Gaza: unbreakable

“We are strong persons and we are still here, but we need you to stand up with us.” These words that I heard from a student at Gaza’s Islamic University echo in my mind upon my return from the besieged region of Palestine. The statement encapsulates the message I garnered from people who I encountered during Viva Palestina US’ trip to Gaza, which began on July 15 at 9:30 pm and ended twenty-four hours later. Our convoy, involving 200 US citizens who entered Gaza with medical aid in defiance of the Israeli imposed blockade of humanitarian goods, was restricted to a full day by the Egyptian government. Despite the limits imposed upon us, twenty-four hours in Gaza was enough time to appreciate a beleaguered but resilient people, whose pursuit of life and freedom in the face of utter brutality is a testament to the spirit of humanity.

Upon entering Gaza, I expected to witness a shattered society. I could imagine no other condition for a society that had endured nearly two years of suffocating embargo, was then subjected to one of the most savage aerial bombardments of our lifetimes, and then forced to continue life under the blockade, which extends to this day. Beyond these broad overviews of some of the more recent crimes of the Israelis against Gaza come the aspects of daily life under Israeli terror, which are too innumerable to list but include survival by Gazan fisherman of constant fire from Israeli warships, enduring terrifying sonic booms made deliberately by Israeli pilots flying overhead in American fighter jets, and working to make do without killed or imprisoned loved ones. Expecting a Gaza broken by Israeli brutality though underestimated Palestinian resilience, which is formidable beyond words. I have read many reports from Gaza of the toll that Israel has taken on the people of Gaza, and I hope that this piece speaks to the endurance of the Gazan people despite the inhuman condition forced upon them.

To be sure, the devastation wreaked by Israel’s aggression is staggering beyond description. Shells of high-rise buildings tower alongside functional and occupied ones. Piles of concrete rubble and twisted rebar dot Gaza city. Whole neighborhoods in the city seem to have more damaged or destroyed houses than unharmed ones. In addition to the bombed and half-destroyed legislative assembly and the obliterated Ministry of Justice buildings, we saw utterly destroyed buildings that played purely social functions, including homes, hotels, mosques, and even hospitals. Our bus passed by the rotten corpses of livestock animals, decaying over the past six months and recognizable only by their hides. The Gazan man narrating our tour through the destruction from the front of our bus asked, “I wonder Israel, were these animals terrorists?” Educational facilities seemed to be a favorite target of the Israelis, who damaged the Ministry of Education, leveled schools—including the American School of Gaza and a UN-run school—and destroyed 74 laboratories at the Islamic University, among other buildings on campus.

Beyond the prepared presentations regarding the siege, it was difficult to elicit personal experiences of the bombing from the Gazan residents I spoke with. When I asked one of the people who were taking us around Gaza if he could talk about how the war affected him, he simply said no. I asked another, who I had spent quite a bit of time with what the war was like for him and his family. He told me that there were no words to describe how horrible it was, and he did not try to find them. Indeed, mixed with the excited faces of people, young and old who flashed smiles and peace signs to us as our buses rolled through the Strip with Palestinian and American flags flying out of the windows, were the weathered faces of people who have been through hell. Many such people who we saw on the streets were victims of Gaza’s incredible unemployment rate. The wreckage of bombed out factories and the scores of unfinished construction projects, on hold until materials like concrete are allowed through the borders, exist alongside these idle workers. To add insult to injury, functioning Israeli factories bellow smoke visibly from Gaza’s northern border.

Despite the devastation and depression, life goes on for the people of Gaza, who seemed to be living it as vivaciously as possible in the given circumstances. Children play soccer in the streets. Shopkeepers open their stores and display their wares, despite the fact that very few can purchase them. Hordes of people swim in Gaza’s gorgeous, Mediterranean beaches. In our exit of the strip, we passed numerous weddings, complete with sound trucks blasting celebratory dance music and overflowing with smiling family members.

The people of Gaza are living as human beings placed in inhuman circumstances. They have the strength to endure, but they should not have to do it alone. The solidarity of those abroad matters now more than ever. “Please tell them,” a student at the Islamic University told those of us students from the US and UK who visited their campus, “that we’re not terrorists. We have ambitions like any other students in the world. We went to university so we can make things better for ourselves and our people. All we want is a chance.”

