This time is clearly different.
I have traveled to Gaza twice this year, in groups ranging from 40 to 60 persons, and although there was a lot of behind-the-scenes work involved in "greasing the wheels" with the Egyptian authorities, we pretty much sailed in. CODEPINK (the group that organized both of my previous trips) developed a well-earned reputation for being able to pull just the right levers to open the doors to the isolated enclave of Gaza -- even more so than George Galloway's Viva Palestina convoy, which is typically allowed in for only 24 to 48 hours (versus our four days).
I have traveled to Gaza twice this year, in groups ranging from 40 to 60 persons, and although there was a lot of behind-the-scenes work involved in "greasing the wheels" with the Egyptian authorities, we pretty much sailed in. CODEPINK (the group that organized both of my previous trips) developed a well-earned reputation for being able to pull just the right levers to open the doors to the isolated enclave of Gaza -- even more so than George Galloway's Viva Palestina convoy, which is typically allowed in for only 24 to 48 hours (versus our four days).
Solidarity activists join hunger strikers in Cairo
Riot police barricading protesters in Cairo.
Protesters occupying the grounds of the French embassy
But too many months have gone by with no change in the crippling isolation of Gaza imposed by Israel and Egypt, and it was time to risk our privileged access to take our efforts to break the siege up a notch. Our numbers had to be massive enough to threaten the jailers' growing complacence and broad enough to send the message that this is a global movement that won't stop until the Palestinian people are given the freedom and justice they deserve. Thus, this time CODEPINK allied with a number of other organizations around the world, and the number of participants quickly ballooned to more than 1,300 from 43 countries. Likewise, while we have collected or purchased thousands of dollars' worth of school supplies, winter clothing and electronic devices (such as computers -- currently only available via the tunnels and thus too expensive for the average Palestinian in Gaza), our message is also unapologetically political: the borders must be opened, to everyone, all the time. NOW.
We have obviously accomplished our objective. The jailers have taken notice and are running scared. So scared that we not only have been denied entry into Gaza, we have been threatened with arrest and deportation if we so much as carry a sign or gather in groups of more than six. Our reservation with a facility in downtown Cairo for an orientation meeting for delegates was canceled at the government's order, and requests to hold educational workshops instead were refused. In an even more audacious move that was aided and abetted by participants' own governments, consulate representatives were called to a meeting and apparently instructed to warn their residents not to come. In Spain, that warning was echoed in a news release. In Canada, individuals registered for the march or who had participated in past delegations received emails from their embassies. In Portugal, one marcher was called on his personal cell phone!
As word spread of Egypt's refusal to open Gaza's doors -- announcing its decision long after thousands of internationals had purchased expensive airline tickets and mere days before they began boarding their flights -- supporters around the world inundated Egypt's embassies with calls, emails and faxes in protest. Many came from legislators and other government officials, past and present. Egypt only backed further into its corner in response, using the aggressive tone of some of the calls and emails to ignore the overall theme: the injustice of the collective punishment imposed on Gaza's nearly 1.5 million Palestinians and Egypt's refusal to allow supporters to help.
As I write this, we are still being refused entry to Gaza, and even permission to travel to al-Arish and Rafah on the border. Thirty-eight of our marchers tried to get to al-Arish on their own, but 30 were then put under house arrest in their hotel and eight were detained at the bus station. Every peaceful vigil or protest we staged was met with an "iron wall" -- and sometimes, by violence.
When the French contingent of about 450 persons asked for help from their embassy, and occupied the grounds of the building in protest when initial promises negotiated with the Egyptian government were reneged, they were surrounded by heavily-armed and helmeted riot police and refused permission to leave -- even for food or to use a toilet. At the time of this writing, their "occupation" is going on 48 hours now.
Similar "sit-ins" have been or are being waged at the US, UK and Italian embassies (with more to come). At the US embassy, 30 Americans were detained within a circle of police for eight hours (at the direction of their own countrymen, by the way) before being released. The only small victory was an (ultimately frustrating and fruitless) meeting for three of the protesters with one of the embassy's higher-level officials.
