Interview with guest Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf on The People Speak Radio, August 11, 2009 |

Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf

International Solidarity Movement

Host: Basima Farhat

Previously Aired On: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 - Listen to the Show!

Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf are husband and wife and co-founders of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a pro-Palestinian organization, the stated mission of which is to bring civilians from around the world to resist nonviolently the Israeli occupation of West Bank and previously the Gaza Strip.

Shapiro received his A.B. in political science and history from Washington University in St. Louis in 1993. He subsequently spent a year studying Arabic in Yemen after receiving his M.A. in Arab studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC. He received his M.A. in political science from New York University.

His interest in the Palestinian cause started with his involvement with “Seeds of Peace,” an organization that sought to foster dialogue between Jewish and Palestinian youth. There he met Huwaida Arraf, a Christian Palestinian American, whom he married in 2002. In 2001 they co-founded the International Solidarity Movement.

Huwaida Arraf is a Palestinian-American, and also a citizen of Israel. She is a human rights activist and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement. In 2007 she received her Juris Doctor from American University in Washington DC and from 2007-2008 taught Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Al Quds University in Jerusalem. Huwaida also serves as Board Chair of the Free Gaza Movement.

The Free Gaza Movements goal is to break the Israeli siege of Gaza by sailing from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip. It was on this latest voyage of ‘The Spirit of Humanity’ on which both Adam and Huwaida were passengers along with 19 other passengers including former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Maguire that Huwaida describes the boarding and kidnapping of their ship:

“Last month I led a group of twenty-one human rights workers on a boat from Cyprus to challenge Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. We carried toys, medicine, olive tree saplings, toolkits, a fifty-kilo bag of cement and school supplies on our small converted ferry boat.

At 2 AM on June 30, almost eighteen hours into the 230-mile journey, a colleague awakened me. The Israeli Navy was calling our boat on the VHF radio. “You are navigating towards a blockaded area. You are hereby ordered to change your course. If you do not, we will be forced to use all necessary force to stop you” (watch video below).

Nervous after a previous boat of ours was dangerously rammed at sea in December by the Israeli military, I replied, “Israeli Navy, this is Arion (the registered name of our ship). We are twenty-one unarmed civilians carrying aid for the Palestinian people of Gaza. Any blockade on Gaza is unlawful as you are the occupying force in the territory and are therefore responsible for the well-being of the civilian population there. As our boat, its cargo, and the twenty-one civilians on board do not constitute any kind of threat to Israel or its armed forces, you are obliged to allow us entry. We are proceeding to Gaza. Do not use force against us.”

Shortly thereafter our navigational systems were disabled for nearly four hours as the warnings continued. In their “final” warning to us, the Israeli Navy threatened to open fire. “Israeli Navy, we are unarmed civilians; do not use force against us. Do not shoot.” We did not stop.

We were boarded by force. Before we were separated, I saw Navy forces grabbing my husband, Adam, a filmmaker who has made documentaries from Palestine to Darfur, about the neck. Later, I learned that outside of my view, these government-sanctioned pirates pummeled Adam in order to wrest his videocamera from his grasp.”

Huwaida and another volunteer, who are both Israeli citizens, were detained in a huge warehouse near the port with six soldiers watching over them. They were released 16 hours later without being told why they were arrested.

The 19 others, including Adam, spent the next six days in an Israeli prison and were eventually deported. They included Nobel Laureate Mairead Maguire and former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.