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Gaza Freedom March Wrap Up

By Sana (Keffiyeh And Onions)

I’m sure its going to take me some time to process everything that has happened in Cairo with the Gaza Freedom March over the past week or so but here are some of my initial thoughts and feelings. Bear in mind, these are my own opinions and reflections and they surely are not the same as the 1300 other people who were in Cairo. So for what its worth – here it goes:

This whole political experience here with CODEPINK, for me, has been honestly disappointing and angering. I’m going to be honest here, I did not participate in many of the protests that took place in Cairo because I had serious issues with the way everything was being handled and the way that the March really seemed to have fallen apart and unraveled once everyone realized that our chances of getting into Gaza were really slim to none. From the very first meeting that was held in Tahrir Square, the individuals who were going to be staying in Gaza longer (past January 2nd) were told to not participate in any of these demonstrations because if we did somehow come up with a way to get into Gaza, if we had any record or history with problems with the Egyptians – this would effectively eliminate any chance of us getting in. People told us to completely “disassociate from the March” and that because Egypt is not a democracy, “nothing we do will change their minds” – which sadly, ended up being quite true despite how often people demonstrated, were barricaded in by people, and some even beaten up. Moral of the story: This is not the U.S., they don’t care that you’re Americans, and we did not fly thousands of miles to protest in Egypt.

Aside from this though, there were so many critical problems with the way things were being done and decisions were being made that I really felt uncomfortable with doing anything that GFM was doing in Cairo.

I felt as though there was no insight to the way the Egyptian government works, or the greater public opinion in Egypt, at all. We cannot simply think that a country, who has religiously served the agenda of the U.S. and Israel, will do a complete 360 and open the borders when a group of activists show up, no matter how big. Anyone who has any familiarity with the politics of this conflict, know that Egypt’s role in ensuring the Palestinian suffering is not a new or novel concept. Given that, the fact that CODEPINK did not prepare for the very unsurprising setback that Egypt delivered by closing its borders, really baffled me. When we got news on Monday, that the borders were going to be closed and no one would enter, I figured that this was a very expected move (especially after news of Egypt’s steel wall just was released as well) and that the steering committee and whoever else also saw this coming and that surely back up plans and strategies were on hand now that Egypt played its cards. But after a couple days when everyone started arriving and it was time to figure out what we were going to do, it just seemed like these small fragmented actions (the hunger strike here, french sit-in there) were things that groups were doing on their own, hardly with any support from the mass collective. There was no unified message besides come out in the streets and protest. It felt like everyone kind of went their own way and that now instead of focusing on the occupation we were going to go after the Egyptian government – which as much as I have issues with that they are doing and how they add to the Palestinian suffering – that is not why I came here.

Lets clarify something here. As much as I hate Egypt, Egypt is NOT occupying the Palestinian territories. ISRAEL is. I mean, to a certain degree, by doing of all this, I feel, we took a lot of heat off of Israel b/c the press coverage just shows a bunch of people demonstrating in Cairo, which is giving the message that we have a problem with Egypt for what they are doing wrong when we were here to raise awareness of the ISRAELI OCCUPATION and Operation Cast Lead which was carried out by ISRAEL one year ago. Why are people shouting “Free Egypt” at the demonstrations? It makes no sense, we had no focus.

I want to believe that GFM tried to do the best that it could, given the circumstances, but honestly it just led to many people feeling as if they had to do something, anything, since we weren’t being allowed in Gaza. Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in public resistance and demonstrating, even getting arrested when its necessary, etc – but you cannot do these things without tons of planning, proper escalation tactics leading up to massive direct action like that, and a solid SOLID solid foundation in Egypt (resources, connections, lawyers, etc) for the people that do take those risks. Otherwise, you just end up looking like a bunch of stupid foreigners (mostly Americans) who are protesting, sitting in, going on hunger strike – for what? We came here to deliver aid and stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza – if that was not going to happen then we could have held all of these actions back in our home towns where we know how things work, we know what resources we have, and we can accurately assess what type of risk we are willing to take for this dire cause. After these past few days, I feel that all we’ve done is agitate Egypt for a brief period of time, spent a lot of money fueling this unjust country’s economy, and made the daily lives of the Egyptian people harder.

When our plans fell through, and it did not seem like we were going to get in, there should have been a massive meeting/discussion with a vote with all of the delegates who have come from around the world as to what we think would be the best thing to do. But when people were told to figure it out and come up with ideas, you had serious fragmentation and people, like the French delegates, who were occupying the area in front of the Embassy feeling like they did not have support or instances like when the entire Japanese delegation just left after the first day for the West Bank. All I’ve been asking myself these past few days is “What the hell is going on?” and “What is all of this?”. And to tell the truth, I still really don’t know because I don’t think GFM really even knows.

The “100 people to Gaza” stunt was also another fiasco that only further divided this group and our efforts. At first, CODEPINK accepts this offer and takes credit for it since the women went and talked to Suzanne Mubarak. They come up with a list in a very short time of these people who would get to go, not realizing what a bad mistake this is. After a few hour, they do realize its a bad idea, send out an official message saying how they have ‘rejected’ this offer, and yet, lo and behold people STILL got on the buses and went? Again, “What is going on?”

I realize that this has gotten really long already and these are just some of my preliminary thoughts from the past few days. As of right now this is how I feel: as much as I’d like to really blame fully the repressive Egyptian dictatorship for the Gaza Freedom March falling apart and not succeeding, I believe that CODEPINK, and the same old foreign arrogance/ignorance we have, has a lot to do with it this time as well. Sadly, the Palestinian people are still under occupation and I wish the best of luck to the VIVA Palestina convoys who seem to have a better grasp on how to deal with all this nonsense than we do.

