Local Activist To Sail Again in Gaza Flotilla

In a photograph taken last May in Athens, Paul Larudee stands before a pale blue sky. Dark, sprawling bruises discolor his bare arms; one eye is swollen shut.

The shot was taken after the Richmond man — who's often labeled as an El Cerrito resident — sailed into Gaza with nearly 700 activists in a “freedom flotilla” to break Israel’s sea blockade of the Palestinian strip.

The event ignited an international firestorm when Israel Defense Force soldiers intercepted the six boats; in the melee that followed, nine aboard the Mavi Marmara were killed. Dozens were wounded; nearly all were arrested.

Instructed to remain seated aboard a different ship, the Sfendoni, Larudee instead flung himself into the Mediterranean. It took soldiers an hour and a half to fish him out; enraged, they beat him, he said. After his release from jail, much of it in solitary, he surfaced in Greece, tired but brimming with ideas for his next political action.

The incident — which saw Larudee prominently mentioned in the Bay Area press — reveals much about the 65-year-old activist, whom friends, family and comrades-in-struggle describe as passionate, singly focused, and unpredictable.

“He’s a complex individual,” mused friend Gene St. Onge, a business owner who joined last year’s delegation. “He’s unlike anybody I’ve ever known. He feels passionately. He’s a very principled person.”

On the other hand, “He’s not a good team player. He’s very much a lone gun. We had our issues about that after the last one” (in which he plunged overboard). “He had responsibility as the head of the group. I was left feeling kind of abandoned.”

Once upon a time, Larudee, a linguist with a Ph.D. from Georgetown University, taught at San Francisco State University, University of San Francisco, and St. Mary’s College.  The Iranian-born Larudee, the son of a Presbyterian minister and a missionary, made a lateral move to Lebanon to teach as a Fulbright professor; he put in 10 years in Saudi Arabia as a teacher and advisor.

He began chafing with discontent, feeling he’d backed himself into an unsatisfying career corner. An accomplished pianist, he gave up teaching and began tuning and refitting pianos – a skill he continued to pursue in the U.S.

He was instrumental in the founding of the International Solidarity Movement, which is pledged to nonviolent resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, and  led the group on its first attempt to enter the Nativity church (getting shot in the process) and its foray into Nablus in 2002.

He talked about both experiences in Tel Aviv, where he said he commanded a rapt audience (“This movement would be in the doldrums” without Jewish supporters, he said. “Easily half our donors are Jewish”).

In Nablus in 2002, he said he watched in horror while soldiers occupied one house, then tunneled through the wall into the next, leaving a shambles for the families who lived in the connected homes.

“Nablus wasn’t a refugee camp,” he said. “It was a place of ancient walls and archways going back 2,000 years. And here are the soldiers blasting their way through the foundations.”

He acknowledges that Hamas does not share his dedication to principles of non-violence. But he believes his approach is influencing the players in the strife-battered region.

“Hamas started out as a fairly radical group and their charter was radical,” he said. “More and more, (Hamas) has embraced non-violent actions. I’d like to take some credit for that.

“But they haven’t given up the idea of armed resistance. They’ve made some important mistakes. They have been too repressive in resistance, and they have to get over it for the sake of democracy and human rights.”

This year, the flotilla will have expanded by its launch date later this month, with contingents from Sweden, France, Australia, Italy and other nations ferrying building materials, medicines, scooters and wheelchairs.

His goal: In the short run, a shipping line between Gaza and foreign ports, and a Rafah airport open for business. And in the long run? “A unified Palestine for all who call it home, where religion and ethnicity have no consequences for a person's rights.”

And no, he doesn’t believe Israel (or any other nation) has the right to exist. In fact, in Israel’s case he doesn’t even think it’s a good idea.

“It’s a mistake to require a Jewish state,” he said. (His view is not uniformly held view among the participants, said John Hill, spokesman for Art with Impact, which will be filming the flotilla.)

“If you insist the state is Jewish, then you must expel non-Jewish people,” Larudee said. “If you say a state must have a certain ethnicity, you can do very bad things to people who are not of that ethnicity.”

He brushes aside accusations of anti-Semitism as self-serving, saying the brutality of the occupation “speaks far more than we can.”

In that, he gets full marks from Human Rights Watch.

“It wasn’t the flotilla that violated human rights standards,” said Joe Stork, deputy director for the Middle East. “The blockade itself should be ended unconditionally or limited to blocking military goods.”

In March, Israeli naval forces in the Mediterranean intercepted a cargo vessel headed for Egypt carrying more than 50 tons of Iranian weapons, including 2,500 mortar shells and 67,000 AK-47 rounds, which were to be smuggled into Gaza, according to the Associated Press and Jerusalem Post.

The Victoria proved to be “loaded with weapons,” said Daniel Morgan, a spokesman for the Israel Consulate General Pacific region, located in San Francisco. The cache, hidden behind stores of rice and lentils, included 60-mm and 120-mm mortar shells, six C-704 anti-ship missiles, two naval radars and operating stations for the missiles, and ammunition for Kalashnikov rifles – and instructions in Farsi, according to an Israeli intelligence report.

In April, an anti-tank missile fired from the Gaza Strip struck a school bus in southern Israel, fatally wounding a 16-year-old boy, according to the consulate.

It’s a given that conservatives would oppose the flotilla. But even peace activists question the wisdom of its provocation. They include the Bay Area’s Len Traubman, who with his wife Libby created Jewish-Palestinian Dialogue. Peace can only come through building one-on-one relationships, he said, and “most Israelis and Palestinians have never met.”

“Provocation is a prescription for failure, because power is defined in an old paradigm,” he said. “Anyone (in the Israeli government) who does not stop them will be defined as weak.”

Today, Larudee dedicates only one day each week to plying his piano trade, which lists its business address as El Cerrito. (Larudee lives in a sliver of Richmond that borders El Cerrito.) He devotes the bulk of his time to planning and partaking in events to raise awareness of the suffering of people living in the occupied territories.

“If he had his druthers, he would do his activism all the time,” St. Onge said. “Actually, he pretty much does. Every now and then he tunes pianos.”

He met his wife on a beach in Lebanon, and wooed and married her in two months despite her engagement to another man. The two share a modest townhouse cluttered with art, books, papers, a lively dog and two grand pianos. Their two grown sons live nearby. She said she weeps in his absences, at times immobilized with anxiety.

Their eldest son once chastised Larudee for leaving his family to bear the consequences while he follows his passion for social justice.

“I said, when I was young I had to answer to my parents. Then, I wasn’t (politically) involved because I had young children. When do I get to do my own thing?” Larudee recalled. “The whole family is now quite supportive, although there are some resentful feelings.”

Larudee drew attention closer to home this past March when he joined a protest outside the foreclosed-upon Bibleway Apostolic Church in Richmond. As sheriff’s deputies led the pastor, his wife and mother out of the church, Larudee refused to move and was hoisted away by officers and jailed. In news shots, he appeared to be crying out in pain.

“The Contra Costa Sheriff’s Department used torture in my case: to intimidate and coerce me into providing information and to assist in my own arrest,” he wrote in a Contra Costa Times editorial.

He brushed aside a barrage of outraged letters to the editor. He said he fears neither retaliation for, nor disapproval of, his political stands. “My address is all over the internet,” he said.

Likewise, he doesn’t fear another violent blowback as he enters Gaza. His group has many actions in the pipeline in addition to the flotilla, including a march on Jerusalem.

“This time, I'm not taking anything that I'm concerned about losing, and I'm advising everyone else to do the same,” he said. “I always travel very light.”