Viva Palestina needs your help

Gazan children at the Rafah Gate protest Viva Palestina's detention

In the statement from Viva Palestina below, you will see an update on our situation. We need people in the US to encourage the Egyptian government to let the aid through. Please hold demonstrations, make calls, send emails, etc. Time is of the essence. Also, please spread the word about Viva Palestina and this blog. When Viva Palestina UK came through a few months ago, a huge part of their success came because so many people were following what was happening; we need as many people as possible aware of Viva Palestina US and standing in solidarity with our project to break the siege of Gaza.

Last night

Viva Palestina US update – July 11, 2009

Update #1

The largest ever US humanitarian aid convoy is now gathering in Egypt to head across the border into Gaza on Monday, July 13. 

Vehicles are coming from Alexandria, the medical supplies from Cairo and the advanced party of nearly 100 US citizens is heading for the staging post of Al Arish, just before the border with Gaza. 

That group, of four buses, has, however, been stopped from crossing over the Suez Canal and into the Sinai region, which leads to Gaza. 

The buses, carrying people, medical aid and bearing US, Egyptian and Palestinian flags in a spirit of international cooperation, have been held at a security checkpoint and given various, conflicting reasons for why they cannot proceed to their destination at Al Arish. 

New York Councilman Charles Barron is leading the group and is negotiating with security officials to resolve the situation. He has contacted Washington and other elected officials in an effort to clarify the reasons for the delay and address any concerns as efficiently as possible.

Former US Congresswoman and Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney will join the convoy on Sunday, July 12, and British Member of Parliament George Galloway will also be heading to meet up with Councilman Barron and the advance group.

He and the rest of the advance group of the convoy, however, are insisting on their right to travel with their supplies to Al Arish, where the rest of the convoy is to rendezvous with them before heading for the border crossing into Gaza.

This medical convoy is on the way to Gaza a month after US President Barack Obama described the situation in Gaza as a “humanitarian crisis.”

“Our convoy is on an aid mission,” says Galloway, “We come in peace; but we will not be stopped.”

Viva Palestina Convoy, July 12, 2009, 2:45 am Cairo

Update #2

The 100 Viva Palestina humanitarian volunteers have decided to stay the night in their buses at the Mubarak Peace Bridge over the Suez Canal despite pressure from the Egyptian security officials to return to Cairo. 

The official reason given at the checkpoint for refusing to allow them to cross is that the officials there did not have a list of the names of the members of the convoy. Such a list was, however, at the request of the Egyptian authorities before any of the convoy members set foot in Egypt sent to the Egyptian ambassadors to Washington, D.C., and London.

The US Embassy in Cairo has now stepped in to forward a newly provided list of those convoy members aboard the buses at the bridge to the Egyptian foreign ministry to clear the way for the convoy's passage. 

Nancy Mansour Leigh, a spokeswoman for the Viva Palestina delegation at the Suez crossing, says, “It's going to be an uncomfortable night, but it's nothing compared with what the people of Gaza must live through every day. We've already succeeded in securing internet access and are negotiating other necessary facilities. But whatever facilities are provided or not, our determination will see us through the night and all the way to Gaza.”

New York City Councilman Charles Barron is on the scene at the Suez Canal and acting as chief negotiator with Egyptian security officials. “The Viva Palestina movement has had a great success this morning with our stand at the Suez crossing. We've now got an agreement for us to stay until the list of our convoy members reaches the foreign ministry. It shows what can be achieved with the determination and commitment of a collective body of people. We are determined to cross onto Gaza, and no matter what happens next, out of this first small confrontation, we've achieved a success for the movement in support of the Palestinian people. The convoy is going to move on, and we ain't gonna let nobody turn us around.”

British Member of Parliament George Galloway offered these words of encouragement for the delegation being held up at the crossing:“This is an American convoy. And Americans are used to refusing to give up seats on buses in the struggle for justice. I regard everyone who's putting themselves on the line tonight at the Suez Canal for the success of this humanitarian mission as nothing short of a hero.”

Kevin Ovenden
Viva Palestina coordinator

Viva Palestina Convoy update #3
July 12, 2009, 7 pm Cairo

The Viva Palestina members who spent the night in their buses at the Suez
Crossing after they were stopped by Egyptian authorities on July 11 are now
making their way to the nearby city of Ismailia and are preparing to resume
their travels toward Gaza imminently.

British Member of  Parliament George Galloway, who has met up with former
U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in Cairo, was working with Egyptian and
U.S. authorities to expedite the passage of the convoy over the Suez Canal
and into Gaza.

