Now that 2010 is finally upon us, the real story behind the Cairo staruggle comes out from different sources. Philip Weiss description is one of the clearest, even when one disagrees with his own judgment, as he gives both sides of the argument space and caeful detail. Due to its nature, I thought including it in full is justified, despite its length:
Cairo meets the movement, with tears and chaos and exaltation: MondoWeiss
by PHILIP WEISS on DECEMBER 31, 2009 · 105 COMMENTS
Today the Gaza Freedom March fragmented slightly when in the face of stern opposition from their fellows about 80 people headed off to Gaza on buses, the rest staying in Cairo.
But wait, weren’t you trying to go to Gaza? Yes, but it has been quite a drama. How to state this clearly…
Over the last week, as the international marchers arrived in Egypt, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry made it very clear that it did not want them going into Gaza, and it would arrest them short of that goal. But these 1400 are not tourists or milquetoasts, they are activists; and they were not going to be stopped by any old Ministry, even the ministry of a police state. Many set out by bus and taxi to the Sinai desert, while the 300 members of the French group camped out in front of the French Embassy across from the Cairo Zoo, demanding to go even as they were ringed by riot police.
After hunger strikes and demos and international press, and supposedly too the intervention of the president’s clement wife Suzanne Mubarak, the Egyptians relented yesterday and said, Well 100 of you can go in, two busfuls. I heard about this first as a rumor last night at an Egyptian-led rally at the Journalists Syndicate building in opposition to Bibi Netanyahu’s visit to Hosni Mubarak (Down Down Hosni Mubarak!), and already many of us were wondering, who would get the call? Code Pink, the antiwar group that has led the organizing, claimed victory and sent out a bulletin to delegations to select the two or three members who could go. Some delegations duly nominated representatives. But the decision set off an angry and wrenching round of all-night meetings, some of them in hotel stairwells, with many coming out against the deal. Even the Gaza Freedom March steering committee voted against the slice of bread that was being offered, instead of the whole loaf.
Then, I gather, the Egyptians made the deal even more problematic by issuing a statement saying that the 100 peaceful people were being allowed to go to Gaza, implying that the rest of us were hooligans.
Still Code Pink went forward with its plan, and at 6:30 this morning the lucky few gathered on a sidewalk on Ramses Street near the bus station. Over the next 4 hours I witnessed agony and torment, and said a secret blessing that I had not tried to get on the buses last night. A crowd of those opposed to the 100 stood outside barricades set up around the buses and shouted “All or none!” and “Get off the Bus!” It turned out that they had many confederates among the 100 who boarded the buses– confederates who at a signal marched off the buses, some giving heroic speeches.
The people staying on the buses leaned out the doors to say that the Gazans wanted them to come so as to to join their march to the Israeli border on the 31st. But they wavered. Indeed, you saw some of the most resolute activists on the planet—Bernardine Dohrn, the law professor and former member of the Weather Underground; Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada; and Donna Mulhearn, an Australian woman who was a human shield during the beginning of he Iraq war, board the bus and get it off it, and then board it again and get off it, and on and on.
Abunimah, who had been roughed up by security at the American Embassy yesterday, told me it was the hardest decision he’d ever had to make. It was an individual decision, he had no clarity on it, and no one could tell you what to do, and he respected the decisions of all parties. Mulhearn said that going to Iraq in 2003 had been easy compared to this; for that choice was in the face of physical danger and she would take that any day, this was in the face of moral doubt. As for the Egyptian statement that only hooligans were staying behind in Cairo, she said it was a lie, she would say so on her blog, and the people who were against anyone going on that basis were giving the Egyptian security state power. Dohrn said that the principle of “All or none” was a miserable one for activist politics. You always took what you could get and kept fighting for more. A European man in a red keffiyeh screamed at her that she was serving the fascisti. Her partner Bill Ayers gently confronted him and asked him why he was so out of control. Between getting on and off the bus, Dohrn, who wore a flower in her hair, said that she didn’t like the absolutist certainty of the people on the other side of the police barricades, and having been in the Weather Underground, she knew something about absolutist feeling.
