Nothing To Declare

Cairo is beautiful, grimy, delapidated, swarming. Everything is bathed in a dreamy, golden veil of smog, as well as the aural smog of non-stop car horns. There are armed police everywhere, looking intimidating with their black berets and large guns, yet seemingly no traffic enforcement. The “walk” signals feature a little animated green man, running frantically for his life. The Cairoans are a well-dressed, sharp-looking bunch. No tee shirts for them. It is easy to spot the peace activists, as they tend to be the most slovenly-looking people around.

I am here to try to get into the Gaza Strip with 1360 people of conscience from 43 countries (44 including Vermont) to march with 50,000 Palestinians to the Israeli border on December 31st. We are calling on Israel and its indulgent parent, the U.S.A, to end their near-universally condemned siege of Gaza. Today is the one-year anniversary of Israel’s 22-day Gaza massacre (let’s not euphemize by calling it a war), which ended the lives of around 1,400 mostly unarmed people, including over 300 children, left more than 5,000 maimed, many with permanant injuries, and nearly the entire civilian and industrial infrastructure in ruins. A year later, Israel maintains its 3 year-old blockade on the strip, and not one building has been rebuilt, and many thousands remain homeless. Gaza’s already fragile economy has been rendered nearly extinct by the bombing and siege, and 97% of factories remain closed. One could go on and on, but I’ll instead recommend reading one or more of several extensive investigative reports that have come out, such as the Goldstone Report, or Amnesty International’s “Operation Cast Lead: 22 Days of Death and Destruction. One should also read the report by the National Lawyers Guild, which conducted a fact- finding mission to Gaza just days after the “war”, and easily demolishes Israel’s self-defense argument. All are available on the web, of course.

I was a bit nervous going through customs, because the Egyptian government, no doubt reacting to U.S./Israeli pressure, has taken a hard line in recent days against the Gaza Freedom March. The organizers of the March have been in negotiations with the government here since September, but it was not until just a week ago when they announced that we would not be allowed to enter Gaza. Why they waited until over 1,360 had already bought plane tickets to Cairo, and many had already arrived, to announce this decision, is anybody’s guess. Shortly after officially refusing the international delegation permission to enter Gaza, Egypt continued hardening its position. Our permit to hold an orientation meeting was revoked. It is illegal to hold a political meeting in groups larger than 6 without permission. The March organizers had already rented fifteen 50-passenger buses to take some of us to the Rafah border crossing, and our permit to travel was revoked. The officials have made it clear that those planning to come to Cairo should either come prepared to be tourists, or they should stay away. Any public protest or dissent would be met with zero tolerance, we were told. People in the U.S. have a hard time understanding this, so much do we take for granted our right to meet and speak freely. I had no idea to what lengths the Egyptians would go to suppress our movement, and before my plane landed, I ripped out all the pages from my notebook in which I referred to Gaza and/or the March. I still had several books about Palestine with me, and it wouldn’t be difficult to figure out why I was there if I was searched. My paranoia proved groundless, though. The customs officer raised an amused eyebrow at my passport, which got wet and infested with mildew some years ago, and is probably the worst-looking passport he had seen, and suggested that I might like to get a new one. Nothing else to it.

We have not given up on trying to get into Gaza. Egypt’s embassies have been flooded with phone calls and emails asking them to let us in. The March organizers are appealing directly to President Mubarak to reverse the decision. We have been meeting in smaller groups in the lobbies of the various hotels where we are staying, since we cannot hold a general meeting. Everything is up in the air right now. Rumors are flying around, and our understanding changes hour to hour. Today there will be a few memorial demonstrations to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the massacre, and I will most likely write about these in my next post.

Thank you for reading.

David Symons