CANADIAN KIDNAPPED BY ISRAEL EXPOSES ABUSE

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[00:00:00]Hey there, Midas Canada viewers.

[00:00:01]Resistors from all over. Charlie Angus here. Today's episode is vitally important. It's slightly longer than what we normally produce, but we believe we could not cut a single second out of this interview. The interview is with Sebastian Tao, the young Canadian who was kidnapped in international waters by Israel along with 427 other activists who were bringing food, baby formula, medical supplies along with doctors and nurses and reconstruction teams to help uh end the crisis in Gaza. They were seized in international waters illegally by Israel and they suffered horrific levels of abuse. You may have recalled that we were asking you over a week ago to contact your MP to help Sebastian get free. His mother Anita Wittenberg and sister Emma were on with Midas Canada and he is free and he is back in Canada and he has an powerful story to tell. I think there's a two elements that I really just want to focus on right now.

[00:01:06]One is obviously the darkness. He is going to talk about the abuse and the violence perpetrated by the Israeli state against onarmed citizen humanitarian workers and a trigger warning um talking about the sexual assaults and rapes by Israeli officials against innocent people who are trying to end the starvation and the medical disaster in Gaza. The other element though is how Sebastian represents the best of who we are as a nation. He represents Canada's values at its finest and his sense of determination and hope will leave you feeling that whatever you can do will make a difference. He speaks of the need for all of us to step up at this time in the face of darkness, to defy the darkness, to show those values that are fundamental to who we are. And yes, fundamental to what it means to be a Canadian at this time in the world. I urge you to watch this interview.

[00:02:12]Sebastian Tao, we are very, very proud to have you home in Canada. Proud to have you on Midas Canada.

[00:02:18]>> There was a re that offered a solution.

[00:02:21]If there was a re If they sent you down to save you, gave you tools instead of favors. If there was a revolution, no one came.

[00:02:32]I see them. Will I see you there? Hey there, Midas Canada viewers and resistors from all over the world. We're going to follow up today with a really important story. Remember, we were talking about the Canadians who were kidnapped in international waters by Israel, held in deplorable conditions.

[00:02:55]That also includes citizens from all over the world, citizens from countries that you're watching. And we had on Anita uh Wittenberg and her daughter Emma who were talking about Sebastian Tao who'd been kidnapped by Israel. We asked you to help out to push the government to get him and the other aid workers on the flotilla to Gaza free.

[00:03:19]And our hopes came true. Sebastian is home. We are thrilled to have him on the show to explain uh what happened and to tell us what he saw of the abuses and the situation that is ongoing in Gaza right now, ongoing in Israel against the Palestinians. As we talk this morning, we learn that the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz is talking now openly once again about the forcible deportation of the Palestinian people from Gaza. This meets clearly article 7 of the crimes against humanity under the statute of Rome. Israel has been accused of many of the crimes of humanity against humanity including uh deliberate starvation, withholding of food, targeting hospitals, killing civilians, killing journalists and those attempting to document the crimes. These are very, very serious issues and this is why we wanted to get Sebastian on the show because Sebastian is an eyewitness and is also one of the defenders of the rule of law by trying to get to Gaza by trying to raise the flag of democracy and peace in an area of such brutal conflict. Sebastian, welcome back to Canada.

[00:04:35]>> Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be home.

[00:04:39]right off the top. Uh you're 20 24 years old.

[00:04:43]>> 24. Yeah.

[00:04:44]>> Why did you try to get to Gaza?

[00:04:48]Well, I uh I became involved in the movement against the genocide three years ago as a student and um I realized um last fall while I was watching the flotilla that there has been a very long history now um over a decade of attempts to bring humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip by the sea and also by the land.

[00:05:13]But the flotillas in particular, it's a very long and very interesting history.

