Protest at the United Nation building in Cairo (Photo: Rafaella Lima)
As the Gaza Freedom March finally makes the pages of the New York Times, Egypt has announced that they will allow 100 members of the march to enter Gaza. This is from the over 1,300 people in Cairo who have assembled to enter the besieged territory.
"It’s a partial victory," said Medea Benjamin, an American activist and one of the demonstrations organisers. "It shows that mass pressure has an effect."
They said the foreign ministry offered to let them choose 100 delegates who would be allowed into Gaza. They were due to leave Cairo for Gaza on Wednesday morning.
Activists have staged demonstrations and sit-ins around Cairo to push for entry to Gaza. Dozens of French activists camped out in front of their embassy in Cairo after being refused passage.
The offer, however, angered many of the activists. A French organiser rejected it as divisive and said the sit-in in front of the French embassy would continue.
"This just gives the Egyptian government a photo-up and the chance say we allowed people through," said Bassem Omar, a Canadian protester. Activists left behind in Cairo said they planned further protests.
Egypt had said it barred the protesters because of the "sensitive situation" in Gaza. It has refused to permanently open the Rafah crossing since the militant Islamist group Hamas took over Gaza in 2007, prompting Israel’s blockade, but opens it for a few days every month.
Ali Abunimah weighs in on his blog:
It’s not enough and the pressure and protests should be kept up. The deciding factor for me is what the organizers in Gaza want, and they want this group to come to Gaza. I understand all the objections to accepting a small offer, but everything else is secondary. It is essential however that the protests continue and the demand that all Gaza Freedom Marchers be allowed to travel. However, getting 100 or 1300 into Gaza does not end the siege by itself. This is not about getting some or even all into Gaza, its building global support and pressure to end the siege of Gaza. Our demand must remain the same, and it must be pressed loudly and insistently: open the border, end the siege.
Maybe Egypt will recant if the pressure continues to be escalated by the demonstrators. The statement by the Egyptian foreign minister was not kind language. He obviously is very frustrated and probably angry that in his mind the European demonstrators are being given special treatment relative to Egyptian norms.
(I’m speculating as to his thinking.)
Hopefully the 100 selected will retain the non-violent discipline that the march is promoted as adopting.
Again, the best outcome is a consented and orderly path for construction materials to enter Gaza, NOT open and unregulated borders, and NOT encouragement of Hamas militia approaches.
That would put the demonstrators in the role of willingly entering Palestinian partisan politics. Hemingway, Orwell or not (Spanish Civil War partisans. They each recanted their prior politically romantic positions, and fascist Spain remained in power for another 45 years.)
Are you trying to compare the Palestinian desire to be rid of Israeli occupation to fascist Spain?
“He obviously is very frustrated and probably angry that in his mind the European demonstrators are being given special treatment relative to Egyptian norms.”
“Egyptian norms?” Is this all you have to say about this tyrannical government, perpetuated by US support, all in the name of perpetuating illegal acts against an occupied people? A mind reader you are not (“I’m speculating as to his thinking”), seeing that you are bereft of any ability to read plain facts and reality.
Great, so Witty, with all the war crimes IDF has committed, when can we expect a blockade of Israel? I mean, Gaza has done far less to earn its blockade, hasn’t it?
Or… are you going to demonstrate yet again that you apply different rules to Jews than you do to everyone else on the planet?
Re: recanting “their prior politically romantic positions” concerning the Spanish Civil War era:
“Given the statements by Enzo Sereni and Moshe Beilenson in Jews and Arabs in Palestine, which was published in July 1936, the very month that the Fascists revolted in Spain, it is apparent that the Labour Zionists’ thinking at that time was not defensive; their ambition was to conquer Palestine and economically dominate the Middle East. The ["anti-jewish"] “riots” were the natural defence response to their ambitions and not the other way around.
[snip]
Stalin’s crimes in Spain are part of the Civil War and they cannot be minimised. Nevertheless, those leftists [including a significant number of international jews fighting as self-identified radicals, not jews] were fighting and dying in the front lines of the world struggle against international Fascism, while the Labour Zionists were receiving Adolf Eichmann as their guest in Palestine and offering to spy for the SS.”
link to marxists.de
Well, Dick witty, hasn’t the US government entered into Palestinian partisan politics?
