“We have been attacked while in international waters. That means the Israelis have behaved like pirates … The moment they start to steer this ship towards Israel, we have also been kidnapped. The whole action is illegal.” - Henning Mankell, aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
“We have been attacked while in international waters. That means the Israelis have behaved like pirates … The moment they start to steer this ship towards Israel, we have also been kidnapped. The whole action is illegal.”—Henning Mankell, aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla
Eastern Mediterranean, Monday, May 31st, 2010, 4.30am: Israeli commandos, boarding from sea and air, attack the six boats of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it sails through international waters bringing humanitarian relief to the beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza. Within minutes, nine peace activists are dead, shot by the Israelis. Scores of others are injured. The 700 people on board the ships are arrested before being transported to detention centers in Israel and then deported.
Within hours, outrage at Israel’s action echoes around the world. Spontaneous demonstrations in Europe, the United States, Turkey, and Gaza itself denounce the attack. Turkey’s prime minister describes it as a “bloody massacre” and “state terrorism.” Lebanon’s prime minister calls it “a dangerous and crazy step that will exacerbate tensions in the region.”
In these pages, a range of activists, journalists, and analysts piece together the events that occurred that May night, unpicking their meanings for Israel’s illegal, three-year-long blockade of Gaza and the decades-long Israel/Palestine conflict more generally. Mixing together first-hand testimony, documentary record, and illustration, with hard-headed analysis and historical overview, Midnight on the Mavi Marmara reveals why the attack on Gaza Freedom Flotilla may just turn out to be Israel’s Selma, Alabama: the beginning of the end for an apartheid Palestine.
CONTRIBUTORS: Ali Abunimah, Eyad Al Sarraj, Lamis Andoni, Omar Barghouti, George Bisharat, Max Blumenthal, Noam Chomsky, Marsha B. Cohen, Juan Cole, Murat Dagli, Jamal Elshayyal, Sümeyye Ertekin, Norman Finkelstein, Neve Gordon, Glenn Greenwald, Arun Gupta, Amira Hass, Nadia Hijab, Adam Horowitz, Rashid Khalidi, Stephen Kinzer, Iara Lee, Henning Mankell, Paul Larudee, Gideon Levy, Alia Malek, Lubna Masarwa, Mike Marqusee, Yousef Munayyer, Ken O’Keefe, Daniel Luban, Kevin Ovenden, Ilan Pappé, Doron Rosenblum, Sara Roy, Ben Saul, Adam Shapiro, Raja Shehadeh, Henry Siegman, Ahdaf Soueif, Raji Sourani, Richard Tillinghast, Alice Walker, Stephen M. Walt, Philip Weiss, and Haneen Zoabi.
Publication September 1st 2010 • 256 pages
paperback ISBN 978-1-935928-00-3 • ebook ISBN 978-1-935928-01-0
Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of How Does it Feel to be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America, which won an American Book Award and an Arab American Book Award. His writing has appeared in The Nation, The London Review of Books, and The Village Voice. He teaches at Brooklyn College, New York.
Jadaliyya, November 14th 2010
Direct Action Station, October 3rd 2010
Morning Star, October 1st 2010
The Indypendent, September 29th 2010
AlterNet, September 28th 2010
Ma’an News Agency, excerpt by Mike Marqusee, August 14th 2010
IPS Inter Press Service, August 23rd 2010
Counterpunch, August 20th – 22nd 2010
Grit TV, August 19th 2010
Juan Cole, “Book of the Day,” August 16th 2010
Ramallah Online, “Book of the Day,” August 16th 2010
Mondoweiss, August 2nd 2010
Palestine HadNews, July 7th 2010
The Chronicle of Higher Eduction, June 28th 2010
Shoah, June 26th 2010
Mondoweiss, June 24th 2010
New York Times, June 11th 2010