Jesse Rosenfeld is currently a Montreal-based journalist who reported in Ramallah and Tel Aviv from 2007 to 2011. He has written for the Nation, Al Jazeera English, the Guardian, and Foreign Policy, among others.
Although Obama has ruled out US participation in a strike against Iran before the election, Israel has already won by setting the lens that America sees the Middle East through.
For flotilla activists, the struggle is as much about forcing a local debate on alternatives to Mideast policy as confronting Israel’s continued oppression of Palestinians.
Abdullah Abu Rahmah served 16 months in prison for his role in organizing demonstrations against Israeli land annexation in his West Bank border village.