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Barnabe Geisweiller

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  • 'Simpsons' go to the 'happiest place on earth'
  • The Gaza Freedom March
    • Barnabe Geisweiller January 25, 2010 at 4:04 pm

      You might want to read the article again Emi, I did speak to civil society. Strangely enough, Israeli journalist and Gaza expert, Amira Hass, reached the same conclusions I did. But, clearly, you must have an understanding of the situation that we just can't grasp.

      Amira Hass in Haaretz:

      "The story gradually became clear. The international organizers of the march coordinated it with civil society, various non-governmental organizations, which were also supposed to involve the Popular Committee to Break the Siege, a semi-official organization affiliated with Hamas. Many European activists have long-standing connections with left-wing organizations in the Gaza Strip. Those organizations, especially the relatively large Popular Front, had organized lodging for several hundred guests in private homes. When the Hamas government heard this, it prohibited the move. "For security reasons." What else?

      Also "for security reasons," apparently, on Thursday morning, the activists discovered a cordon of stern-faced, tough Hamas security men blocking them from leaving the hotel (which is owned by Hamas). The security officials accompanied the activists as they visited homes and organizations.

      During the march itself, when Gazans watching from the sidelines tried to speak with the visitors, the stern-faced security men blocked them. "They didn't want us to speak to ordinary people," one woman concluded.

      Hijacked or poorly organized?

      The march was not what the organizers had dreamed of during the nine months of preparation. The day before the trip to Gaza, they already knew that the non-governmental organizations had backed out. Some people said that Hamas government representatives had found the NGOs did not have a clear, organized plan for the guests and therefore had taken the initiative. One Palestinian activist insisted: "When we heard there would only be 100, we canceled everything."

      Another said, "From the outset, Hamas set conditions: No more than 5,000 marchers, no approaching the wall and the fence, how to make speeches, how long the speeches should be, who will make speeches. In short, Hamas hijacked the initiative from us and we gave in."

      Hamas, or its Popular Committee, brought 200 or 300 marchers. The march turned into nothing more than a ritual, an opportunity for Hamas cabinet ministers to get decent media coverage in the company of Western demonstrators. Especially photogenic were four Americans from the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox Jewish group Neturei Karta, who joined the trip only at Al Arish. There were no Palestinian women among the marchers - a slap to the many feminist organizers and participants, both women and men.

      After the march, the guests voiced protests to some of the official Palestinian organizers. "We came to demonstrate against the siege, and we found that we ourselves were under siege," they said. Their variegation and the transparency of their behavior did not suit the military discipline the official hosts tried to impose. The officials listened, and after the reins were loosened a bit, I set out to visit the homes of friends."

    • Barnabe Geisweiller January 21, 2010 at 3:24 pm with 2 replies

      Some of the comments here are perplexing to say the least. The article gave all points of view on what happened in Gaza, including Hamas’ security claim. No judgements were made on whether or not it was true. Some have said that I am unaware of civil society’s efforts. Yet I quoted civil society and its detractors. Amusingly, people want to defend Hamas and civil society at the same time, while these two were clearly at loggerheads. Civil society, represented by two individuals, had approved of the plan to have a 100 people come to Gaza, only to change its mind the next morning when buses were already being boarded. Perhaps, it would have been a good time to also inform organizers that the march was off. It is my opinion an opportunity was squandered, though you will not find that opinion express in my article. Had civil society shown up in droves as had been expected by organizers, the march would have been historic regardless of whether Hamas had taken too big a role in its organization. Internationals may have been blocked from traveling to Gaza by the Egyptians, but it is Palestinian civil society and Hamas that ultimately served as its death-knell.

      I wrote about the march in Gaza, which was what the Gaza Freedom March was always meant to be. Some would like to have the Gaza Freedom March recast as the protests in Cairo and a declaration written in Egypt which equates Israeli policies with apartheid, barely mentions Gaza or the siege and lays out a plan for future, hypothetical work quite apart from the blockade of Gaza. The march was meant to be against the siege in Gaza. The declaration and future work focuses on BDS, to the great pleasure, I am sure, of two individuals.

      Some commentators seem to believe they know what happened on this trip because they have been to Gaza before. Those who came on this trip and had been on past delegations said they had never been under such tight surveillance before. One commentator rather oddly surmises that a Hamas man she was neither there to see or to meet could not have lost his temper after a quarrel with foreign activists.

      I can only say that those who accuse me of not comprehending the complexities of the political situation in Gaza, only to go on to say that the PFLP and Hamas are not at odds, discredit themselves. Because Hamas and the PFLP are not engaged in gun battles in the streets, as they have been before, does not mean they see eye to eye. Anyone who thinks that the secularist, leftist PFLP and Islamist Hamas do not have serious differences needs to re-examine their own understanding of the politics of Gaza. The PFLP has, unsuccessfully, acted as a mediator between Hamas and Fatah. It is the strongest party in Gaza after Hamas, and it would be folly for Hamas to attempt to take it on. This means the two tolerate each other, but it is not hard to see that the unveiled women clad in military fatigues at PFLP rallies do not fit in well with Hamas’ religious and political conservatism.

      I have also been accused by one commentator of missing the human story in Gaza. Perhaps the person missed my entire section dedicated to explaining the human dimension of the geopolitical struggle of which Gaza is a pawn. The ordinary Gazans I spoke to had harsh words for Hamas’ regime. The article laid out, in detail, the issues all the actors faced in the organization and carrying out of this march. Yet leave it to Western activists to viscerally defend those they want to see as allies in a struggle against a pure evil. Unfortunately, understanding the complexities of the Middle East requires more than a chaperoned visit to Gaza. It requires a pragmatic scrutiny that some here have demonstrated they hopelessly lack.

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