Lies, misinformation and manipulations

Our very first contact with Israeli authorities involved them telling us what turned out to be one in a series of deceptions and outright falsehoods. Their initial radio hails suggested that they only intended to board the Tahrir and the Saoirse in order to inspect the ships, then if they found nothing that contravened their own (arbitrary and unilateral) blockade rules, they would allow us to continue our peaceful voyage. Of course, once they boarded us they clearly had no such intention: though they quickly confirmed (to no one’s surprise) that there were no arms nor munitions of any kind on board nor anything else that might violate their arbitrary blockade rules, they announced that they would be taking the boats to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

It was to be part of a pattern of lies, misinformation and manipulation.

When we announced Freedom Waves from international waters on November 2, an Israeli Occupation Force spokersperson said that they had known about our sailing for some time (funny how they never said anything until we went public that afternoon…  and how their forces seemed relatively unprepared for us a couple of days later). She also said that we were headed towards Israel. On this point either their vaunted surveillance systems are badly flawed or they were also lying. As shown here:

the course we set once we left Turkish territorial waters, was always through international waters towards Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza. At no time did we set a course towards Israel or towards Israeli waters – which of course never stopped the Israeli hasbara machine from lying about where we were headed.

When we were forcibly removed from the Tahrir on the evening of November 4, we were strip-searched and tagged with plastic ID numbers on wristbands (the historical irony of putting ID numbers on captives' arms seemed to be lost on our captors) and then told to identify our property from a table of confiscated satellite phones, cameras, computers, USB keys etc.  We were promised then that our property would be tracked by that ID number and returned to us when we left the country. Another lie: none of this property was returned when we left: they questioned us about some of the items but none of them has been returned, as we were promised. For the TV journalists from Al-Jazeera, Democracy Now! and PressTV, the stolen property is valued in the tens of thousands of dollars.

After being searched at Ashdod, we were taken to an immigration processing centre (possibly in Holon, south of Tel Aviv),  where we each were offered an “expedited deportation” process:  if we would sign a waiver giving up the right to a hearing before an Israeli judge, they would deport us within 24 hours. If we did not sign,  they said we would be deported after our hearing before a judge, in three days. None of us were interested in a hearing before an Israeli judge, but we nonetheless were not interested in signing their document. Only Canadian Ehab Lotayef from Montreal signed, since the document contained no admission of guilt, just a waiver of a right of appeal which he was not interested in exercising. Perhaps he could be deported to Egypt in time to celebrate Eid with his family on November 5? But the period of 24 hours came and went, with no expedited deportation for Ehab. After two days, Ehab signed another version of the same document. Still no expedited deportation. On the fourth day (not the third as we had been told) we were brought before an Israeli immigration judge. Asked about the expedited deportation for Ehab, he did not have any answer. He said everything about our case was more a matter of ‘policy or politics’ than a matter of law. Maybe we would be held for two weeks, maybe for two months—it depended on “up above”, not on him as a judge.

In the end, Ehab was deported on the sixth night of our imprisonment, just like others (Mike Coleman from Australia and myself) who had never signed any waiver. The whole “expedited deportation” offer was clearly bogus from the outset. Previous flotilla participants had been deported quickly because Israel wanted rid of them and the PR liability they represented; in our case, the longer detention and threats of extended detention were intended to try to intimidate future sailings that challenge the blockade of Gaza. During my second and final interrogation in the hours before our flight from Tel Aviv to Toronto, the security agent in charge of that “conversation” suggested to me that “maybe you will make the flight home with your friend, maybe you won’t, depending on how this conversation goes.” I eventually boarded that flight home with Ehab, but a similar departure-manipulation game was played out against the four Irish comrades who had been brought to the airport at the same time as us: they were schedule to leave on a flight on the morning of Thursday November 10, but their departure was in fact delayed until later that day.

Recent history suggests these attempts at intimidation will not work: there were only a few Irish and Canadian participants in the 2010 Freedom Flotilla, and despite the killings of eight Turks and one U.S. citizen on the Mavi Marmara and the detention of hundreds of Flotilla participants in Israel, the movements came back stronger than before, with an Irish boat and a Canadian one in 2011.

The deceptions and misinformation continued during our whole time in Israel.

