CAIRO, December 30–After long meetings into the night and a heated confrontation between protesters at a Cairo bus station, the leadership of the Gaza Freedom March (GFM) here has rescinded its acceptance of an Egyptian government offer to allow 100 of the 1300-strong delegation to cross the border into Gaza. The group gathered in Cairo to travel together to a Dec. 31 march in Gaza against the Israeli blockade of the territory and to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Israel’s 22-day bombing and invasion that killed 1,400 and left thousands wounded and more homeless.

GFM participants had spent the early part of the evening yesterday at a rally at the Journalists Syndicate building to protest a visit to Cairo by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Local Egyptian groups initiated the action, and invited GFM to join. The steps of the building were crammed with people chanting in English and Arabic and, as usual, the street was lined with two rows of Egyptian riot police.

After they left the demonstration, newly energized by the spirit and enthusiasm of the protest. GFM participants learned that Egypt had offered to allow 100 delegates plus a truck of material aid through the Rafah border crossing, and that the GFM leadership had only a few hours to give authorities a list of people to go.

Many activists were outraged that the leadership had accepted an offer that would split the group. They felt the GFM was in a strong negotiating position, noting that the government of Hosni Mubarak has been taking a beating in the Arabic-language media for its refusal to let the GFM through. In addition, Egyptian authorities have been criticized for beginning construction on a wall between Egypt and Rafah that would entail a 17-foot underground steel barrier to prevent goods getting in through smuggling tunnels, which is currently how much critical material, including food and medicine, gets in to the people of Gaza.

Delegations from countries such as France, Italy, Scotland, and South Africa refused to provide names for the list of 100, saying they were not willing to send anything less than their entire delegation was allowed to go. Some individuals who were selected as part of the 100, including 85-year-old hunger striker Hedy Epstein, declined to go because they disagreed with the decision to accept the limited offer. Meetings and impromptu discussions went late into the night. Although GFM organizers attempted to consult the broader delegation in choosing who would go, the short deadline and logistical difficulties made it impossible to get any meaningful input from much of the group. Through limited discussions with some participants, a list was put together that attempted to represent different constituencies and nationalities.

Fuel was added to the controversy when the Egyptian foreign minister, Abu Al-Gheit, held a press conference saying that the 100 being allowed to go to Gaza were from organizations that his government deemed “good and sincere in standing in solidarity with Gaza the same way as we [the regime] do,” while the rest of the GFM participants were “from organizations that are only interested in subversion and acting against Egyptian interests, to sow havoc on the streets of Egypt.” He stated that the Egyptian people knew enough to stay away from these hooligans.

This morning at 7 am, two buses were waiting to take activists to Rafah. Feelings ran high among the assembled Gaza freedom marchers who came to see the 100 off. As those chosen to go got on board, other GFM participants made impassioned pleas that the group not allow itself to be split. Many of those preparing to leave were torn between their desire to go to Gaza and their belief that sending a smaller group was not in the spirit of the project, which had been organized as a massive show of opposition to the blockade, not as a humanitarian aid mission or a chance for individuals to travel into Gaza.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright, a member of the march steering committee, speaking through a megaphone for the GFM Steering Committee, declared, “It’s a wonderful morning [on which] some of us are going to Gaza.” Tomorrow, she said, the Gaza Freedom March would be in Gaza, she said, and “you all will be watching in solidarity in Cairo.”"We go all or none,” responded Catarina of the Italian delegation, which had refused to send a representative on the bus. A journalist, Sulieka Jaouad of Princeton, insisted it was important that conditions in Gaza be documented. “I feel like the march has recreated the conflict,” she said, and “part of me feels like I should stay, but journalists can report back.”

The decision had been contentious even among the GFM leadership. March media and communications coordinator Max Ajl, a Jewish activist from Brooklyn who had been selected as one of the 100, said, “All we’re doing if we go in a group of 100 is collaborating in the collaboration. We’re letting them set the terms. This is just a move to divide us.” And pointing to the two buses waiting to leave, he added, “These buses shouldn’t be going to Gaza until there are 20 more.” Echoing his thought, many in the crowd had begun to chant, “Where are the buses? Where are the buses?”

