Edward Peck argued against invading Iraq prior to the March 2003 invasion. He argued, in part, “when you take out Saddam Hussein, the key question you have to ask then is, what happens after that? And we don’t have a clue. Nobody knows, but it’s probably going to be bad. And a lot of people are going to be very upset about that, because that really is not written into our role in this world is to decide who rules Iraq.”

Amb. Peck has been highly critical of U.S. policy toward Israel, arguing through the Council for the National Interest (CNI) in which he plays an active role, that the U.S. should be more even handed in its Middle East policy. He claims that in 2000, at the Camp David talks, Israel offered the Palestinians “12 little Bantustans.” His speech was publicized in a documentary produced by an organization, If Americans Knew, a non-profit organization that focuses on the Arab-Israeli conflict and United States foreign policy regarding the Middle East.

In May 2010, Peck was among the pro-Palestinian activists in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla trying to break through Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Peck was not harmed in Israel’s raid; he reported he was brought to Israel “at gunpoint” and expelled the same day for “having illegally entered Israel”; he flew to Newark, New Jersey.

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Backed by activists in 30 countries and organized by groups in Turkey, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Sweden, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, and the European Union as well as the U.S., the Freedom Flotilla is the biggest international effort yet to break the Israeli siege of Gaza. The Free Palestine Movement is the only US-based organization participating, although some Americans are also participating as part of other organizations.

JANET KOBREN, co-founder of the Free Palestine Movement, is a Jewish American living in Oakland, California, a former public high school math teacher and information technology professional who has worked on numerous social justice, environmental, housing justice, democratic media, and human rights issues. She was a member of the Free Gaza Movement Steering Committee and worked behind-the-scenes on FGM’s first successful voyage by two small boats that broke the siege of Gaza in August 2008.

JOE MEADORS resides in Corpus Christi, Texas and lived in Saudi Arabia for over 20 years. He is a survivor of the June 8, 1967 attack on the USS Liberty and for decades has been in the forefront of the effort to persuade the US government to conduct an investigation of the attack. The USS Liberty was a lightly armed US Navy spy ship and was attacked by Israeli unmarked aircraft who jammed the Liberty’s radios and by Israeli torpedo boats who deliberately machine gunned the Liberty’s life rafts that had been dropped over the side in anticipation of abandoning ship.

GENE ST. ONGE, Principal of St.Onge and Associates, is a Lebanese-American, licensed civil/structural engineer who lives and works in Oakland, California. He has over 30 years of experience with all types of structural building systems worldwide. Most recently, he has been involved with the Qatar Working Group (QWG), established by the Qatar Foundation, which is developing a program for rebuilding in Gaza. As part of his work with the QWG, once reaching Gaza with the flotilla, he is planning to meet with the lead UNRWA engineers in charge of reconstruction to better assess needs and resources. Gene is working with the QWG in exploring ways to use appropriate technology, i.e. local materials with green building systems, to substantially reduce cost and increase the use of locally trained labor. Gene is also co-founder of the Middle East Policy Advisory Committee (MEPAC), a consortium of over 15 peace and justice groups in the SF Bay Area, that works towards transforming US policy in the region to one based on respect for human rights and international law.

The Free Palestine Movement Mission

The purpose of the Free Palestine Movement is to defend and advocate for the human rights of all Palestinians, and in particular the right of access to all of Palestine. We propose to support these rights by defying barriers imposed by Israeli and international authorities upon travel and trade to, from and within Palestine for Palestinians and persons invited by Palestinians, such as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, merchants or others, and to impose pressure and sanctions upon any parties that deny such rights.

Please visit:

http://www.FreePalestineMovement.org

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Within a year he was reporting from Central Africa for not only his own newspaper but, as a stringer correspondent, for all but one of Britain’s national newspapers and the three main international news agencies – Reuters, Associated Press and UPI.

His honest reporting made him an enemy of President-in-waiting Banda. Shortly before white colonial rule ended Alan was declared persona non-grata and thrown out of the country with his wife and a month-old son. He was given 48 hours to sell-up and leave.

Back in England he got a job with the Daily Telegraph. He was the youngest ever reporter to have a staff job in Fleet Street, but within a month, bored out of his mind he decided to get into television.

He became International Television News’s (ITN) chief foreign correspondent covering wars and conflicts wherever they were happening in the world. While at ITN he was credited with pioneering the “as live” style of reporting by doing his commentaries live into the microphone as events were happening. It was a style of reporting that helped ITN’s 30-minute News-at-Ten (in its pioneering days) attract and hold big audiences, often double the size of those for the BBC’s main news

It was in Vietnam, observing America spending six million dollars a minute destroying two countries in a war it could not win and should not have fought, that he first started to ask himself questions about why things are as they are in the world.

While reporting in India he was offered a job as BBC’s flagship current affairs programme Panorama (a weekly 60-minute slot).

In his tv reporting days he was celebrated within the industry for my scoops and my special relationships with leaders on both sides of the many conflicts I covered.

I think I must be, for example, the only person on Planet Earth who enjoyed intimate access to, and on the human level friendship with, arguably the two greatest opposites in all of human history – Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine.

In pre-Likud Israel he was known as “Golda’s boyfriend” on account of the red roses he sent. In pre-Likud Israel he knew pretty all of Israel’s leaders including its Directors of Military Intelligence.

On the Arab side, in addition to Arafat, who he rote a book about, he enjoyed special relations and private conversations with Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal (He was the first Western correspondent to interview him on film – great story to this), Jordan’s King Hussein and Egyptian Presidents Nasser and Sadat.

In Iran he enjoyed the friendship and confidence of Empress Farah, the wife of the Shah. As was recently revealed in dc-classified British Government papers and an interview he gave to BBC radio, he assisted Farah to try to educate her husband about what was going wrong their country.

How was it that a lad from the bottom of the UK’s working class heap became a friend and confident of world leaders?

Two reasons, “I think. One is that I don’t give a damn about being white and British. I’m a citizen of the world, period; a true believer in one common humanity. Empathizing with people on the human level came and comes easily to me, says Alan.” Main reason was the advice given to me my ITN’s legendary editor, Geoffrey Cox, when I joined his reporting staff. He said: “You’ll be engaging with prime ministers and presidents, kings and queens. Never forget that leaders are the most lonely people in the world because they are surrounded by sycophants who only tell them what they want to hear. They, leaders, are crying out for honest conversation.” “I became a visitor with whom leaders could have honest conversations in private, said Alan ”

At a point Alan’s understanding of what a mess our leaders had made of managing Planet Earth caused him to be frustrated and angered with the media’s superficiality and refusal to come to grips with some of the major issues of our time.

He set up my own independent production company and, on the strength of his international reputation at the time, raised £1 million sterling (a lot in 1973) from international development agencies and some governments to make the first ever and to date only documentary on the full and true reality of everyday global poverty and its implications for all.

The end product, a two-hour film titled FIVE MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT, had its world premiere, hosted by Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, at the formal opening of the 7th Special session of the UN General Assembly, (called to discuss the need for a New World Economic Order); was screened on television in most countries of the North; was versioned for schools in many countries; and became something of a standard work of reference

Alan is a fiercely independent thinker. He hates all labels and isms and has never been a member of any political party or group. He prefers to judge issues on their merits.

Today, Alan is an author who writes about the Middle East.

Please visit:

www.AlanHart.net

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