Awaiting Gaza March, Holocaust Survivor Stages Hunger Strike
by Jailan Zayan
Agence France-Presse: December 28, 2009
CAIRO - An 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was among a group of grandmothers
who began a hunger strike in Cairo on Monday to protest against Egypt's
refusal to allow a Gaza solidarity march to proceed.
American activist Hedy Epstein and other grandmothers participating in the
Gaza Freedom March began a hunger strike at 1000 GMT.
"I've never done this before, I don't know how my body will react, but I'll
do whatever it takes," Epstein told AFP, sitting on a chair surrounded by
hundreds of protesters outside the United Nations building in Cairo.
Egyptian authorities had said it would not allow any of the 1,300 protesters
who have come to Egypt from 42 countries to take part in the march to enter
the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, the only entry that
bypasses Israel.
High-ranking officers and riot police were deployed on the Nile bank where
the UN building is located and where hundreds of Gaza Freedom March
participants asked the United Nations to mediate with the Egyptian
government to let their convoy into Gaza.
"We met with the UN resident coordinator in Cairo James Rawley and we are
waiting for a response," Philippine Senator Walden Bello told protesters.
"We will wait as long as it takes," he said.
Protesters who wore T-shirts with "The Audacity of War Crimes" and "We will
not be silent" held a giant Palestinian flag, as others sang, danced and
shouted "Freedom for Gaza" in various languages.
Separately, organisers of another aid convoy trying to reach the blockaded
Gaza Strip -- Viva Palestina led by British MP George Galloway -- said it
will head to Syria on Monday en route for Egypt after being stranded in
Jordan's Red Sea port of Aqaba for five days.
Turkey dispatched an official on Saturday to try to convince the Egyptians
to allow Viva Palestina to go through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba -- the
most direct route but Egypt insisted that the convoy can only enter through
El-Arish, on its Mediterranean coast.
The Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina were planning to arrive one year
after Israel's devastating war on Gaza that killed 1,400 Palestinians.
Thirteen Israelis also died.
Meanwhile, at least 300 French participants of the Gaza Freedom March spent
the night camped out in front of their embassy in Cairo, bringing a major
road in the capital to a halt, as riot police wielding plexiglass shields
surrounded them.
On Sunday, police briefly detained 38 international participants in the
Sinai town of El-Arish, organisers said.
"At noon (1000 GMT) on December 27, Egyptian security forces detained a
group of 30 activists in their hotel in El-Arish as they prepared to leave
for Gaza, placing them under house arrest. The delegates, all part of the
Gaza Freedom March of 1,300 people, were Spanish, French, British, American
and Japanese," a statement on the group's website said.
"Another group of eight people, including American, British, Spanish,
Japanese and Greek citizens, were detained at the bus station of El-Arish in
the afternoon of December 27," they said.
On Sunday, Egyptian police also stopped some 200 protesters from renting
boats on the Nile to hold a procession to commemorate those who died in the
Gaza war.
On December 31, participants are hoping to join Palestinians "in a
non-violent march from northern Gaza to the Erez-Israeli border," the
organisers said.
© 2009 Agence France-Press
***
From: Jeff Warner PatnJeff@keyway.net
Sunday, December 27, 2009 10:05 AM
LA Times: one item today:
--- Article on page A25 reports that the Israeli army assinated 3
Palestinians in the West Bank the army believed to have killed a setter a
few days ago, and an airstrike killed 3 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
NY Times : one item today:
---
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html?_r=1&ref=world
"Israeli Military Kills 6 Palestinians" Same as listed yesterday. Reports
that three accused of killing a settler were killed in the West Bank, and
three accused of planning something were killed in Gaza. Salam Fayyad, the
Palestinian prime minister, condemned the West Bank operation as an
"assassination" and "an attempt to target the state of security and
stability that the Palestinian Authority has been able to achieve."
You have an opportunity to write a letter to the editor to express your
views about peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A model letter to
the LA Times is below our signature. Use the model letter as your own,
modify it as you see fit, or be inspired to write your own letter. The LA
Times letter may be applicable to the NY Times.
E-mail your letter to
letters@LATimes.com and/or letters@NYTimes.com
and please send a BCC to me.
best jeff
MODEL LETTER - START # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #
RE: "6 Palestinians killed in West Bank, Gaza," Dec. 27
The only thing notable about these killings of Palestinians by the Israeli
army is that they were reported in The Times, and that three of them
occurred in the West Bank. Not reported by The Times is that the Israeli
army kills Palestinians several times each week in the Gaza Strip, and in
midnight raids abducts 10-50 Palestinians each week in the West Bank, and
illegally transports them into Israel.
I don't know what Israel is trying to accomplish with its continual violent
occupation of Palestine. What I do know is that Israel's actions
delegitimatize Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's efforts
to build Palestinian institutions in preparation for a Palestinian state.
The United States should work to restrain its ally Israel from acting to
undercut efforts at peace, specifically Israel must stop using American made
and supplied weapons in extrajudicial assignations.
