US group says it plans to send plane to Gaza

[oberliner]

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- A pro-Palestinian group based in the US will send a plane loaded with aid to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel's air and sea blockade, an official said Sunday.

"We intend to send an aircraft to Gaza in much the same way boats were used -- without going through Israeli or Egyptian airspace," said Paul Larudee, an organizer with the California-based Free Palestine Movement sponsoring the flight.

Authorities in Gaza are supportive of the initiative and are working to locate a landing site, Larudee said. Gaza's now-defunct Yasser Arafat International Airport is not being considered, he said.

In the meantime, Free Palestine Movement officials will look for a plane designed for rough landings and takeoffs such as those used in Alaska and other locales lacking proper aviation facilities, Larudee said. The plan is to send a light aircraft equipped with material sometime in the spring of 2011, after the next sea voyage.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=313409

[hayu_lol]

1. Now the true purpose of the 'aid' cruises surface...

break the blockade. A light plane(?), unspecified as to type, equipped with 'material.' Sounds like they are serious.

Won't have to shoot them down...just 'thump' them. Most pilots will know what a 'thump' is.

These people are totally irrational.

[Recursion]

2. You're talking about thumping a plane

And you're calling the people in the plane irrational?

[henank]

3. Certainly they're irrational

if they're trying to get to Gaza without going through Israeli or Egyptian airspace. Unless they have a "beam-me-up-Scottie" kind of device.

[Recursion]

4. Easy - come straight in over the Med

Unless you're saying Israel somehow owns Gazan airspace.

[oberliner]

5. Is Israel occupying Gaza?

If so, then they would, in fact, be in control of the airspace.

Isn't that the whole point of these trips? To break the air/land/sea blockade?

If Gaza was in control of the airspace and not Israel then there wouldn't be a blockade to defy.

[ConsAreLiars]

6. The point is to point out the vicious, inhumane, illegal oppression of the people in Gaza

by the monstrously evil tactics of the right-wing regime you support and whose actions you lamely try to defend and excuse. The point is to show that the actions of the masters of that small universe are brutal and oppressive, much like those those practiced by other expansionist invaders of foreign lands.

And to point out what is obvious, that claiming moral or ethnic or religious superiority as a justification for crimes against humanity and land theft, while murdering 1400 innocents in Gaza and then 9 aid workers and peace activists for decades, is both bogus and quite lame.

(edit phrasing)

[azurnoir]

7. does Israel allow flights in and out of Gaza other than IAF?

if so what flights are these? I have never seen Israel's air blockade of denied before but nothing surprises, please enlighten as to when it was lifted with link

[oberliner]

9. What in heavens name are you talking about?

Of course Israel controls the airspace over Gaza. That was my point. How can you fly to Gaza without flying into Israeli-controlled airspace. Isn't that the whole idea behind the flight in the first place?

[azurnoir]

10. So is Israel currently occupying Gaza? n/t

[henank]

11. No, Israel is not occupying Gaza.

Gaza is not a state and therefore has no autonomous airspace. Similarly, the Kurds don't have their own airspace and do not have an international airport unless it belongs to Iraq or Syria or Turkey. The Basques too do not have an independent state, nor an international airport.

I don't think you will find "independent" airspace anywhere in the world next to a populated country. That airspace will belong to that country. Until and unless Gaza becomes a state, the airspace in and around it will be controlled by either Israel or Egypt. This has nothing to do with occupation. You're just playing semantics.

[azurnoir]

12. no I was answering a comment from a poster other than yourself n/t

[Recursion]

13. No, Israel withdrew from Gaza

Meaning they can't keep people from flying things into it anymore.

[miscsoc]

8. Some staffer in some pro-Israel think tank is as we speak drafting a senate resolution

or the like, defending israel's right to shoot down this plane. i know it. i don't know what israel will do,but i know the party lines for the various possible scenarios are already on paper.