Before leaving the states, CODEPINK reached out to Mrs. Mubarak, wife of Egyptian premiere Hosni Mubarak, about the Gaza Freedom March, and the government's denial of our passage to Gaza. She had interceded on our behalf when we were having the same experience with the Egyptian Government in March, when they refused to let our buses take us to Al Arish, as they did this morning at 7 a.m. In March, we were all able to enter and deliver the thousands of pink baskets of aid to the women of Gaza for International Women's Day.
This morning, I went to Mrs. Mubarak's offices at the Women's International Peace Movement to ask for her help again in opening the border of Gaza for our delegation. Her program manager was quite helpful and delivered a copy of the email thousands had been sending all weekend from the states, translated into Arabic.
Just hours later, an assistant from the office of the First Lady called, and said Mrs. Mubarak wanted to help us: Could I describe what we were taking and what we needed? I told her we needed the 1,300 to be allowed to enter Gaza and deliver the aid we had brought from thousands more who cared deeply for the situation the Gazans are suffering under.
Just an hour later, the head of the Red Crescent (of which she is Chair) called and said he had been instructed to help us in any way he could. He would send a car for me at 11 a.m. and we would go over all the details of who was with us and what they were bringing. Mrs. Mubarak would take the information to the Foreign Ministry. This call came as we finished stringing the hundreds of prayer flags that came from around the world to be included in our visuals at the vigil.
All this was happening as hundreds held vigil with now-hunger-striking Hedy Epstein in front of the building that houses the UN. Parliamentarians from the Philippines, Walden Bello, Ann Wright, Ali Abunimah, and Medea Benjamin went up and down to the offices with requests to intercede on our behalf. Dozens and dozens of police surrounded us man-to-man and held us in like a cage, not letting us out. Those who were able to sneak out where not allowed back in and by the end of the night there were a few arrests.
The heartfelt solidarity and engagement of an entire group is so palpable. Everyone showed up in support in someway, to offer themselves in whatever way is needed. The French are still holding vigil outside their Embassy and have gone from being threatened with being put in a school and deported to many of the delegates supplying them with coffee, water and food through out the day. The Germans, who had made their way to Al Arish, were held in detention all day, but at the end of the day their passports were returned and they were allowed to make the long drive back to Cairo.
A group of fifty -- Castellanos, French, Italians, Brits and others, including American artist Kathleen Crocetti -- made it close to the border and will attempt to take their bus to the border tomorrow. Needless to say we are leaving no stone unturned. We hope the Egyptians get so annoyed they just want to get rid of us. Wait until our many actions at various embassies tomorrow and our various actions to protest Netanyahu's visit to Cairo. Shame on him and the Egyptians. It is a busy day ahead.
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http://www.newchannel.tv/englishTV/Pages/07-october2008-International.html
Thursday 07 October 2008 programme:
Maryam Namazie speaks to Fariborz Pooya on the shameful meeting of CODEPINK and US peace groups with Ahmadinejad;
http://www.newchannel.tv/englishTV/TVInternational.html#
Iranian regime funded presstv, interview with Gael Murphy of Code Pink. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbpg0h_code-pinkpress-tvthe-autograph12282_news Softball. The worst example of their standards, http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=56287§ionid=3510303 on Auschwitz. http://modernityblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/11/lady-renouf-neo-nazis-and-presstv/
http://revolutionaryflowerpot.blogspot.com/2009/10/thought-behind-act.html . >...As it turned out, when Code Pink arrived in Iran, they were led by Iranian government agents and lobbyists (one being Rostam Pourzal)... Pourzal, one of MRZine's regulars on Iran.
Fellowship of Reconciliation, hornswoggled, http://www.meforum.org/585/saddams-press-lackey-and-peace-activist-in-america . http://codepink4peace.org/blog/2008/09/official-release-leading-codepink-activists-and-other-peace-organizations-meet-with-iranian-president-in-new-york/ Nothing I read about this meeting said that in public or in private, concerns about democratic rights were broached. Medea Benjamin and others in Code Pink are not w/o these concerns, but, in fora and venues in which they could press these issue concerns, as leftists and liberals did during the 70's and 80's with Soviet and Eastern European Communists, they are silent. And, it is hard for me to see that they find Hamas Islamism attractive.
"Grad-type rockets hit Netivot Thursday evening around 9:30 p.m.
According to preliminary reports no casualties were caused by the incident.
The projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip marks the first instance in a long time where Palestinian terrorists utilize a rocket of this type.
Since operation Cast Lead last winter Gaza terrorists have fired mortar shells and only occasionally Kassam rockets. "
Must have been set off by one of them stones these "no stones unturned" folks was busy turning over.
I wonder how much food and meds for the population Hamas could have purchased and smuggled in in lieu of this rocket?
