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International Participation in December 31 Gaza Freedom March Tops 1,000 As Registration Closes
Over 1,000 delegates from 42 countries have signed up to participate in the December 31 Gaza Freedom March that will mark the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion and call for an end to the siege that has brought 1.5 million people to the edge of disaster.
Organizers cut off registration on November 30 to give the Egyptian officials enough time to clear the group for entry into Gaza, but also because the numbers were becoming unwieldy. "No one has ever taken a group this size into Gaza," said coordinator Ann Wright, whose skills as a retired U.S. army colonel are coming in handy organizing the logistics for such a massive group.
Since the registration closed on November 30, organizers have been besieged every day with people begging to be added to the list. "I have to turn down 15-20 people every day," said Emily Siegel. "It has been an insane few weeks, with emails pouring in from people all over the world who want to join. I feel terrible turning them away but we started out thinking we would take 300 people and now we have over 1,000."
The international delegates hope to join some 50,000 Palestinians inside Gaza, including students, teachers, health workers, women's groups, farmers and fishermen. The march will start in a neighborhood in northern Gaza in which nearly every building was devastated during Israel's attack and continue for three miles to the Erez border with Israel. At the same time, Israeli and Palestinian activists will be marching toward the Erez crossing from the Israeli side. Upon reaching the border, participants on both sides will release balloons, fly kites and wave flags to demonstrate their solidarity with one another.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the December 2008 Israeli invasion that left over 1,400 dead, this initiative is designed to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing siege that continues to imprison the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. But with the borders still closed, there is no guarantee that the internationals will be allowed in. Gaza is bordered by Israel and Egypt. Both governments have sealed their borders, but sometimes the Egyptians will make exceptions. That's why Tighe Barry, a Hollywood prop man who has become the "fixer" for the international delegation, has traveled to the region six times in as many months to prepare for this march. "We've told the delegates that there are no guarantees we'll get into Gaza, but we are certainly doing everything humanly possible to convince the Egyptians to let us in," said Barry from Cairo, where he has been spending his days negotiating with officials in the Foreign Ministry, in addition to running around arranging hotels, food and buses for 1,000 people.
The diversity of the international delegation is impressive, with people coming from Austria to Yemen, from Belgium to Bangladesh to Brazil. Some 100 students have signed up, as have seniors in their seventies and eighties. The marchers include judges, doctors and physicists; businesspeople and union reps. Faith-based members include imams, rabbis and priests. Affinity groups have formed of artists, women, military veterans, diplomats, lawyers and health workers. A muralist from California, Kathleen Crocetti, will build a mosaic memorial to all who died during the invasion. Julia Hurley, a student from New York, has raised thousands of dollars for school supplies that Israel has banned.
Nora Hassanaien, a British student at the University of Warwick, has family in Gaza whom she has not been allowed to visit because of the closed borders. "Watching the atrocities on television last year and not being able to do anything was devastating," she recalled. "It will mean a lot to me to be part of a peaceful march, with people all over the world uniting in solidarity."
Hilary Minch is an Irish development worker. "This will be a remarkably poignant time to visit Gaza. It will be filled with sadness, given what the people of Gaza have endured and lost and continue to suffer. I want to stand beside them and show my solidarity. This is the least I can do."
10 Comments so far
Show Allgoogle up the name count folk bernadotte, and you will learn everything you need to know about israel. murder of a un agent is ok if you're david ben gurion's best friend. you won't believe your eyes!
Indeed. You can also google Ben-ami Kadish, Jonathan Pollard, the USS Liberty, the Suez crisis, and on and on and on. The "I Love Israel" crowd is slowly coming around to the realization that too much is known, and they thrash out in vain frustration, using propaganda with an expired sell-by date, but nothing can change the fact that their cherished land-theft project will live in infamy until the end of time, as will their vicious attempt to control the US government.
And just(ly) how does Gaza differ from the Warsaw Ghetto?
Well, first, thank you for providing what is, perhaps, the only coherent response to this story here so far.
It is a good quote by Orwell in some ways, but I think in a certain sense it also essentially caters to the mindset of inertia ("free your mind and your ass will follow" - that despicable lie of a cliche which is so alarmingly successful at appearing edgy and radical, when it is merely a justification for inaction) that plagues contemporary progressive movements in the West.