‘INCORRECT DECISION’

It became clear that the leadership was trying to think through the situation even as the buses stood ready to leave. A few minutes after Ajl’s bitter statement, Felice Gelman, one of the coordinators, said, “The Steering Committee decided after lengthy deliberation that accepting the offer was an incorrect decision because of the divisive impact on the march and because of the conditions imposed,” which included calling the group a humanitarian aid mission of CodePINK (one of the main groups behind the international delegation), rather than the Gaza Freedom March. Gelman explained that the Egyptian and Israeli governments–and the U.S. government–”do everything they can to prevent civil society from having a voice. Israel would like to say, ‘There are a million and a half people in Gaza, and they’re all Hamas, so we can starve them and ill them.’ But it’s not true. There’s a million in between, who just want their lives to go on, and [supporting them] what the Gaza Freedom March was for.”

As the morning wore on, the divide between those who supported the decision to send the two buses and those who thought it should be all or none grew deeper and more bitter. A documentary filmmaker who had been chosen to go but changed his mind just before boarding wept as he explained,”I’m not going to be fuckin’ privileged again.” Two Palestinian-American sisters from Chicago, Dana and Lara Elbrno, had been chosen to go and refused. Lara said, “We are Gazan, and every cell in my body wants to go. [But] the Gaza Freedom March is not just about giving people a chance to see Gaza. It’s a political movement, and to be strong and effective and united, we have to continue to be a political movement.” Emily Ibsen of Toronto echoed the thought. Bringing “critical mass [to Gaza] is what it’s about,” she said.

A turning point came when Ziyaad Lunat, the press liaison for GFM, put Omar Barghouti, aleading organizer of the Dec. 31 march inside Gaza, on a speakerphone inside one of the buses. Barghouti told the delegates that it was too divisive for the group of 100 to come through to the march, and it was better for them to stay with the larger GFM delegation. Amid cheers from the activists outside, many of those on the bus got off. Some were clearly still undecided, and one Palestinian woman who remained aboard begged for the caravan to continue so that the material aid could get through. Another woman remaining on the bus called out, “This is divide and conquer! We have medicine on the bus!”

Julia Hurley, who had raised $17,000 in material aid, was distraught at the idea that the buses might not go. She described her first encounter with Palestinian children in a refugee camp in Bethlehem: “I saw them playing in garbage. And it’s not right. They’re not given the opportunity to have the education they deserve because of the blockade, because of the siege, because of the occupation. We need to change that and the only way to change that is to get in there and bring their voices out. So I really feel we need to go, even if it’s just a hundred people.”

‘SAD SITUATION’

Former Weather Underground leader Bernardine Dohrn was one of those who disembarked, but she was deeply disappointed: “I think it’s a very sad situation that our delegation became divided around this issue. I think it was an issue that could have gone either way. For reasons that I think are fully human and also sectarian and small-minded, a lot of people felt bad about this decision, and of course the Egyptian government totally predictably seized on it for their own despicable aims… . The divisions were very sad to see. I think they ultimately influenced the committee in Gaza to decide it was probably too divisive and we shouldn’t come. And when they spoke to us by speakerphone on the bus, that made many of us decide that we had to get off the bus.”

Eventually, the two buses did leave for the Rafah crossing, but they were not full and were no longer considered part of the Gaza Freedom March. The GFM leadership sent out a press release saying it was rejecting the Egyptian offer and activists turned their attention to continuing to press for permission for the entire group to go to Gaza, and to planning an action tomorrow in solidarity with the march in Gaza.

Said Dohrn: “Now I think our job is to heal the wounds very quickly here and to try to get hundreds of buses and get our asses over to the Rafah crossing.”

--Ellen Davidson and Judith Mahoney Pasternak

Photo: Dana and Lara Elbrno, by Ellen Davidson

Gaza Freedom March - 'You Are Our Voice'

CAIRO, December 28—Cairo was waking up as we made our way to the first of today’s actions. We were going to gather at the bus depot in the section of the city called Ma’arouf. It was from that depot that a convoy of buses was supposed to be taking us this morning on the first leg of the journey to Gaza, to join the historic Freedom March there on New Year’s Eve.

But days before Christmas, the Egyptian government announced that it would not permit us to go to Gaza. Now the marchers are protesting, trying to pressure the government to rescind the ban and asking other governments to intervene. This morning, we were making that demand at the site from which we had intended to leave Cairo.

