Upstream - Palestine Pt. 15: The Gaza Freedom Flotilla w/ Chris Smalls & Huwaida Arraf

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

In this episode, Part 15 of our ongoing Palestine series, we've invited on two guests for a wide-ranging conversation around the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the movement it's part of: Chris Smalls and Huwaida Arraf. Chris Smalls is a labor organizer, founder and former President of the Amazon Labor Union, and was a member of the most recent Freedom Flotilla voyage to Gaza. In this conversation, Chris shares about his experience on the Handala—the boat that sailed from Italy to the coast off of Gaza in an attempt to break Israel's illegal siege and blockade of food, medicine, and other lifesaving necessities in Palestine. We talk about the IOF's siege of the Handala in the waters of the Mediterranean just off the coast of Gaza and Chris's treatment after being kidnapped by Israel. We also explore the connection between working class politics in the United States and the struggle for liberation in Palestine, the complicity of the Western labor movement and the Democratic Party in the Palestinian genocide, the need for a labor party in the US, and what's next for the Freedom Flotilla missions.  Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American human/civil rights attorney, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, and organizer with the Freedom Flotilla. In this conversation, Huwaida tells us about the history of the Freedom Flotilla and the various voyages to Gaza from 2008 to the present. We discuss the framework of international law, whether or not it still exists in a meaningful way, and how Israel and the US routinely violate it. Finally, we talk about a possible future where those responsible for the Palestinian siege and genocide, from Israeli leaders to IOF foot soldiers, are held accountable for their war crimes and crimes against humanity, and what the future holds for more freedom flotillas defying the brutal and illegal siege on Gaza.    Further resources: Donate to ANERA (American Near East Refugee Aid) Donate to MECA (Middle East Children's Alliance) Freedom Flotilla Amazon Labor Union International Solidarity Movement The Hind Rajab Foundation Taxpayers Against Genocide Global Sumud Flotilla Thousand Madleens to Gaza US Boats to Gaza Related episodes: Listen to our ongoing Palestine series From the Frontlines: Organizing Against Amazon w/ Chris Smalls and Mars Verrone What Is To Be Done? with Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante Intermission music: A section of "Deepwater Horizon Dream" by Robert Raymond Covert art: Palestine Poster Project, Abel El Hameed Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants—just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back catalog of Patreon episodes, and for Upstream stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through your support you’ll be helping us keep Upstream sustainable and helping to keep this whole project going—socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund so thank you in advance for the crucial support. patreon.com/upstreampodcast For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

Oh. The tide is turning. So anyone who is part of perpetrating this genocide should not feel safe traveling anywhere. anywhere, their actions will come back to haunt them and history will record where they stood and what they did, even if not in their lifetime, in their offspring's lifetime, their children and their children's children will know what they did. And that is the task before us now. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you.

I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. The movement for Palestinian liberation has been growing rapidly since October 7th, even if most states and political leaders are still reluctant to make any material actions to free Palestine from the death grip of the United States and its proxy Israel. People, however, across the globe are taking action. Regardless of the size or likelihood of success, these actions are only growing, from organizations tracking and reporting IOWF foot soldiers on vacation

to organizations like the Freedom Fotilla, which has been sailing across the Mediterranean, ship after ship for almost 20 years now in an attempt to deliver aid to the population of Gaza that has been under illegal siege for two decades. Huita Araf is a Palestinian-American human and civil rights attorney, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, an organizer with the Freedom Flotilla who sailed on the most recent flotilla, the Handala. Chris Smalls is a labor organizer,

co-founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union, and was also a crew member on the Handala. They'll both join us for this two-part episode, which is part 15, on our ongoing series. on Palestine to talk about their recent actions on the Freedom Flotilla and much more. And before we get started, Upstream is entirely listener funded. No ads, no promotions, no grants, just Patreon subscriptions and listener donations. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. Subscribe to our Patreon for bi-weekly bonus episodes, access to our entire back

catalog of Patreon episodes and for stickers and bumper stickers at certain subscription tiers. Through this support, you'll be helping keep upstream sustainable and allowing us to keep this project going. Post-capitalist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for this crucial support. And now, here's part one of today's episode, Robert in Conversation with Chris Smolls. Chris, it is a pleasure to have you back on the show. Thank you for having me. Grateful to be here.

Yeah, absolutely. And so just real quick, for anybody who may not yet be familiar with you, I'd love it if you could maybe just start with a brief introduction, tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do, and then we'll. kind of hop into the questions I have for you about the Freedom Flotilla. Yeah, thank you. For those who don't know, my name is Chris Smalls, the founder and former president of the Amazon Labor Union, which is the first union in American history for Amazon workers founded in Staten Island back in 2022. And yeah, prior to that, I was just an Amazon

worker who spoke out and was sort of whistleblower for COVID-19. That's what got me to the point forming the union. Then fast forward, my recent initiative, those who made up, I've seen or heard, I was on the Hyundai Mission that was boat number, flotilla number 37, to try to break the illegal seas that Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's kind of what I want to focus the majority of our conversation on today. I mean, we did have you on with your collaborator, Mars Verone, to talk about the really incredible documentary film union, which chronicled your journey in sort of founding the ALU. But yeah, today I want to focus on your journey on the Handala Freedom Flotilla, which, you

know, attempted to sail to Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, of course. But I think we'll also be able to make a lot of connections, too, between Palestine and the labor movement and sort of this side of things in the U.S. and the labor movement's complicity often with genocide. But yeah, let's maybe just start with the very beginning, because I'm very curious, like, how you went from your work organizing Amazon workers to joining the freedom flotilla bound for Gaza in the first place. Great question. And yeah, I try to always in my organizing efforts from the very beginning, even when Amazon workers, even before the Amazon Labor Union, with my nonprofit organization, the Congress of Essential Workers, I was always trying to bring in different movements together, whether it's civil rights, whether it's social injustice, climate injustice, workers rights, you name it. We tried to bring these movements together in front of Jeff Basil's house before we even started the Amazon Labor Union. And even during the presidency that I had with the labor union, I tried to also take different stances. In the working class, what they came to Trump trying to take women's rights away.

So you would see me in the streets protesting with women's march. Same thing with extension rebellion or any climate organization. you would see me out there protesting with them. One of the big rallies I did was Medicare for All in New York City a few years ago. I led that rally with Susan Sarandon. So I always tried to incorporate different type of social injustices. And Palestine was no different. Prior to October 7, I was fortunate enough to be on a panel discussion with Dr. Mustafa Borgatti.

And he had invited me to Palestine before the genocide started. started. And I was going to go. I was set to go. I was going to reach out to him and try to put together a U.S. delegation to go out there. And people also saw that I was also in Cuba trying to shed light on that blockade as well prior to Palestine. So I always was very worldly, especially when I got a passport three years ago. My passport has been used very much often to try to build international solidarity and just learning about all the different world struggles. It's been amazing that I've been able to connect all of the dots, especially when it came to Palestinian liberation. How did I get to the flotilla? From my travels around the world,

I met some of the activists that was on the Madlein. Even on social media, I haven't met most of them in person, but a lot of them I was already talking to our following on social media because We were supportive of one another's work. I saw an interview that they did with one of these journalists that interviewed both of us. So I reached out to the journalist and he put me in touch with Huweda, Arraf, who is not only a volunteer that was on a hundella, but she's a co-founder of the Freedom Flotel Coalition. She started this initiative way back in 2007.

