Marianne was assaulted, but we will win in the end.

Hello Friends,
I’m happy that I am back home safe and sound after a few days in Israeli prisons, but I would much rather be in Gaza right now, handing the Marianne av Goteborg to the Palestinian fishers.
On the 29th at 2 am, the Israelis attacked us, when we were over 100 nautical miles (185 km) from Israel, while we were still off Egypt, near the entrance to the Suez Canal. They used 4 warships full of hundreds of IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces) soldiers and sailors. They initially approached us in white Coast Guard zodiac boats, just for media spin purposes, and then attacked with military zodiacs full of heavily armed soldiers. We saw the Coast Guard zodiacs being lifted onto a warship after the attack, like movie props being stored away.
Three activists, including Canadian professor Bob Lovelace, were sitting or standing in front of the bridge door, and were all immediately and repeatedly tasered. Bob lost count after 6 taser hits. I was inside the bridge during the attack, assisting the captain and dealing with the engines. I believe it took the Israelis about 45 minutes to finally break through the locked and barred doors and hatches and into the bridge. While I was being marched out on to the deck I believe a soldier poked me in the ribs with a stun wand (cattle prod) just for fun, but it was nothing compared to the taser hits Bob got. The Norwegian 3rd mate was also tasered and beaten because he refused to remove his Palestinian scarf.
Just before the Israelis had taken over the bridge, on the captain’s order, I had disabled the engine, but only in a very simple manner. For the safety of the ship he required that the engine could be restarted within a minute, in case the ship were in any danger. The Israelis spent 3 hours trying in vain to restart the engine and then tried to order me to assist them, which I refused to do. We told them that as they had illegally hijacked the ship, it was their problem, not ours. So then they beat the captain and threatened to do the same to me unless we restarted the engine for them. At this point the captain wisely decided that it was not worth everyone being beaten, as the Israelis were getting very aggressive, and so he asked me to restart the engine. I went to the engine room, and simply reached down and turned on the battery master switch. As my Mom would say – these guys were not the sharpest tacks in the drawer, but they made up for that in brutality.
From this point on it was just a series of luggage and strip searches, interrogations and continuous attempts to humiliate us. It was obvious they were all very angry, which is a good sign. At the Ashdod port they took many things from me, and kindly gave me a receipt. And then at the prison they took more things away, including my earlier receipt, and gave me no receipt. In particular the Israelis wanted all the cameras, cell phones and computers, to prevent anyone from having video evidence of their brutal assault. But some camera chips were smuggled out, including mine, which will be used in an upcoming Swedish trial.
After 2 days in a filthy prison cell, with just a hole in the floor for a toilet and a pipe coming out of the wall for a shower, we were sent to the airport detention prison, which had a proper bathroom and shower. But as I finished my shower, I reached for one of the “clean” towels, only to find that an Israeli guard had soiled it with his excrement and then carefully refolded it. All I could think about at that moment, was that I had only gone through 4 days of abuse, whereas Palestinians have had over 68 years of continuous abuse. The Palestinians’ strength and “sumud” or steadfastness in the face of such brutality, is amazing and inspiring.
I’m sorry we were not able to get the Marianne to Gaza. But the 7 week, 5000 mile voyage, was a great success from the moment we sailed into our first port, with huge support everywhere we went. See www.shiptogaza.se for more info.  Others in the future will build on our effort, and will end the siege and tear down the wall.
Venceremos, we will win.