“The Blockade is Terrorism!”: Gush Shalom
On the first day of the Gaza War, one year ago, activists of Gush Shalom and other peace organizations demonstrated against it. Today (2.1.10), many of them took part in a large demonstration, whose main demand was to lift the siege of Gaza.
Some 3000 demonstrators gathered in Tel-Aviv’s Rabin Square and marched to Museum Square, where a protest rally was held. The demonstrators, activists of a wide range of peace organizations and other citizens, chanted in unison (in Hebrew) “Gaza, do not despair / We shall put and end to the occupation!”, “Israel, we are ashamed – the blockade is inhuman!” and more.
The demonstration was accompanied by large police forces, including a helicopter which from time to time lit up the area with a huge projector. However, there were no incidents.
Apart from the Gush Shalom posters “The Blockade is Terrorism”, there were the posters of the “Women’s Coalition” which said “Women cross borders – Freedom and Justice for Gaza”. One demonstrator brought a personal poster: “Mubarak is a War Criminal” – as a protest against the steel wall now being built by the Egyptians along the Rafah border. Many carried the Gush Shalom flag, which combines the flags of Israel and Palestine. A band of drummers, some of them women, enlivened the march.
Nurit Peled-Elchanan, a bereaved mother (and the daughter of the late general and peace activist Matti Peled), said at the rally: “I wonder about the astonishment voiced by the media at the violence in the schools, the clubs and the street. Our children are just absorbing the message conveyed by parents, elder brothers, the media and the war criminals in uniform who come to the schools and make speeches about the heroism of the army in Gaza.”
Uri Avnery called upon President Obama, the European Union and the peoples of the world: “Help us to end the cancerous occupation. For peace and reconciliation between the free State of Israel and the free State of Palestine!” Click for full text
Eilat Maoz of the Women’s Coalition said: “All around us in this city we see war criminals who have committed these acts in Gaza. They live their lives in peace, without fear of investigation and punishment.”
Special applause greeted Nasser Rawi, the father of one of the families that were evicted from their homes in Jerusalem’s Sheik Jarrach quarter, who called upon the government in pure Hebrew “to stop the Judaization of Jerusalem and stop sending us the settler who beat people up and drive them out of their homes.”
Other speakers included MK Hanin Zuabi (Balad): “Denial of flour and sugar is a method of blackmail, but the Palestinian people is not broken”; Yael Ben-Yaphet (The Mizrachi Rainbow): “Sderot was the excuse for war, but who now remembers the poor in Sderot?”; Abir Kopti (Hadash): “I congratulate the British government for marking products of settlements – this is part of what gives hope.”
The high point of the evening was the band of “Raging Grannies”, five elderly women who – on the model of the Canadian original – sang “modified” children’s songs. They concluded the evening with the slightly modified text of a popular Hebrew children’s song: “Mother said to Ahmed / My son is hero / My son never cries / like a little stupid boy. // He had a house in Gaza / And a father, a mother and a brother / Gaza was bombed / And the house is not there anymore. // I do never cry / I am not a cry-baby / But why, mother, why / Do the tears come by themselves?”
Minneapolis Demonstration for Peace in Gaza
Email from Cairo: After the Gaza Freedom March has ended
here has been something in all this that could only be about Palestine. I never understood some of the Palestinian writers but I think I do now. It is like life. One minute all seems lost and the next minute you are raising the Palestinian flag and shouting full on at riot police. I do not know where it comes from …
Palestine will not be settled by these fools like Abbas. They understand nothing of the power that comes from deep inside people who want freedom. Freedom and justice have woken me up … and I do quite take to it. Who would have thought it … Something has happened here that will never be the same … The uniforms can prohibit our meeting, they can bounce us around their central squares and demand to see our papers in the middle of the night. But they will never quell this thing that is Palestine.
I have tried to do so much – meetings, reading, writing and staring these people in the face and letting them know I am with Palestine. I – am – with – Palestine … This yell now comes from my boots.
Philosophers do all this talking about the soul and the energy it gives form to surprisingly testing moments, but I have experienced this. I and so many of my international brothers and sisters … People from forty three countries realised their humanity in this city over the past week or so … We all became what we are …
So yes I am tired. Like so many others I am drained … But I am also more sure of something than I have been. I am sure of people and what they are capable of resisting … the minute that flag comes out it represents all or flags, one flag … one people all for Palestine.
If you had have seen us at exactly 10-00 am on the last day of 2009 all walking in couples along the square like tourists everywhere, passing one another with a knowing smile; and then everyone seemed to run into the road, into the traffic full pelt and the shout went out ‘Viva, viva, Palestine’ and the Egyptians looked like they were in shock. The soldiers and riot police looked shocked. No one thought we would dare because we had been hammered for seven days … But my God when that urge came we went for it like we were at Dunkirk !