So she actually reached out to me a phone call the next day after I sent to me. term message. And I had 24 hours really to make a decision on whether I wanted to join this mission. And I didn't hesitate. And what I'm really curious about is like the organization itself as well. Like you mentioned the Madeline. You mentioned that this is the Hyundai, the voyage that you were on was the 37th Freedom Flotilla. Maybe if you could just give us some context of like how it all works, how people can get involved. And like what the organizational background is of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla? Yeah, sure, absolutely. I mean, the Freedom Flotilla initiative has started, once again,

over 17 years ago. It came out of the International Solidarity Movement, which Huwaita is actually a co-founder of as well. She started that movement before the Freedom Flotilla coalition started. And out of the 37 missions, only five actually made it to the show. shores of Gaza. This initiative has started to break the illegal siege for those who don't know. Israel has been controlling the borders of Palestine for over two decades. They control what goes ends and out. And the initiative of the flotilla is to break that siege, especially now that before October 7, 85% of the population in Gaza was already facing starvation. Now it's at a level five famine where once again millions of people are going to die even after the aid is

delivered there's a process to everybody being a nurse back to full health it's not just by delivering aid so that's why um huaida this was her ninth voyage trying to break the seed she she's a warrior somebody who i'm blessed to be in company with and known over the past few weeks and And yeah, just by that alone, that's what motivated me to get on. But also, there was a resurgence after the Madeline with Greta Thunberg. Everybody was seeing the propaganda that Israel was putting out there. And I had to debunk that by going myself, but most importantly, as a labor leader from America and a U.S. taxpaying citizen, we all should be outraged about where our taxpayers are going. And more importantly, these labor unions who say that Palestine is outside

the scope of labor, they should be ashamed of themselves right now. Yeah, definitely want to pick up on that thread in a little bit in terms of the labor movement. Just give us a little bit more like context. So you were sailing on this journey. What were you delivering and sort of, you described some of the other participants and people that have been on the voyage, like, who were you with? And what was it like? I imagine it was like quite an experience being on that boat knowing what had happened to the Madeline just before, but also feeling, I'm guessing, like a lot of solidarity and a lot of like passion and excitement about the mission that you all were on. So yeah, maybe you could just describe that experience a little bit for us. Yeah,

absolutely. The 21 volunteers, 19 of us were activists, two journalists from Al Jazeera. we represented about eight different countries one third of the crew was american seven americans we had folks from italy norway france spain tunis and uh we had some uh palestinians on board as well who wait is one of them and of course they're americans we uh not only our backgrounds uh we all were doing this for humanitarian reasons. So you can say we're peace activists, all of us. But we had some high profile sort of celebrity like Jacob Berger, who is a comedian and also an actor, really big platform, big voice. And then you had myself who represented the labor aspect to it. There were other labor leaders on board as well. My brother had some trade unionists. So yeah, everybody had different

backgrounds uh i would say mostly um humanitarian but there was some labor trade unionists there was some sort of celebrities there was a little bit of everybody you know regular everyday civilians and we had the grandmother of the ship uh vizis 70 year old grandmother who who was also the chef so we build a real family bond yeah family oriented bond we had to live on a tight vessel a boat that was built in 1968, very old, outdated. Things were breakdown all the time, but we had to somehow overcome these challenges and the family bond that we built. It just resonated through and through, you know, especially knowing that I was the only black man. I felt safe because they understood that as well. And we all knew what we signed up for. So as we were traveling on the Mediterranean,

and you know we're dealing with seasickness we're dealing with drones at night we're dealing with you know things breaking down on the boat we always somehow some way kept our morale up we kept our spirits up we we joked around when we could and we also uh rejoiced that we had to the songs that i chanted with them the mills that we uh were preparing together and those type of moments would always be unforgettable. And, you know, I'm really blessed that I had a crew like that because even when I was assaulted, I knew that they had my back as well. You mentioned, so there were drones that you guys were contending with on the boat. Tell us a little bit about that aspect of it. Like, so how long was the journey and then

until you were began getting intercepted by Israel and whatever IOF forces were involved with that. And then maybe if you could talk about the lead up to the kidnapping or abduction or however, we might want to frame that, the illegal like capturing of the individuals on the boat. And yeah, just give us a sense of like that experience. Yeah, sure. So we actually had to sail from Gallipoli, Italy. That part of Italy, that region, has fully divested from Israel. So it was the best port, safest port to leave from.

And prior to us sailing, Israel has announced on their public news that they were going to do everything in their power to stop the Hyundai from leaving port of Italy. That morning, we woke up and there was a rope, a nylon rope tied to our road. and we were delivered, instead of getting a fresh tank of water, we were delivered a tank of acid. So it delayed our sailing about two hours, but thank God we were able to catch that. The acid could have corroded our pipes, but also it could have killed all 21 of us because it would have been mixed with our shower water or the water that we used to cook our food. So it was definitely no coincidence, but still under investigation about who was behind any of these things. So that was number one, something that we had to deal with even before sailing.

The Mediterranean, where we left from, it was going to take us about seven days of travel. We would have actually made it to Gaza Strip that Sunday, July 26th, at 3 in the morning. And prior to that, as you mentioned, you know, the drone activity, what's most shocking is the fact that there's so much drones traveling from north to south, east of west, every day not only surveilling us, but surveilling, you know, refugees that may be in distress, you know, for those who don't know, the Mediterranean is like an open graveyard because very peaceful at night. It's really beautiful. the sunset, even one point in time, there was a family of dolphins that was guided in the boat. So it had very beautiful moments, but then it had very ugly moments where the weather would make the waves rocky, so we couldn't really stand up. Or you're dealing with the drone activity at night, so it's hard to really get a good night's sleep because you're on edge about surveillance. So I took the night shift, and I observed in my four-hour shift. over 50 drones as we were getting closer to Gaza.

So I knew that they were heavily surveilling us, tracking our trajectory, our speed, and collecting data. And as we, you know, got closer, the threats of Israel got a lot louder. They definitely put out a response, something in the media, days closer, saying that the same results will happen with the Madeline that they're coming to kidnap us.

They also, they knew that we were coming. So they prepared a full-on military operation less than 60 miles away from the Gaza Strip was where we were captured. And for those who don't know, they have no jurisdiction in international waters in Palestinian territories at all that was ruled by the ICJ over a year ago. in the case of Israel versus South Africa for genocide. And so, yeah, what happened the night that the Handala was intercepted? There's been a lot of like Israeli propaganda about, you know, how gently and kindly they approached the boat and they fed the people on the boat and all of that kind of bullshit.

But then, of course, there's the reality of the situation. So maybe just set the record straight and describe. sorry about happened during that that night. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's ironic. It's ironic that with the Madleen, there was so much propaganda put out on their side. You saw them. You mentioned it. The pictures of Greta are other passengers with sandwiches and water. They tried to get them smiling. They tried to get them on an airplane as well, pictures and propaganda out there. but with the hundella mission there's been virtually nothing

instead the only thing that I've seen in response to my assault was that they said that I was the ingressor this was pre-planned that I planned to be provocative so it's just full of lies like you mentioned

bullshit what happens is they come because they're cowards they come in the middle of the night they never come when the sun's up they cut communication off from the rest of the world. You see them during our live stream. They come on board, you know, 12, 15 at a time, both sides. They make us put our hands up. We have to basically

shelter in place. And they pull the cameras down and cut our Wi-Fi off immediately. And then they kidnap us against our will and take us 12 hours away to the Port of Ashad. Mind you, we were captured at a 11. p.m. We were four hours away from Gaza. That's how close we were. We would have made it to Gaza by 3 a.m. that Sunday morning. Instead, we were taking the prison, the immigration authorities, 12 hours away in the port of Bashad. And as they transfer us over, that's when things, I'm sorry, I'm skipping over this part. For those who don't know, they come on board with a camera crew. Their goal is to get propaganda to put out there. But because we had announced that we were on a

hunger strike, this is important. They announced that we know you're on the hunger strike, but they still brought a camera crew and still brought on a cooler full of sandwiches and water to try to give it to us. So the whole time we were traveling throughout the night, they had these two, you know, women, IOWF soldiers, our commandos trying to give us out sandwiches, but we didn't take it. Anyway, we killed that propaganda. In the morning, when we were transferred over to the authorities, they had a camera crew waiting for us at the docks, and we said, let's take this opportunity to start chanting, free Palestine, and the song that I had created called, you know, basically the mighty mighty hundela we are hundela and we were chanting that we were getting off the boat

one by one the americans were getting off last i was one of the last to get off and that's when i covered my face up i said i'm not consenting to any of these photos and that's when the seven authorities threw me to the ground put their knee in my back levitated me pulled my hair and used my chains to choke me to the point I couldn't breathe and told me to shut up repeatedly. Then it carried me away into a separate room and separated me from the rest of the crew. I heard the crew yelling in the next room, but I couldn't say anything because they had me heavily guarded by five guards the entire time. And this is when they start to deport us or if we elect to go see the judge, then we're

going to prison. So it's no surprise to most of us that Israel is an incredibly racist society. I mean, it's an ethno state. What do you think led to you being singled out in terms of being assaulted? And what does that tell you about Israel as a society and further, like, the implications for that on the populations that are oppressed and subjugated under Israel's boot? Well, I've said this in past interviews as well. And by 37 years in America, I've never experienced the amount of hatred, racism, and bigotry that I experienced in Israel

in those few days. Every person I encountered, every authority, it was such a hatred that it just resonated from them and it was such a it was deliberate racism of course i wasn't going over there to be silent you know i was going over there to break the siege to speak up for those who can't and that doesn't mean that they can't it's just because they're they will kill Palestinians but for me being an american i had somewhat of a privilege to go over there as an american civilian, and speak. And whether they took that as a sign of aggression or not, everything that happened to me was just a fraction of what Palestinians have to go through.