Until later, free free Palestine,

-Sana

January 2, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Israeli forces attack Gaza Strip

Press TV – January 1, 2010 23:36:23 GMT

Israeli warplanes and tanks have carried out attacks across the Gaza Strip, damaging residential areas and leaving four Palestinians wounded.

The airstrikes which targeted residential areas in northern and central Gaza Strip, caused panic among children in the region, a Press TV correspondent reported on Friday.

Witnesses said Israeli F16 fighters fired two missiles and Israeli tanks fired two shells that landed at empty areas east and northeast of Gaza City, DPA reported.

Local ambulances took the wounded from eastern Gaza to hospital for medical treatment, according to medical sources.

An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the attacks, but gave no further details, AFP reported.

Following the airstrikes, Israeli warplanes were still hovering about the strip, a Press TV correspondent reported.

The attacks were reminiscent of Israel’s three-week-long onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which was launched in late December 2008 and continued into the New Year.

More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the 2008-2009 Israeli land, sea and air offensive in the Gaza Strip which also devastated a large part of the infrastructure, inflicting about USD 2 billion in damage on the Gazan economy.

January 1, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

‘The two-state solution is starting to look impractical’

By Jonathan Cook
The National
December 31. 2009

NAZARETH // The biggest effect for Israel’s 1.3 million Palestinian citizens of its assault on Gaza last winter has been to smash any remaining illusions that there is a future for the minority in a Jewish state, the community’s leaders have agreed.

They say that minority voters have almost completely abandoned Zionist parties, even left-wing ones, believing that none is really interested in a peaceful solution to the country’s conflict with the Palestinians.

That was reflected in February, one month after Operation Cast Lead ended, in the lowest turnout ever posted by the Palestinian minority in an election. Only 53 per cent voted, down more than 25 percentage points since the mid-1990s, in the more optimistic Oslo period.

Haneen Zoubi, who was elected to the Israeli parliament for the first time in 2009, pointed out that the minority’s share of the vote for Jewish parties had fallen to an all-time low of 17 per cent. Back in the early 1990s half of Israel’s Palestinian voters supported such parties.

“More and more Palestinian citizens are understanding that Israel is not serious about negotiations for peace,” she said. “People are disillusioned with a leadership that is simply trying to buy time and manage the conflict rather than solve it.”

That view was shared by Mohammed Zeidan, director of the Arab Association for Human Rights, based in Nazareth. “We need a new way of dealing with Israel. The two-state solution is starting to look impractical and that has given a significant push to the idea that Palestinians inside Israel should be campaigning for a single state for both peoples.”

This new-found political confidence was manifest during the Gaza offensive, Mr Zeidan said, when Palestinian citizens held the biggest protests in their history. The largest, in the northern city of Sakhnin, drew a crowd of at least 100,000.

“There is much more certainty among the Palestinian public and leadership inside Israel that it has a right to speak out on pan-Palestinian issues,” he said.

“Once, we tended to remain on the sidelines, waiting to take our political cues from the Palestinian leadership outside Israel. Now, the Palestinian Authority is seen to be damaging the popular consensus among Palestinians and people here are looking for their own answers.”

One Palestinian party, the National Democratic Assembly, even went so far as to call for the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, during the attack on Gaza after his Palestinian Authority was seen to be suppressing dissent in the West Bank.

Ms Zoubi, a NDA member, said: “It was clear that Israel would have had a much harder time dealing with the fallout from Gaza, including the Goldstone report, were it not for the silence of Mahmoud Abbas. He is facing a lot of anger and criticism from Palestinians inside Israel.”

Jafar Farah, director of Mossawa, a Haifa-based advocacy group for the minority, said last year’s attack had led directly to the current government of Benjamin Netanyahu, one of the most right wing in Israel’s history.

“Ever since, we have seen an attack on freedoms and the rights of Palestinian citizens,” he said. “There have been at least 25 discriminatory laws proposed over the past six months. Most have yet to be approved but the implications of the legislative push are clear.”

January 1, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Israeli forces shut down Hebron tree planting

January 1, 2010

Hebron – Ma’an – Israeli authorities banned a group of Palestinians from planting trees near the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday after settlers disrupted their work, organizers said.

Dozens of Palestinian residents were planting trees in the Al-Buwiryah area, near the settlement of Kiryat Arba, responding to a call from senior Fatah leaders.

Members of the group said settlers arrived in the area, interrupting the planting. Israeli soldiers on the scene declared the area a closed military zone and confiscated a number of trees, participants said.

The soldiers also ordered a Palestinian photojournalist, Nasser Ash-Shyukhi, not to photograph the incident.

January 1, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation | Leave a comment

Israel: Slain Palestinians were supposed to be arrested

Press TV – January 1, 2010 11:40:23 GMT
Israelis on an army operation in the West Bank city of Nablus

Israeli officials have acknowledged that they had ordered soldiers to arrest the three Palestinians who were shot dead in Nablus last week.

The order for the Duvdevan commando unit clearly stated that the aim of the attack was to capture Adnan Subuh, Raad Sarkaji and Ghassan Abu Sheikh, Israeli sources said.

The Israeli forces received the written order several hours before raiding the occupied West Bank homes of the Palestinian trio.

According to eyewitnesses, the three Palestinian victims were executed on the spot.

Meanwhile, the witnesses also believe that Israeli claims that the victims were involved in the killing of the Rabbi are baseless fabrications.

The victims were members of the Fatah Movement, led by acting Palestinian Authority Chief Mahmoud Abbas.

January 1, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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