Judith Scheytt joined the Global Sumud Flotilla to break Israel’s siege on Gaza. In her first interview since her release, she told Jacobin about how the mission succeeded in shaming Western governments for their complicity in genocide.
At eighteen years of age, Judith Scheytt was the youngest activist aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, which attempted to break the Israeli siege on Gaza. After it was raided by Israeli forces on the night of October 1–2, she was taken to a high-security prison and held for several days before being deported along with other Sumud Flotilla activists.
Now back in Germany, in her first interview since her release she told Jacobin’s Hanno Hauenstein about intimidation in Israeli captivity, German double standards, and why she says that, despite everything, “the flotilla was a success.”
Hanno Hauenstein
What motivated you to join the Global Sumud Flotilla?
Judith Scheytt
After two years of genocide in Gaza, I simply felt that more had to happen. People demonstrated, posted online, wrote petitions — classic forms of democratic influence. Somehow it was always clear to me that with those sorts of things, you don’t get very far against a genocidal ideology. Just “speaking your mind” isn’t enough. It was also clear that you couldn’t rely on the German government. Trying to break the Israeli-imposed famine in Gaza was, in a way, the most direct thing you could do.
Hanno Hauenstein
You were the youngest among hundreds of people involved in the flotilla — and one of the few Germans. What role did that…
Auteur: Judith Scheytt