In the end Dohrn and Abunimah got off the bus. Mulhearn stayed on, I heard. A big reason for them was a call that Abunimah had with leaders of civil society in Gaza, who said, if this is going to hurt the movement, don’t come. We will march without you. (The message, from Haidar Eid and Omar Barghouti, says, “After a lot of hesitation and deliberation, we are writing to call on you to reject the ‘deal’ reached with the Egyptian authorities. This deal is bad for us and, we deeply feel, terrible for the solidarity movement.”) Abunimah abided by that call (and later told me he had no regrets, he was clear now). I saw other friends sitting on the sidewalk crying, as they tried to figure out what to do.
No one had slept. Many were smoking (when in Rome…).
The argument for the majority went like this: We have come a long way with the support of an international community. We have come to march in Gaza to lift the siege against the people there. Many of us are walking our talk, by confronting the Egyptian power at the French Embassy. Now we are giving into the siege by accepting a piecemeal offering, when the core principle here is inarguable: the people of Gaza must have freedom of movement, freedom to come and go. We will show our power and solidarity not by acceding to the terms of a police state that is working with the U.S. and Israel, but by demanding our rights as a bloc here in Cairo. And by doing so, we will dramatize the Palestinian condition and serve the most important element of the struggle: activating an international movement.
I could see the other side, too. There is nothing like an actual trip to Gaza to politicize people, and having had that experience myself, I had urged some young people to have it. But I can see that I am a lousy movement person, and that the overall sense of the movement was clear and emphatic. We will work from Cairo to gain publicity for Palestinian oppression. Big deal we’re not in Gaza, it’s like being in Birmingham when the big march is going down in Selma.
By the way, the South African contingent, many of them veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle, were no-doubters on the question: we stay in Cairo.
I can see both sides, but it was a convulsive experience. People turned on one another, the Code Pink leadership was accused of being all hat and no saddle. Young people I saw last night walking around biting their lips in the hope that they might be chosen to get a seat on the bus were today enraged and vituperative at the idea that anyone was getting on the bus—a transformation out of As You Like It.
Yet I remind readers that good things are arising from this experience. The Americans, who are so conditioned to living with the Israel lobby, as an abused wife to her battering husband, are being exposed to a more adamant politics—we are having a rendezvous with the Freedom Riders. For another thing, our direct actions and demonstrations seem to be awaking Egypt, a little, and getting a lot of publicity. Helen Schiff told me that the front page of an official government newspaper today said, “Mubarak to Netanyahu: Lift the siege and end the suffering of the Palestinian people.” We gave him that line! she said. A longtime civil rights activist, Helen told me it’s “fabulous” what happened, we are achieving more in Cairo than we would if we had gotten into Gaza.
So there’s a tumultuous and ascendant feeling here tonight, in the little hotels that we have to meet in to make our plans. I can feel the spirit of the Freedom Riders and of the abolitionists, who fought the limits on freedom of movement of black people for so long in my country. As for the divisions, and bitterness, I think they will go away. A European friend advised me tonight that those who take the Palestinian side will find that they share somewhat in the Palestinian experience. They will experience isolation, division, bitterness, failure, contempt, manipulation. Surely not on the scale of the Palestinians; still, they will experience some of those things, and they will grow from them.
Having weathered the storm, tomorrow this group has more action plans. I have to be quiet about them now, because I crunched into another stairwell tonight for a planning session. Still, it should be dramatic. The international street has come to the Arab street, and everyone is learning.
Anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jews celebrate Sabbath in Gaza
By The Associated Press and Haaretz Service: Ha’aretz
A small group of ultra-Orthodox Jews were preparing Friday to celebrate the Jewish Sabbath in Gaza, in an unlikely show of support for Palestinians in the Hamas-run coastal territory.
Bearded and wearing black hats and coats, the four members of a tiny Jewish group vehemently opposed to Israel’s existence were a rare sight in the poverty-stricken Palestinian territory.
