'Israel brought this on itself,' Anti-Zionist American Jew onboard Handala claims

Soldiers from the IDF Shayetet 13 unit seized the small yacht, detained the 21 pro-Palestinian activists on board—including Suberi—and brought the vessel to the port of Ashdod. He was later released at the train station in Ashdod.

He added that the Freedom Flotilla Coalition plans to continue to attempt to send aid to Gaza.

Suberi was born in Los Angeles in 1948 to parents who immigrated to the US from the British Mandate between 1938 and 1939. He later settled in St. Louis with his wife. He identifies as an anti-Zionist.

He explained that he went on frequent trips to Israel and felt like he did not resonate with the politics he encountered.

“In 2006, I joined a mission of SAR-EL, an NGO which organizes volunteers from around the world to work within the framework of the IDF. It's like Birthright, but for older people. It wasn’t so much about what we did there, because we didn’t do anything. It was mainly an ideological reconnection—you know, to the Zionist cause.

“At the end of the three weeks, I asked myself, 'What the hell am I doing with this? What am I actually involved in, and do I really believe in this s**t?' I felt that I didn’t belong with these people at all, and began to doubt my involvement. It didn't happen in a day. That was the breaking point. It took me a long time to get to where I am now.”

“Since 2006, I have gone back every year to volunteer, living in a village in the West Bank for about three months at a time. We maintained a defensive presence while we were there, and I saw a lot of things, so I came to participate earnestly. I was injured by IDF soldiers, settlers, and non‑settlers.”

“In 2018, there was a Palestinian heritage festival in St. Louis, and I went, and there was a Freedom Flotilla table, and I signed up. A year later, I got a call from Jonathan Shapiro, who was an IDF pilot who refused to fly to Gaza. They blacklisted him and he couldn’t work anywhere in Israel, so he moved to Oslo, led the flotilla, and he called me. It turned out he obtained my number from that petition, he called me, and we met.”

He noted that he has over a decade of sailing experience, and felt as if the Flotilla was the intersection of his passions.

“I was surprised upon receiving an invitation to the last flotilla,” he said. “But I jumped at the opportunity."

He went on to call the Israel-Hamas War a genocide, and noted that his faith community back in America did not wish to speak about it.

“The siege on Gaza has lasted for a very long, very long time, but since October 7, the genocide occurring in Gaza—everyone needs to ask what can be done about it, because our governments are doing nothing to restrain Israel, and so Israel has complete immunity to do whatever it wants.

It is done in my name as an American, and it is done in my name as an Israeli. It is done in my name as a Jew. It is a desecration of my religion. For me, it’s just an absolute scandal in so many ways,” he said. “We need to create division within the community so that people will begin to acknowledge the issue."

Suberi was one of the crew on deck and gave insight into how the first few days of the sail went.

“In the first days, we passed the time.  We sang Palestinian songs, we maintained optimism, and the truth is, even when the Israelis boarded the ship, it was kind of a joke that they tried to be so nice to us. Each of them had a camera, and one had a bigger camera—it was a real production. They tried to make it look almost as if they were rescuing us from ourselves. That we had entered one of their training areas, but these are international waters, and they have no authority to draw arbitrary lines marking their training zone.”

“It started a few hours earlier. A UAV appeared above us and hovered for a long time. We noticed on the radar that there were two ships keeping a fixed distance from us. We all put on life vests, sat down, and got organized. At first, we couldn’t establish contact with them, and when we finally got a response, [name redacted] confirmed she was a lawyer and experienced in these procedures, and she spoke with them. They didn’t identify themselves by name. They identified as the IDF, the Israeli Navy.”

“The Israeli captain told her we were entering restricted waters, that we needed to turn back, and asked what our intentions were. She told him he knows we’re in international waters, and that he knows we intend to continue to Gaza, and that he has no right or authority to impose a blockade, stop us, board us, or interfere in any way with our mission. She was very direct with them, and they said: ‘Okay, fine.’ And then they boarded us.”