Even on the most petty level of information, we became accustomed to assuming that whenever an Israeli official spoke to us, it was probably a lie or some kind of misinformation, at best a half-truth. None of us had watches or clocks with us (they were among the items confiscated) and the one clock in our prison block’s guard room would show random (clearly wrong) times throughout the day: when we asked the guards about the time they would just shrug or ask each other what time it was. A small matter for most of us, with prison time being marked primarily by meal-times and lock-downs in our cells for counting, but for the two Muslim men in our cell-block, knowing what times of day they should pray was a significant issue. At dawn and dusk we could hear the adhan (call to prayer) from outside the prison compound (the town of Ramla has a significant Palestinian Muslim population), but for the rest of the day we were left guessing about the time: completely unnecessary, but also clearly calculated to contribute to our overall sense of disorientation.

There were three payphones in our prison courtyard, and signs (in a number of languages) explaining that we had the right to buy phone-cards in the prison cantina or to have people bring us phone cards. We asked the Canadian consular to bring us phone cards: the prison staff told us they never came, but we later heard that the consular staff had brought them but they were not allowed to send them to us. When we asked about using the phones, we were told that we would have to take it up with the prison "manager" who was not around the prison at that time: moments later, when the block door was opened for someone else, we saw the prison manager standing outside in the compound. All petty, completely unnecessary  lies.

When we arrived back in Canada at Pearson Airport in Toronto, we were of course starved for news of the world: one of the international stories that week was the unintentionally published conversation between Sarkozy and Obama commiserating about what a liar Netanyahu is. This just confirmed our first-hand impression based on our several days of interaction with the Israeli state: all lies, all the time.

From campus to a Gaza flotilla: the experiences of an activist academic [republished]

[NOTE: as originally published on TheConversation.edu.au February 22. 2012]

Canadian academic David Heap last year took part in an activist mission to challenge the Israeli military blockade of the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.

The Israeli government claims the blockade is necessary to maintain security for its citizens and prevent terrorism. Palestinians, their supporters and human rights experts say the policy amounts to collective punishment that is damaging the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

After a previous aid flotilla to Gaza was raided by Israeli special forces in 2010, leaving nine activists dead, more attempts to send boats carrying supplies to Gaza were launched, including the Canadian Boat to Gaza, carrying Heap.

Here Heap explains why he risked his own safety to stand up for an issue he passionately supports.

Last year, at the University of Western Ontario campus where I work, a student group called Solidarity with Palestinian Human Rights joined with other community groups in London, Ontario to help raise tens of thousands of dollars in support of the Canadian Boat to Gaza, a civil society campaign to challenge the blockade of Gaza.

The illegal blockade of course affects students and university staff along with everyone else in what has aptly been called the world’s largest open-air prison.

The security justification

Despite marginal improvements following the pressure arising from the 2010 Freedom Flotilla, aid deliveries to Gaza still supply a fraction of what the population needed before the current blockade was imposed in 2007.

As the Israeli NGO Gisha documents extensively, the Palestinians of Gaza have been deliberately “put on a diet” by the continuing military blockade which allows in only a calculated minimum of restricted supplies: a form of collective punishment. The situation in Gaza is recognised as dire by international humanitarian NGOs, and the blockade has been characterised as a serious violation of international law by experts at the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR) as recently as September 2011.

As my colleague, Dr. Ziad Medoukh (head of French and coordinator of the Peace Studies Centre at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza) notes: schools supplies, computer equipment and books are still among the goods that are severely restricted and only sporadically available in blockaded Gaza.

The hopes and aspirations of a whole generation in Gaza are being needlessly stunted due to senseless restrictions which have nothing to do with anyone’s “security”.

Complete blockade

Those who finish their studies and earn scholarships abroad are often caught by restrictions on human movement (a freedom which should be enjoyed by everyone under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) which cruelly curtail travel for academic, medical, commercial or family purposes.

While the occasional partial opening of the Rafah border with Egypt for some people (though few goods) is a positive development, Palestinians also have the right to free shipping traffic through the port of Gaza — the only Mediterranean port closed to shipping — and to the peaceful use of their own territorial waters, which they are currently denied.

They cannot depend on the whims of a neighbouring country to keep goods and people flowing in and out of Gaza.