The same treatment was received when vigils were staged at the United Nations, the journalists' syndicate (in support of about a dozen hunger-striking marchers) and the Kasr al-Nil Bridge over the Nile.
However, there are a few, bright silver linings to this dark cloud. Groups on the left of the sociopolitical spectrum are known for being far less cooperative and cohesive than their conservative, reactionary counterparts. It truly gladdened my heart, therefore, to see the immediate mobilization in our support by groups ranging from the War Resisters League to Jewish Voice for Peace.
Meanwhile, it's a truism that controversy attracts media coverage. Our missions to Gaza have been ignored by the mainstream media in the past, but this time, Egypt's defensive and angry response attracted the attention of such mainstream media pillars as the BBC, the Associated Press, Newsweek and The New York Times. I am a communications professional, and Egypt has violated a tenet of Public Relations 101: The more you protest, the guiltier you look.
All images by Pam Rasmussen.
We have obviously accomplished our objective. The jailers have taken notice and are running scared. So scared that we not only have been denied entry into Gaza, we have been threatened with arrest and deportation if we so much as carry a sign or gather in groups of more than six. Our reservation with a facility in downtown Cairo for an orientation meeting for delegates was canceled at the government's order, and requests to hold educational workshops instead were refused. In an even more audacious move that was aided and abetted by participants' own governments, consulate representatives were called to a meeting and apparently instructed to warn their residents not to come. In Spain, that warning was echoed in a news release. In Canada, individuals registered for the march or who had participated in past delegations received emails from their embassies. In Portugal, one marcher was called on his personal cell phone!
As word spread of Egypt's refusal to open Gaza's doors -- announcing its decision long after thousands of internationals had purchased expensive airline tickets and mere days before they began boarding their flights -- supporters around the world inundated Egypt's embassies with calls, emails and faxes in protest. Many came from legislators and other government officials, past and present. Egypt only backed further into its corner in response, using the aggressive tone of some of the calls and emails to ignore the overall theme: the injustice of the collective punishment imposed on Gaza's nearly 1.5 million Palestinians and Egypt's refusal to allow supporters to help.
As I write this, we are still being refused entry to Gaza, and even permission to travel to al-Arish and Rafah on the border. Thirty-eight of our marchers tried to get to al-Arish on their own, but 30 were then put under house arrest in their hotel and eight were detained at the bus station. Every peaceful vigil or protest we staged was met with an "iron wall" -- and sometimes, by violence.
When the French contingent of about 450 persons asked for help from their embassy, and occupied the grounds of the building in protest when initial promises negotiated with the Egyptian government were reneged, they were surrounded by heavily-armed and helmeted riot police and refused permission to leave -- even for food or to use a toilet. At the time of this writing, their "occupation" is going on 48 hours now.
Similar "sit-ins" have been or are being waged at the US, UK and Italian embassies (with more to come). At the US embassy, 30 Americans were detained within a circle of police for eight hours (at the direction of their own countrymen, by the way) before being released. The only small victory was an (ultimately frustrating and fruitless) meeting for three of the protesters with one of the embassy's higher-level officials.
The same treatment was received when vigils were staged at the United Nations, the journalists' syndicate (in support of about a dozen hunger-striking marchers) and the Kasr al-Nil Bridge over the Nile.
However, there are a few, bright silver linings to this dark cloud. Groups on the left of the sociopolitical spectrum are known for being far less cooperative and cohesive than their conservative, reactionary counterparts. It truly gladdened my heart, therefore, to see the immediate mobilization in our support by groups ranging from the War Resisters League to Jewish Voice for Peace.
Meanwhile, it's a truism that controversy attracts media coverage. Our missions to Gaza have been ignored by the mainstream media in the past, but this time, Egypt's defensive and angry response attracted the attention of such mainstream media pillars as the BBC, the Associated Press, Newsweek and The New York Times. I am a communications professional, and Egypt has violated a tenet of Public Relations 101: The more you protest, the guiltier you look.
All images by Pam Rasmussen.
