We have some great news to report!!! The day started out with a 3am call from one of our delegations in Al Arish saying that secret police had contacted them at 2pm to intimidate them and say they would not get into Gaza. We, in Cairo, told them to go on to the border and see what happens.
Then at 9am in the morning, when all three groups got in their buses to go to the border, they were stopped at the first checkpoint, surrounded by riot police, and not allowed to even get off the bus. They were told that there were military exercises going on in the area and that they could not move forward to the border. Meanwhile, they saw other cars going in and out. But they were forced to turn around to go back to Al Arish.
Ann, Tighe and I were furious, planning all sorts of things—press conferences to denounce the treatment of our delegations, protests, etc. Our first step, however, was to go to the Egyptian foreign ministry’s Office of Palestinian Affairs to see if they could help. We ended spending about 4 hours with the two people in charge of Egyptian relations with Gaza while they talked to the intelligence services and police, trying to get the group official permission and get that permission to all the officials of various Egyptian agencies at the checkpoints and the border.
Phone calls were flying back and forth, back and forth, as we followed the group’s progress, step by step, from Al Arish through all the checkpoints and finally to the border.
Out of all three delegations (Canadian, New York and student delegation from Cairo), only one person was turned back–a Palestinian student with a brand new passport that had not had her basic visa for Egypt transferred into it.
But all the rest—66 in total—made it through into Gaza. Yipppppeeee.
We are all thrilled, and are eager to get the next group of 70 who will be crossing on Saturday, May 30.
It was terrific teamwork between the folks at the border, those of us in Cairo, and our contacts back in the US and Canada who were advocating on our behalf. Thanks to all who helped.
Today we made another dent in the armor that is imprisoning the people of Gaza. Thanks everyone. Free Gaza!!!
Medea Benjamin, Ann Wright, Tighe Barry
CodePink Delegation
Today, Shimon Peres kicked off the AIPAC conference with a special address. Phil noted some observations below. Initial buzz from the speech in and around the conference center is that Peres neglected to mention the need to establish a Palestinian state as part of the peace process. This is shaping up to be an important tension between the Obama and Netanyahu administrations.
During his speech, Peres was briefly interrupted by activists from Code Pink. The photo below is of Desiree Fairooz standing on a table in front of Peres as he speaks. Below is the press release they sent out after the action:
Desiree Fairooz of Code Pink protests Shimon Peres at the AIPAC conference. (photo: Mark Wilson, Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — During Israeli Pres. Shimon Peres’ speech today at the annual AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee) policy conference at the Washington Convention Center, CODEPINK members raised banners saying “Want Peace? End the Occupation,” “What About Gaza?,” and “No Money for War Crimes.”
As the six activists were forcibly dragged away from the stage, they shouted similar phrases including “Tikun olam (Heal the world) for Gaza, too!”, all meant to draw attention to widespread opposition to AIPAC’s policies lobbied to Congress that include unconditional support and financing for Israel’s militaristic policies including the recent devastating invasion of Gaza, building of illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the separation wall, refusal to negotiate with the Palestinians’ democratically elected representatives, and threats to attack Iran.
“The brutal invasion of Gaza was a breaking point for me and many American Jews,” said CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, who recently led a 60-person delegation to Gaza. “I was appalled by the devastation and the suffering I saw, particularly among the children. As a mother, I feel compelled to speak out against Israel’s bombing of civilians and the ongoing siege that is so devastating to the lives of Gaza’s 1.5 million people—most of whom are under 18.”
While AIPAC claims to represent the U.S. Jewish community, its wholesale support of the Israel government goes against the majority opinions of the Jewish Americans. According to a recent survey by the Jewish lobby group J Street, 76 percent of American Jews support a two-state solution, 69 percent support negotiating with a Fatah-Hamas unity government, and 59 percent felt the Gaza invasion did not improve Israel’s security.