The Canadian Boat to Gaza

These are some of the reasons why I was aboard the Tahrir, the Canadian Boat to Gaza which was part of the Freedom Flotilla II in July 2011, when we attempted to sail from Greece but were prevented by Greek authorities under international pressure.

A Google Maps screenshot showing the Tahrir was in international waters when confronted by Israeli naval forces. Lina Attalah, Almasy Alyoum, Cairo

The Israeli blockade of Gaza had been effectively outsourced to Greek ports, but our campaign continued undaunted. When the Tahrir, together with the Irish boat to Gaza (MV Saoirse), sailed from the southern Turkish port of Fethiye on November 2, 2011, I was again on board.

Though fewer in numbers than in July, the volunteers on the Tahrir were united in our determination to challenge the blockade of Gaza peacefully, through non-violent direct action. Apart from our Greek captain and five international journalists, our numbers included three Canadians, a U.S. citizen, Michael Coleman of Free Gaza Australia, and Palestinian student Majd Kayyal who has never been able to travel to Gaza directly, a mere 135 kilometres from his home in Haifa.

After about 50 hours at sea with almost continuous media coverage, our satellite communications were cut by the Israeli navy shortly after noon on Friday November 4, in stark contrast to the Greek authorities, who never interfered with communications or with media professionals when they stopped the Tahrir last July. Our last recorded GPS position was some 45 nautical miles from the port of Gaza, in international waters with a course set towards Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza. At no time did we set a course for Israel or Israeli waters.

Israel’s overwhelming use of force

In July, Greek authorities managed to take control of the Tahrir and more than 40 people on board, using only one small cutter and two Zodiacs carrying a total of six coastguard officers; in contrast, the Israeli navy deployed overwhelming force against our two small vessels.

The Tahrir, now with just 12 people on board, and the Saoirse, with 15, faced hundreds of heavily armed Israeli troops on at least three warships and between 15 and 20 assault boats equipped with water cannons and mechanical lifts.

Despite recognising that we were unarmed and would present no active resistance, the Israeli navy sent about two dozen heavily armed commandos to storm our vessel. I was tasered during the assault, and later bruised while being forcibly removed from the Tahrir.

Detention in Israel

Ironically, after being illegally kidnapped on the high seas, we were told we had illegally entered a country we never had any intention of visiting. Our six-day detention was marked throughout by manipulation and misinformation on the part of the Israeli authorities.

For example, we were told that if we signed a document waiving our right to appeal before a judge we would be deported home within 24 hours: Ehab Lotayef of Montreal signed such a waiver twice within the first 48 hours, and was nonetheless detained for six days, just like those of us who signed nothing.

Although cut short, the voyage of the Tahrir served to draw attention to the injustice of the blockade of Gaza, as well as to educate and mobilise Canadians and others against the blockade.

An ongoing campaign

Pulitzer Prize winner and civil rights activist Alice Walker from the US Boat to Gaza says challenges to the blockade of Gaza are the Freedom Rides of our time – and like the 1960s civil rights movement in the U.S. South, we must keep up the struggle despite attempts to intimidate us.

As my colleague Ziad notes, the Palestinians of Gaza are left with “a hope in international civil society solidarity which is organising throughout the world in order to try, through peaceful actions, to break this blockade.” (author’s translation)

He observes that though we did not reach the shores of Gaza this time, our message of solidarity was received throughout Palestine.

That is why we have to keep on challenging this blockade.

More mind games, and the language of resistance

It was almost two days after our kidnapping in international waters and being brought by force to Israeli jail that we finally got a chance to call home. After giving us a number different stories, the guards announced on the afternoon of Sunday November 6 that we would have three minutes each, on the phone in the office of the prison “manager”. We were to form a fair list, alternating men from the different countries, according to when each though he would find someone at home to answer.

We quickly formed up, with Mike from Australia, Hassan from U.K. and some of the Irish going first, due to the time-zone differences. Ehab and I agreed he would call Canada first, and ask his wife to call London to make sure my spouse was up (it was fairly early in the morning in Montréal and London, Ontario) and ready for my call.

When it was my turn I was ushered into the prison director’s office and sat down at a phone which was connected to some kind of electronic recording device. The prison manager watched while another guard dialled the number I gave them: it had to be a family member.

Bonjour mon amour, ça va? Tu me manques beaucoup.

