Secker said the latest humanitarian relief effort, which is sailing under the auspices of European Jews for a Just Peace (EJJP), an umbrella organisation of groups from 10 countries, would show that "not all Jews support Israel".
"The way Israel is treating the Palestinians is extremely immoral," said Secker, who was among critics of the BBC for refusing to broadcast a Gaza aid appeal following the massacre of more than 1,400 Palestinians last year.
He said his organisation, which is the largest in the EJJP, had to “take a stand” against the three-year Israeli siege of Gaza and the all-Jewish flotilla would "say emphatically: not in our name".
JfJfP members also took a stand in writing an open letter to former British prime minister Gordon Brown, which appeared in The Times in December, supporting the UN Goldstone Report, which evidenced the extent of Israel’s war crimes in Gaza.
Plans are for the new humanitarian relief ship to leave from an undisclosed Mediterranean harbour at the end of July, but exact details are being kept secret for fear of sabotage.
EJJP has set out basic principles of its mission, including “to protest against and challenge the blockade of Gaza, on the basis that it constitutes an illegal, collective punishment of the whole population.”
“To protest that the blockade is a grossly immoral act subjecting the people to subsistence living, denying them basic medical services, forcing them to live in the ruins of their homes (following the bombardment of Gaza by the Israeli forces 18 months ago) by denying them materials for reconstruction, denying toys to the children, denying them the right to fish in their own territorial waters, denying them the materials to reconstruct their sewage and fresh water systems and in so doing bringing about a horrendous public health crisis and a mental health catastrophe.”
Other aims include to protest against Israel’s continuing occupation and settlement of Palestinian land, and the Israeli regime’s self-evident intention of annexing much of that land.
EJJP said it was also making a statement that “the current policies of Israel are not representative of all Jews, that there are thousands of us who wish to state ‘Not in our name’, that instead we stand in the proud Jewish tradition of justice, of championing the rights of the downtrodden, of implacable opposition to prejudice and racism in all their forms.”
According to the Jewish Chronicle, some British Jewish groups have reacted with anger to the new attempt to break the blockade of Gaza, including from Jonathan Sacerdoti of the Zionist Federation and the British Board of Jewish Deputies.
"Copycat attempts to sail to Gaza are the clearest indication yet that fringe groups such as JfJfP are more concerned with publicity stunts than genuinely working towards a sustainable peace for both Israelis and Palestinians,” a Board of Deputies spokesman was quoted saying.
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