And it was by design. From the time I was attacked, I was guarded, heavily guarded throughout the whole deportation process. Even when we got to prison, it got worse. They tried to psychologically torture us, specifically with me. me, it was no coincidence why I was the last to get out, one of the last to get out. Me and my Arab brother, Hatam, who's also a brown man. So, in comparison, the whole overall trip, they weaponized food against us. They put us in a room with seven, seven of us in one cell

on one of the hottest heat waves of the summer. So the oxygen level was poor. They raided us twice with the raid unit made a strip naked for no reason knowing that we couldn't smuggle anything and they had this on 24 hour lockdown as a punishment for the hunger strike and we were definitely drinking contaminated water so the last thing they did everybody else that was deported it was 14 of us who went to prison 12 people that got deported before me and hatham they were taken to Tel Aviv Airport and deported to their countries. With me and Hatsam, we were dropped off at the border of Jordan. So everything they'd done from the beginning to the very end, even the flight back home,

they wanted to fly me to Dubai, who is also in great relationship with Israel. Second layover was in Germany. Everything they were doing was by design to try to psychologically break me down and all also physically assault me as well. So nobody can tell me that the experience that I had in those few days, nobody can tell me otherwise that this is not a systematically racism and oppression that is designed by the hands of this apartheid state. Well, I have to like just applaud your bravery and it's like more than clear that their attempts to break you psychologically, at least from my perspective seem to have miserably failed. So yeah, thank you for all of the amazing work

that you and your comrades on board did and what I understand will continue to be doing in the future. And I'm going to ask you about that in a moment. But I want to shift the conversation to the connection between Palestine and working class politics in the United States. You've been extremely critical of some elements of the Western labor movement when it comes to their complicity in the Palestinian genocide and also just sort of the broader understanding of the importance of international solidarity

like capitalism and exploitation is a global system and a global phenomenon and without an international perspective we're just kind of reaching out in the dark when we try to organize workers. So can you talk a little bit about the critiques that you have of the Western labor movement more broadly, like how do some elements of labor participate in or are complicit in the oppression and subjugation

of the working class in the global south? And most importantly, why should the working class movements here act in solidarity with the international working class? Well, these last elections proved heavily why there's a huge disconnect between the Democrats, anybody on the left with the labor movement, and the working class. There's no doubt about it. There's a huge disconnect. They ran off the same old talking points that they always do. They used the same playbook that they always use. And they thought that they can just use celebrities like Beyonce or like Megan Astaire or Oprah or even Obama to try to power through this election against Trump. And they failed miserably flat on their face. And probably was one

of the worst campaigns in history, if you ask me. Because It was such a blatant disrespect to the people of Palestine, to the younger generation, to the working class, the entire working class that they're going to ignore this active genocide. Not only that, but participate and continue to vote and pass bills and pour money into this war while campaigning for president. It just didn't make any sense. And then, on the other hand, gaslight us and say they're actively, tirelessly working hard for a ceasefire when they literally did none of that. So my problem is, and my issue is with the labor movement, is that we endorse, and I say we, I don't mean myself or I don't mean my union. My union doesn't endorse politicians in our Constitution. But when I say we as the labor movement, because I'm a part of it, the labor movement always endorses the Democratic Party. The largest federations, the largest international unions, is sort of like vote blue no matter who. And we've done this for six decades now.

And because of this and this disconnect between the working class, the labor movement is not only complicit in this genocide, they're also complicit when it comes to adding people into the labor movement. That's why the labor movement is less than 6% in the private sector, less than 10% and the public sector. So the same playbooks, the same traditional old school methods, have failed the labor movement as well, and they continue to do the same thing. So connecting the dots with Palestine, the labor unions that are in terms of, endorse, these politicians are not only complicit, but there's major federations like

the AFL-CIO or the Longshoremen Association, who passed zero resolutions since October 7, and continue to help facilitating the shipping and manufacturing of weapons to Israel for the last 22 months every 15 hours. They could have easily took a page out of their own history when they stood against the apartheid of South Africa or take a page out of the dock workers that you see in other parts of the world like Greece or like Italy. They have had dot workers that already show prime examples of how we can militarize and use the labor more. movement to send a strong statement to these politicians to the government and economically have some leverage so that we can get what we need in the working class.

But that's not what's happening right now. And that's why my participation in the Hyundailanda mission was not only to spread awareness and break the siege, but to call this out as an atrocity for the labor movement in the U.S. particularly because some of these unions, actually all of them, gave me praise when I took on Amazon. They let me into their homes as a keynote speaker or a panelist or whether I was doing a workshop or whether they was applauding me in my efforts, some capacity over the last few years, these same labor movements and labor unions have invited me and my union into their space as well.

And for me to be silent is absolutely complicit in the work that I'm doing, and I can't. So that's why I'm at the point where I am actively calling it out, but I'm actively ready to escalate and organize against these two our international unions, our associations, because that's what we need right now. What do you think it is, like, the disconnect for a lot of the labor contingents, that you were mentioning in terms of these blind spots of like why they would be willing to support you in your fight against Jeff Bezos, but not against, say, a genocide in Palestine or even if we scale it down, like there just seems to be such a lack of international solidarity in the labor movement in the U.S. more broadly. A few years ago, maybe it was a year ago or so, you know, one of the biggest union headlines

was the Boeing workers were on strike. And for me, it was like this big tension where I'm like, I support all workers and I want workers to be paid well and treated fairly and all of that. And like, I wonder if they understand that they're developing and manufacturing weapons that are being used to further U.S. imperialism. And like where that disconnect is and why do you think there's such a lack of international solidarity here? It has everything to do with the leadership of their unions. I could say from my own personal experience, as somebody who was catapulted into the labor movement, as a black man, as a grassroots organizer, and flown all over the world, probably been to over 29 different countries in the last few years.

And it's funny you mentioned, you know, international solidarity. When some of these places, I was the first to go. Me at 33 years old at the time, I was the first as an American president to do a lot of different things around the world and other countries. And the thoughts that I had was, wow, why hasn't this happened already? And I still have that question till this day. The work that I'm doing are pioneering. Name another U.S. president in the labor market.

movement that's doing that, or doing the work that I'm doing. And it's not even close. So, and there's no disrespect. It's just more of there is a disconnect between the leadership of these unions and grassroots efforts. It's that simple. They do not, just like politicians, the Democrats, they can't figure that part out. It's right in front of them. The students, the younger generation has shown them. Whether there's Mondani, They're showing them how to organize, and they're still sort of turning a blind eye into it, thinking they know better, or they're gatekeeping, or they're just complicit in the perks that benefit themselves as individuals. So doing things like I've done will get you canceled in spaces. Yes, I've already mentioned when I came back to the U.S. speaking about Palestine, I lost so many opportunities. whether it was personal financial gains or just in general speaking engagements lost so many of them

I can't keep count but I didn't care I continue to stick to my guns and stand on business because I knew that eventually everybody else to catch up and that's a part of organizing is you have to take stances sometimes that are uncomfortable and hope that the people will follow you afterwards if it's the right thing to do And these other labor movements are not, our labor unions are not willing to do that. They wait for the politics to lead the direction of how they organize, instead of it being the other way around. And that's what I've seen and experienced.

And we can't allow that anymore. If they truly say that they are the shield for the working class and the injury to one and is an injury to all, which is the model and slogan of these unions, then they can't exclude Palestinian liberation as well. And the Palestine trade union history has always included trade unions from around the world. We were the humanitarian aid before there was humanitarian aid organizations. From the first Nakhpah and the resistance of Palestinians, trade unions from Greece, from Turkey, from their surrounding countries, have always supported. the Palestinian liberation.

