Free Gaza boat rammed by Israeli Navy - Cynthia McKinney was one of the passengers

I'm so proud of Cynthia McKinney right now! Once again she has proven the courage that she has, and her desire to fight for Justice anywhere in the World. Right now I'm so happy that I voted for her for President instead of Obama. Here she is telling it like it is.



Meanwhile, CNN carried pictures of Obama playing golf in Hawaii. Shades of Bush playing golf while our young men and women were dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush eventually pledged to stop playing golf as long as the Iraq War continued. Obama apparently never got the memo.



Here is an eyewitness account from a CNN reporter describing the incident.



Contrast this with the Israeli version of events contained in this AlJazeera report.



Who do you believe? The objective eyewitness from CNN, or the Israeli government official who was no firsthand knowledge of what happened? This is just another example of the blatant lies of the Israeli government and why you should never trust anything they say. Yes, I'm generalizing but in this case I believe its warranted.

Here's what Cynthia McKinney who was on board the Dignity has to say.

Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. congresswoman and Green Party presidential candidate, was traveling to Gaza aboard the Dignity in order to assess the impact of Israel's military onslaught against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip. According to McKinney, "Israeli patrol boats...tracked us for about 30 minutes...and then all of a sudden they rammed us approximately three times, twice in the front and once in the side...the Israelis indicated that [they felt] we were involved in terrorist activities."

This is from a press release from the Free Gaza website.
http://www.freegaza.org
Here is a link to their webpage where they post the latest news.
http://www.freegaza.org/index.php?language=EN&module=latest_news

I also highly recommend this article from the "Black Agenda Report". Rather than inserting a short quote, I am taking the unusual action of posting the full article because I feel that every word in this article is relevant.

McKinney to Obama: "Say Something" About Gaza Humanitarian Crisis

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has called upon President-Elect Barack Obama to "please, say something about the humanitarian crisis that is being experienced by the Palestinian people, by the people of Gaza." McKinney spoke to CNN news from the Lebanese city of Tyre, where she had debarked from the relief vessel Dignity after it was rammed on the high seas by an Israeli patrol boat, early Tuesday morning. Passengers also report the Israelis fired machine guns into the water near their ship.

McKinney was among the passengers on an attempted voyage from the island of Cyprus to Gaza, where Israeli bombs and missiles have killed hundreds of Palestinians, including many civilians, since Saturday. The Dignity carried three tons of medical supplies and a number of doctors prepared to treat the more than 1,000 Gazans wounded in the Israeli attacks. The 66-foot craft had made two previous humanitarian relief trips to Gaza since the summer. Israel has blocked food, medicines and other essentials from entering Gaza in a campaign of collective punishment against the 1.5 million Palestinians that live there under a Hamas Party administration.

President-Elect Obama has been silent on the Israeli attacks, while President George Bush has supported Israel's actions.

"I would like to ask my former colleagues in the United States Congress to stop sending weapons of mass destruction around the world," said McKinney, who was the Green Party's presidential candidate in November. "As we are about to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's birthday, let us remember what he said. He said that the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence on the planet. And guess what: we experienced a little bit of that violence, because the weapons that are being used by Israel are weapons that were supplied by the United States government."

A CNN reporter who accompanied the passengers and crew of the Dignity confirmed that the boat "was sailing with full lights" when "one of the Israeli patrol boats, with no lights on, rammed the Dignity, hard."

Israel blames the collision on the relief vessel.

Said McKinney: "Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front, once on the side.... What the Israelis are saying is outright disinformation."

McKinney compared the Israeli action against the Dignity to the attack on a U.S. naval vessel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. "I recall that there was another boat that was attacked by Israelis, and it was the U.S.S Liberty." Thirty-four crewmen died and 170 were wounded by fire from Israeli planes and torpedo boats. The Israelis claim it was a case of mistaken identity. "People would like to forget about the U.S.S. Liberty," said McKinney, "but I haven't forgotten about it and the people who were on that ship have not forgotten what happened to them."

Now there is a statement from someone that deserves to be President of the United States.