Members of the Neturei Karta group have expressed support for the Iranian regime and for others who oppose the Jewish state, which they believe was established in violation of Jewish law.
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“It’s crucial that the people of Gaza understand the terrible tragedy here is not in the name of Judaism,” said one of the men, Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss of New York City, as the four prepared to observe the Sabbath at a Gaza City hotel.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza destroyed some 5,000 homes and, according to figures from a Palestinian rights group, killed over 1,400 people. Israel has challenged this figure, stating that a total of 1,166 Palestinians were killed in the operation, the majority of whom were Hamas militants.
The four men are American and Canadian citizens. Israel bans its citizens from visiting the blockaded territory. Weiss and his comrades entered Gaza through a border crossing with Egypt.
This was not the first time Neturei Karta members visited the besieged strip, after a brief visit to Gaza in July of last year, when they met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh after crossing into the territory through Egypt.
Israel, which maintains a strict blockade of Gaza, would not let them cross through its passages with the territory.
“We feel your suffering, we cry your cry,” Rabbi Weiss said at the time.
“It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity,” Weiss continued.
During their Thursday meeting, Haniyeh told them he held no grudge against Jews, but against the state of Israel, according to a Hamas Web site.
Neturei Karta, Aramaic for Guardians of the City, was founded some 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel, believing only the Messiah could do that. Estimates of the group’s size range from a few hundred to a few thousand.
Representatives of the sect had previously visited Gaza when it was ruled by Fatah, Hamas’ more secular rival.
One acted as Yasser Arafat’s adviser on Jewish affairs, and a delegation traveled to Paris in 2004 to pray for the Palestinian leader’s health as he lay dying in a hospital. Months later, a group participated in a conference in Lebanon with Hamas and Hezbollah militants
Egyptian police halt Gaza protest in Cairo: The Guardian Video
Large numbers of Egyptian riot police blocked the demonstration near the Egyptian Museum in the city centre and contained the protesters by the side of the road.
Around 1,400 activists from 43 countries arrived in Egypt last week to commemorate the first anniversary of Israel’s 2008 attack on Gaza.
To view the clip, click on the link above.
Another activist email, 31st December 2009
It is the almost the end of another day here. Always I ask myself how have we represented our friends, how have we further the cause of Palestine. And I think today was good.
The action came at the end of a week where we have been bullied and pushed about and encountered experiences I could never have imagined. I do not just mean the Egyptians I mean some of these dreadful Americans who are absolute monsters. And we have not given an inch … When it comes to Palestine there is only one thing we want, only one thing that will make people like me stop and that is justice. But there have been all these doubts this week. At times it is exhausting.
I expect things to be difficult and today in that Square my God we went wild … our scarves waving in the air, our V sign in the cops faces, our demand ‘Palestine’ Palestine’
It has not stoped. The city has been in absolute chaos. Mayhem everywhere … Paddy wagons, police personel carriers and people following us … the Suth Africans are leaving tomorrow. They changed their flights because they have plain clothed men standing next to them, listening watching, going everywhere with them … they have had it bad. We just had the street battles today in the Square and believe me it was a battle at one point.
When we arrived they said everything we did was not allowed by law, so we said OK then we move regardless of the law. Every tiny move has been against the law. I will give you an example, I used an internet shop earlier today. Just to check my emails and I had to sign mu name, my passport number and the hotel I was staying at so I put my name as Willy Wonkel, I made up a number and put the Nile Hotel and then I see the name in front of mine is Eva Peron blah blah blah … they are not used to this … And this is the way it has been every minute of the day and through the night.
Throughout this period my mind is on Palestine, East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Always our thoughts are with our people and what they are facing twelve months after the massacre.
We made big learning experiences. We found out a lot about ourselves – invaluable because you go through so much in times like these. And most important of all we said to everyone in this miserable Mubarak world you are not pushing Palestinian supporters around.