And that's what the history doesn't get taught here in America as well, along with our own labor history that don't get taught here as well. Yeah, thank you so much for that. I couldn't agree more. And it resonate with a lot of what you said. I have one more question sort of about the political and labor sphere in the United States before my last question, which will be bringing us back to the freedom flotillas. But so you were very critical of the Democratic Party and I mean even like the progressive elements of the Democratic Party, you know, people like Bernie Sanders and AOC have failed time and again on Gaza, among other things. And so like I know that you mentioned last time we had you on that you had some pretty like exciting news of something taking place. And I'm wondering, are you working? Are you working?

towards building a political presence in terms of like a political party here in the United States? And if so, is there anything that you can sort of tell us about that effort? Yeah, absolutely. I would just touch off with the Bernie and AOC situation. Real quick, you know, a lot of people may have been aware that, you know, these folks, these same progressive politicians, after we won against Amazon, they all showed up and shook my hand. They all invited me to the White House.

They all took pictures with me. They all, yeah, I used to have direct contact with all of them. Not only have I not spoken to them in two, three years, they were completely silent, you know, while I was kidnapped. So that tells you right there. A lot of people have paid attention to that and caught on to that, but I want to remind everybody here that these people are who they are. And they're never going to be on the side of the working class.

You can forget about it. And I have plenty of evidence to prove that because of that and because of the experience that I had with the labor movement, with these politicians, of course, with the Trump administration that in the first 10 days of office, he completely destroyed the National Labor Relations Board to the point where, you know, three years later, we still don't have a bargaining in order to even negotiate with Amazon, the system is beyond broken, and I believe it's beyond repair. You know, people want to say, oh, well, try to organize from within. Within, it will take you a lifetime to change the Democratic Party, and I don't have a lifetime. I don't think any of us

do. And that's the reason why now my latest sort of side project, but it will be a main focus and a few. I'm trying to revive the once U.S. Labor Party. We once had one. In the 70s, it dissolved because of a two-party system, killed it just like they do with the third parties that run against them now. What I'm trying to do is revitalize it, but in a newer fashion, to meet the times that we're in. And because of my experience and journey around the world, I met so many different parliaments and politicians and presidents and trade unions that have so much. Just better policies and better quality of life than we have here in America that I hope that I can build out a party that will not only be sustainable, but include everybody to try to overtake this two-party system and escape the two-party system that we are living in now. Well, that's really exciting. And we'd love to have you back to talk more about that once it's become less of a side project and more of a major focus.

but speaking of major focuses, my last question for you is, so I know there are plans for more freedom flotillas, always in the works. I believe I've seen you state that you're planning to return to the Mediterranean. So maybe you could just give us a sense of what's in the works and give us a sense of your overall sense of what's going to take place and how you're feeling about that. And any parting words that you'd like to share or invitations with our listeners. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, there's the global smooth flotilla coalition that's about to launch 44 flotillas onto the shores of Gaza and try to break the siege. Very powerful. It's been the most in history, I believe, to have 44 different countries involved. I'm

definitely going to be heavily behind the scenes, giving them advice. I'm definitely helping them with some of the experiences and trainings to prepare the folks that are going. So I'm blessed to be a part of that. And also with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, there's going to be, I think, the next mission they're trying to plan the all-women's Flotilla, very powerful message. And, yeah, hopefully I wouldn't have to go back. But I did announce that if there's an opportunity for me to go back, just like who I consider a warrior Huwaita, who's went nine times, I will absolutely try to go back to break the siege

and spend more time with my crew members and family that I've gained over the past few weeks. And to the listeners, if you want to get involved, I encourage you guys to reach out to their social media links. They have the applications on their social media handles. But also, I just want to say this in closing, you don't have to get on a flotilla. Actually, I don't recommend it for a lot of reasons because you have to be mentally prepared for what you're doing. This is a life of death situation. In the past, Israel has killed 10 volunteers on a 2010 flotilla. So you want to keep that in mind that this is a dangerous situation. It takes a lot on your body. It takes a lot on your mental health.

health. So if you feel like you can, then by all means, but also reminds itself that there's so many different ways that we all can use our voices and platforms and whatever you can, whether it's joining the rally, protest, whatever you can, just try to do that and continue to keep center-focused the people of Palestine who desperately need to help right now. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Chris Smalls. we'll be right back with the second half of our show. I'm going to be I'm going to

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I'm You know, Oh, That was a section of Deepwater Horizon Dream by Robert Raymond. Now here's the second part of our episode, Robert in conversation with Huerta Araf. Hueda, it's great to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you for having me. be with you. Yeah, I would love it if we could just start with an introduction. Could you introduce

yourself for our listeners and maybe just talk a little bit about how you came to organize with the Freedom Flotilla and just more broadly how you came to do the work that you're doing? Sure. So I am Palestinian-American. I'm a human rights attorney and a longtime activist. Actually, it is my activism that encouraged me to get into the law in order to look for legal mechanisms of holding human rights perpetrators accountable and getting justice for victims of human rights abuses. And it was really my experience

in the occupied Palestinian territory that opened my eyes to just how horrific the system is here in Palestine, but also broader. I came to live in Palestine after I graduated from college. My parents made their way to the United States when my mother was about nine months pregnant with me

and I'm the oldest of five children. So they wanted to raise a family in the United States far from the apartheid occupation and extreme oppression of the Israeli regime. So I had, I think, so many opportunities that so many of Palestinians, so many of people, my own people, did not get to have and still don't have because of that choice and that sacrifice that my parents made. And so I think at a rather early age, I started recognizing the, I think, the responsibility that comes along with that. I mean, the question to myself was, what role do I have to play in my people's liberation struggle? And so after I graduated from college, I moved to the occupied Palestinian territory.

It was initially to work for a conflict resolution program, but I came to see how those are not only inadequate, but they actually work against Palestinian and really any occupied oppressed people's liberation struggle. struggle because they really mask the fundamentals of what tears people apart. And specifically when we're talking about Palestine, you know, we worked with Israeli and Palestinian youth. And while they became the best of friends, and that's a beautiful thing to see, you saw that the program itself did not address the crux of the problem. And the crux of the problem is not the Palestinians and Israelis can't get along with

each other or that Muslims and Jews have or Christians have a problem with each other. It is that one side, Israel and the Jewish Israel, is oppressing, is occupying, oppressing, colonizing, and other people and making it impossible for them to stay, to live on their own land. They came and colonized the land, drove most of the people out, and have been working over the years and decades to drive the rest of the people out. And in that kind of scenario, there's no just learning to become friends. You have to work to dismantle the systems of oppression. You have to dismantle the colonial apartheid structures that is tearing people apart. And you see that. Again, when Palestinians really discovered, like youth, discover, they have so much in common.

but at the end of the day, one goes back to their city and town and one goes back to their refugee camps and, you know, the city and town that the Israeli go back to are built on the ruins of Palestinian cities and towns. And these are the political issues that the organizations kind of stay away from. And again, they do no work to dismantle the structures that tear people apart. And like I said, it works also against the liberation struggle because it, for so many liberal organizations and states try to focus on this kind of work. They call people-to-people programs and they try to delegitimize other forms of struggle. And Palestinians have used various

forms of struggles and campaigns again to demand their basic rights and their freedom, their liberation. And these are all delegitimized, sometimes even criminalized, as these other, you know, people-to-people programs and let's be friends and let's get together and sing kumbaya is exalted as the only way to liberation. And so it's a long way of explaining that I initially went to work for this program, quickly became disillusioned with it, and co-founded with some others, the International Solidarity Movement. And the international solidarity movement was a way of globalizing the Palestinian Tofada,

calling people from all over the world to come stand with Palestinian. civilians in their popular struggle because Palestinians protesting alone, and this was the early 2000s, we were seeing so many being maimed, arrested, and killed with absolutely no accountability, no adequate media coverage. Palestinians were vilified for being killed. They're being slaughtered by the Israeli military, and it's their fault. That's how the Western media was reporting on it. And so we thought if we could get people from all around the world to come and with their own eyes and march side by side with Palestinians that could give Palestinians a resource that can be even more powerful than the weapons that are Western countries and especially

the United States were giving to the Israeli regime. And we co-founded the ISM in about in 2001, and it's still operating today and people from all over the world still come and they go and live in Palestinian communities and organize with them. And we are able to do some things here in resisting occupation policies, but the things have become so violent that a lot of the work today is just trying to be a protective presence and documenting. And then people go back to their countries and try to spread the word and change your government policies.