I only managed to get a few more sentences out in French before they cut off the call. They said I must not speak a language other than English. Then they called for another guard, who came in and explained in French that I must not give any information other than about my own physical well-being and the prison conditions. No politics. As they dialled again, she asked me nervously:

Vous parlez toujours en français avec votre épouse?

Parfois en français. Parfois aussi en italien….

A small satisfaction to see the brief look of panic as my second call connected, but I decided against switching into Italian as well—who knows how long that might’ve delayed the rest of my call?

Bonjour mon amour. Il y a maintenant ici une flique qui parle français, tu comprends la situation?

Tu ne peux pas parler librement.

Exactement. On nous traite très très bien ici, comme des rois.

The French-speaking guard rolled her eyes at my obvious exaggeration. I had barely two minutes left of what was supposed to be a three-minute call, but I managed to communicate the essential points in between fluffy pleasantries. I also passed on a message for Mike’s parents, which he had forgotten during his call. Our superb home teams were of course in constant communication with each other.

Back at Section 5, the remaining Irish were trying to figure out which of them would be able to make his call in Irish and get answered by someone back home who would be able to take the call in Irish. Would the prison guards call in the rumoured Mossad security agents supposedly trained in the Irish language? In the end, most of them settled for simply speaking Irish English: when they spoke rapidly, we had enough trouble understanding them, the guards probably followed even less. By the time the last of them connected, he was able to give a full political report without any interference on the call. It seemed to us that the collective push-back to assert our right to communicate how we chose and about what we chose ended up creating more space for the later callers.

In Givon prison, the lingua franca among the men in Section 5 quickly drifted towards Irish English: there were twelve men from the Saoirse and only four of us (two Canadians, one Australian and one from the U.K.) from the Tahrir. Thus the game played board some fashioned out of the paper lids of foil food containers was “draughts” (pronounced drafts), not checkers, and the guards became “screws”. That is, they were called “screws” when not simply referred to as “dose fookers” –our Irish friends swore almost as easily as they breathed, at least when the guards weren’t listening.

Sunday night the overhead lights were “accidentally” left on in some of the cells –ours was one of them. With no way to escape the glaring light, Billy and I tried to call for the guards to shut them off – the switches were out of our reach –but of course they ignored us. In the morning, two guards came as usual for the morning rounds and asked how we were. I said we had not slept because of the lights.

Why did you not ask the duty guards to turn them off?

My visceral response was coloured by the stress of the moment as well as by the vernacular language we had become accustomed to using:

We tried calling, but we did not want to keep shouting and wake up all the other men just because you fuckers don’t do your job.

Which got a fast response from the guard:

You must not curse at guards or use foul language.

This English-speaking guard came and found me later in the courtyard, with the ranking officer in charge of the section, who did not speak English. He interpreted as the head guard said that if I cursed or used foul language at a guard again I would be sent to solitary confinement. 

I stared in disbelief (Foul language, seriously?? Had they been listening to these Irish guys curse? I thought but did not say).

As the guards walked away, my cell-mate Billy muttered under his breath, just audibly for him and me:

Fooking bastards.

Upon reflection and after chatting with the others, it became clear that I had been set up: manipulated to provoke a reaction that could be used to justify harsher treatment. The guards’ response was clearly planned to try to try to destabilize us, and might have succeeded were it not for the good sense and good humour of my prison mates, who snapped me out of it.

The same guard was at pains to “make nice” later that day, saying that he would miss us when we left and he had to go back to the “murderers and rapists” in the next section (pretty hard to take anything he said now seriously though…). 

So if we are not a security threat, then can we have the phone-cards that our consular representatives have brought for us? (there were payphones in the courtyard which we could’ve used if we’d been able to get phone-cards, one of the “rights” for migrants facing deportation which was prominently displayed on signs in several languages on the prison walls).

No, if someone makes a phone call from prison they might give instructions to a terrorist cell.

But you know we are pacifists not terrorists. What instructions are we going to give –for people to sit down in front of a door? Most people can figure that stuff out for themselves.

You know I cannot discuss politics.

End of discussion. We got no more phone-calls out, despite the prominent “migrants’ rights” signage in the prison.

We only had time to learn one phrase in the Irish language from our prison comrades, one which is applicable to our current struggle:

Tiocfaidh ár lá (pronounced CHOO kee ar lah): our day will come.

