Chris Smalls Speaks Out After His Journey to Gaza

EF: As an organizer, what are the similarities and differences between the union effort at Amazon and the anti-war organizing you’re doing now?

CS: Both situations, for me at least, were life-or-death situations. I was organizing Amazon workers during the pandemic, the most deadly time in modern day history, especially in New York City, where we were the epicenter of the world. People were dying here every 15 minutes at one point in time. And this was before the vaccine was even a thing.

Same thing with this, joining the Handala mission. I’ve known from the previous missions that they not only bombed one of the flotillas, but in 2010 they jumped on board and killed 10 of the activists, and still to this day haven’t been held accountable for it. A similarity is that both efforts put me in prison. Whether I was organizing at Amazon, and I was arrested, or whether I was going to Gaza and taken to Israel against my will to be put in prison. But the difference is the labor movement in America needs to include more of these grassroots struggles. And the Palestinian movement is showing people and bringing people together from all over the world. That’s the type of solidarity that we need. We have to start bringing different movements and reaching masses of people to bring them into working class issues. And that’s the difference: is that one movement is doing that, and the labor movement is failing to reach the masses. That’s why our union density in our country is so low right now.

EF: In terms of your experience on the flotilla itself, what did it feel like to be on the boat heading towards Gaza with the other activists, especially knowing that you would likely be intercepted by Israeli forces?

CS: It was a culture shock for me. I don’t travel on water often. I haven’t even been on a cruise ship in over a decade. I had to battle seasickness every day. And you have to adjust to sleeping on a boat, a small fishing vessel that was built in 1968 with 20 other strangers from around the world who had to develop a family bond in a matter of days or weeks. So it was really beautiful in some ways. We took care of one another. We kept our morale up, but we also knew that one mistake could cost everybody their lives. And we knew the importance of the mission. I think that was the best thing I could take away is that everybody there knew what we signed up for. We knew that we were going to be possibly intercepted. Even worse, we possibly could have been killed. We possibly could have been in prison for a very long time. All these things are on the table. I will attempt to go back on another mission because it just shows me the hope that we have for the future.

EF: There’s been a lot of reporting on your experience after being intercepted, your time in prison in Israel, and the assault you faced. How was the treatment you experienced different from the other activists who were on the flotilla?

CS: Everything from my assault to my exit, my deportation, was racially motivated. There’s no doubt about it. The amount of hatred and racism that I felt from everybody I encountered; I’ve never experienced that in America in my 37 years. And we could start from the assault, that was physical. But then the separation, they separated me from the rest of the crew members. They guarded me with five guards the entire time, even when I met with my lawyer. And then when I was transferred to the prison guards, it was like the message was passed along. Because the prison guards were doing things to every last one of us, but with me specifically, they would lie to me to the point where they would make me get dressed and tell me [I was] going home knowing that I wasn’t.

They put food in front of us knowing we were on a hunger strike. It was no coincidence that I was one of the last to leave [prison]. Me and my Arab brother, Hatem [Aouini], we were the only people of color. I was the only Black man, he was the only Arab. And they allowed us to stay there five days, a day more than everybody else. And the last day they didn’t even check on us. They didn’t even come bother us for 24 hours. Meanwhile, when everybody was there, they would come count us every hour on the hour and also provide us with some water. But they didn’t do that for me on the last day. And when they [sent everyone away], everybody else was taken to the airport. But with us, they dropped us off at the Jordan border and just left us. There’s no excuse for any of that…unless it was racially motivated.

EF: The days that you were in prison, what would you do to pass the time? Were you able to talk to the other activists?

CS: The good thing…[was] that first they put seven of us in one cell. So there was a lot of company. But the bad side is it was a heat wave, and the oxygen level in there was very poor. And we would pass time just by talking about what food we wanted to eat, getting back home to our family and loved ones. And the rest of the time you had to live in your head. There’s no other way. For me, going to prison a few times, that’s the only way I can survive prison, is by living in my head, by reminiscing [about] good times. And we were also dealing with land sickness. Your whole world is just rocking like the boat and you’re also hallucinating. So I was experiencing a lot of that, especially with the hunger strike. It was increased, just hallucinating a lot. And it was…sort of euphoric, but also I had to disassociate myself from the living conditions. We were dealing with bed bugs. I contracted scabies just from staying there. I was sleeping on pretty much a metal bed. So living in our heads was the best way to pass time. It got a lot quieter, especially that last 24 hours with me and Hatem by ourselves. We were quiet. We really didn’t talk that much. We were just thinking about getting home the next day.

EF: Since you got back, there’s been a ton of press coverage about your experience. How have you felt about the way the media has talked about this story? Are there any misconceptions or things that you feel like people don’t understand about what this experience was like and what it meant to you?

CS: There’s always been some misconception about these flotilla missions because they’re like, why do you guys keep doing it if you’re getting intercepted every day? And it’s like, for one, of 37 missions, only five of them ever made it to Gaza. But it’s not to deliver the aid. Even if we were to make it to Gaza, we don’t have enough food to feed everybody. So it’s not [just] about delivering the aid. It’s about breaking the illegal siege that Israel has imposed on these people for over two decades. The biggest misconception is that people think we’re going to deliver aid. That’s a part of the mission, but the main goal is to break the siege.

Secondly, I think with the Madleen with Greta Thunberg, people thought that was the first mission. And I have to reiterate that that was 36, this was 37. It’s been going on for a very long time. This is one of those moments where the younger generation, even myself, we didn’t hear about any of this because there were times where they were sailing before social media. They’re [also] focusing on me a lot. And I’m just an activist and a civilian. I have no ties to the coalition as far as how they put these missions together. I just joined like any other civilian can do.

And lastly, I want people to know that you can organize in whatever way you feel comfortable. A lot of people saw that I was doing this. They want to get involved with flotillas. It is not as easy as people may think it is. You have to really be mentally prepared for this type of mission. And knowing what you’re signing up for, the fact that they can kill you and get away with it. I think that everybody should remind themselves that they can fight in their own ways and different ways.

EF: I was listening to a recent interview where you were talking about being an optimist about the struggles you’re involved in. Where does that optimism come from for you at this moment, at Amazon, in Gaza, and beyond?

CS: It definitely comes from taking on a $2.2 trillion company with a shoestring budget of a GoFundMe and defeating them. That really was the ultimate joy that anybody can experience. When people ask me, how did you beat Amazon? It’s just people power. There’s no other calculation for it. I didn’t have the means or resources. We didn’t have the backing of major unions or politicians. Nobody believed in us. We were just a group of average people, of all different races and backgrounds, that came together and used our power and voices to bring more people together. That was it. That’s the calculation, is people power. So when it came to fighting for Palestinians, it’s the same thing. They can put out as much misinformation as they want. They can try to wipe the people off the map. The resistance is never going to give up. We have to remind ourselves that when we come together, there’s nothing that we can’t overcome. And that’s why I’m optimistic because I’ve seen it before. And…the youth has given me a lot of hope. The younger generation, these students with the encampments, I see that the younger generation is a lot more awake and aware. They have access to things that I didn’t have as a kid, that many of us didn’t have access to until we got older. So they see the world in a different way and they’re learning so fast. And not only that, they’re speaking up about issues that we should have been doing a long time ago here in America. And I’m glad to see it. And that’s what gives me hope and optimism.