Homepage:
Comments
Hide the following 8 comments
20 Parallels of Zionism with Nazism
30.12.2009 16:49
2) both based on supposedly reuniting some religioethnic diaspora under one expansive state.
3) both attempting to revive some supposedly “glorious ancient kingdom” — a “glorious ancient Teutonic kingdom” for the NAZIs; a “glorious ancient Judaic kingdom” for the Nationalist Zionists.
4) both established a state that was culturally, legally, economically and religiously based to exclusively benefit one ethnic/racial group.
5) both based on violent racist exclusion and a highly intricate complex of racial exclusion laws (like Israel’s racial ‘Nuremberg laws’).
6) both based on creating a founding mythology — like, for Zionist Jews, “a land without a people”
7) both invented their own race: Aryans, by the NAZIs; Jews, constructed as a unique/genetic race, by the Nationalist Zionists.
8) both based on eliminating some other unwanted and supposedly inferior races — ethnic cleansing — and, in the case of Zionism, removing those unwanted people who supposedly didn’t exist.
9) both engaged in collective punishment and widespread torture (even inventing new sadistic torture methods),
10) both engaged in the mass imprisonment — without trials — of unwanted populations/races.
11) both enclosed unwanted races in walled-in ghettos and concentration camps — only the Nationalist Zionists made the walls many times higher and the concentration camps many times larger (like Gaza, in effect the world’s largest open-air prison/concentration camp).
12) both tried out new weapons on civilian populations (and Israel has engaged in the internationally illegal use of anti-personal weapons of mass destruction, like the widespread use of cluster bombs, on civilian populations).
13) both sought to erase existing countries — like the Nazis wanting to wipe Poland off the map and parts of other countries; the Nationialist Zionists wanting to wipe Palestine off the map and parts of other countries.
14) both used pseudo-archeology to claim that it had exclusive right to the land.
15) the Nazis obsessed about “too many Jews” in Germany; Nationalist Zionists/Israel obsesses about “too many Palestinians” and the re-emergence of a Palestinian majority in historic Palestine (once an overhwhelmingly Arab land).
16) both were violently and militarily expansionist.
17) both engaged in blitzkrieg fighter aircraft and tank warfare against civilian populations and civilian targets.
18) Nationalist Zionist Israeli Jews even studied the original NAZI methods for urban warfare and clearing Palestinians out of their ghettos. Exclaimed one Israeli commander, “Let’s be Judeo-Nazis!” (Reference: www.seruv.org.il — the website for Israeli Refuniks in the “Occupied Territories”; see “Letter to American Jews”; “The Nazification of Israel” — both online.)
19) both claimed to be based on “God’s will”.
20) and, finally (for Israel’s ‘final solution’), most recently (Feb 29, 2008), Israeli deputy defence minister threatens a “Holocaust” for the Palestinians.
underclassrising.net
errrr..
30.12.2009 18:15
If they were, wouldn't they actually be invading the countries and completely taking over?
Rather than invading, they have built a defensive wall. I don't seem to remember the Nazis building any walls. The only wall that was built was by the communists to keep people IN to stop them running to the west. Israel's wall is to keep people OUT.....completely different kettle of fish I'm afraid
different circumstances
you should know better
31.12.2009 13:24
So yes Israel are behaving like Nazi's
Angry
Homepage:
http://www.decommissioners.co.uk
actually
31.12.2009 14:45
STOP ISRAELI NAZISM!
francesca
Purity of blood - rubbish, 20 per cent of Israel citizens are none Jewish!
31.12.2009 16:19
Realist
Fascism is
31.12.2009 18:11
Now anarchy, on the other hand, is almost starting from the principle that “in diversity there is strength”, which makes more sense from the point of view of looking at the natural world. The whole program of evolution seems to be to diversify, because in diversity there is strength.
And if you apply that on a social level, you get something like anarchy. Everybody is recognised as having their own abilities, their own particular agendas, and everybody has their own need to work cooperatively with other people.
Alan Moore Magpie’s book…
underclassrising.net
to realist
01.01.2010 11:52
bandora etrog
e-mail:
bandoraetrog@gmail.com
Egypt has one too
01.01.2010 20:31
anon