Today shocked them all … They were hanging out of windows giving the V sign and you could see fear on some of the faces of these young blokes wearing the uniforms. They have not seen this kind of determination. There were people from 42 countries Nur and evertyone punched way beyond their weight. When that first call went out and we all ran for the road it was like a sudden outburst of Palestinians – freedommmmm and they are not going to forget this in a hurry.
Oh I forgot to mention, we also had a group climb to the top of the biggest pyramid and plant the Palestinian flag and this went out everywhere …. Israel should observe all this because we are just learning to stand in solidarity with Palestine. It was remarkable ….
The very best of wishes of 2010.
Another activist email, 31st December 2009
Gaza’s writing on the wall: Al Jazeera online
By Toufic Haddad
In the Gaza Strip graffiti is not only tolerated but encouraged
For years, law enforcement agencies throughout the world have engaged in local crusades against what they regard as the scourge of graffiti.
New South Wales in Australia recently passed an anti-graffiti law that could see juvenile offenders jailed for up to 12 months. New York state has made it illegal to sell spray paint to anyone under 18, and Singapore has even physically canned graffiti artists as punishment.
But when it comes to the Israeli occupied and blockaded Gaza Strip, local government not only tolerates graffiti, but actually provides workshops on how artists can improve their technique.
Part propaganda, part art
Hamas facilitates the work of its graffiti artists – even purchasing spray paint for them The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, fully facilitates the work of its graffiti artists – from purchasing spray paint, to inviting artists to work on choice locations.
Elaborate, colourful calligraphy brightens the drab streets and alleys of the Gaza Strip’s densely populated towns and refugee camps. Most is political in nature, inscribing slogans of defiance against the Israeli occupation, or commemorating fallen martyrs. Some is apolitical, congratulating newly weds on their marriage, or pilgrims who have completed the Muslim obligation of Hajj.
Graffiti in Gaza is by no means the sole domain of Hamas. All political factions control crews of artists to prop up their influence and credibility. Part propaganda, part free-standing works of art, Gaza’s graffiti is deeply ingrained in the local society’s historical and political fabric.
“During the first Intifada we had no internet or newspapers that were free of control from the Israeli occupation,” explains Ayman Muslih, a 36-year-old Gaza graffiti artist from the Fatah party who started painting when he was 14 years old.
“Graffiti was a means for the leadership of the Intifada to communicate with the people, announcing strike days, the conducting of a military operation, or the falling of a martyr.”
The graffiti Muslih and others put up on Gaza’s walls was strictly controlled by each political party and their respective communications wings. Select individuals were delegated to hide their identities by covering their faces with scarves and to brave the Israeli military-patrolled streets to put up specific slogans.
“Writing on the walls was dangerous,” recalls Muslih. “I had good friends who were killed by Israeli soldiers who caught them.”
Spray paint colours became associated with each political group, with green preferred by Hamas, black by Fatah, and red for leftist groups.
The competition for popular support and leadership of the first Intifada was visually expressed in the amount of real estate each political party’s graffiti was able to capture.
First Intifada graffiti never developed too much artistically however because by nature it needed to be produced in as short a period of time as possible, to avoid detection.
Public gallery
The graffiti of the second Intifada developed more artistically than that of the first After the Palestinian Authority (PA) established itself in Gaza in 1994, more traditional means of communication with the local population took root, including national newspapers, radio and television stations and mobile phones.
While the more relaxed political atmosphere during the peace process was indeed more conducive to the retreat of political graffiti, the phenomenon never fully disappeared, perhaps because its function could not be so easily replaced by the traditional means and boundaries of political commentary.
The PA’s arrival also created the conditions for graffiti to evolve qualitatively. The Israeli army’s re-deployment outside most of the main Palestinian towns and refugee camps gave artists the time and space to better prepare and deliver their work.
Thanks to a $5mn Japanese donation to the PA to white wash miles of Gaza’s graffiti strewn roadways, a graffiti artist’s perfect canvas and public gallery emerged.
With the eruption of the second Intifada in 2000, Gaza’s graffiti culture re-emerged in full force.