We were looking at our map of the city when, as happens so often in Egypt, a passerby murmured to us, “Welcome to Egypt.” Gesturing toward the map, he asked where we were going. To Ma’arouf, we said. He told us how to get there. Then he noticed that two of us were wearing buttons that said, “My heart is with Palestine.”

“Are you with the Gaza march?” he asked. It was the first time any Egyptian had spoken to us about the march. When we said we were, he said, “We are honored that you are here. No matter what our politicians say.” He talked for a moment about the fact that many of the Egyptian people oppose the government’s shutdown of the march, although that fact doesn’t show up in media accounts of the events. “You are our voice,” he said. In turn, we thanked him for his support.

He gave us only his first name: Ali. He has seven children, he said. He can’t afford to get detained or questioned by the police. But for the omission of his last name, he was open and voluble. He works in a nearby hotel. He said that the government claims that it “has to act to secure our borders,” an assertion he declared is “poison sweetened with honey.”

We had to leave. As we made our goodbyes, thanking him again, he spoke about how painful he finds it that his country is “completely stopping everything from getting into Gaza, a land where they have nothing.” To him, that makes Egypt no different from the Israeli and U.S. governments. “We should play a different role,” he said sadly.

Photo by Ellen Davidson

Gaza Freedom March -- ‘You Have to Put Your Own Life On the Line'

CAIRO, December 28—At 85, Hedy Epstein is one of the oldest of the Gaza Freedom Marchers. She may also be the only Holocaust survivor among them.

This morning, Epstein began a hunger strike to up the ante for the Egyptian government’s attempts to prevent delegates from around the world from participating in the march. We spoke during the protest at U.N. headquarters in Cairo, as the Freedom Marchers demanded that theUnited Nations intervene to allow to march to proceed to Gaza.

“I was born in Germany,” she said. “I was eight years old when Hitler came to power. My parentswanted to get out and were willing to go [almost anywhere], but there was one country they wouldn’t go to: Palestine, because they were ardent anti-Zionists.”

Epstein, however, did get out of Germany. She was brought to England, which “took in almost 10,000 children in the nine months before World War II.” At the end of the war, by then in her 20s, she went back to Germany to work for the U.S. government and “to try to find my parents.”In 1948, she came to the United States—at “almost the same time as Israel became a state.” She had mixed feelings about Israel, she said. “I was glad that there was a place for Holocaust survivors to go, but on the other hand, I remembered my family’s anti-Zionism, and I was afraid that no good would come of [the Jewish state].”

In 1956, she finally found out what had become of her family: Her parents (and other relatives) had perished at Auschwitz. In the United States, Epstein became an activist for, among other causes, peace and affordable housing. But she described Israel and Palestine as “on the back burner of my interests” for almost three decades—until the 1982 “wake-up call” that was the Sabra and Shatila massacres, when Lebanese militia forces massacred hundreds of Palestinians in two Lebanese refugee camps. From that point, her primary cause became the Palestinians and the end of the occupation.

She was in Cairo this morning, she said, “because I was on my way to Gaza with the Gaza Freedom March, at this point being stopped by the Egyptian authorities.” The march is “trying tobreak the siege of Gaza imposed by the Israeli government, and I suspect that the Egyptian government is under pressure by the U.S. and Israeli governments” to stop the march.

There was a protest going on around us, and we had to finish our conversation. Epstein summed up: “I’ve been in human and civil rights struggles for a long time, and I’ve never been on a hunger strike before, but I [also] never saw a government deny humanitarian aid before. There comes a time in a struggle when you have to put your own life on the line, so I decided to go on a hunger strike to try to persuade the Egyptian government to let us go.”

The attempt to persuade Egypt to let the marchers into Gaza continues. So does Epstein’s hunger strike. Other freedom marchers are joining her.

Photo by Ellen Davidson

Gaza Freedom March Asks U.N. for Help

CAIRO–Participants in the historic Gaza Freedom March (GFM) here turned to the United Nations this afternoon for help in getting the 1362-strong delegation through the Rafah border crossing to Gaza. Egyptian authorities have declared the crossing closed for December, stating that tensions are too high and it is unsafe.

The marchers have countered that they are willing to undertake the risk and that the Egyptian government claim that the situation is too dangerous is really a pretext for keeping protesters from joining thousands of Gazans for a massive march against the Israeli blockade of the territory. GFM participants traveled from 42 countries for the action, planned for December 31.