And, more by omission than commission a la the USA regime(s), haven’t many European powers done the same? I say more power to the demonstrators:
“My message is for the world governments to wake up and treat Israel like they treat any other country and not to be afraid to reprimand and criticize Israel for its violent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians,” Ms. Epstein said. “I brought a suitcase full of things, pencils, pens, crayons, writing paper to take to children in Gaza — I can’t take that back home.”
Egyptian norms? You mean how the Egyptian government would treat them had they been Egyptian and NOT European? I suppose we should respect Chinese norms when they decide to execute people.
Your word ‘politically romantic’ is precise! This gives an enormous passionate climactic ecstasy to be politically championing up against (for whatever cause) and challenging the government Goliath…This has been ‘in’ among ‘intellectually’ renown men like Hemingway…At least he might have enjoyed seeing at the poor Spaniards reeling under a fascist dictatorship for almost a generation.
Comments like yours Zamaaz and Witty’s are a huge disrespect to the suffering of the Palestinians. This is not about favouring the underdog whether they’re right and wrong, this is a movement to get the world to treat the Palestinians as human beings, which means plucking up the courage to criticise Israel’s inhumane behaviour towards the Palestinians.
In my post yesterday, I told you that we were fighting for Palestinians to be treated with the same dignity that Israelis are treated with. From that sentence, you came to the conclusion that I don’t care about Israeli dignity – How?
Is a protest calling for the suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza to be relieved (by ending the blockade), really that awful? How does the blockade help Israel other than show the world that it doesn’t care about the welfare of Palestinian citizens, even though it has a legal obligation to protect them (as occupier)?
Shafiq, people like Witty and Zamaaz are simply never going to care about social justice and human rights.
The blockade of Gaza is for a combination of objective and political reasons, mostly objective.
That is that Hamas remains in a declared state of war with Israel, that it confirms by shelling civilians still periodically. If the PA controlled Gaza, that status would be different.
They verbally threaten to reinstate their rocket firing capacity, that is ONLY directed at civilians, and only in imprecise terrorizing fashion. They have no qualms, no need to even appear to be abiding by international law of war.
The only reason that the Goldstone report has leverage against Israel is that it does internally regard the Geneva conventions as valid and binding, and must internally address skepticism that it is complying (and rationalizes a lot of borderline compliance/non-compliance), and is concerned with the public opinion of the rest of the world.
Hamas is not that concerned with European and American opinion, except as leverage against Israel, but is concerned with the public opinion of the Islamic world. That the balance of the Islamic world is generally NOT concerned with human rights abuses against Israel, it has no current functional public accountability.
Israel is waiting patiently for that formula of absence of Hamas accountability to change, either by the Muslim world asserting that Israelis are human beings, and “stop the fucking shelling on humanitarian grounds”, or by it joining the PA and as a party in an international state accountable to the laws and expectations of its stakeholders (trade, political, ethnic/cultural, religious).
Donald’s comments on Israel’s motives to isolate Hamas are true, but the reality that Israelis in high places including Mossad and defense establishment publicly stated their respect and appreciation for Hamas keeping its agreements for the period in question.
They were hopeful for change and horribly disappointed at the rapidity of returning to shelling (a day before the hudna ended, actually), and the degree that Hamas was willing to escalate. They sincerely hoped for a token warning (shooting rockets into the desert) and instead got escalation to shelling cities of 180,000 people.
You don’t get how that would be understood as a provocation to war?
Hamas is not that concerned with European and American opinion, except as leverage against Israel, but is concerned with the public opinion of the Islamic world. That the balance of the Islamic world is generally NOT concerned with human rights abuses against Israel, it has no current functional public accountability.
Israel is not concerned with European and American opinion, expect as leverage against the Palestinians, but it is concerned with the public opinion of the Jewry. The balance of the Jewish world is generally NOT concerned with human rights abuses against Palestinians, it has no current functional public accountability.
Doesn’t it sound slightly anti-Semitic?
And now, for some actual factual data.
link to huffingtonpost.com
Your argument is overturned by the sheer facts of the situation.
That summary didn’t conflict with my summary.
The ceasefire didn’t definitively end on November 4. It was partially and nearly completely restored at least from Hamas actions in December, until the 17th.
So that we get this straight — the cease fire was restored after Israel violated it because Hamas made a gesture of peace to restore it.