“Like most American Jews, I grew up with a deep appreciation for the state of Israel,” said Rae Abileah, a young American Jew of Israeli descent. “After witnessing the attack of Gaza on TV and hearing the calls for crippling sanctions on Iran, I can no longer avert my eyes to the other side of the story most rabbis still aren’t talking about. I am joining the dozens of Jewish organizations, and the growing global movement, advocating a change in the Israeli policies of occupation and aggressive violence. It’s high time to drop the victim narrative so that we may all survive, and one day thrive as neighbors.”
CODEPINK activists inside the AIPAC conference (with its theme “Relationships Matter”) were: Medea Benjamin, 56, Rae Abileah, 26, Blaine Clarke, 29, Christianna Reinstein, 21, Desiree Fairooz, 53, and Tighe Barry, 52.
“The most important relationships for Israel to cultivate are not with U.S. Congressional allies but with the Palestinian people,” said Christianna Reinstein, a student of Middle Eastern studies who joined the protest inside the AIPAC conference today. “AIPAC’s lobbying of Congress has not made Israel more secure and has hurt American efforts to improve relations in the Arab world.”
In 22 days, the Israeli military invaded Gaza and left death and destruction in its wake.
In 22 days, we will focus on lifting the blockade of Gaza by pressuring Egypt and Israel to open the borders.
With participants from 22 countries, we will make this a truly international effort.
From May 22-June 14, delegations will amass at the Rafah border in Egypt and the Erez crossing in Israel, along with boats coming in from the Mediterranean Sea (via www.freegaza.org). We will envelop Gaza with solidarity in order to LIFT THE SIEGE.
With your help, we can do it. We will do it.
Here’s how you can help:
Organize your own delegation—students, labor, health workers, lawyers, artists, religious, environmentalists, farmers, peacemakers—sometime between May 22 and June 14. You can try to enter Gaza through either the Israeli or Egyptian border. CODEPINK, a U.S.-based peace group that took a 60-person delegation to Gaza in March 2009, can send you a detailed guide with info on hotels, transport, visas, etc. and help you camp at the border if you don’t get in. Contact us at gaza.codepink@gmail.com.
Participate in a delegation: If you don’t have the ability to organize a delegation but would like to join one, contact us at gaza.codepink@gmail.com. For a one-week trip, the per person cost is airfare to either Cairo or Tel Aviv, and then approximately $600 for other expenses (internal transport, hotel, food, visas, program in Gaza and donation to local groups).
Volunteer time to build the campaign: We need help with outreach, media, website, organizing teach-ins, setting up speaking engagements, etc. Contact us at gaza.codepink@gmail.com with ways you can help.
Thank you for your support. Together, we can take a stand to protect and respect the human rights and dignity of all people in the Middle East.
Background:
In March, CODEPINK organized a 60-person delegation, that included Alice Walker, to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and to give gift baskets to the women of Gaza on International Women’s Day. This campaign is the next step in our commitment to work for peace in the region. To read more about the previous Gaza delegation, click here (LINK to alert, http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=4761 ).
We thank all who continue to remember Rachel and those who, on this sixth anniversary of her stand in Gaza, renew their own commitments to human rights, justice and peace in the Middle East. The tributes and actions in her memory are a source of inspiration to us and to others.
Friday, March 13th, we learned of the tragic injury to American activist Tristan Anderson. Tristan was shot in the head with a tear-gas canister in Ni’lin Village in the West Bank when Israeli forces attacked a demonstration opposing the construction of the annexation wall through the village’s land. On the same day, a Ni’lin resident was, also, shot in the leg with live ammunition. Four residents of Ni’lin have been killed in the past eight months as villagers and their supporters have courageously demonstrated against the Apartheid Wall deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice – a wall that will ultimately absorb one-quarter of the village’s remaining land. Those who have died are a ten-year-old child Ahmed Mousa, shot in the forehead with live ammunition on July 29, 2008; Yousef Amira (17) shot with rubber-coated steel bullets on July 30, 2008; Arafat Rateb Khawaje (22) and Mohammed Khawaje (20), both shot and killed with live ammunition on December 28, 2008. On this anniversary, Rachel would want us all to hold Tristan Anderson and his family and these Palestinians and their families in our thoughts and prayers, and we ask everyone to do so.