The fact is, whatever quote we may employ to back up our (lack of) actions, pontificating from the sidelines will get us nowhere. I suspect most of the "ZOG, NWO, bro!" ruling class hacks here are just as bourgeois as the disorienting excrement they espouse, so they are not of particular concern to me. But the working people here can only effect change by organizing in their workplaces to represent their economic class interests as workers and to threaten the only thing that the capitalists hold dear: their profit and their ability to procure it from our uncompensated labor.
The rape of Gaza and of Palestine as a whole is merely a symptom of capitalism in the age of imperialism. We can not meaningfully oppose the expropriation of Palestinian land by the racist Zionist entity and the brutal oppression dealt them at the hands of settler-colonialists if we view it as an isolated event - as a disconnected "evil"; we have to understand it as one symptom of a violent cancer. You cannot meaningfully fight cancer by focusing exclusively on this or that symptom without taking into account the broader context of the ailment in it's entirety and seeking the full eradication of the disease. Which is why I brought up the need to organize our workplaces and to begin exacting our collective might against the capitalist class.
Standing at some demo holding a sign and calling the ruling class a bunch of liars is not a threat to them - a nuisance at most, but certainly not a threat. The only way to pose a threat against the filthy bastards who lord over the masses and doggedly seek to maintain the capitalist system of exploitation is by kicking them where it hurts - square in the wallet. They sit on their well-to-do asses and get fat off of our labor and if we organize ourselves, we possess the means to refuse them that which they hold most dear: the ability to make a profit off of OUR hard work. This is the only way that this horrible tragedy of worldwide exploitation and oppression can come to an end - this is the only meaningful action we can take to show solidarity with, and supplement the tireless struggles of, the Palestinian people. Workers revolution is the only solution, and we working people have the power to make that a reality, if only we can swallow our fears and inhibitions and ACT. It is high time.
Good work Code Pink and other organizers. Next, if so many people are willing to show their support for the oppressed, beleaguered Palestinians of Gaza, why not organize a march on Washington with a million international participants?
How wonderful that this is happening.
Ann Wright, former high-ranking U.S. military officer served her country well, but then as a matter of conscience and a prime value system, gave notice and left the service. She's a hellava' woman and human being. Bravo to her, Medea Benjamin and Code Pink!
How wonderful if the Corporate & pro-Zionist Main Stream Media of the U.S. will do its job and cover this important event. Any bets?
The situation in Gaza is a heinous symbol of the unconscionable immorality the majority of the leaders of the Israeli government, including its Zionist founder, David Ben Gurion, have demonstrated throughout the short history of "The Nation of Israel" in their treatment of The Palestinians.
The fact that the government of the United States of America, including the Executive and Congressional Branches, supports Zionist Israel no matter what it does is symbolic of our utter hypocrisy and our own heinous and unconscionable immorality that seems to worsen by the day.
Perhaps the fact that the 1,000 delegates commemorating this long-term event of savagery against the Palestinian people of Gaza by Israel -- in league and in full agreement with President George W. Bush during the summer of 2008, are an international and diverse demographic representation, gives hope that the global coverage will spark righteous outrage around the world.
As the Halloween mask of the strong, fair and just Uncle Sam and the grotesquely pathetic Perpetual Victim mask of so many of the Zionist leaders fall away, I would suggest to the rabid Right Wing Christians who wear the masks of angels but are bloodthirstily pro-WAR and pro-Zionist Israel, and who also are always looking for The Devil or The Beast to turn up, that they best look sharp, for there they are! Twins!
May this Gaza Freedom March at the close of the year, December 31, 2009, be a watershed event so that those who are blind may see, may the scales fall from their eyes, may they/we be willing to stand up and be counted for the sake of Right Conduct, and that this will be the beginning of the unraveling of "the real Evil-doers" and the beginning of the transformation toward genuine Fairness, Justice, and Righteous and Rightful Change at last demanded by The Voices of The People all over the World: for the actual Gazans who have been made to suffer and for the past-to-the-present symbolic Gazans, ... which would include the Jews of the Holocaust and the slave ancestors of Barack Obama and the Native peoples and so many others who experienced incomprehensible suffering at the hands and behest of Hypocrites, Liars, Thieves, Crazies, and Snake Oil Charmers.
May this Gaza Freedom March make all the difference in the world in 2010.
... and So It Is and Amen.
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... and P.S., Desmoulins [above somewhere], "why not organize a march on Washington with a million international participants?" Great idea!
!!!"... Upon reaching the border, participants on both sides will release balloons, fly kites and wave flags to demonstrate their solidarity with one another..."
WHAT???
What do want them to do, throw marshmallows at the wall?
Go Medea and lead the world against the actions of the Nazi Israeli people.