[00:05:18]Um uh the Mauvi Mara is one case in which uh citizen uh aid workers were actually uh murdered um over 10 of them by the Israeli occupation when they were intercepted. Um, and last year as I watched the flotillaa, I looked at it and I realized that it seemed to me the largest and most uh concrete direct action that uh people were taking to not only challenge the Israeli occupation's genocide, but to also try their best to bring vital aid to people who are undergoing enforced starvation. So when I saw that, I thought to myself that uh I might try to join because uh I had been I had graduated last year and I I realized that I wanted to continue my organizing but I wasn't sure in what way at that point. So I realized then that I would apply for the flotilla and and I was accepted uh in April.

[00:06:22]>> So you know one of the things we see of course is is media and Canadian media are incredibly complicit. Um, it always seems that we're getting our news feed from the Israeli Defense Force on anything and then CBC parses what the Israeli Defense Force says and then explains what the Israeli Defense Force says and then follows up and then has at the very end something about uh what Israel is being accused of. And in the case of the flotillaa, um it's always being sort of seen and portrayed as some kind of pro Palestinian activist trying to run the blockade and and and and break in. But you had medical aid, you had uh food, you had doctors, nurses. Um explain what the flotillaa is doing because the fact that it's falling to ordinary people to try and get food aid in uh when the rest of the world is sitting on the sidelines, I think is really vital. So what what was the nature of the aid and the people heading to Gaza?

[00:07:22]>> Absolutely. It was um I mean it's a civilian-led uh organization so it's filled with people from all around the world but the core of it um yes is to bring baby formula fuel uh food dry goods medical supplies sanitary supplies. We loaded our ships for uh uh over two days with this sort of supplies. And the crew on board um was not only made up of general participants such as me, I mean just activists uh who are there to help in whatever they can, but it was made up crucially of doctors of uh carpenters and builders.

[00:08:07]And the original plan um was once we had broken the siege and gotten uh to the shores of Gaza is that those of us who would be unloading the medical aid would unload the medical aid and and uh the humanitarian aid, the food and so on.

[00:08:23]And then there would be a large select group of us who would go into Gaza and work with the people of Gaza to help one build new things. we were bringing building material um help do renovations uh to whatever we can and then the other group would be doctors who was who were planning on doing shifts and taking over shifts for as long as they could um at whatever medical facilities are left in Gaza and giving some of the the very very hardworking and long-suffering doctors in Gaza uh a short break uh for however long they could. Um yeah. Yeah.

[00:09:05]>> I mean um in terms of the situation, uh there's supposed to be a ceasefire. The the genocide is supposed to be over uh thanks to Donald Trump's board of peace.

[00:09:16]Like Donald Trump's board of peace where basically gangster states pay him a billion dollars and they are overseeing the situation in Gaza right now. the latest reports that I've been reading from Human Rights Watch uh once again withholding food, more and more people going hungry, continuing attacking civilians and murdering um the unarmed as well as what we're seeing in Lebanon with the bombing of hospitals, the bombing of ambulances, the destruction of villages, plus I add to that horrific crimes now being reported against unarmed Palestinians in the West Bank.

[00:09:51]Um, what is the situation in Gaza? Has has this border peace has the genocide stopped? Has the the denial of food aid stopped? Why? What is the situation that people need to know about?