So I got involved with the ISM, as I said, early 2000s. We co-founded that. and it is from there that the work to break the Israel's illegal blockade on Gaza got started. It was actually activists from the international solidarity movement that were discussing what is possible to do about Israel's illegal blockade on Gaza. In 2006, 2007, Israel imposed a near hermetic closure on the Gaza Strip. It had always controlled Gaza, but. the near hermetic closure was punitive and it was deadly.

It was preventing people from getting the medical treatment they needed. It was severely restricting what access people had to food. So you saw rising rates of malnutrition and children and amemia and pregnant women, devastation of the economy. And this, again, this was back in 2007 and the world wasn't doing anything about it. No government was pressuring Israel. Nobody was sanctioning Israel. And so in discussing, like, what could we do as the ISM because Israel was also not letting

foreigners into Gaza, the idea came, how about we try sailing a boat? We'll sail from Europe through international waters and try to go straight to Gaza in Palestinian territorial waters. We won't enter Israeli territorial waters, and so we have a right to do this. And if Israel stops us, at least let the world see that Israel's policies have nothing to do with security because they always tell the world that everything that they do is about security. Well, you know, we're going to have some foreign peace activists on a small fishing boat trying to go visit Palestinians in Gaza. What kind of security threat is that? And we,

I will say now, naively believe then that if the world knew, realized, got past Israel's propaganda, that Israel's policies is not really about security at all, that they wouldn't stand for it. wouldn't stand for this siege. That was a form of collective punishment. That is illegal. That is a war crime. And our government would act as we see today, unfortunately. That is not the case. But we don't give up. And we originally sailed then our first boats to Gaza to try to confront and challenge and break Israel's illegal siege in the summer of 2008. We ended up being two small fishing boats, 44 people from 17 countries on these two small fishing boats, and we declared that we're not turning back. We are no security threat. If Israel is going to try to stop us,

let the world see that it's not about security. It's about punishing an entire civilian population and trying to bring the Palestinians to their knees as a form of exacting political concessions, and this is illegal, and the world should not stand for this. And we set sail. We didn't know. This was before like massive kind of social media and tweeting and all of those things. We had a couple of satellite phones that Israel actually jammed our communications and we were without communications for most of the voyage. And at the last moment, Israel backed down. It had been threatening to attack us the whole way.

And we were getting close to Gaza's territorial waters. we suddenly got our communication back, our satellite phone signals came back, and we got a phone call from a news station actually to ask us how we felt because Israel just declared that it was not going to intercept our boats. And we realized that, oh my gosh, we're going to actually make it to Gaza. No one had done that. No boats had done that for the 40 years that Gaza had been under Israeli military occupation. And so our two small boats in August of 2008,

made it to the shores of Gaza, and the reception of the Palestinian people was just indescribable. It was beautiful. I think tens of thousands of people must have rushed to the ports to meet us. And it wasn't because we were carrying humanitarian aid that the people so desperately needed. Our boats barely carried us, so we didn't have humanitarian aid on board. But we came with a message that we are not going to sit by. We are going to confront, even if it takes confronting the Israeli military. We have to challenge these policies, and we won't have this be our only sailing. We will keep sailing until the siege is broken.

And when we left Gaza a few days later, we promised to do just that, to keep sailing until the siege is broken. And so while I was on those first boats in 2008 and have sailed many times since then, it's a sad thing for me that it's been 17 years, and we still have to sail. because not only has a siege not been broken, but it has been tightened, and the whole world sees now that Israel is using it as a form of starving the Palestinian people, it has become a tool of Israel's genocide. And that is because everything that Israel has done, not just in the past 17 years, but decades, decades, they've been able to do with impunity. They have never faced repercussions for anything that they've done. And so, of course, now they feel like they can commit a live stream genocide and even brag about it from the you know the top commanders the

prime minister down to the foot soldiers you know declared to the whole world that they're starving civilians that they are going to kill babies wipe out every last person in gaza their politicians say openly and still they face no repercussions so sorry that it was a long introduction but I am to sum it up I am Palestinian-American I feel it spikes my people liberation struggle, and I got involved early in co-founding the International Solidarity Movement. I became a human rights attorney, and I've been sailing to try to break the siege on Gaza using this form of nonviolent direct action. Yeah, thank you so much for that. I really appreciate the depth of your involvement and your passion, obviously, as this is your people and your land,

which you are working tirelessly to protect. A couple of points. I just wanted to sort of remark on before I ask you a little bit more about the flotilla. At the top of your response, I really appreciate the way that you like framed what's going on in Palestine is not some interpersonal conflict or even just a conflict so much as it is like a or a religious conflict, which we hear so much about, but that it is in fact a settler colonial project and it is tied to a systemic process of imperialism and settler colonialism forms the foundation of Western hegemony and it upholds this global domination that the United States and of course its proxy Israel hold. And so what's happening in Palestine

is a part of like an imperialist systemic project, which ultimately allows the West to drain the resources and labor of the global south and funnel it into the global north. And so I think that's one of the themes that we've really been trying to unpack in the sea. series. And so, again, looking at it as like an interpersonal conflict or why can't these two sides just coexist kind of situation really diverts attention from what's actually going on. So I really appreciate you sort of bringing that up upfront, that reframe. Absolutely. And if I could just say one quick point on that. And it's, you know, we hear world leaders all the time talking about the two state solution. And even today we talk about

ending the quote-unquote war. Of course, it's not a war. There's no fighting. It's a genocide. It's an onslaught. And getting back to talks about a two-state solution, which allows them to avoid any kind of accountability and any kind of human rights framework.

They deliberately erased any kind of human rights or rights framework. They try to put this in context of states and borders, which confuses people and allows people to think that, yes, it's an issue of getting along and drawing borders rather than an issue of, as said, colonization, constant theft of land and denying people their basic human rights, the right to self-determination. If you just change the framework and said like we're working towards a we need a solution where everybody can be free and everybody can have equal rights and rights are not based on religion, ethnicity, or any kind of description like that.

Of course, Israel, United States, the West, they're going to ignore that. They're going to ignore that because that completely upends, as you said, their colonialist, imperialist, and mindset. And so they want people to talk about a quote-unquote two-state solution that's not even possible and that keeps Palestinian subservient to the settler-colonial regional regime that's based on ethno-religious supremacy. And whenever I'm asked about that, I stress that our framework needs to be a human rights framework. And that's what we need to demand. And that's simple. It's easy for everyone to

understand. Everyone deserves to be free. Everyone must be free and everyone must have equal rights. But that is a framework that Israel and the United States specifically will not accept. Absolutely. Absolutely. They cannot accept that because it would force them to upend the system that the states rely on in order to funnel the money to the places where it's currently going. So give us a sense of, you talked a little bit about the 2008 voyage to Gaza, which was remarkably successful and you were able to actually get to Gaza. What happened in the preceding flow? Because there's been a number of different voyages since the 2008 one. So I'd love it if you could tell us a little bit about some of the preceding voyages,

particularly the 2010 voyage, which Chris actually mentioned this in our conversation with him, but he just mentioned it briefly. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that and just lead us up to the most recent, the Handala Flotilla. Yeah, absolutely. So in the summer of 2008, we were able to get in to Gaza. And again, the first time that any boats had done that in over 40 years, not get Israeli permission to reach the port of Gaza. And when we left Gaza, we promised Palestinian people that we would keep sailing. And one of the things that we were also able to do is take some Palestinians out with us.

So we sailed in with 44 people. We left a handful of people in Gaza, seven, or eight activists to restart the international solidarity movement or an international present in Gaza. And then in their place on our boat, we were able to put some Palestinians who needed to get out. For example, there was a family, a woman in her four children, who had come to Gaza to visit family two years earlier. And for two years, it would not let her leave to go back to rejoin her husband. And I believe she was from Switzerland. And we had another young boy, a 16-year-old. year old boy who had lost his leg in an Israeli military operation had it amputated from the

hip down. And Israel would not let him get medical treatment in Israel or even leave to go to any other country to get medical treatment. And so we put him in his wheelchair and his father on our boats and we sailed out without Israel's permission. And he was able to get a prosthetic leg and go back to Gaza. I don't even know if he's survived this latest onslaught or even the many before this one. We were able to get into Gaza five times in between August and December 2008. And each time we were bringing in people that Israel was trying to keep out, people to solidarity with the Palestinian, people from professors and journalists to medical workers and others to see with their own eyes, what was happening, and to create these connections

and break this isolation that Israel has imposed. And at the same, each time we were able to take out just a small handful of Palestinians, the hundreds, if not more, who needed to get out for medical attention because they had scholarships at foreign universities, but Israel was not letting them out. Again, we were able to just do very little, but we were determined to continue sailing until the siege was broken. But in August of 2008, Israel launched its first of many vicious military assaults on Gaza called Operation Castlet, in which it killed over 1,400 Palestinians, and destroyed thousands of buildings, businesses, hospitals, schools,

religious places, mosques and churches, and we tried to send an emergency boat at the end of December 2008, and Israel rammed that small boat in international waters. If it wasn't, for the Lebanese Coast Guard, that boat would have sank. We tried to send one a couple weeks later. Israel almost capsized that one. We tried to send another one a couple of months later, and Israel pirated that one, arrested everyone on board. So by the summer of 2009, Israel had violently attacked us three times, and it looked like this strategy of sailing and trying to open a sea route to Gaza wasn't working. So we either were going to have to give up this strategy or we were going to have to somehow escalate. And we decided that we weren't going to give in to Israel's violence and military might and this notion that there might was stronger than the rights we were fighting for.