This afternoon, hundreds of march delegates converged on the U.N. Agencies and World Trade Center in Cairo to request that U.N. officials here help in negotiating with the Egyptian government for entry into Gaza. GFM representatives Walden Bello, a member of the Philippine parliament, and Ali Abunimah, author and cofounder of the Electronic Intifada website, asked U.N. representatives here to help the group break the impasse with the Egyptian government by pressing the authorities to allow the entire group entry; short of that, GFM organizers hoped that the United Nations would either make arrangements for the aid to be brought in through U.N. channels or pressure the Egyptians to allow a smaller group of two busloads of delegates and one busload of material aid into Gaza. The U.N. representative agreed to bring the group’s requests to the Egyptian government.

On a large sunny plaza in front of the U.N. Agencies and World Trade Center building, the GFM participants drummed, sang, chanted, and billowed a gigantic flag. The atmosphere was festive, especially compared to the somber mood of yesterday’s commemoration of the 1,400 Palestinians killed in the monthlong Israeli assault on Gaza that began a year ago. Some activists met in smaller groups to discuss strategies for the rest of the week, which increasingly appears as if it will be spent in Cairo, as the Egyptian authorities are not even allowing marchers to travel to Al-Arish, which is near the Rafah border crossing (see “Egyptian Authorities Harass Palestinian Solidarity Activists“). The protesters who held banners at the edge of the gathering engaged in friendly discussions with the policemen who faced them in a line surrounding the plaza.

The group was diverse, comprising Palestinians, Arabs from other countries, Palestinian-Americans, Filipinos, representatives from many European countries and the United States, African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Japanese, among others. The delegates from the Coalition of South African Trade Unions received a particularly warm welcome as they unfurled their banner.

As the afternoon wore on, some of the police arrived with batons at the ready, and a second row was added to the first line of police, making participants uneasy that the heretofore peaceful actions would be marred by police violence or arrests. Some of the activists chose to stay in the plaza until a response was given by the Egyptian government to the group’s requests. At 4 pm, there were still more than 100 protesters at the site, and some had vowed to sleep there if necessary.

--Ellen Davidson

Gaza Freedom March - Material Aid, All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go

CAIRO, 28 December–At 7 am today, about 100 Gaza Freedom March (GFM) delegates met near the bus station from which the marchers were originally planning to set off today for Gaza. No one was actually going anywhere, because the Egyptian authorities had cancelled the buses that organizers had arranged, but the GFM participants gathered anyway, to draw attention to the fact that they have been prevented from bringing material aid to the residents of Gaza because the Egyptian government is refusing them entry to the territory through the Egyptian-controlled Rafah crossing. The marchers stood on the sidewalk holding banners that could by seen by passing drivers, chanting and singing songs. As has become usual, they were faced with a solid line of Egyptian police directly across the barricades the police had set up.

The 1362 GFM participants from 42 countries have brought tens of thousands of dollars worth of material aid to deliver to Gaza. This includes supplies bought with $17,000 raised singlehandedly by Julia Hurley of New Jersey, much of it contributed by the Arab-American of Passaic County, N.J. Several laptops and some 700 backpacks filled with school supplies, hygiene products, toys, and jackets for ages 5 to 17 are sitting in a warehouse in Cairo waiting for a way to be found to get them to schoolchildren in Gaza. Other material aid items waiting to be delivered include water filtration systems, textbooks, and art supplies.

--Ellen Davidson

Gaza Freedom March - Vive la France

CAIRO, 28 December–The French delegates to the Gaza Freedom March (GFM) spent the night in front of their embassy here, pressuring their ambassador to support them in negotiations with the Egyptian government, which has so far refused permission for marchers to enter Gaza. As of 7 pm this evening, the site was locked down by the Egyptian police, who were not allowing anyone in or out of the protest site. Activists from GFM who came by to document the action were told to put their cameras away.

The French delegates to the Gaza march began their protest last night, taking over the street in front of the French Embassy, which is near the Giza zoo. After blocking traffic for five hours, they agreed to move their protest to the sidewalk in exchange for a commitment from the French ambassador to negotiate with the Egyptian authorities on their behalf.

When I visited the site this morning, the street opposite the embassy was lined with green trucks filled with riot police. The sidewalk of the entire block in front of the embassy itself was taken up by the protesting delegates, who were completely surrounded by two rows of police. The French marchers had pitched tents and set up sleeping bags on the sidewalk.

