Don’t forget Free Gaza Movement women

Although I appreciate Asa Winstanley’s warm review of “To Gaza with Love,” (http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10981.shtml) he left out every woman involved in the organization and founding of the Free Gaza Movement. 

There were five of us who co-founded the Free Gaza Movement, four women and one man: Sharyn Locke, Eliza Ernshire, Mary Hughes-Thompson, myself and Paul Larudee. I was interviewed extensively in the movie, yet the review didn’t even mention that the film’s presenter Yvonne Ridley clearly thought it was the women who had any kind of common sense and were the primary movers of Free Gaza.

Ken O’Keefe and Jeff Halper were passengers, not organizers. Jeff, Mushier al-Farah — who was going home to Gaza to see his family — and I made the final decision to strike out for Gaza when the men on board the Liberty wanted to have an hour-long discussion about waiting and going the next day (and completely ignored Huwaida Arraf’s advice to go).

Mostly, I’m dismayed that the review shows yet another attempt to turn the story into a “good-old boy tale” instead of what was a primarily a female initiative.

Greta Berlin
Co-Founder, The Free Gaza movement
www.freegaza.org