Why isn't this group appealing loudly and boldly to enter Gaza from Israel's border, humanitarian aid should never be turned away when there are people in need and people ready to help. Our relationship with Israel is so tight that it is necessary to TRY and ask for admittance, let them tell the world whether the GFM either are or are NOT allowed. We can't hear you over here.
AND WHY ARE WE THE ONLY ONES ASKING THESE QUESTION!!
Sob...sob...sorry for the tears.....I...just...fear...for....my.....[insert your cause in this space]!
I support a Palestinian state, with even a shared capitol.
But the conflation of Arab imperialism and Western liberalism is insanity.
The belief that the land naturally belongs to Arabs and Islam and Jews who have been its oldest occupant are seen as foreign invaders and occupiers is absurd.
Gaza and the West bank fell to Israel as a result of failed attempts at annihilation they were not taken from an Arab Islamic entity called Palestine.
The Turks have a more legitimate claim and perhaps a three state solution is the answer. Let the West Bank and Gaza go back to their most recent owners since land of peace is actually achievable with Jordan and Egypt (though both are even more brutal managers vis-a-vis the Palestinians than Israel.
Hopefully Palestinians, Israelis and their Arab neighbors will ever so slowly begin to reconsider how they have wasted the past 61 years hating each other and finding more effective ways to kill each other. It is their decision to make but the rest of us are afected by what they've done--we've paid hundreds of billions of dollars at the expense of our own advancement and our own poor and oppressed.
Fingers crossed that all 1300 of you get to Gaza!
you show a CLEAR lack of knowledge about of how international mediation and conflict resolution works. The agenda should be set by people with no stake? people with no ethnic or religious ties? That is sheer insanity! Take a class at George Mason, buy a book on conflict! You may say we've wasted 61 years hating each other, but the last twenty were failed attempts to negotiate peace. Seriously, how could a conflict possibly end if the needs of those effected are not reached. Yes white America will come save us poor colored people with your answers to our problems! How incredibly pompous.
I need to remind you of the conflict in northern ireland was settled.
Richard is on the right track.
your demonstrating a clear lack of expertise in peace and conflict resolution. how on earth can the situation be addressed if the leaders are not those who suffer the consequences? How can you promote a situation where outsiders, people as you say with no religious, ethnic, or national stake in the conflict, are the purveyors of solutions. Its paternalistic, and misguided.
Amnesty International and the U.N. Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict/The Goldstone Report documented that Motorola components were also used in the bombs that Israel dropped. Human Rights Watch reported that shrapnel with Motorola serial numbers were found at the site of bombed civilian infrastructures in Gaza City.
There will never be peace-or SECURITY- without justice and justice requires that Israel and Hamas both need to be held accountable for war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.
Humanity is the quality of being human and also humane.
Humane feelings, dispositions, and sympathies are proven when humans do something to help relieve any in distress.
Humanity is expressed in kindness and tenderness and both are the fruits birthed in love.
Thank you Jodie and all activists who are are love in action, raising the Conscience of the World and for giving US Hope for Humanity!
It should be noted that it is not an 'Israeli Blockade' - Israel only controls its own borders and Gaza borders on Egypt also.
Thank you for all the work you are doing!
Case in point; http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.paltoday.com%2Farabic%2FNews-64161.html&sl=ar&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
Hell, that looks better than most of Detroit.
Israel, Zimbabwe, Burma and North Korea are the ONLY states in the world that have denied international media and humanitarian aid workers access to the poor and oppressed!
On November 18, 2008, I was one among forty seven international ecumenical Christians and other people of faith who rolled out of bed before 5 AM to travel from Jerusalem to the Erez Crossing to stand up as a united people of conscience in NONVIOLENT Solidarity with the people of Gaza and in support of all the NGO’s that have been denied access into the Gaza Strip.
We went in love and for love of all of God’s children;
Be they the oppressed or the oppressors
Those imprisoned by walls and those who erect them,
Those who are denied clean water and their deniers,
Those whose fears rule their hearts and the heartbroken,
Those whose ideology, greed, apathy, and power blind them to their culpability, responsibilities and obligations.
We went with hope to arouse the consciences of the leaders of the world to seek peace through justice; equal human rights for all.
For the sake of the innocent children of Gaza Palestine and Israel, may we all WAKE UP and comprehend that "HOPE has two children. The first is ANGER at the way things are. The second is COURAGE to DO SOMETHING about it."-St. Augustine
THANKS to all activists with a heart/conscience for doing something to help WAKE UP the deluded, ignorant and proud.
Last year Sderot, the Israeli town bombed daily by Hamas in Gaza, publicized a 'children's bomb shelter'. It has special facilities for children.
So your "not so tiny state" means that there are some Jews living in the Wast Bank ?
If the entire West Bank was incorporated into Israel, as Israel, today, [which is certainly not going to happen !], then Israel, would STILL be a very tiny state, both by the standards of the Middle East, as well as by the standards of any other part of the world.