He continued, “There were maybe 15 or 20 large rubber boats, which at first circled us. Then, very quickly, they approached and dropped soldiers onto our ship. You could say they were very skilled at what they do. They quickly took control of the bridge, the steering—contrary to what was published, they didn’t tow us. They simply piloted the ship and us to the Ashdod port, with their boats surrounding us. It took about eight hours to arrive.”

“Clearly, a lot of money was spent on this operation, and that’s part of what’s infuriating—just like they have all this money to destroy some sheep pen or someone’s house. Every soldier on that boat wore a mask. I asked why we couldn’t see their faces. That’s something new in recent years—like highway robbers. You see it in the territories, too. They weren’t interested in small talk.”

“There was a 74-year-old woman with us, the ship’s cook, a wonderful woman, a hard worker. And they went straight to her, probably because she looked the most vulnerable. They brought her a cooler with food and drinks, and all of them had helmet cameras. One had a large camera with a microphone. And of course, they filmed all of it.

“I told her, ‘You’re in a movie. They’re staging a PR stunt.’ And she said, ‘Take this food away. I don’t want any of it. We have plenty of food and water on board.’”

He added, “Nothing special happened on the way to the port. We arrived in Ashdod. The two of us with Israeli passports were separated from the others. The rest were taken to an immigration facility, and we were taken to a police station. They searched us and then interrogated us, each separately. They asked me a ton of stupid questions, like: ‘Why did you do what you did?’, ‘Don’t you know other ships were stopped?’, ‘Don’t you know Israel provides humanitarian aid?’ They were just dumb. The kind who try to catch you, make you slip up, get you to say something incriminating, and record you. They asked me: ‘Why did you sail to an Arab country?’ I asked: Which country? It was especially ridiculous because the second thing they accused us of was trying to enter Israel illegally. I couldn’t help but laugh.”

“It’s very hard to talk about that without talking about the context,” he said, stressing that he has family in Nahal Oz, who, as far as he knows, were not there that day, but he wanted to make clear that he has compassion and feelings for the suffering on that side too. Still, he said:

“It’s hard to talk about October 7 without talking about what came before. For example, the nonviolent March of Return, through which Palestinians tried to express their opposition to the occupation and their desire to return to their land. They live in an open-air prison—you can’t deny it. Israel invaded them many times in what’s described as ‘mowing the lawn’—that’s the approach. Food restrictions were often described as putting Palestinians on a diet. They’ve been treated terribly for a very long time. According to international law, they have every right to resist occupation by any means they can.”

“That doesn’t justify some of the things that happened,” but immediately walked it back: “We don’t know if Hamas or others did it. Many of the people living in Gaza have been under occupation for their entire lives. For many of them, that’s all they’ve ever known. More than half of Gaza’s population is children. I’m not in a position to criticize how people respond to being locked up, starved, and controlled for nearly their entire lives. The responsibility lies with the power that oppresses them. It’s that simple: Israel brought this on itself. Not only that, they were also involved in promoting Hamas back when they wanted to undermine the PLO. So there’s a very long history, and you can’t talk about it outside the context of what happened before.”

“I can’t condemn them because I don’t know what I would do in that situation. Clearly, Benjamin Netanyahu needs to continue this war—not just in Gaza, but also in Lebanon, Syria, and Iran—in order to save himself from court.”

“Do I condemn Hamas? I think it’s irrelevant to what’s happening. You know, as I’ve said for nearly two decades, Israel holds Gaza with full force. It controls the situation. They could’ve accepted a ceasefire. They could’ve gotten their hostages back... But I really don’t think this government is interested in peace. I can say the same about other governments when it comes to a two-state solution. You know, Israel has a history of—well—you know—divide and conquer with the Palestinians. They try to decide who will lead the Palestinians, you know, and assassinate potential leaders. There’s a long history here. So for me, issuing a sweeping condemnation of Hamas outside the context of years of Palestinian oppression would be disingenuous, misleading, and pointless.”

“I’m sure they know where I am and what’s going on, but they don’t call, and I’ve stopped trying to call them. For the last three years—since 2022—I haven’t seen them anymore. They told me that if I keep doing what I’m doing, we won’t stay in touch."