Flotilla funds meeting flounders

Henry Benjamin
J-Wire
20 September '10

(Not exactly what they expected, was it.)

A public meeting to raise funds and support for the Kia Ora Gaza group’s flotilla campaign has ended in a debacle.

The meeting was sponsored by the Muslim Club at Hamilton’s Waikato University. The invitation was accompanied by material stating that “Israel is the most powerful state in the Middle East and has being doing as it pleases. So we haven’t been able to do much while hundreds of children, women, men and the elderly get killed, raped and violated on a daily basis”. [The full text is below]

One non-Jewish student at the university described the statement as “hate-preaching”.

Hamilton-based Kirsty Walker published a counter Kia Ora Gaza leaflet entitled “Why I Cannot Support Kia Ora Gaza” in which outlines the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the construction of shopping malls and luxury hotels in spite of a perceived shortage of building materials, the recent murder of four Israelis, the Hamas policy towards Israel and the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Her statement is also published below.

Four members of the Kia Ora Gaza group made the six hour drive from Wellington to Hamilton for the information and fund-raising meeting….and walked into a barrage of criticism.

At the emotionally-charged meeting they were told by Iraqi and Iranian students that they “were playing straight into Hamas’s hands.”

(Read full story)

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