Many GFM participants from other countries came to the site to show solidarity; some brought coffee, which they handed in to the grateful protesters over the heads of the riot-gear-clad Egyptian police. The police alternately allowed the solidarity efforts to continue and harassed the activists who were not inside the police line to either move inside their blockade or move on and put their cameras away.

--Ellen Davidson

Gaza Freedom March: No Candles on the Nile

CAIRO, 28 December–Yesterday afternoon hundreds of people converged at the spot on the Nile in Cairo from which the feluccas–traditional Nile sailboats–depart to take tourists. We were going to take dozens of feluccas out into the middle of the river and set afloat candles to commemorate the 1,417 killed by the Israeli assault on Gaza a year ago.

We never got to the river.

The feluccas had been shut down, we were told, for maintenance, but the large number of police present suggested a different reason. Instead, we gathered around for an impromptu rally. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, one of the main organizers of the march in the United States, spoke of our determination to get to Gaza, despite the Egyptian government’s refusal to let us through the border.

As more and more activists from the Gaza Freedom March (GFM) gathered on the shore of the Nile, so did the Egyptian police. In Egypt, any gathering of more than six people without a permit
is technically illegal. As we walked along the river, chanting, “Gaza, Gaza, we are coming,” the police surrounded us, forming a line along the busy street and closing off both ends. They only allowed us to leave in groups of twos or threes.

Earlier in the day, according to a GFM press release, police had stopped another action by GFM participants to commemorate those killed in the Israeli invasion of Gaza that began on December 27, 2008. GFM activists had tied hundreds of strings with notes, poems, art and the names of those killed to the Kasr al Nil Bridge, one of the main bridges connecting Zamalek Island, in the

“We’re saddened that the Egyptian authorities have blocked our participants’ freedom of movement and interfered with a peaceful commemoration of the dead,” said Ann Wright, a GFM organizer.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian government continues to refuse to allow us to go to the Rafah border crossing and into Gaza. March participants have brought tens of thousands of dollars worth of aid for the residents of Gaza, and were planning to participate in a massive march with Gazans to protest the ongoing Israeli blockade of the territory, which has prevented rebuilding materials from being brought in following the destruction of the Israeli bombing and invasion of a year ago.

At this time, according to GFM organizers, hundreds of French delegates to the march are camped outside the French Embassy, pitching tents and laying sleeping bags on the sidewalk, chanting “Palestine Freedom!” The French ambassador and his wife are outside negotiating with the delegates and the police and Egyptian authorities.

GFM organizers are planning more events today, including solidarity actions with the French delegates; an action at the U.N. Agencies and World Trade Center to ask the United Nations to help get them and their supplies into Gaza, and delivering a letter to H.E. Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

--Ellen Davidson and Judith Mahoney Pasternak

This post and the Gaza Freedom March stories that follow also appeared on the Indypendent blog, www.indypendent.org/category/indyblog.

Gaza Freedom March - Day 1, Christmas 2009

It’s Christmas day and we are preparing to leave tomorrow for Cairo to participate in the Gaza Freedom March, along with nearly 1,400 other activists from 42 countries.

As of now, the Egyptian government has vowed not only to refuse us entry into Gaza but to prevent us from going to the Rafah border crossing into Gaza, and has “canceled our orientation space,” leaving us two days to find an alternate venue that can hold a group this size.

Undaunted, march organizers are moving ahead with contingency plans for activities against the Israeli blockade of Gaza whether or not we are allowed into the territory: “Our efforts and plans will not be altered at this point. We have set out to break the siege of Gaza and to march in Gaza on December 31 against the international blockade. We are continuing the journey,” according to a press release from the group.

From Cairo, retired U.S. Army Col. Ann Wright, one of the march organizers, says: “Keep flying to Cairo! The Gaza Freedom March is historic, even if the Egyptian government will not let us into Gaza! The people of Gaza and the world are watching. We are NOT silent about Gaza!!! See you in Cairo!”

Yes, see you in Cairo, Ann.

--Ellen Davidson and Judith Mahoney Pasternak

(also published in The Indypendent, www.indypendent.org/2009/12/25/gaza-freedom-marchers-undeterred-by-egyptian-government)