Arsenal of tools
The factional competition between Fatah and Hamas and the steady flow of Palestinians killed by the Israeli occupation, created limitless material for graffiti artists who experimented with large murals commemorating the dead, or much smaller, but reproducible stencils.
Hamas particularly sought to take the discipline of graffiti art to new levels, seeing it as a part of the organisation’s arsenal of tools to propagate its world view, including promoting a resistance agenda against Israel (as opposed to the negotiations approach of the PA), and propagating the Islamisation of Palestinian society.
Hamas began offering courses for graffiti artists that trained them in the six main Arabic calligraphic scripts, known as al Aqlam aSitta: Kufi, Diwan, Thulth, Naksh, Ruq’a and Farsi.
Delivery of high-quality calligraphy graffiti was part of the religious movements’ more general reverence for the Arabic language, the sacred language of the Quran.
Tagging for the party
The different parties have different approaches to graffiti Gaza’s graffiti culture has just been documented in a new book by Swedish radio and photo-journalist Mia Grondhal, who has been visiting and reporting on the region for more than 30 years.
Although never previously the focus of her news reporting, Grondahl began paying closer attention to Gaza’s graffiti during the second Intifada when she became increasingly impressed with its evolving quality.
“It was some of the best graffiti I’ve seen, especially the calligraphy,” notes Grondahl.
“This is mainly the work of Hamas who are very careful about how they write the Arabic language. Fatah artists do not feel the same because they are a secular party, and to them it’s not so important how you write, but what you write.”
For Grondahl, Gaza’s graffiti tells a story that goes beyond the typical catchphrases that tend to be repeated about the Strip and its people.
“Gaza’s graffiti is so integrated into the society which makes it very interesting. You’re not out there tagging just for yourself. You are tagging for the party you belong to, the block you belong to, for a friend who is getting married, or a friend who was killed. It’s an expression of the whole range covering life to death.”
All photographs by Mia Grondahl.
Toufic Haddad is a Palestinian-American journalist based in Jerusalem, and the author of Between the Lines: Israel the Palestinians and the US ‘War on Terror’ (Haymarket Books, 2007).
Mia Grondahl is a Swedish radio and photo-journalist based in Cairo. She is the author of Gaza Graffiti: Messages of Love and Politics (University of Cairo Press, 2009).
PACBI Newsletter #1 – 2009 BDS Highlights: PCBI
The Year 2009 has proved to be a watershed in the growth of the global BDS movement. The massive lethal Israeli war of aggression on the Gaza Strip in late December 2008 and January 2009 galvanized many organized groups and individuals around the world to call for BDS actions as a means to end Israel’s criminal impunity and disregard for international law.
The report of the UN Fact-Finding Mission led by Judge Richard Goldstone, released in September 2009, found strong evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza, and called for holding Israel accountable before international law. That report, and the media attention given to it, moved the terms of international solidarity with Palestine into a new plane, where calling for BDS is no longer considered “unrealistic” or “counterproductive.” BDS is emerging more strongly than ever as a key morally sound and politically realistic strategy for bringing an end to Israel’s impunity and holding it accountable to the same international standards as other nations.
In Palestine, the BDS National Committee (BNC), established in April 2008, has emerged as the principal anchor of the global BDS movement. A wide civil society coalition representing major sectors of Palestinian society in the OPT, inside Israel (1948) and in exile, the BNC has played a leading role in initiating international action, giving advice to BDS activists around the world, and participating in national and international forums. PACBI, which is one of the founders of the BDS movement and a member of its leadership, the BNC, continues to be actively engaged in the global BDS movement, both locally and internationally, on the level of academic and cultural boycott. Members of PACBI‘s Steering Committee have participated in many conferences, workshops, lectures, and seminars around the world to promote BDS and form alliances within international civil society. PACBI has also issued a number of important reference documents; it continues to receive positive feedback and requests for advice from artists, academics and activists using this material. The PACBI website, with both English and Arabic pages, is a valuable source of information for BDS campaigns around the world, averaging 750,000 unique visits per year.
To see full report: PACBI Newsletter 1