“Conversation” (?) or rather, Interrogation # 2

As previously discussed, my reconstructions of these questioning sessions are necessarily partial, in both senses (somewhat biased and somewhat incomplete), since they are based on summary notes which I took shortly afterwards and my own (fallible) memory.

My final security interview at Ben Gurion airport immigration holding area, Apartheid State of Israel. Just before midnight, night of November 9, prior to my deportation by an El Al flight to Toronto on the morning of November  10. This time there was an interrogator plus two other plainclothes officers, who said little but frisked me (yet again: after over a dozen searches in six days, it is not as if I can actually have anything of interest hidden on my person at this point. Ritual searches seem to be a national pass-time in Israel). I am offered coffee and sweets, which I decline.

My name is Dani. We are going have another conversation before deciding whether you can board the plane back to Canada.
When will I get my documents and my confiscated property back?

We don’t know anything about property. You will get your passport back from the flight crew. I am going to ask you some questions now. How are you feeling?
How would you feel if you’d been kidnapped, assaulted and robbed?

You were hurt? Can you tell me by who and when? Do you need anything now?
I was kneed in the thigh and bruised when I was removed from the Tahrir by force. I didn’t get any names or badges, it was dark.  What I need is our boat to be returned, can you arrange that?

I don’t think so.  What is the name of your organization?
The Canadian Boat to Gaza, this is a matter of public record, you can find us on the internet. Can I have my Canadian consular representative present for this interview? (Ehab and I had met with the vice-consult shortly before).

No, he has left already. How many people are involved in your organization?
Enough.

What do you mean, enough?

I mean that we have enough volunteers to keep the organization running.

Where do you live?
Also a matter of public record: London, Ontario, Canada.We were told we would get our electronic equipment returned before we board our flight out of Israel.

I don`t have any information about that. Where did your boat depart from in Turkey?
That is public information, you can find it on our website and in our press releases. Do you need help with finding information on the internet too? I thought Israelis were supposed to be good with technology. 

I don’t have a computer here. Maybe you can tell me where and when you left from in Turkey?
You have my passport (he is holding it, I point and he opens it). There is a departure stamp in it: see, the port of Fethiye, November 4.

And is that where you arrived in Turkey?
This information is also in my passport:  see, an entry stamp on October 29. Can I have my passport back now?

No, not now. So where did you stay for the time between your arrival and your departure?
I stayed at a hotel between the airport where I landed and the port of Fethiye.

How far from the port did you stay?
It’s maybe 45 minutes or an hour’s drive.

How did you get there?
I shared a taxi with some others delegates, and some of the journalists.

You were responsible for getting the journalists to the port?
We shared a taxi to split the cost. People were responsible for getting themselves there.

You were in charge of contacting and organizing the journalists?
They didn’t need a lot of organizing, mostly.  Different people contacted different journalists and media outlets.

But you were in charge of controlling the messages to the journalists?
We don’t try to control what journalists say or write, unlike you. We just let them do their jobs.

He consults a yellow note pad. How did you learn so much about computers?
I laugh out loud.

Did I say something funny?
If you think I know about computers, your sources are even less reliable than I thought.

We know because we have this picture. (he shows me a print-out of this photo:

 which was published on Rabble on November 3 -- so apparently they did have people capable of searching the internet afterall).

That is a picture of me at a computer on the Tahrir. I think everyone on board used the computers at different times – you know, to send e-mail and stuff.

But someone must’ve been responsible for setting up the communications systems.
Different people did different tasks. We work as a team. Can I go now?

Not yet, the night is still young. Maybe you will make it in time for your flight. Do you consider your campaign a success?
At this point, yes. I will have a better idea when I see the media back home.

You successfully kept your departure a secret.

Wouldn`t you, considering the sabotage that happened to another boat in June?

We do not agree that was sabotage.
As I told one of your colleagues the other day, there are a lot of things we aren`t going to agree about.