[00:10:06]>> Yeah, there's no genocide that has stopped. It's ongoing. um just in the last few days as I got back to the airport and uh surrounded by friends and family uh I had read earlier that day about uh a 15-year-old girl and a six-year-old girl who were slaughtered in a missile targeted missile attack on a refugee camp in Gaza. Um a 25-year-old man was also killed I believe in the same refugee camp. Um, and this is just a trickle of the news that comes in every single day. Uh, the ceasefire was supposed to be brokered between uh the Israeli occupation forces and uh the Palestinian resistors and Hamas, but uh it seems that as always uh it's only on the Palestinian side. uh the Israelis continue to slaughter civilians and the situation in Gaza in terms of aid has not shifted at all uh I believe for since the beginning of the genocide. I mean it's just imagine what's left of Gaza is uh it's well over a million people. It's about two million people stuffed into uh an area that and when I was in occupied Palestine, we were driven on prison buses from Ashtadport, which is just north of Gaza, down to the infamous Kitsyad prison, which is southeast of Gaza. And that trip only took an hour and a half. I'm not kidding. The entire length of Gaza I have now traveled. And imagine that that length, that hour and a half, um, at 25 miles by 5 miles is stuffed with two million people. And they have in the entirety of Gaza, I think, four aid sites that the Israelis control. And maybe two of them are open for about I think 15 minutes a day or something. And not only that, but when people run to get food or medical supplies, whatever it is, they're uh sort of treated as firing practice repeatedly and continuously. Um the there has been so many cases documented over the last 2 years and over the last year of uh the Israelis treating this as a sort of game and a sort of target practice where they set up some supposed >> and then kill them as they Palestinians as they attempt to uh take that aid, the food or medical supplies from the designated uh place where they're supposed to pick it up. Um yeah, it's important.

[00:12:49]>> Yeah. And these I mean these al these are these these are not you know wild allegations. They've been documented again and again and again. So what you're reporting is you know anyone can go online and learn and see. But I want to ask you now about what happened uh when the Israelis in international waters again breaking international law uh seized the vessels, seized the aid uh and kidnapped you and the other aid workers. What happened?

[00:13:23]>> Yeah. I mean, not only um at the end of April did they come all the way to the to the western coast of Cree uh and try and capture the entire fleet uh and end up capturing the people on on and holding hostage people on 22 boats and then bringing back our comrades Thiago and Sif to solitary detention and and uh in Israel. But then they of course uh once we had sailed uh they attacked the rest of the fleet off the uh southwest coast of Cyprus. And so to reaffirm again if if uh if people are a bit fuzzy on their geography uh both Cypress and Cree uh are quite a ways away from the territorial and uh naval waters permitted to Israel. Um both of the attacks took place within international waters and when we were attacked the uh Israeli warships and the Israeli speedboats didn't fly their flag and every single one of them was wearing a mask. It was uh it was um it reminded me of of uh the definition of terrorism that the CIA, the FBI, NSA, um the US counterterrorism, all the official uh imperial um definitions of terrorism is that uh it is the use of violence or threat thereof for a political end. Um and it so by their own definition uh the Israelis terrorized us and used terrorism to capture us and take us hostage. And in my experience, I was um among the fleet uh that we had managed to escape well into the day that they began to intercept our boats. And so it was late in the afternoon when I saw on the horizon a speedboat uh with about 15 uh heavily armed commandos coming towards us masked with every one of their guns aimed at us as they cried at us to stop the engine and put up our hands as we were sailing lawfully through international water. Um none of us had weapons obviously. We were completely nonviolent mission. Uh we had nothing but uh some feta cheese in the fridge and some humanitarian aid packed in our boat. And uh we were then forced to take photos with our passports on the boat.

[00:16:00]And it was a very dangerous situation because we had to put down the sail under gunpoint and then we were dragged onto their speedboats and taken to a makeshift prison boat. a warship that was turned into a sort of prison camp.

[00:16:16]And as soon as I was dragged on there into the uh port hole door entrance, I was thrown down on my knees in a puddle and my hands were zip tied and uh everything on me, my wallet, my passports, uh my clothes, my shoes were taken off of me and uh I was then dragged down a corridor beside some shipping containers and I could hear the screams already and the thuds within the shipping containers.

[00:16:47]when I was then thrown into a dark shipping container and I could see my friend kneeling down and being beaten by several masked uh men in the dark and then I felt a kick in my chest and fists rain down on my head and I was beaten to the ground and then uh a boot held down on my neck and I was repeatedly tasered um tasered in the side.

[00:17:11]>> Wait, wait, wait, wait. You were tasered and beaten? Yeah. Tasered in the side and tasered uh in the back uh repeatedly. And um then the the guards who whomever it was uh when I was crying at them to take their boot off their neck or shouting at them um because I could hardly breathe anymore. I was kind of I sort of just spat out the the requests to take the boot off my neck and he kicked me in the neck as a response and then asked me if I was having fun. and they dragged me up and uh kicked me and beat me out the door.

