Talk Radio News Service: News, Politics, Media

By Alexa Gitler
Talk Radio News Service

Officials with a Muslim advocacy group in Washington, D.C. announced Wednesday the launch of a new campaign aimed at educating government officials as well as the public about what they say is a humanitarian crisis occurring in the Gaza region.

During a news conference, MAS Freedom, an entity of the Muslim American Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Islam, criticized the Israeli government for continuing to enforce an economic blockade along the Gaza strip. According to officials with the group, the decision to create a campaign, entitled, ‘End The Embargo, Let Gaza Live,' came in response to an incident earlier this week in which at least nine people were killed and dozens wounded after Israeli military forces stormed a humanitarian flotilla making its way to Gaza.

“We have the responsibility to speak truth to power, to call upon our President to do what is morally right in a crisis that we can influence as taxpayers, and citizens of the United States,” said Ibrahim Ramey, the group's civil and human rights director.

“We will continue to protest, demonstrate, petition our government, and do all the things that are necessary until the siege of Gaza ends," added Mahdi Bray, executive director of MAS.

Ramey said that the new initiative will use a petition drive and a post card campaign in an attempt to send a message to President Barack Obama and others in his administration that they must pressure Israel and Egypt to end the blockade.