He asked many more questions, some of them frankly bizarre: when and why I had learned French and Spanish, did I know much Arabic (almost none), then he offered “advice” about what variety of Arabic I should study. He asked about my colleagues at the University of Western Ontario French Studies Department, about why a university professor would be involved in challenging a military blockade, about my contacts with Gaza and my history with the peace movement.  I gave answers which were as short as possible, sticking as much as possible to publicly available information. He eventually came back to a question his colleague had asked earlier:

You do not look as old as the age shown in your passport.
(For that I had a variant of the same answer as earlier):
 Solidarity keeps us young, you guys should try it.
For which he had clearly prepared  a (somewhat menacing) response:
Maybe it would be safer for you to try something less dangerous to keep young, like sports perhaps.

He concluded:
Maybe one day there will be peace between our countries and you can visit Israel under different circumstances.
I hope one day to visit a free Palestine.

I was not taken back to the airport detention cell where I had left Ehab, Michael and Fintan, but rather directly to a jeep with screened-in back seats. My bag and Ehab’s were already there. I got in alone, then heard Ehab speak to me through the screen and I realised he was in the other rear compartment which I could not see. We were driven directly to the tarmac, our bags were taken out, then Ehab was marched up the steps to the airplane. After what seemed like a very long wait (was I going to be taken for questioning again?) I was finally ushered up the steps and on board. Ehab and I were seated together at the rear of the plane; we did not receive any word of our confiscated property, and we only received our passports from Canadian immigration officials at Pearson airport after being escorted there by a member of the El Al flight crew.

“Conversation” (?) or rather, Interrogation # 1

I have described elsewhere how the Tahrir was boarded on afternoon of Friday November 4 2011 by overwhelming Israeli military force. Immediately following the assault on our vessel, we were all searched at gunpoint and most of our property and equipment confiscated. We are searched again at dockside in the port of Ashdod and then strip-searched in tents set up in a warehouse, before being bused (two of us in handcuffs and leg shackles) to an immigration processing centre. 

From the moment of my forced arrival in Israel, I repeatedly asked all the Israelis I met (and there were dozens over the course of those hours) for four things: I would like my passport returned, I would like to speak to a lawyer of my choosing, I would like to meet with Canadian consular staff and I would like to have our property (including our boat) returned. My repeated requests were of course ignored or dismissed. The following reconstruction of one of those “conversations”, based on notes I was able to take shortly after the events (while in prison and traveling home that week), is  necessarily partial (in both senses of the word: incomplete and somewhat biased) but they offer a flavour of what it was like interacting with Israel officials.

Security interview at immigration processing centre, Apartheid State of Israel, night of November 4. After finger-printing and being offered (and refusing to sign) a form which recognizes that I have entered Israeli illegally, I was selected to a “conversation” with a security officer. Three other plainclothes officers are in the room in addition to the interrogator, who begins by denying that he works for the security services.  

I do not work in security, I just have to ask you some questions to fill in this form. What is your name?
You have all my documents, you know my name. When will our confiscated property be returned?

Later. Your place of birth?
Also on my passport.  I would like to speak to my lawyer now please.

Mother`s name and father`s name?
What does it matter to you? Can I see my consular representative now please?

I need this information to fill out this form…
So, what are your mother and father`s names?

My parents? Their names are Avram and Sara.
Are Sarah and Avram proud that their son is an accomplice to piracy and kidnapping?

I ask the questions here. Your passport says you are 45, you don’t look that old.
Pacifism keeps us young, you guys should try it. Speaking of my passport, can I have it back please?

Not now. Did you know there was a military blockade of Gaza?
I do not recognize your authority to enforce that blockade: it is illegal in international law. Can I please contact Canadian consular officials now?

We do not agree about the legality of the blockade.
There are a lot of things we are not going to agree about, we could be here a while if you want to cover them all. Can I please see a lawyer now?

Why did you come here if you knew Gaza was under a military blockade?
Why did people of conscience go the southern U.S. to challenge segregation? Why did some people hide European Jews during the second world war?

But you knew there was some possibility of physical danger to yourself? Possibly some legal consequences in your country?
There was also danger and possible legal consequences in opposing segregation and in hiding people who needed to be hidden, but those were still the right things to do. When will I have my confiscated property returned?

Later, at the airport. One of the other officers hands him a note on a yellow pad. This was not the first time you tried to travel to Gaza?
It is a matter of public record that I was involved with organizing the Gaza Freedom March in 2009-2010  and went to Egypt with the Canadian delegation. It is also public information, on our website, that I am part of the Canadian boat to Gaza steering committee and I went to Greece in June and July of this year to try to sail to Gaza. You can also see the stamps in my passport for each of these trips, so there is really no reason to ask these questions. Can I have my passport back please?