[00:17:46]And what's absolutely crucial is that the way that they had set up the this prison ship is that the only entrance to the boat where the speedboats with my captured friends would come, we would go through and they had constructed a sort of open air prison with shipping containers where the only entrance was through one shipping container and the only exit too. And that shipping container was where about four or five mass men beat and tasered every single one of us. At the very minimum, they only beat every single one of us. And so to enter into where we were held prisoner, um all 180 of us on that prison boat, there was two, um we had to pass through that torture chamber and every single one of us was efficiently systematically beaten. Uh within that shipping container, there was over 30 cases of broken and fractured ribs. There was uh over 30 cases of severe taser burns. I got off easy compared to so many of my friends. There was uh over 10 cases of sexual assault. There was anal rape. Um it was it was unmistakably it was symptomatically designed to try and >> uh physically abuse every single one of us as we entered that ship. I just I just want to stop here for a second >> because um you know I spent 21 years in Parliament and you couldn't walk on Parliament Hill without tripping over someone from the Israeli lobby uh the Israeli lobby who are welcomed into everything who attend every function who are there for the wine and the shrimp uh who get all access pass to everything.

[00:19:36]Um, even my political conventions at the NDP, there was the Israeli lobby. And you're telling us about a state, this is not Benjamin Netanyahu. So, let's put aside, oh, it's Benjamin Netanyahu. He's bad. This is a state that is a close ally of Canada. Kidnapping people, uh, unarmed people, doctors, nurses, aid workers, uh, torturing them, beating them, anal rape, sexual assault, knowing that the world is watching, or did they just think that our world leaders uh, would turn a blind eye as they've done again and again? How is it? I mean, this is horrific news you're telling us. I just can't imagine how it's possible that they thought that they could just do this. They do this to Palestinians on a daily basis, but that the Israeli state believes they can do this to anybody and there will never be any um any consequences. Um you know what what what were you thinking as this was happening?

[00:20:42]uh as it was happening, I mean, I was concentrated on survival for me, but also my friends. Um because the way that they had set it up was it was yes, it was really being captured by a uh a terrorist state because and held hostage. We were not informed of where we were going, uh what our rights were. They took our passports away. Uh, and anytime we tried to interact with the guards on the prison ship to ask for I mean that was the other thing. It was 180 of us crammed into we had some we about three shipping containers with no mattresses to sleep in and uh for two nights and we had uh not enough water and the only food we had was garbage bags full of stale and frozen bread that they had given us.

[00:21:35]They had about 12 porto potties in the o open air uh section and only two of them were open and usable. Uh, and we were under armed watch uh over the shipping containers the entire time. Um, and uh, I mean I was thinking the entire time from the moment we were captured and drugged aboard this horrific prison ship all the way to being dragged through Ashdodport and then dragged into Kitad Prison and then dragged all the way to the airport and deported forcefully.

[00:22:11]I had no idea what was going to happen next. And that's the crucial thing.

[00:22:15]Nobody ever told us what was going on, what their intentions were, what their plans were. The only response to our requests for water, for medicine, for those who had been beaten so much that they had couldn't walk uh for the elderly was more violence. Uh >> um were there any consular officials, the Canadian consular officials, are you aware of any attempts by the Canadian uh diplomatic corps in Israel to find out what had happened to you?

[00:22:45]>> No, I'm not aware at all. And I could ask my uh uh 11 other comrades from Canada, but no, when we were taken into the Ashdod port uh after we were uh most of us were beaten again, um we were drugged through by our hair and by our wrists and the back of our necks to see a kind of it was kind of a it's kind of a sick conference where we were treated to this um uh pageantry of of supposed uh legal officials and port authority officials who would uh interrogate us constantly where we were from, what we were doing, the same uh questions over and over again, and then take photos of us and take photos of our passports. And I demanded every every clerk I saw and I looked in their eyes and I said, "I'm a lawful humanitarian. I need to see my consulate and speak to my lawyer." And I was denied uh everything. I had no idea.

