers that he was raised as a product of the arms race. His father was an Air Force Colonel. In Medical School he became active with peace groups. In 1985 after taking an intensive summer course in Arabic, he spent over 5 months in Egypt, the West Bank and Gaza volunteering with various Palestinian healthcare organizations. He has enjoyed a wealth of cross cultural experiences in medicine with Crow and Northern Cheyenne Native American patients during his 3 years in Montana with the Indian Health Service, and with Colville tribal members and Hispanic patients in Okanogan County. He enrolled in immersion Spanish language courses in Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico totaling 6 weeks, where he lived with local families who did not speak English. He took three trips to Veracruz, Mexico with the Family Medicine Exchange Program, and has visited Cuba, as well as as Gaza.

In 2005 he was part of a delegation sponsored by Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility to Israel/Palestine. They met with prominent Palestinian groups and mostly Israeli Peace activists, and wrote all about it. In 2006 he volunteered with Palestine Medical Relief Society for one month in the North West Bank and in Gaza. His most recent visit to the Middle-East was in 2009. He stays in touch with his colleagues throughout the world who are part of the Free Gaza Movement.

To keep up to date and to get involved please visit these websites - www.freegaza.org witnessgaza.com electronicintifada.net www.counterpunch.org

Protests against the Israeli attack have happening all week and are planned for this coming weekend in cities across the US and the world.