Not now. We do not have this information you say is on your website, we do not know where to find it.
I don’t think you brought me here to give lessons on how to use Google. The information you are asking about is freely and publicly available. If you have only obvious questions to ask, can I please see my consular officials now?

He goes to look for some papers in another office, leaving my with his three colleagues.  I ask what their work is, and two of confirm that they work in security, the other says he “works everywhere”. When my interrogator returns, I congratulate him on his colleagues’ (relative) honesty in at least admitting what their work really is. After more pointless questioning, I am returned to the waiting area with the others.

How can I keep from singing?

This song is part of what kept me going while imprisoned in Israel for six days, following the capture at sea of the Tahrir (the Canadian Boat to Gaza) on November 4, 2011.

My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation
I hear that real, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation.
Through all the tumult and the strife, I hear that music ringing.
It sounds an echo in my soul: how can I keep from singing?

What though the tempest round me roar, I hear the truth it liveth.
What though the darkness round me close, songs in the night it giveth.
No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

When men and women conquer fear, with prison doors wide swinging.*
When friends rejoice both far and near, how can I keep from singing?
In prison cell or dungeon vile, our thoughts to them are winging.
When friends by shame are undefiled, how can I keep from singing?

There are a number of versions of this song, originally a Christian hymn, but the one I was familiar with since childhood was as recorded by (among others) Pete Seeger, which downplays religious aspects of the lyrics (How can I keep from singing? is also the title of Seeger's biography by David King Dunaway). However, the line at the beginning of the third verse in that version:

*When tyrants tremble, sick with fear, and hear their death-knell ringing,


has long troubled me, since I oppose the death penalty for anyone, even tyrants. As a teen, I rewrote the line in a sort of half-assed way ( ... and hear those peace bells ringing -- only two words changed, and still leaves the question, why should even tyrants be "sick with fear"?) but only for my own use, and perhaps singing to my kids, in later years.

(As an aside on this point, I entirely concur with Ariel Dorfman, who wrote in an open letter to the bloody-handed ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet following the latter's arrest: I want you to know, General, that I do not believe in capital punishment. What I do believe in is human redemption. ...I highly recommend the full interview, especially Dorfman's poetic "sentence" for Pinochet's crimes... but I digress...).

So when a few years ago I began singing (again) with my dad, who has been suffering from Alzheimer's now for some five years, this song was a natural part of our shared repertoire, and that particular verse of course came up as problematic, for both of us. He told me someone at their church had a better replacement verse for that line, so I asked my friend Becca Whitla, music director at Holy Trinity in downtown Toronto (my parents' congregation and the one I grew up in). She told me about the powerful new line I now use at the beginning of the third verse:


When men and women conquer fear, with prison doors wide swinging,


and she also told me that the person who had penned the substitution was in fact dad (he no longer recalls having composed the change -- only that there is a better verse). At the time, of course, I had no idea how that new line would end up speaking to me.

So all of this added up to a pretty heavy emotional charge for me when I sang this song in prison, mostly as a sort of personal meditation (since I never did get around to learning how to meditate "properly"). I knew that evoking memories of dad (and of my family more generally) would make me cry, and my personal concentration "game" was that I had to sing it through completely, without stumbling, or start over, repeating until I got it right and complete. The somewhat controlled crying response was also, I think, a healthy outlet.

Those last four lines were also the message I sent my family when I had a chance to get a message out of the prison -- a bit cryptic, perhaps, but my hope was that the message would read clearly as one of hope. It prompted another memory from my sister Margaret, who recalled that when Québec trade-unionist and socialist Michel Chartrand was jailed for four months in 1970 (under the War Measures Act), dad wrote to him and sent him this song (with Margaret's translation into French, now sadly lost).

There were other songs I sang while in prison in Israel (perhaps I will write about them too) but this was the one I came back to in order to pull myself together and face whatever we had to face. We prepared for many things during the long lead-up to the voyage of the Tahrir, but I never realised that I would find my way back to these songs. I have very few regrets about the whole experience -- as I have said more than once publicly, I would go again in a heart-beat -- but if I had to do it over, I wish I had begun singing earlier, on the deck of the Tahrir.