[00:23:48]There was no no consular official, no ambassador present. Uh and I believe that it's the same case for every single one of us, all uh 400 of us. So I, you know, your mother uh reached out to us.

[00:24:03]Um at that point, um she had only heard from some of the opposition MPs, I think Don Davies, Heather McFersonson. Um nobody nobody from the government had reached out at that point. We'd asked our Midas viewers to start pounding the the drum to get government to act. And then Minister Ben Gir, another uh war criminal, posted that horrific video that suddenly seemed to wake up the world and then we heard, you know, Minister Anita Nan talking about the abominable conditions, the atrocious behavior. We saw that other nations started speaking up. Do you think that that uh appearance by Ben Gavir was the moment when our politicians realized they actually we have citizens being kidnapped and tortured and sexually assaulted by uh a terrorist state? Like what was it you think that made the government step up?

[00:24:58]>> Well, I suppose looking back at the media over the last week, that would be it. But the first thing my friends and I saw said when we saw that um when I was still in Istanbul on uh Saturday and Sunday, we saw the meter response to the video of Benabira and we were said to each other, you know, that was in Ashdod where they were at least sort of faking a little bit uh an attempt to look sane. that video of of my friend uh from the Irish delegation, her head being forced down and Ben Gir uh jeering at us. There was only I mean one of the worst things uh they did actually put on that video was when they had us all kneel down for about 3 hours in the hot sun in a position that no blood could run to our legs. Um and that was on that video. But no, I think we all said to each other, we said, "Yeah, but what about the two days before that when Ben came to cheer at us? It was tame. That was just media spectacle." And so the fact that that has aroused >> supposedly aroused the uh the eye, the anger, the outrage of of our politicians. What I have to say to them is where were you for two days when we were going through?

[00:26:11]>> Where were you?

[00:26:12]>> So I guess >> the question then I ask is where are they now? Have you been debriefed? has as global affairs Canada has a minister as a prime minister has anyone reached out to you or your delegation over what happened?

[00:26:24]>> I don't believe anyone's reached out to my delegation. I've not received anything personally when I was in Istanbul. Um we did uh meet with the ambassador to Turkey and uh who was very uh welcoming to us although I got the sense that it was just out of her own initiative. I have not received a personal letter or a message from any Canadian official or any Canadian office.

[00:26:49]>> Wow. Well, so I mean what you did was incredibly brave and uh incredibly dangerous.

[00:26:58]What's next?

[00:27:01]>> What's next is to take them to international criminal court. They they abducted over 400 humanitarian activists. uh many of them, most of them with European citizenships, many of them with North American citizenships, people from the global south. It it uh we will take them to court and our aim is to do this through our home countries um but as well as an international organization and we expect of course it's going to be a difficult road. Um but remember I mean this is again it we have to continuously reiterate what was done to us was an a horrific and obvious breach of of uh so many international laws. Um and so yes the next step for the GSF is to take the Israelis to uh to criminal court. Um but to do that we have to push continuously uh for our governments to actually support this case and uh it is the responsibility of our governments to defend the rights of their citizens and so we will not stop I will not stop for sure until uh uh we have meetings and we have continuous contact and we're creating continuous pressure within parliament parliament to actually do what they are paid to do, do their job after 12 of their citizens were captured and tortured and held hostage. And uh the broader reach of course for the GSF and from for activism for Palestine is of course and I think within the Canadian context is to pressure them to use our case um to put the continuous pressure on the government to finally actually sanction economically and diplomatically uh the Israeli regime to remove their embassies. uh not just merely to put condemnations or sanctions on individual politicians, but to actually put a military embargo on Israel. Um that is seems to me the threshold, the moral and political threshold of what we should be doing. But it is uh it's the aim right now, I think, for the movement in Canada. And it's a crucial moment because people are outraged and they're right to be and I'm outraged. And uh it's time to use this case uh to to finally pressure the government to be doing what it should be doing because uh what's most crucial is that we as four over 400 humanitarian activists, we knew the risks, we knew the dangers. And when it happened, we went through this horrific situation and they broke many of our bodies. Um, I was one of the lucky ones, but they broke many of our bodies, but they'd never never and they never could break our spirits because we knew that what was happening was exposing yet again the absolute impunity and criminality of this rogue state. And uh we want to continue to say that if they can do this to international citizens, if they can basically say we own the entire Mediterranean, we can do whatever we want to any citizen no matter what the passport.

