Filmmaker not open to other opinions

By Bill Zelman

South Portland resident

I attended a presentation on the recent Gaza flotilla by Scott Hamann last week in Portland.  Hamann is a filmmaker who was on one of the smaller boats.  

The organizers of the presentation were there with tables smothered in piles of reprinted articles about

Israel as an apartheid state, how Israel is founded on a lie – Zionist sins of all flavors.  

A hundred or so people attended. I stayed for the entire presentation and question and answer session. Hamann and the vast majority of attendees clearly hold a great deal of enmity toward Israel and embraced claims the Israeli blockade was illegal and that it included medicine, was causing malnutrition – especially among children – and also embraced claims Israeli action was unprovoked murder.  

Hamann readily admitted he was not on the ship that saw casualties. Fortunately his was boarded without incident.

I’m no maritime lawyer, but plenty of information on the Internet supports the legality of the blockade – unless anything Israel does to defend itself (except sending police to read Miranda rights and arrest Hamas fighters) is “collective punishment” and no risk ships would carry tons of rockets.

He said the blockade included medicine – references please?; Gazans suffering from malnutrition – video or photos please?  

From the World Food Program website – www.wfp.org/countries – Gazan children younger than 5 years old who are underweight – 5 percent; Jordan – 4 percent; Egypt – 6 percent; Syria – 7 percent; and Turkey 4 percent.

We learned the Israeli raid was made during morning prayers – “despicable” Hamann called it. We learned the Israeli commandos opened fire as they first descended, targeting journalists. We learned activists on board rushed the soldiers firing on them to save their own lives and only intended to disarm and protect the soldiers. Mr. Hamann owned the audience.

Like many, I’ve seen videos of the first commandos mobbed and beaten, descending to the deck. I’ve never seen peace activists do that – I can only imagine the soldiers’ experience. 

I’ve had a gun pointed at me – I’m no coward but I didn’t charge the man.

I struggled for one question to help me understand the room. The question formed. I raised my hand and asked Hamann if he or anyone else – given the video – harbored any doubt that after securing five boats without injuries, on the sixth, commandos boarded shooting and incredibly brave peace activists charged the firing soldiers to disarm them.

My doubt was loudly condemned by the audience, and dismissed by Hamann.  

My understanding was complete. Israeli explanations and evidence is worthless, fabrication. Here, nothing else matters – nothing. Not millions of Muslims in theocratic police states and leaders openly calling for genocide, women enslaved, homosexuals executed, non-Muslims persecuted.  Not millions of starving Koreans and Africans. Not a million Armenians starved on a forced march across Syria, not Kurds bombed in their Turkish Syrian, Iraqi and Iranian villages, and certainly not Gazans, incited by Islamist states and “peace activists” to continue dying and suffering until Israel is, in the words of Iran’s President Ahmadinejad, “wiped off the map.”