And the statistical data remains uncontested — the vast majority of the time, periods of peace are ended when Israelis kill Palestinians, not vice versa.
Yes, firing rockets into towns can’t be tolerated. I agree with that, though I’d add that this applies to munitions going in both directions. I don’t think Hamas should have done it no matter who started the violence. I’ve said this to you before and I know you’ve seen it. I don’t like Hamas — as HRW documented (you know,that horrible anti-Israel organization that never pays any attention to anyone but Israel, according to Richard Bernstein), Hamas also has a rather nasty human rights record internally. I think that if the Palestinians ever acquire their own state, they’ll have to watch out that they don’t find they’ve traded outside oppressors for inside ones. That’s a common problem with liberation movements, unfortunately.
But that doesn’t excuse the blockade and again, you talk about the Israelis as though they have the right to judge. If they wanted a partner for peace then they shouldn’t be blockading civilian goods and if they keep this up, they should be held responsible for their own massive provocations and their extraordinary arrogance. If it is acceptable to subject 1.5 million Gazans to this kind of oppression, then maybe Israelis should be subjected to the same treatment. If Israel can block not only weapons, but the ordinary civilian necessities from getting in, then what does Israel deserve, given their own behavior? They are a democracy, but they seem to have no respect whatsoever for the human rights criticism they receive from the outside.
Of course, Obama has demonstrated that the US is similar in many respects, but that’s Western liberalism for you–90 percent hypocrisy on the human rights standards it claims to uphold.
You make an interesting point stated calmly.
I support Israel’s sovereignty so regard its management of its borders to be its business, and also agree that the exclusion of building materials from import is wrong.
I assume that you heard my description of the Israeli hope then disappointment that Hamas would moderate its approach after the hudna. (It wasn’t actually a “cease-fire”. That is a different word, which I don’t know.)
I can’t predict the future, but the FACT that the Mossad chief and IDF spokesmen publicly stated appreciation for Hamas’ discipline was a qualitative change in attitude among prominent Israelis, that is now dashed. Hamas demonstrated that they had the ability to discipline their military and factions, and Israelis hoped that they had the intent, consented among the decision-makers within Hamas.
They now conclude that Hamas has the ability to discipline, and that some of Gazan Hamas leaders (mostly older than 40) have the intent to moderate, but that exiles and youth don’t have that intent.
They conclude that Hamas is still posturing for Palestinian street cred by doing whatever it can to stick it to Israel.
That is why that I conclude that the ball is in Hamas’ court to moderate, to give experienced social service people the leadership roles rather than the youthful militias. And, that the social service people can talk to Israeli’s, and will at least partially fall on sympathetic ears, hopefully enough to reconcile, and facilitate Hamas’ civil participation in the PA.
As Rabin demonstrated, Palestinian determination and assertion is reluctantly respected among those that have worked with and in opposition to them. But, militancy and terror is not respected, far far beyond disrespect.
Donald,
You are unique here in overtly describing repugnance to terror as a means. Others may feel it, but they don’t say it.
The MEMRI defense! Here’s a scary Arabic word that I can use to dehumanize Palestinians! “Hudna! Hudna! Hudna! Intifadah! Jihad Jihad!”
Witty, you think you frame yourself as some better than other racist Zionists, but you’re not. You’re exactly the same, you’re just wordier and capable of maintaining a greater degree of insincerity.
Also? You are completely ignoring the factual data I presented. If you don’t want to appear delusional, Witty, you might want to discuss that.
The blockade of Gaza has as its objective the weakening of the Palestinian people as a collective charged with correcting injustice met on them by Israel, and before Israel, the Jewish Agency. The intent is to coerce “voluntary” Palestinian transfer out of the former Palestinian mandate lands; a good analogy is the USA legal concept of “adhesive contract.” The old analog is
the concept of “indentured servant.”
The technical surgical capacity of a home-made Palestinian rocket is not comparable to
that of a USA paid for and given as gift Israeli rocket. They are apples and oranges in terms of sophisticated targeting.
The leverage of the Goldstone Report is resident in its content, and also
in by whom and how it has been derailed.
Israel is not concerned with EU or American opinion, except that it will
play PR dialogue all the while doing exactly what it wants to do. The PR
is to assure continued US UN veto support and USA tax payer dollars coming to it sans conditions.
