From Gaza with Love; Support A Boycott -- Kit Kittredge

Tweet It is a good thing this country produces a few people like Kit Kittredge so we know we are capable of it. My sister and I ran into her in Pt. Townsend last winter. She was planning then that she would go back to Gaza; but she didn't know when. I'm in awe of her strength and determination. Linda

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9/8/2010 6:00:00 AM

Letter: From Gaza with love; support a boycott

I am in besieged Gaza for the fifth time as I write this letter. The Israeli occupation/siege/imprisonment continues despite UN condemnation, international outcry and violation of international law.

As citizens of the world we should all be outraged by the atrocious human rights violations occurring here and in the West Bank. The cattle herding of Palestinians through the one border and the trickle of "supplies" (food, no building materials), purporting to be Israel's "relaxing" of the grasp on all borders (only due to flotilla pressure), is an obscenely small gesture in light of the slow strangulation of the people here in Gaza.

What are stocked shelves and shiny new motorcycles when the freedom of 1.5 million humans is restricted to an area the size of the Quimper Peninsula with poor water, over 50 percent unemployment, thousands of displaced/imprisoned families, education and medical care severely compromised, farms and fishing curtailed, and continual attacks by Israel? Americans must understand we are complicit in this human rights violation, as we give Israel $3 billion annually in an arms deal to buy back our F-16s, white phosphorous gas and rockets, which are then used on the Palestinian population.

This is a human rights issue, not an anti-Semitic one. Being against the military policies of the United States does not make me un-American, on the contrary. The Israeli apartheid policy is as wrong as the South African apartheid policy was. This is what the Israeli boycott is addressing, as it did with South Africa.

I urge everyone to have the courage to look deep within, educate yourself and move forward in supporting Port Townsend's Food Co-op boycott of Israeli products and any other boycotts that are fighting for the human rights of the peoples of the world.

KIT KITTREDGE

Gaza/Quilcene


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