Your Name
Your city
Your phone number
## ##
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/23/israel-palestinian-peace-movement
Breaking Palestine's peaceful protest
Palestinians have a long history of nonviolent resistance but Israel has
continuously deployed methods to destroy it
By Neve Gordon
guardian.co.uk, 23 December 2009
Why," I have often been asked, "haven't the Palestinians established a peace
movement like the Israeli Peace Now?"
The question itself is problematic, being based on many erroneous
assumptions, such as the notion that there is symmetry between the two sides
and that Peace Now has been a politically effective movement. Most
important, though, is the false supposition that Palestinians have indeed
failed to create a pro-peace popular movement.
In September 1967 - three months after the decisive war in which the West
Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem were occupied - Palestinian leaders
decided to launch a campaign against the introduction of new Israeli
textbooks in Palestinian schools. They did not initiate terrorist attacks,
as the prevailing narratives about Palestinian opposition would have one
believe, but rather the Palestinian dissidents adopted Mahatma Gandhi-style
methods and declared a general school strike: teachers did not show up for
work, children took to the streets to protest against the occupation and
many shopkeepers closed shop.
Israel's response to that first strike was immediate and severe: it issued
military orders categorising all forms of resistance as insurgency -
including protests and political meetings, raising flags or other national
symbols, publishing or distributing articles or pictures with political
connotations, and even singing or listening to nationalist songs.
Moreover, it quickly deployed security forces to suppress opposition,
launching a punitive campaign in Nablus, where the strike's leaders resided.
As Major General Shlomo Gazit, the co-ordinator of activities in the
occupied territories at the time, points out in his book The Carrot and the
Stick, the message Israel wanted to convey was clear: any act of resistance
would result in a disproportionate response, which would make the population
suffer to such a degree that resistance would appear pointless.
After a few weeks of nightly curfews, cutting off telephone lines, detaining
leaders, and increasing the level of harassment, Israel managed to break the
strike.
While much water has passed under the bridge since that first attempt to
resist using "civil disobedience" tactics, over the past five decades
Palestinians have continuously deployed nonviolent forms of opposition to
challenge the occupation. Israel, on the other hand, has, used violent
measures to undermine all such efforts.
It is often forgotten that even the second intifada, which turned out to be
extremely violent, began as a popular nonviolent uprising. Haaretz
journalist Akiva Eldar revealed several years later that the top Israeli
security echelons had decided to "fan the flames" during the uprising's
first weeks. He cites Amos Malka, the military general in charge of
intelligence at the time, saying that during the second intifada's first
month, when it was still mostly characterised by nonviolent popular
protests, the military fired 1.3m bullets in the West Bank and Gaza. The
idea was to intensify the levels of violence, thinking that this would lead
to a swift and decisive military victory and the successful suppression of
the rebellion. And indeed the uprising and its suppression turned out to be
extremely violent.
But over the past five years, Palestinians from scores of villages and towns
such as Bil'in and Jayyous have developed new forms of pro-peace resistance
that have attracted the attention of the international community. Even
Palestinian Authority prime minister Salam Fayyad recently called on his
constituents to adopt similar strategies. Israel, in turn, decided to find a
way to end the protests once and for all and has begun a well-orchestrated
campaign that targets the local leaders of such resistance.
One such leader is Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher and the
co-ordinator of Bil'in's Popular Committee Against the Wall, is one of many
Palestinians who was on the military's wanted list. At 2am on 10 December
(international Human Rights Day), nine military vehicles surrounded his
home. Israeli soldiers broke the door down, and after allowing him to say
goodbye to his wife Majida and three young children, blindfolded him and
took him into custody. He is being charged with throwing stones, the
possession of arms (namely gas canisters in the Bil'in museum) and inciting
fellow Palestinians, which, translated, means organising demonstrations
against the occupation.
The day before Abu Ramah was arrested, the Israeli military carried out a
co-ordinated operation in the Nablus region, raiding houses of targeted
grassroots activists who have been fighting against human rights abuses.
Wa'el al-Faqeeh Abu as-Sabe, 45, is one of the nine people arrested. He was
taken from his home at 1am and, like Abu Ramah, is being charged with
incitement. Mayasar Itiany, who is known for her work with the Nablus
Women's Union and is a campaigner for prisoners' rights was also taken into
custody as was Mussa Salama, who is active in the Labour Committee of
Medical Relief for Workers. Even Jamal Juma, the director of an NGO called
Stop the Wall, is now behind bars.
Targeted night arrests of community leaders have become common practice
across the West Bank, most notably in the village of Bil'in where, since
June, 31 residents have been arrested for their involvement in the
demonstrations against the wall. Among these is Adeeb Abu Rahmah, a
prominent activist who has been held in detention for almost five months and
is under threat of being imprisoned for up to 14 months.
Clearly, the strategy is to arrest all of the leaders and charge them with
incitement, thus setting an extremely high "price tag" for organising
protests against the subjugation of the Palestinian people. The objective is
to put an end to the pro-peace popular resistance in the villages and to
crush, once and for all, the Palestinian peace movement.
Thus, my answer to those who ask about a Palestinian "Peace Now" is that a
peaceful grassroots movement has always existed. At Abdallah Abu Rahmah's
trial next Tuesday one will be able to witness some of the legal methods
that have consistently been deployed to destroy it.
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