In the battle my friend got into a tussle with what looked like an officer or some sort of brass and his gun, strapped to his underarm, under his shirt accidentally came out. We pointed to it and he shoved it back in the holster and said Shockran … Can you imagine that ! And then we carried on battling … resisting really.
One lady died outside of the French Embassy. She had a heart attack on her way to the hospital. Others look gaunt because we really have given all this our best. The French who I spent a lot of time with were superb. The Spanish were brilliant. It showed that within the culture of these people there are still traces of battles in the past and it all came out …
But now I am tired. And still a little worried about friends in Gaza. At times we were all so into not being pushed around by the Egyptians that it was difficult to be thinking of Gaza but these moments were rare … Palestine, Gaza, they are always on my mind … but we will win. Have not the slightest doubt. A lot of us grew up here in Cairo … we learned to struggle as Palestinians, behind fences, held in lockdowns etc and I really think most of grew incredibly. We are all Palestinians now and we really have to push on and sort these bullies out …
Email from Cairo: After the Gaza Freedom March has ended
Can you believe it there are still things going on … films by Gaza filmmakers in different venues. Codepink desperately trying to regain some sort of face – an impossibility. The group that went into Gaza – 52 in all got a roasting at gatherings here. They were actually foul mouthing Hamas in much the same way as we have come to expect from the standard media. No insight …
Police and troop carriers (those square box like personnel carriers) still around every corner. But no one getting placed under hotel arrests as in last week. But this city is nervous…
I am not sure that I understand it. One minute I think I do and the next minute I do not. What exactly have we stirred up here? What is Palestine to this place? I know what Palestine is as history, a place and a cause but what it that has caused so much of trauma. There is so much of this part of the world that I think I am getting and then I realise I have grasped nothing …
Palestine is a cause that will not go away. The more Egypt has aligned itself to the opposition the more they are vexed by the situation. But am I not amongst Arabs? Is there no bond here … ? What is it that the authorities fear being resurrected? I cannot put my finger on it … So much I am outside of here.
Yet something has been stirred. Why all the police and plain clothes fellows still lurking about. Why the confusion that is definitely in the air. I went to Al Ahram yesterday to talk with some of their analysts. Like whippets on heat ! Definitely did not want to talk … Some of these journalists call themselves oppositionalists so why are they not sticking together and opposing a wee bit more … Endless puzzles.
Tomorrow I fly back. Not sure what to expect at the airport. Whatever awaits it cannot be as bad as Ben Gurion …
Gaza Freedom March activists target Egypt’s complicity: The Electronic Intifada,
Sayed Dhansay, 31 December 2009
It was another eventful day here in Cairo at the inaugural Gaza Freedom March (GFM). On Tuesday night, organizers informed the 1,362-strong delegation that only 100 of them had been selected to travel to Gaza yesterday morning, Wednesday 30 December. After several hours of heated debate with organizers over whether this was an appropriate strategy, the meeting concluded without a consensus.
As of Tuesday night, only the South African, French, Canadian and Swedish delegations had decided to boycott the 100-person convoy. Although an incredibly tough decision to make, the groups adopted this principled stance because they felt that the offer was divisive and betrayed the very aim of the march — to break the siege imposed on Gaza.
These delegations refused to further legitimize and reinforce the Egyptian government’s policy of occasionally allowing small aid convoys into the besieged Gaza Strip. They view the Gaza Freedom March as a political, rather than humanitarian effort, designed to pressure the Egyptian government into opening the Rafah crossing permanently.
The groups saw the acceptance of this offer by organizers as a betrayal to the original mission statement, and a dangerous compromise with the Egyptian government, allowing it to only perpetuate its inhumane policy of closure at the Rafah border with Gaza.
There was also the fear that the Egyptian government would use this 100-person convoy as a public relations ploy, deflecting attention from the fact that the siege on Gaza is only tightening, as evidenced by recent reports of the construction of an underground steel wall, designed to block Gaza’s only lifeline to the outside world — its underground system of tunnels.
As the 100 delegates boarded their busses in downtown Cairo yesterday morning, 85-year-old Hedy Epstein, a Holocaust survivor and participant in the march, arrived and made an unexpected announcement. Echoing the sentiments of the dissenting delegations, she also publicly rejected an offer to join the convoy. “This is one of the most difficult decisions I’ve made in my life. But 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the massacre in Gaza last year, and all 1,400 of us need to go” she said.