New York City Councilmember Charles Barron, who led the group at the Suez
Canal, says, "Whether these requirements are genuine or not, we will get
around these obstacles.  We are going to Gaza."

Egyptians have held up the convoy on the grounds that it has not acquired the
necessary travel permits from U.S. officials in order to cross into Gaza.

"The Egyptian authorities want us to jump through yet another hoop, we
will, even though their ambassadors in Washington, DC, London, and Tripoli,
Libya were already supplied with this information, at their request.  The
U.S. embassy in Cairo was informed about the mission as was the Egyptian
Foreign Ministry."  said Galloway. "So now we expect that there should be no
further reasons for the delayed transportation of this urgently needed
relief to the people of Gaza.  We have hundreds of thousands of dollars of
medicine, which are time-sensitive and perishable and which need to reach
the children of Gaza.

Another group of Viva Palestina delegates is in Alexandria to take
possession of 47 vehicles that will be used to drive the group’s
humanitarian and medical relief supplies through the Rafah border crossing.
A third Viva Palestina element is continuing to gather additional aid in
Cairo.

Tomorrow, Viva Palestina plans to gather all its forces in Ismailia, load
all of the collected aid on its vehicles, and make final preparations for
the drive through the Sinai.

The Viva Palestina convoy expects progress on all fronts tomorrow, but is
prepared to call for solidarity protests at Egyptian embassies and
consulates should that not materialize.

Meet David.

David Schwartz is a student at Georgetown University and originally from Long Island, NY. He is a member of the Viva Palestina aid convoy and one of a growing number of Jewish people in the West who are challenging Zionism and taking action in solidarity with Palestinians. We sat down and talked for a bit at our hotel in Cairo. Thought it's not necessarily evident in transcribed text, the conversation was laden with emotion. David spoke slowly, deliberately, sincerely and righteously. At times his voice wavered, but his conviction seemed to grow by the minute.

Why did you decide to come to Gaza?

I decided to come to Gaza because Gaza is currently under siege. I’m anti-Israel. I want to make a statement to my government and Israel that the siege is wrong and immoral, and what came before the siege is wrong and immoral. Palestinians deserve human rights just like any other people.

How did you come to these conclusions?

Well, the first time I went to the West Bank, I went on a youth exchange and learned about the history of Israel. And I came home and did some research. And what I learned about Israel led me to new conclusions: that what Israel has done for the past sixty years is wrong. That they run an apartheid state, and that it needs to change.

Can you talk about what it means to draw these conclusions as someone who is Jewish?

As a Jew, it is hard to reconcile my identity as a Jew with the Jewish state. But I think the most important thing about being a Jew is to do the right thing--as is the most important thing in any religion. And as a Jew, I am defending the utmost ideals of Judaism by supporting the Palestinians. Because no Jew should hand over their ideals to any political system, any person, anything, rather than their G-d.

You have Israeli family.

Yeah, they’re very progressive Jews. So they do think the occupation is wrong. They think that many wrongs have been done to the Palestinians. But they also think that wrongs have been done to them in the Palestinian struggle for justice. But they understand that things have to change. The whole world is putting pressure on Israel. They can no longer stand alone with just the United States. Because even the United States is changing. We just elected Barack Hussein Obama. And my family thinks that if not for the Palestinians, then at least for their own sake, things have to change.

Can you talk about your plans for the convoy to Gaza and after?

I plan--no, I don’t plan--we will go to Gaza. We will deliver this aid. We will see what life is like for Palestinians in Gaza. We will achieve the mission of Viva Palestina US and Viva Palestina UK. And when I go back home, I will become more active in my chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. I will tell other people about what’s going on. And I will try to get more supporters. We will march on the Israeli Embassy if we have to, because we’re right there in D.C.!

The process that you underwent and continue to undergo, as a Jewish person who was raised as a supporter of Israel, and who concluded that he should side with the Palestinians, I think that a growing number of Jews are having the same experience. What would you say to other Jews who are in the place now where you were upon first questioning Israel?

It’s hard to reconcile being a member of the Jewish faith and also being a part of the Palestinian cause--for justice for freedom. But the Israeli state doesn’t represent Judaism, its highest ideals, anything of Judaism. We have to separate Judaism from Israel. And once people see that Judaism does not equal Israel, it will be easier to open their eyes to the fact that Israel is an occupying power on the wrong side of justice. Because that association of Judaism with Israel--that is all that holds this together.