The world and an ever-growing grass roots America, pushing past the
blinders set up by its own government and MSM, realize that Palestinians are actually human, and Uncle Sam’s kissing Israel’s ass is not really such a good thing for the USA, or the world.
Disrespect? Have you not noticed in all my arguments that I am driving for everybody not to do anything noble or wicked, to propagate this war? I want every one to sitdown, be temperate, and genuinely rational that this ‘stupid’ senseless war will not go on. I know there could be forces that use propaganda to gain strategic advantage over these matters, but the reality is, there are vulnerable people who really suffers! If we are truly merciful, then let us now give these people mercy by start working positively on how to settle this war – not infecting others with bitterness and hatred! You know, I could not even understand how would I feel every time I see on screen people in Gaza crying?
If we, particularly living and knowlegeable in these country, could not fully understand this war, how callous we are!
Do away with our vengeance! Forget our animosities. Let us help each other stop this war!
That is perceived as naive. Most of the activists here have proceeded to “which side are you on”, and renounced possibility of peace as each option containing fundamental compromise on the part of Palestinians, and requiring some trust of Israel.
Thanks a lot Chaos4700 for the facts, now we could come closer to the root of the matter…Yet, I remained to have reservations because we really do not know the real intents, to be fair, but somehow, logical deductions on possible motives could help us come closer…the raw truth could even be more bitter…
Yes, Richard, this furor over the rights activists puts another addendum to this mess. I think if we, including all outsiders, sympathizers, and other fellows) only allow the leadership of Palestinians and Israel solely focus on the Gaza conflict (sans Lebanon and others) by themselves, they could start ‘the wheel of peace’ rolling…It now appears based on your and Aref respective timelines, what we at first need is to give time and space for mutual trust between them to build-up. Of course, unless when anyone of the parties really does not want peace. At least the whole world could know!
No, Richard (#23). The activists here reject all your ideas for peace because they are naive – they require total compromise on the part of the Palestinians and complete faith in Israel. Excuse us if we’re a bit sceptical in trusting Israel, but I think you know why we don’t.
I have a dream…
link to youtube.com
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Witty: “He obviously is very frustrated and probably angry that in his mind the European demonstrators are being given special treatment relative to Egyptian norms.”
These foreigners are forcing him to treat them differently than he would treat his own native wogs?
This is a attitude I found throughout the Middle East (and one I took full advantage of). There is a lot more overt racialism (or, at least, inter-tribalism and inter-classism) than one might expect.
The Arab world is not a monolith; in every country, there are despised minorities and over-respected ruling classes.
The great majority of Arab elites suffer inferiority complex thanks to 150 years of western colonization. I noticed tha personally when I used to work there as Canadian consulting engineer on loan. Mubbarak regime’s initiative is not result of the plight of its brother Arab Gazzan but its concern for the bad publicity in the West.
As far as The New York Times is concerned – its staff is very busy in churning new lies about Islamic Iran and Muslims as a community. Even our Toronto Star as build a seperated section on Iran which list Hasbara lies from Iranian protests to the Nigerian terrorist.
The ‘Nigerian Terrorist’
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
Actually, did anyone else notice that when yesterday’s MSM headlines screamed that Al Queda “took credit” for the attempted bombing aboard the Detroit flight, it wasn’t the CIA or Homeland Security that determined this . . . it was MEMRI!
To take just one example, on December 28, “al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” posted a statement on the jihadi website Shumukh Al-Islam. Translated by MEMRI, it claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attack and promised more terrorism to come. The statement added: “We will continue in this path, Allah willing, until we reach our goal so that religion is all Allah’s.” Is that really so hard to understand?
link to article.nationalreview.com
How convenient that MEMRI is banging the war drums for another round of Clash of Civilizations. (link to memrijttm.org
As one commentator noted on December 3 before the attempted bombing:
Anyway, as a sidenote, I should mention that Christopher Dickey is being a little dishonest in how he represents MEMRI as simply “translating politically-sensitive articles”. MEMRI is obviously an Israeli front organization in their propaganda war, as other journalists have noted, which deliberately concentrates on translating articles that are inflammatory and present a false view of the Mideast but which, purely by coincidence, corresponds to the NeoCon view. (Note also that MEMRI doesn’t bother translating the inflammatory stuff from the Israeli media.)
link to iranaffairs.com
Anyone care for a slice of Nigerian yellowcake?
facebook PHOTO ALBUM on the gaza march
Great pics – thanks for the link.
awesome i want to buy the black t-shirt with i m Gaza as slogan!
