You can't make this stuff up...
The vessel, to be named The Audacity of Hope after US President Barack Obamas best-selling book, is being organized by an American group called US Boat to Gaza. It is expected to sail in the fall.
The links to Obama do not end there. Prof. Rashid Khalidi, director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs, and a friend from Obamas time in Chicago, is among the supporters of an appeal launched by the group last week.