CNN: when "Breaking News" is a verb.

So after several days in Cairo, me and Ream (who I'm rooming with along with Tom), finally decided to turn on the television in our room after leaving it off all week. Lo and behold, after a few minutes of skipping through channels that featured American shows dubbed in Arabic, we came across good old CNN. Not CNN World, but CNN--the channel broadcast in the US.

Who knows, maybe there will be a report on Viva Palestina. The fact that over 200 people from the US are bringing medical aid to Gaza in defiance of a US-supported blockade seems like something worth investigating by the US' main world news network, right? The fact that we're a diverse group of Muslims, Christians, Jews and others, of old folks and young, of Palestinians and others, including a British Member of Parliament, a New York City Councilman, and former US Representative and that we've come together to bring medicine to Palestine is newsworthy, no? After all, Al Jazeera has covered Viva Palestina, as have Egyptian media; certainly US media should cover a story like this involving Americans, right?

Well, wrong. The top story on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer was the dispute between the Jackson family over the location where Michael Jackson's remains should rest. Both Jermaine and Joe Jackson got plenty of airtime, but not George Galloway, not on CNN. Other main stories included the birthday of a panda in the National Zoo in DC, (she turned four, if you were interested).

Tom and I just checked CNN online. Give them the benefit of the doubt; maybe there just wasn't enough airtime to cover Viva Palestina, but there's an infinite amount of space on CNN's Website. Well, it's not there either. There is, however, a story entitled "Wedding ring lost at toll booth" and, of course, "Psychics see magic in Michael Jackson's life." Tom and I are cracking up laughing throughout the writing of this post. "I feel embarrassed for them," Tom said as he walked away, shaking his head.

I guess the comic relief that CNN provides is nice as we think about how we're about to approach one of the most wrecked places on Earth--something that I don't know if any of us are prepared for. But then, the sober reminders for why I came to the Middle East are precisely what makes the "journalism" that CNN features (and I haven't even mentioned the outright lies that are promoted on an hourly basis via that media outlet) so criminal. But then, isn't the profound ignorance that Americans have regarding Palestine (which CNN manufactures) precisely what allows for unabated US-supported brutality in Palestine?

CNN is ridiculous to the point of being laughable, until one remembers how deadly the consequences of it's actions are.

To Israel, Palestinians with chocolate pose a threat.

In an earlier post, I noted that, among other things, Israel has added chocolate to the list of items banned from entering Gaza. Apparently Gazan people armed with chocolate pose a threat to one of the most belligerent military powers on Earth. Perhaps even as grave a threat to the only nuclear power in the Middle East as the homemade rockets whose fire by Gazans were the supposed cause for Israel's assault of December and January.

The fact that chocolate has been added to the list of forbidden items has been haunting me since I learned of it. There is something so insidious about it. The purpose of the Viva Palestina convoy is to show solidarity with the people of Gaza by bringing medical supplies, and certainly chocolate seems frivolous relative to heart pumps and antibiotics. But the fact that, beyond these absolute necessities, Gazans are denied those things which make life sweet, feels bitterly unjust. It is difficult to imagine even the coldest, most heartless Zionist defending such a policy.

I've been mentioning the policy to others on the delegation. Some are already aware. One guy shook his head and shrugged.

"They deny crayons too, right?"

Others are shocked. That's one of the things about standing in solidarity with Palestinians. It seems that no matter how much you know about the depths of Israeli brutality, there are always crimes that Israel commits that are so cruel that they are astonishing.

"Chocolate," one woman on the trip exclaimed when I told her. "That's just evil."

And so, when we make runs to the supermarket around the corner from our hotel, we are faced with a difficult situation: of course we would love to load up on chocolate to take to Gaza. We can't though because it is a banned item, and bringing it would raise the chance of other, essential items being denied along with the chocolate, and even our entry into Gaza being denied. In fact, no food at all is allowed through the Rafah Crossing, only through the Eretz Crossing, which is controlled directly by the Israelis. Guess how sympathetic and permissive they are.

Today, a few people from the convoy returned to the hotel after venturing out into the streets of Cairo. They had several plastic bags with Adidas' logo on them.

"We got some soccer balls for the kids," Ahmed, one of the guys said with a smile. I hated to break the news to him.

"Soccer balls aren't allowed in. Last time they tried to bring soccer balls in and it was a big deal in the negotiating at the border. I'm not sure if they let them in."

Ahmed's face soured.