Mubarak’s primary concern is repression of unrest on his own streets. This is not served by confining a thousand determined protesters on those streets, denouncing his regime for collaboration with their traditional enemy, inciting unrest by their presence. He would be much better off shipping them to Gaza where they want to be.
This is so obviously the case that it only raises the question: what overwhelming benefit is there for Mubarak to continue supporting this blockade and risking the inevitable blowback? What is he being paid? (and no, it’s not just the usual $2 billion he’d get from the US anyway)
From the Times article Adam cited:
One protester, Hedy Epstein, 85, a Holocaust survivor, arrived in Egypt from the United States on Saturday. She said she started a hunger strike on Monday.
“My message is for the world governments to wake up and treat Israel like they treat any other country and not to be afraid to reprimand and criticize Israel for its violent policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians,” Ms. Epstein said. “I brought a suitcase full of things, pencils, pens, crayons, writing paper to take to children in Gaza — I can’t take that back home.”
I wonder if this means the hasbara crew will call Hedy Epstein a self-hater?
I wonder if this means the hasbara crew will call Hedy Epstein a self-hater?
Uh surely you know she was stripped and body cavity searched in Israel due to her anti-zionist leanings?
“St. Louis resident Hedy Epstein, whose parents and extended family perished in Nazi camps, and whose story is featured in the Academy Award winning documentary “Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport,” reports being strip searched three years ago following her participation in nonviolent protests in the West Bank. Epstein, who was 79 at the time, describes being forced to bend over for an Israeli official to search her internally.”
link to ifamericansknew.org
For now she could have suffered the similarities between a Nazi state that wanted to annihilate Israelis, and the Israelis that wanted to survive as a nation after the Holocaust by the Nazi. Do you think the murder of over a million Jews was right decision?
So, Hitler has a time machine now?
Are you really trying to use the Holocaust to justify Israel’s disgusting treatment of Hedy Epstein?
Or does she Hedy Epstein thinks after she underwent ‘bad treatment’ under the present Israeli government, the murder of her family by the Nazi a correct decision?
Are you for real? That makes no sense whatsoever.
You know, Israel didn’t save Hedy Epstein from the Nazis. I believe she escaped Germany via England, from what I’ve read.
Careful, z. Getting the wrong number of dead Jews makes you a Holocaust-denier, don’t you know?
Witty, yonira friends. please watch this link to youtube.com
Eeek. The pro-AIPAC crowd really doesn’t know protester etiquette. If they didn’t have the Lobby behind them, those guys probably would have been arrested.
Did you see the guy who as telling the pro-peace protester that he is a self-hating jew, and once the other guy told him that he is not Jew, he then replied “you are worse then, you are a piece of shit”, in France i would sue this guy for being racist against goys.
This shows how cruel these Zionists protesters are, Chaos (i think) described this very well when he made a rhetoric about the dog who sees only black and white.
I can’t take credit for that one, sorry. :) Wasn’t me. But yeah… I’ve heard stories about counter-protesters but where I live those that show up to be adversarial are so incredibly small — like four or five people versus two dozen or more — or not even present.
Of course, I live in a “fly over” state, so AIPAC doesn’t exactly feel the need to invest much PR in our neck of the woods. It was hard to tell with all the shouting, but I think at least one of those people at the counter-protest had a Jersey accent. Do you suppose he just happened to be vacationing in San Fransisco, hmm?
Yeah, I saw it. You are a self-hating jew if you protest the occupation, and if you are a gentile protesting the occupation, you are worse, just a “piece of shit.” Maybe in France they have implemented laws against being anti-gentile; but in the USA, that’s not even a misdemeanor. In the USA its always open season on gentiles in any context remotely involving jews. The goys are always fair game,
and the white non-jewish male Americans especially so regarding any political issue at all.
the answer is REVOLUTION :-) Thanks to the Internet who made people like us from all over the globe to get connected and exchange ideas. Its the 31 dec here and i would like to wish you Happy new year from Paris.
It reminded me of how I am spoken to here, but by dissenters.
Both are hotheaded approaches.
haha Witty playing the victime, people here argue with you, nobody calls you piece of shit because you are Jew. The guy said you are not jew then you are worse a piece of shit. Do you see the difference?