And so we decided to escalate. And in 2010, we formed, what came together was the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that we have today and that has been sailing since 2010. And so we formed a coalition with groups from other countries. We brought, in May of 2010, we brought together not just the two small fishing boats that we had, but we had seven vessels. Three or four of them, I don't remember, where cargo ships loaded with 10,000 tons of aid. our flagship, the Mavi Marmara, carried almost 500 people,

and then we had other passenger ships. I was on an American flagship called the Challenger. So we had these seven vessels in this flotilla, it's nonviolent direct action of 700 people carrying 10,000 tons of aid from over 35 countries insisting on breaking Israel's blockade and getting to Gaza. And Israel launched a military assault on us. killing 10 of our volunteers on board. It was brutal. And a UN independent fact-finding commission

found that of the 10 who were killed, six were most likely executed. Executed some were shot at point-blank range, including a young 19-year-old Turkish American pre-med student. And, you know, was just unacceptable and irreprehensible about it, not only Israel's actions, but when this independent fact-finding commission presented its report to the Human Rights Council, the United States, which had a young man, a citizen, executed, voted against the report. It was the only country to do so. The family of the young man brought a case in U.S. courts against Israel for the execution of their son and the United States government intervened and asked the court to dismiss the case

because Israel has sovereign immunity. So not only the United States do nothing when tens of thousands of Palestinians are killed with U.S. weapons, but when U.S. citizens are killed with U.S. weapons, the United States votes against a human rights report. It shuts down any kind of legal action and it continues to send weapons to Israel without conditions. And that's the kind of actions that has led to really Israel being able to do this, not only again, kill tens of thousands, now hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, with total impunity, but also internationals. So in 2010, we had 10 of our volunteers killed,

but we, again, were not going to give into this notion that Israel's violence was going to stop us, was going to stop the will of the international community to stop this brutality. And so the following year, we organized an even bigger flotilla. More people wanted to join. Even after Israel used all the violence, more people wanted to join us. And we had 10 vessels come together.

But what happened then was that the countries we were setting sail from began collaborating with Israel to stop our ships. So we didn't even get to international waters, to even get close. to Gaza. Turkey wasn't letting us sail. Cyprus wasn't letting us sail. Greece wasn't, was to actively stopping our ships. And this is one of the things also that we are highlighting. Not only are our governments not living up to their obligations and upholding international law, but they're actively colluding with Israel. It should be governments who are sailing boats to challenge Israel's blockade because it is illegal. There is no question that it is an illegal

blockade and the 2010 independent UN commission of experts actually detailed the legal basis for finding that Israel's blockade was illegal. It was having, just to put it simply, a disproportionate harmful effect on the civilian population. So that makes any kind of military action when it has a disproportionate harmful effect on civilians, respective to the military advantage, it becomes unlawful. On top of that, it was a form of collective punishment. And today, it is a tool of Israel's genocide, it is being used to engineer a mass starvation campaign. And so it is absolutely unquestionably unlawful. Add to that, the fact that the last year, in July of 2024, the World Court, the International Court of Justice, found that Israel's

entire presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank of Jerusalem, is unlawful, and it meets to end immediately, and all states have an obligation to do what they can to help bring this unlawful situation to an immediate end. So states should not in any way be collaborating or cooperating with Israel, and they are by not actively challenging this illegal blockade, by working to stop civilian efforts, and by just accepting that, I mean, if we look at today, we have a situation where a country that is on trial for genocide, Israel is on trial at the International Court of Justice for genocide, and the entire world is letting Israel dictate what is allowed to get in to Gaza.

So Israel gets to decide if Palestinians, a people they are actively exterminating, get to have any humanitarian aid. It is obnoxious. It is a world order that we cannot accept. And so we keep sailing despite this tremendous violence. And so even though these countries stopped us in 2011, we did not stop. And we had numerous sailings over the years since then. But it has never been as important as it is now, where the entire world is trying to stop a genocide.

The entire world is seeing that Israel is before the eyes of the world, starving an entire population, starving babies to death, and our country still aren't doing anything about it. In the spring of 2024, we got together three large ships, 5,000 tons of aid, hundreds of civilians who, again, despite Israel's unbridled violence, said we are sailing to Gaza, no matter what Israel does. But again, governments stopped, not Israel, well, it was Israel pressure, but it was bureaucratic sabotage. They pulled our flags. Then Turkey wouldn't let us leave. We kept trying to get out. And in May of 2025, we were preparing to set sail from Malta. And the night before, we were

supposed to leave. Israel bombed our ship. It's called the conscience. It was off the coast of Malta. It had 18 people on it, and the rest were supposed to board a few hours later. But Israel bombed it. in the middle of the night, completely disabling the ship. Luckily, the people on board were only mildly injured. But Israel had gone into European waters and used European airspace to bomb a civilian vessel and one carrying humanitarian aid at that and Europe said nothing. Malta treated us as if we were the criminals. It would not even let our ship come into port in order to take the crew off who were traumatized

in order to try to fix our vessel, they wouldn't let us do that, and we had to tow the ship out to another port. But we didn't stop, and the following month, we were able to sail the Magdalene, a small vessel with 12 human rights activists on board who did set sail from Italy

and were attacked in international waters by Israeli pirates, the Israeli Navy, who commandeered that vessel and abducted everyone. on board. And then that brings you to the vessel that I was on just last month, which is the Handala. And we sailed that one in July. So just last month and faced the same fate. We had 21 people on that vessel sailing to Gaza. And that vessel specifically, the Handala, was dedicated to the children of Gaza. It was named after a famous Palestinian cartoon Handala that was created

by a Palestinian cartoonist in 1969. Nagel Ali was a cartoonist. He was later assassinated. But this cartoon is of a Palestinian refugee boy about the age of 10. And you could see he has tattered clothes. He is bare foot. He has, you know, spiky, undone hair.

And he has his back turned to the world. He has his back turned. As they say, it's Najil Ali about the age that he was about 10 years old when he was kicked out of his village. during the Nakhva when Israel established its state and destroyed and depopulated over 500 Palestinian towns and villages. One of them was that of Najal Ali

and his cartoon, Handala, is watching his village burn and he has his back turned to the world that has turned its back on Palestine and it has said that Handela, this refugee child, you don't ever, ever see his face and you won't see his face until Palestinian refugees are able to go home. That's when he will finally turn around. And so this boat we see as one of the ways for the children, for all of the Palestinian children, are refugees and not refugees alike.

