More from 'Free Gaza Square,' Cairo

"Another couple of people piled onto me and her. [3]The cops were really mad, but also confused. They kicked one guy and grabbed him really roughly to pull him off, but no sooner did they have him than someone else dove through five lines of police and launched himself onto the pile Every time they got rid of one person, someone else appeared. It was one of the most powerful moments of practical solidarity I've ever seen and I would have liked to savor it but almost immediately we were all being pushed, shoved, pummeled and pressed back onto the curb across the street. Our pile of people on the bottom half of Lisa got pushed one way-the top half of her went another and I lost her.

I ended up on the curb smack in front of the lines of cops trying to shove us back, along with a mass of people."

And about the space we held in central Cairo for much of the day:
"We all felt great about the action. [3]Against all odds, we had done what we set out to do-to say to the Egyptian authorities and the world, "if you won't let us go to Gaza, we'll simply start from here and walk." If you want to stop us, you'll have to physically stop us-we won't comply with your orders. And if you physically stop us, then we will have brought Gaza to Cairo-we will dramatize for the eyes of the world the situation that the people of Gaza are in. This pen, this improvised prison in the central square is another annex to the huge, open-air prison that Gaza has become, where a million and a half people live in the most densely crowded conditions on earth, where the Israelis control the borders and decide who can get in and who can get out, rationing out the necessities of life, b;ocking the materials of reconstruction and the means of livelihood for the Gazan people.

So we held the space throughout the day, with songs and chants and drumbeats, with shared food and water and an improvised pee station."

While some of us wanted to keep the space until after midnight, i.e. the new year, the collective decision was to leave on our own terms after 4 pm, in small groups so everyone was safe. The day and the year ended with a vigil for Gaza in Tahrir Square.
[4]

Today, January first, non-Zionist Jews led a rally with hundreds of international GFMers in front of the Israeli embassy. Some of the hunger-strikers (includy Hedy Epstein) had broken their fast earlier in the day, the rest broke their fast at a Shabbat prayer led by Rabbi Lynn, as they shared bread in a Shabbat ceremony and sang of Shalom (peace) in the midst of a high-spirited crowd.

Comments

Submitted by M. Spector on January 2, 2010 - 3:43pm.

Excerpt from Ali Abunimah's blog, January 1:

Quote:

Today I leave Cairo after four intense days with the Gaza Freedom March. We did not fulfill our goal of reaching Gaza and being with the Palestinian people there. That was surely painful and disappointing. But that is not the measure of what happened. To talk about the siege of Gaza in the abstract is one thing, but to actually come to Egypt and find that Gaza is harder to visit than a prison is like a bucket of cold water. The Egyptian government may be efficient at few things, but it is highly efficient at maintaining the siege. Buses hired to take all the marchers to Gaza were prevented from showing up. Those who tried to get to Gaza under their own steam were turned back or detained at their hotel in Al Arish. It was very very frustrating. But whatever frustration we felt is one millionth of the frustration of the besieged Palestinian people in Gaza. So perhaps in some way it is better then that we did not get in, because Egypt gave us a small taste of what it serves every day to people in Gaza -- and a small taste of what Egyptians face when they challenge their government's policies.

But the actions at the French, American and other embassies underlined that the siege is not Egypt's policy alone -- far from it -- it is imposed first and foremost by Israel, but with the full complicity of North American, European and other governments. In our meeting at the US Embassy, it was confirmed that the US Army Corps of Engineers is assisting Egypt to build the underground barrier designed to prevent Palestinians breaking the illegal blockade by digging tunnels. So there is a lot of work to do expose and oppose this criminal complicity.

Submitted by M. Spector on January 3, 2010 - 10:14am.

Cairo Declaration
January 1, 2010

We, international delegates meeting in Cairo during the Gaza Freedom March 2009 in collective response to an initiative from the South African delegation, state:

In view of:

o     Israel's ongoing collective punishment of Palestinians through the illegal occupation and siege of Gaza;

o     the illegal occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the continued construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall and settlements;

o     the new Wall under construction by Egypt and the US which will tighten even further the siege of Gaza;

o     the contempt for Palestinian democracy shown by Israel, the US, Canada, the EU and others after the Palestinian elections of 2006;

o     the war crimes committed by Israel during the invasion of Gaza one year ago;

o     the continuing discrimination and repression faced by Palestinians within Israel;

o     and the continuing exile of millions of Palestinian refugees;

o     all of which oppressive acts are based ultimately on the Zionist ideology which underpins Israel;

o     in the knowledge that our own governments have given Israel direct economic, financial, military and diplomatic support and allowed it to behave with impunity;

o     and mindful of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (2007)

We reaffirm our commitment to:
• Palestinian Self-Determination
• Ending the Occupation
• Equal Rights for All within historic Palestine
• The full Right of Return for Palestinian refugees

We therefore reaffirm our commitment to the United Palestinian call of July 2005 for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to compel Israel to comply with international law.

To that end, we call for and wish to help initiate a global mass, democratic anti-apartheid movement to work in full consultation with Palestinian civil society to implement the Palestinian call for BDS.

Mindful of the many strong similarities between apartheid Israel and the former apartheid regime in South Africa, we propose:

1)     An international speaking tour in the first 6 months of 2010 by Palestinian and South African trade unionists and civil society activists, to be joined by trade unionists and activists committed to this programme within the countries toured, to take mass education on BDS directly to the trade union membership and wider public internationally;

2)     Participation in the Israeli Apartheid Week in March 2010;

3)     A systematic unified approach to the boycott of Israeli products, involving consumers, workers and their unions in the retail, warehousing, and transportation sectors;

4)     Developing the Academic, Cultural and Sports boycott;

5)     Campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the Occupation and/or the Israeli military industries;

6)     Legal actions targeting the external recruitment of soldiers to serve in the Israeli military, and the prosecution of Israeli government war criminals; coordination of Citizen's Arrest Bureaux to identify, campaign and seek to prosecute Israeli war criminals; support for the Goldstone Report and the implementation of its recommendations;

7)     Campaigns against charitable status of the Jewish National Fund (JNF).

We appeal to organisations and individuals committed to this declaration to sign it and work with us to make it a reality.

Signed by:

131 Names

Submitted by M. Spector on January 3, 2010 - 10:12am.

Quote:

It is almost certain that new organizing around "boycotts, divestment and sanctions" against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza will take place in the United States as a result of the Gaza Freedom March. There is a strong push from Palestinian solidarity activists in South Africa and Europe for American solidarity activists to do more to promote the "BDS" campaign. There are plans for a delegation of Palestinian and South African trade unionists to tour the United States, and for student activists in the U.S. to train other student activists to launch BDS campaigns at universities.

- Robert Naiman [8]

Submitted by gazadelegation on January 3, 2010 - 2:08pm.

Yep, Spector, Robert. We all signed. Great initiative by the S. African delegation.

David

Submitted by M. Spector on January 9, 2010 - 7:17pm.

Lessons from the Gaza Freedom March, by Joshua Brollier

Lessons of the Gaza Freedom March [11], by Walden Bello