We are writing this message from Cairo where we returned after a visit to Gaza with the Code Pink Delegation from the United States. Fifty-eight women and men successfully passed through Rafah Crossing on Saturday, March 7th to challenge the border closures and siege and to celebrate International Women’s Day with the strong and courageous women of Gaza. Rachel would be very happy that our spirited delegation made this journey. North to south throughout the Strip, we witnessed the sweeping destruction of neighborhoods, municipal buildings, police stations, mosques, and schools – casualties of the Israeli military assaults in December and January. When we asked about the personal impact of the attacks on those we met, we heard repeatedly of the loss of mothers, fathers, children, cousins, and friends. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights reports 1434 Palestinian dead and over 5000 injured, among them 288 children and 121 women.
We walked through the farming village of Khoza in the South where fifty homes were destroyed during the land invasion. A young boy scrambled through a hole in the rubble to show us the basement he and his family crouched in as a bulldozer crushed their house upon them. We heard of Rafiya who lead the frightened women and children of this neighborhood away from threatening Israeli military bulldozers, only to be struck down and killed by an Israeli soldier’s sniper fire as she walked in the street carrying her white flag.
Repeatedly, we were told by Palestinians, and by the internationals on the ground supporting them, that there is no ceasefire. Indeed, bomb blasts from the border area punctuated our conversations as we arrived and departed Gaza. On our last night, we sat by a fire in the moonlight in the remains of a friend’s farmyard and listened to him tell of how the Israeli military destroyed his home in 2004, and of how this second home was shattered on February 6th. This time, it was Israeli rockets from Apache helicopters that struck the house, a stand of wheat remained and rustled soothingly in the breeze as we talked, but our attention shifted quickly when F-16s streaked high across the night sky. and our friend explained that if the planes tipped to the side, they would strike. Everywhere, the psychological costs of the recent and ongoing attacks for all Gazans, but especially for the children, were sadly apparent. It is not only those who suffer the greatest losses that carry the scars of all that has happened. It is those, too, who witnessed from their school bodies flying in the air when police cadets were bombed across the street and those who felt and heard the terrifying blasts of missiles falling near their own homes. It is the children who each day must walk past the unexplainable and inhumane destruction that has occurred.
In Rachel’s case, though a thorough, credible and transparent investigation was promised by the Israeli Government, after six years, the position of the U.S. Government remains that such an investigation has not taken place. In March 2008, Michele Bernier-Toff, Managing Director of the Office of Overseas Citizen Services at the Department of State wrote, “We have consistently requested that the Government of Israel conduct a full and transparent investigation into Rachel’s death. Our requests have gone unanswered or ignored.” Now, the attacks on all the people of Gaza and the recent one on Tristan Anderson in Ni’lin cry out for investigation and accountability. We call on President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, and members of Congress to act with fortitude and courage to ensure that the atrocities that have occurred are addressed by the Israeli Government and through relevant international and U.S. law. We ask them to act immediately and persistently to stop the impunity enjoyed by the Israeli military, not to encourage it.
Despite the pain, we have once again felt privileged to enter briefly into the lives of Rachel’s Palestinian friends in Gaza. We are moved by their resilience and heartened by their song, dance, and laughter amidst the tears. Rachel wrote in 2003, “I am nevertheless amazed at their strength in being able to defend such a large degree of their humanity – laughter, generosity, family time – against the incredible horror occurring in their lives … I am also discovering a degree of strength and of the basic ability for humans to remain human in the direst of circumstances … I think the word is dignity.” On this sixth anniversary of Rachel’s killing, we echo her sentiments.
Sincerely,
Cindy and Craig Corrie on behalf of our family