But again, Gaza is mainly over 70% refugees who have a right to live free, who have a right to go home. And that boat carried only humanitarian aid. As much food as we can pack on it, baby form. for the infants being starved to death and stuffed animals donated by children in Italy to children in Palestine. And so as we were in international waters, and I was raiding in the Israeli military to call on them to stand down and not attack our ships, I told them not only that their blockade was unlawful, but we're only carrying humanitarian aid, baby formula, and teddy bears. This constitutes absolutely no threat to you.

right to attack us. And so stand down. We have a right to get to Gaza. Of course, they didn't do that. They cut off all our communications and attacked our ship. Dozens of armed and mass commandos raided our ship because we were trying to bring baby formula and teddy bears to Gaza. Yeah, I remember hearing the audio of that exchange that you had with the Israeli Navy on Democracy Now, actually, a couple of weeks ago. And it's really powerful. I applaud you and just the heroism that goes into all of the work that you do. And yeah, we spoke with Chris Smalls in the first half of this episode and he told us about, of course, his experience. His experience of, I think it should be emphasized, like solidarity and like the community that you all built

on the Handala as you were, as you were sailing despite all of the hardships. But then, of course, his experience after he was kidnapped and assaulted. And we talked a little bit about that in terms of the context of like, you know, how racist Israeli society is. But yeah, thank you for sharing all of that and the history of all of the different flotillas. I know there are more planned in the future. And I'm going to ask you about that in just a second. But one thing I wanted to ask you about is like and we touched on this a little bit but October 7th really like lifted the veil I think for a lot of people in the West and of course people in the global South have have known this quite well for for decades that the international legal system is how to put

it it's it's kind of toothless like there's no like the laws that we assume would govern the relations between states, between states and their populations don't really exist in the way that we thought they did. I mean, Israel and the United States are able to over and over again just completely ignore international law. And the bodies that we have in place that are supposed to uphold international law are relatively powerless. And so I don't know if, you know, I have like a fully formed question there, but I basically want to just, you know, ask you to, if you have any response or any, anything, any reflections on that whole side of things, because as a lawyer and someone who's deeply involved with and has an expertise in the law and international law, I'm just, I'm wondering what your perspective is on this question of like, does international law actually mean anything anymore? Yeah, that might be a whole separate episode. But briefly, I mean, international law is never that great.

It's created by imperialist colonialist countries, right? And it was used as a tool to govern relations, but again, at the service of and in the interest of these colonial countries. Now, in this period of decolonization and a lot of countries becoming gaining their independence. and joining the international system. You had their participation in the development of international law. And so there is this idea that it has improved, it has become better, and in some ways it has on paper, but you still have the structure and that it limits its efficacy.

It still might is right. We've seen it, as you said, the countries of the Global South has known for a long time. It applies right only to certain people, and that is because there is no, the implementation is left to the will of states. And so you have more kind of powerful nations that can impose their will and decide when international law is going to apply, when they're going to abide by it, and when they're not going to abide by it. So implementation comes down to political will and you have to have the willingness of countries to actually uphold it

to give it, as that you said, any teeth. And so far, it has only been used to sanction in countries in the global south, mainly African countries. But when it comes to all of the violations of Western countries, United States specifically, international law just doesn't seem to apply. But we're at as ineffective or as incomplete, let's say, as it has been, it's still important to fight, to maintain some kind of international legal order. We've had a world, what they call, kind of a rules-based global order, but the rules are set

by the powerful. It's their rules that go, and it's not, it has not been an international legal order where international law governs and where everyone is held to account equally. But that doesn't mean that we like burn the whole system. At least I don't think so yet. I think that we need to keep pushing to change this system so that we move towards this equal kind of implementation of international law. But we're at a stage now, I feel very much, we're at a, I see kind of like a tipping point. We have those of us who are fighting to uphold international law and who want an international

legal order where all people are protected where law applies equally and then we have other countries who we've named a few times who want to eradicate anything that has anything to do with international law and holding these powerful nations accountable and so they're trying to burn down that system and and leave it to a system of violence and military might and absolutely no accountability and I think that this is a standoff this is a struggle that we absolutely have to win because the future, if we don't win, that this other side, Israel, the United States and other countries are trying to impose on us. One where public opinion doesn't matter, where there's no international law,

where there's no human rights protections. It's one where certainly Palestinians can be genocided in broad daylight, but that's today, tomorrow, it can be anyone. So it's a very dangerous system and one that we have to do everything, that we can to make sure that is defeated, the world order that they're trying to impose on us needs to be defeated in international law as imperfect as it is. We need to continue to press for its implementation and improve its mechanisms of implementation. And that comes down to that really is in our hands. Yeah, I think it's like a really, it's a huge question, right? Like, can this

system be salvaged, you refer to the forces of like, you know, the imperialist forces who are trying to sort of burn the system down. And I think that that's definitely a huge part of what is happening, right? Like the, especially with the Trump administration, there's just like very blatant, like, let's just completely ignore all of the precedent and everything like that. Not that under the Biden administration, like this whole genocide began under the Biden administration. So we can't, of course, just look at the Trump administration, which a lot of, I think, liberal Democrats in the United States, at least they just focus on Trump. But the point being, yeah, the question of like, you know, I always think about Marx and his remarks when he said that the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes, meaning that there has to be a dismantling. There has to be, not in his words, but like a burning to the ground before things can be

built up, you know, from the ashes of the old. And I believe heavily in that sort of need for a revolution and a break. But at the same time, like I understand perspectives that that might not be a reality. I mean, the burning is happening whether we like it or not. And whether or not we can rework what we have, at least in the short term, in order to make it a little bit more, equitable and a little bit more fair. I mean, that little bit of equitableness and that little bit of fairness can translate to tens of thousands of people's lives, right? So it's not something to just ignore. Yeah, I know, but it's a good point you make in terms of burning, whether we need to burn it all down or not. The problem is I think one side is trying to burn it to the ground

and replace it with violence. And again, and might is right. And that's a system where people aren't protected and if we need to, because on paper, international law seems good, right? It's just, as you said, the implementation and the structures and the Security Council and the veto and all of the things that stop the actual implementation of what's on paper, which isn't bad if, as you said, it's implemented. So whether it all needs to be burned down to rebuild anew, but what we build anew has, again, got to be what we're fighting for. and that's a system which is not violent and that where people are protected and that's not what

the other side is pushing us towards. And so I don't mean to sound dramatic, but I do see it as kind of like an existential fight. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I would agree it's an existential fight for sure. I think that the implications for how this all turns out are massive in terms of the trajectory of where our world is going to go. I think it was one of our previous guests in this Palestine series, Mateo Capasso, who said that, I'm paraphrasing him here, but something along the lines of how the fight, the resistance against Israel and the United States right now is like, you know, it's a fight for the future of humanity. And yeah, I think I couldn't agree with that more. So I'm going to ask you

about the future plans for the flotillas in just a sec. But before we move back to that part of the conversation, I want to stay on international law for just a minute. Can you talk a little bit about the legal implications of genocide a little bit more generally, but also maybe in this context, of course with Palestine, like when we look at the repercussions to, let's say, the Nazis after World War II and the Nuremberg trials, like putting aside the fact that the U.S. recruited many of them for top-level positions in NASA and other agencies, let's just say that somehow the U.S. and Israeli governments are held to account by like some sort of international coalition. And there are these like Nuremberg-esque trials.

Like, what is the scope of who can be held accountable and sort of what would that look like? The International Court of Justice can adjudicate cases between states. So we can't, like individuals can't decide, or organizations can't necessarily decide to go to the International Court of Justice. But as we saw, for example, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice based on Israel's violating its obligations under the genocide convention and that's that's what the international court of justice does it's if there's a dispute between states over treaty obligations it adjudicates that and it also gives advisory opinions on the state of of the law when asked by certain international bodies like the united nations and so these take a long time it's probably a few more years before we get any kind of ruling with the

international court of justice and even if we have a ruling there then Implementation is if Israel decides to ignore as it has. The International Court of Justice already has issued three separate rulings ordering Israel to stop its genocidal acts to facilitate the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza and a number of other things. And Israel just ignored them, all of them. And then so you could take it to the Security Council then for further action, but of course you have the United States, they're ready to use its veto to protect Israel.

So you have no action, which is, again, what we talked about, just trying to burn down or destroy the international system. You have the World Court that issued binding orders, and Israel is actively ignoring them, and the United States is protecting Israel inactively ignoring them. But you have other mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable. You have the international criminal court. This is a system, a court, where individuals, not states, are held accountable, and submissions can be sent by anybody, by individuals, by organizations, by states. They can send submissions to the International Criminal Court, and when they open investigations, they have a right if they decide to open an investigation and they have open investigations on Palestine, they can pursue these and it can eventually be brought to a trial.

as we've seen with other world leaders, we have outstanding arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals, but you have, again, the forces that are trying to destroy this, the only international criminal court that we have that was established to hold global kind of war criminals accountable. And you have the United States, which has sanctioned the court, making it very difficult to work. and you have other international pressure being brought against the court to slow down its work or to reverse these arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his cohorts. And again, this hits at the legitimacy of the international system and the international legal system. But there are evidence continually being submitted to the court. There is a fight, of course, to keep the court working.

to make sure that it doesn't collapse, but it is in a very precarious position because of all of this pressure, all to serve Israel and to let its war criminals get away. But these aren't the only, these are the international courts that you have, but you also have the national courts of various countries. And we have something called universal jurisdiction. And this is a principle that says some crimes are so heinous and some criminals and are these big war criminals they have committed such heinous acts that even if it didn't happen in your own jurisdiction if these criminals come into your jurisdiction then you have a right to that you can arrest them and you can prosecute them and this has been used historically and it's being used now there are lawyers in various countries

that are collecting evidence and filing dossiers on Israeli war criminals from the generals down to the foot soldiers. And it's not that hard because the soldiers have been broadcasting their own war crimes. So people are submitting evidence to the International Criminal Court, but also to various national courts and saying if these criminals and also tracking them, we have the Hendrashab Foundation, which has been doing an excellent job of tracking where these soldiers and war criminals are, going and filing dossiers and complaints with the national courts and the authorities saying, you have this war criminal that has come into your jurisdiction. And so we've seen some response.