[00:30:28]Imagine, you don't have to imagine, we know what they're doing to the Palestinians as we speak. Um >> yeah, >> there have been targeted attacks on refugee camps in the last few days in Gaza, escalating of violence of settlers against uh peaceful people in the West Bank who are rightfully on their own land. It's uh it's now they have now tried to extend this law of being able to basically just execute Palestinians for no reason arbitrarily to the West Bank. Um, and I've seen the inside of their detention centers now and uh I saw the blood of Palestinians on the wall.

[00:31:08]It's they run a high techch uh huge military concentration camp regime. It's a very small place, occupied Palestine, where people, the Palestinians, are crammed into a life of of fear and and constant violence.

[00:31:31]And uh we have to do everything in our power to try and use our cases after what's been done to us to pressure our governments to finally do the just thing and put the right legal and military and economic constraints on the Israeli regime.

[00:31:50]>> Wow. Thanks. This is really really important. Um just finally we have might as viewers all over the world.

[00:31:56]Australia, UK, Ireland, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, people who've had their citizens kidnapped and tortured by uh Israel. What can people do?

[00:32:08]People can do so much. And that's what I learned on the flotilla. I mean, I did not come out of this experience with uh a darker view of human nature. I did see the most horrible things in my life. But through it all, I was with friends, comrades, people who I had met a month before and I was thrown into the most intimate relationship with because uh we were going through something horrific and we had no choice but to to provide each other with care and affection and love and uh solidarity.

[00:32:40]>> And so I learned also that the flotilla as a civilian-led direct action, it was more direct democracy than I've ever experienced in my life. And from the very beginning uh it totally shattered any kind of despair I usually have about organizing or feeling helpless.

[00:33:01]Any tiny thing people can do is so effective. And uh you know I think that the history of social movements is the history of what seem at the time pointless even small acts of resistance.

[00:33:17]But those small acts when you look back uh from the advantage of history is uh that they accumulate they culminate into great moments. Uh and so people can do so many things. They can uh start by calling and petitioning and repeatedly calling and petitioning and then calling and petitioning more their government officials. They can start by just going to demonstrations. And then serious civil disobedience is a huge key to do sitins. Um uh block the ports. Uh organize with unions to do strikes. Um and uh always stay on social media. Uh and most importantly read, educate yourself. There's amazing scholarship on everything going on in Palestine. And the the history of this apartheid regime is very well documented. Um, and education must go hand in hand with serious action. And to take action, anybody can start anywhere and do anything, no matter how small. Yeah.

[00:34:23]Well, Sebastian, thank you so much. You represent the best of what we are as Canadians in Canada. We've we signed uh the International Statute of Rome. We led so much in the international criminal courts. You are carrying in a long tradition of humanitarians who believe that we may not be a the biggest country on the planet, but we have a responsibility wherever these crimes are being committed. So, I'm so glad you came back safe and sound. Welcome back to Canada. We love you. We've been thinking about you and your comrades and we the fight continues. So, go for it.

[00:34:59]And we will be watching where you go next. Thank you so much.

[00:35:03]>> Thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor.

[00:35:06]All right, folks. You know it. We got to kick at that darkness. Keep kicking.

[00:35:10]It's going to bleed daylight.

[00:35:14]Will you be there? Will I see you there? Will I see you there? Will I see you there?

[00:35:26]Will I see you there?