Shortly thereafter, local march organizers in the Gaza Strip also reversed their initial support for the convoy. In a letter addressed to the Gaza Freedom March steering committee and participants, Dr. Haider Eid and Omar Barghouti — two of the main organizers — called on supporters to “boycott the deal reached with the Egyptian government.”
“We are unambiguous in perceiving this compromise as too heavy, too divisive and too destructive to our future work and networking with various solidarity movements around the world,” they said.
After news of these two crucial statements spread, some of the 100 delegates got off the busses and decided against going to Gaza. Those present at the bus depot reported that Egyptian police began reloading these individuals’ luggage and attempting to force them back onto the busses.
Rumors circulated throughout the day that only 40 people ended up departing Cairo for Gaza. Late on Wednesday evening however, CODEPINK, one of the main organizers, reported that 87 persons had reached the Rafah crossing and were waiting to be processed.
Following these events, the Gaza Freedom March international steering committee also issued a press release on Wednesday officially rejecting Egypt’s proposal. “We flatly reject Egypt’s offer of a token gesture. We refuse to whitewash the siege of Gaza. Our group will continue working to get all 1,362 marchers into Gaza as one step towards the ultimate goal for the complete end of the siege and the liberation of Palestine” said Ziyaad Lunat, a member of the march’s steering committee.
However, there remained the awkward situation where the organizers had sent 87 delegates to Gaza, while hours later “rejecting” Egypt’s offer.
Separately on Wednesday, the South African delegation spearheaded a joint international effort to hammer out the beginnings of a universal anti-apartheid declaration aimed at reinvigorating the global Palestine solidarity movement.
The document, which is still under construction, aims to identify practical steps, including the endorsement of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS), which global civil society can utilize to pressure Israel to abide by international law and respect Palestinian human rights.
The document is undergoing tweaks, and once endorsed by Palestinian civil society, will be issued as a joint declaration by the various nations who were represented at the Gaza Freedom March.
Thursday, 31 December
This morning, Thursday 31 December, hundreds of Gaza Freedom March participants left their various protest sites across Cairo and converged outside the Egyptian Museum of National History, one of the city’s most visible and central landmarks.
To avoid the detention and harassment experienced at the hands of Egyptian security forces over the last few days, delegates travelled clandestinely to the venue in small groups and pretended to be tourists. Despite these efforts, a hotel housing a large contingent of the march participants was barricaded early this morning by Egyptian police. Nobody was allowed to leave for several hours, causing many to miss the protest.
Outside the Egyptian National Museum, the hundreds of small groups waited for a secret signal and instantly swarmed together, forming one large group, and began marching down the road. This tactic had to be adopted because any large gathering of people before the march would have been broken up by police.
After marching for approximately 20 meters, hundreds of Egyptian riot police rushed toward the crowd and encircled them. In an effort to peacefully hold their ground, marchers sat on the ground. In what was a surprisingly heavy-handed response to foreigners, the police began pulling, beating and kicking protestors to get them out of the road.
While rows of riot police shoved the group from behind, police at the front and sides pushed back, causing panic and hundreds of individuals to fall to the ground. Several women were punched, kicked and dragged out of the road, while many elderly persons were pinned beneath others who had fallen on top of them. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries beyond a few bloody noses and people who had sustained cuts and bruises.
After approximately 15 minutes of this, police managed to corral the entire group into an area just off the road, where the protest continued peacefully for the rest of the day. Although unable to march, the group held a loud and emotional protest in support of those besieged in the Gaza Strip.
The crowd sang, chanted, hung flags and banners from trees and called on the Egyptian government to end its complicity in the siege imposed on the people of Gaza. Representatives of each of the dozens of countries present gave short but moving speeches, demonstrating the truly international show of solidarity for the people of Gaza in this march.
Haroon Wadee, an organizer of the South African delegation, highlighted the similarities between the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa and the current struggle of the Palestinian people for their freedom and liberation. He recalled the famous quote of former South African President Nelson Mandela who said that “South Africa is not free until Palestine is free.”
While it was deeply disappointing for the nearly 1,400 delegates who came from 43 countries that they could not physically be in Gaza today, this was a momentous and historic gathering of justice-loving people from every corner of the globe, united by their common desire to see Gaza free. On the eve of a new year, the crowd vowed to do everything in their power to make 2010 the year that the siege of Gaza is finally and forever broken.
Sayed Dhansay is a South African human rights activist and independent freelance writer. He volunteered for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2006 and is an organizer of the South African delegation for the Gaza Freedom March. He blogs at http://sayeddhansay.wordpress.com.