We're starting to see more responses. And there is no statute of limitations on genocide and war crimes. And even the United States that feels like, because the United States is not signatory to the Rome statute, it's not part of the International Criminal Court. It is part of the International Court of justice and it is party to like the genocide convention but it has it has placed these reservations in place that basically says that they cannot be brought before the international court of justice even on genocide unless it agrees yeah unless it agrees to jurisdiction so it has immunized itself the united states is immunized itself in its own courts also but the united states the u.s officials Donald Trump, Biden, anyone in that administration, those people today should not feel like they

can't be held accountable because there are countless people, millions of people who are determined not to rest until every criminal that has been part of carrying out, facilitating, perpetrating this genocide is held to account. And the United States can be held accountable in the ICC, even though they're not a party. I won't go into the details, but they can be held accountable there. can be held accountable in also national courts of these various countries, but that does take a lot of political will, and we have a lot of people working on it, and we have a lot of people that will not rest, and the tide is turning. The tide is turning, so anyone who is part of

perpetrating this genocide should not feel safe, traveling anywhere. Their actions will come back to haunt them, and history will record where they stood and what they did, even if not in their lifetime in their offsprings lifetime, their children and their children's children will know what they did. And that is the task before us now. Absolutely. Yeah, thank you so much for that. And I mean, yeah, you mentioned the Hindrajab Foundation. And I just want to highlight the recent case in Belgium where two IOS soldiers were detained, I believe, for possible war crimes. And like, you really just do love to see that, right? Like after so much, justice. It's really, it's quite beautiful to see these people face even just a modicum of

accountability. And I mean, I will pray every single night that like we can see the people responsible, like you said, from the leadership to the foot soldiers, all held accountable in our lifetimes and would love to see them in the dock at the Hague, taking accountability for everything that they've done. So, yeah, thanks for laying that all out. And, and, giving us a bit of a sense of the legal sphere when it comes to that and you know there's this legal accountability but there's also like what people are doing outside of legal and and tracking also i've seen footage where people are approaching soldiers you know at the beach or at restaurants and letting them know that they're not welcome and that they are war criminals and the world

considers them as such so there is that legal accountability but that's all there's also that social public accountability and that you are a war criminal and you are not wanted here and you deserve to be, as you said, like in the Hague and not in our cities roaming freely and we're going to continue to work towards that day. So there's also publicly making it not possible for these soldiers to take their vacations and to enjoy life that they've denied to Palestinians. That's also very important. I think sometimes just as important as illegal accountability. Absolutely. I think shaming and vilifying these people. I mean, it's the same as what's happening with ICE agents, the foot soldiers of Donald Trump here in the United States right now. Like,

there are simultaneously lots of different lawsuits and legal actions being taken to prevent their in accountability. But there's also just everyday people on the streets who are letting them know, like, you are a piece of shit, you know? And like, anybody who does this kind of thing should be made to feel alienated and vilified. And yeah, absolutely, every single I.O.F. soldier should be made to feel shame and guilt. Yeah, yeah. And I would be remiss not to mention that I am working with some brilliant lawyers and pursuing a case against the United States, not in the U.S. domestic court system because, as I said, they practically immunized themselves, but in the inter-American.

human rights system. There's an Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and we filed a complaint on behalf of Palestinian Americans with family and others that have been killed and maimed and other horrific experiences. And also on behalf of a group that all your listeners can join, it's called Taxpayers Against Genocide. It is a group of a few thousand people who are horrified, who don't want their tax dollars being used to commit this mass slaughter. And the complaint to the Inter-American Commission, again, is filed on behalf policy Americans and on behalf of taxpayers against genocide. And anyone can join taxpayers against genocide by going to their website, Taxpayers Against Genocide.org. You don't have to do anything. It's just kind of a declaration

that you don't want your tax dollars being used to commit this genocide. And it'll allow you to get on their mailing list and keep updated on the complaint. at the Inter-American Commission. Unfortunately, it's not a criminal tribunal and you have an enforceability issue, but the Commission will be able to issue authoritative rulings and call on the United States to change its conduct. And one of the things that we are demanding,

our first and primary demand is that the United States stop sending weapons to Israel. We are actually getting ready in the next couple of weeks to file an amended complaint with a lot more evidence, And so I encourage people to follow that, follow the news, be a part of taxpayers against genocide and a part of this attempt to hold the United States accountable in this way in the inter-American system, human rights system. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I'm going to throw that definitely in the show notes along with a lot of the other organizations that you mentioned.

All right. Well, I guess my last question for you is just a look ahead to the future. I know that you have future flotillas planned. I think Chris had mentioned in all women's flotilla is the next in the works. Maybe just give us a sense of, you know, what is in the works with the coalition and any ways that people can support the work that you do and get involved if they feel like that's a direction they want to take. Absolutely. So as we said, we're going to keep challenging this blockade. until it's broken. And for all of these years, it has been the Freedom Flotilla Coalition,

which is what I'm a part of. But our work, especially more recently, has inspired all these other groups to also want to do the same. And you have groups now organizing to send many ships, and so in the next few weeks, hopefully we will see a lot of ships. set sail to break the Siege on Gaza. So not just the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, it's a group that's now called the Global Sumud's Flotilla, and there's another group called the Thousand Madelans, and various groups are working to send boats.

And it's still, it's beautiful kind of energy and commitment, dedication, a lot of hard work from civil society, but I continue to say it shouldn't be civil society on these small boats going to challenge the Israeli name, Maybe it should be our government, so we continue to call on our governments to do the right thing. We call on humanitarian organizations. I mean, their job is to do this humanitarian work that is being deliberately blocked and dismantled by Israel. They shouldn't be waiting, again, for a country on trial for genocide to give them permission to do their work,

which is a complete violation of international law. So we also invite them to put their aid on ships and come with us, sail with us, because we need to Palestine, Palestinians, Gaza, yes, they need aid. But Gaza, Palestine as a whole, is not an issue of humanitarian aid. It's an issue of a deliberately starved, deliberately genocided people. It is a political issue. And so we have to challenge the policies that leave Palestinians in need of aid. And for humanitarian organizations, I know that they don't like to get involved in politics,

but when you have a country on trial for genocide that is deliberately dismantling humanitarian aid systems and not allowing you to do your work, then you also need to join this effort to say that, no, this siege must be broken. And literally, we have to see this as it is. It is a situation where Israel has turned Gaza into an extermination camp and all powers. All powers. Certainly be the states, but if our states aren't going to do it, organizations, humanitarian, non-humanitarian civil society, we all need to break down these walls, the walls of this extermination camp.

And so we're going to continue sailing. but it's not, and we invite people to be a part, but you don't have to sail to be a part. And that is something that I hope all people can appreciate, because in the end, there's only so much room on these boats, but we need millions of people to be part of the effort. And you can be part of the efforts, if doing nothing else but sharing our content, you can donate, you can help organize support. Please look up the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. if you're in the United States, we have a U.S. group that is part of the coalition.

It's called U.S. boats to Gaza. You can contact us there if you would like to help, if you would like to donate. You can also apply to be on the boats, but I always say, I mean, being on the boats is almost the easy part. It's kind of being on the land team. It's contacting your representatives. It is pushing and educating and promoting so that people are forced to pay attention to what this small number of people on the boats are doing

and why that is the hard work and we need a lot more people doing that and so I definitely encourage people to look us up and reach out and be part. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Chris Smalls and Huwaita Araf. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode.

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