I don’t think we’d be asking too much from Israel to sink this ship for us.

(JPost) — Passengers on a US-flagged boat, The Audacity of Hope, spoke at a press conference Monday to discuss their plans and reasons for joining the “International Freedom Flotilla II — Stay Human,” a flotilla intended to break the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza.

It is estimated that people from more than 20 countries will participate in the eight to ten boat flotilla, which will sail the last week of June, in part from Greece. One quarter of the participants on the US boat, which will have 36 passengers, are American Jews.

According to a letter the Audacity of Hope group sent to US President Barack Obama, in addition to 36 passengers, 4 crew members, and 10 members of the press, the US-flagged boat “will carry thousands of letters of support and friendship from people throughout the US to the women, children and men of Gaza. There will be no weapons of any sort on board.”

“We will carry no goods of any kind for delivery in Gaza,” the group’s letter read. “Our mission is from American civil society to the civil society of Gaza. We do not serve the agenda of any political leadership, government or group. We are engaged solely in non-violent action in support of the Palestinian people and their human rights.”

Leslie Cagan, the US boat coordinator leading Monday’s press conference, said the Israeli government acted with extreme violence against Freedom Flotilla I in 2010, killing nine passengers and injuring more than 50, and has threatened the use of attack dogs and snipers against this Freedom Flotilla II.

Leslie Cagan

Check out Leslie Cagan’s bio:

Co-chair of United For Peace and Justice
Member of the Communist Left since the 1960s
Founder of the Committees of Correspondence, a splinter group of the Communist Party USA
Co-founder of Iraq Occupation Watch

Leslie Cagan is co-chair of the anti-war coalition United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ), which consists of more than 1,300 local and national groups whose shared mission is “to oppose our government’s policy of permanent warfare and empire-building.”

Cagan was an original founder of the Committees of Correspondence, a splinter group rooted in the Communist Party USA (of which Cagan is a longtime member). A strong supporter of Fidel Castro, she proudly aligns her politics with those of Communist Cuba.

Since the 1970s, Cagan has mobilized millions of demonstrators in rallies denouncing America’s foreign policies, its military-related spending, and its purportedly virulent racism, sexism, and homophobia. She condemns what she calls the United States’ “daily assaults and attacks on poor and working people, on women, people of color, lesbians/gays and other sexual minorities, the disabled and so many others.”