Cairo - The government of Egypt is taking a spectacularly hard line against international solidarity efforts in support of civilians in Gaza on the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion, blocking peace marchers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe from even approaching the Egyptian border with Gaza and blocking an aid convoy that has the support of the Turkish government from entering Egypt at Nuweiba. Even a peaceful protest at UN offices in Cairo was largely walled off from public view by Egyptian police.
It seems that any pretense of Egyptian government concern for the suffering of Palestinian civilians has been dropped, along with the pretense that there is anything less than 100% cooperation from Egypt and its US and European patrons with Israel's program of punishing Gaza's population for the political crime of having provided majority support to the Hamas movement in a legislative election.
Meanwhile, there is largely a U.S. press blackout of these striking developments. A search of the New York Times and the Washington Post only turns up a tiny AP story on the websites of the Times and the Post.
As has frequently been the case, Agence France-Presse (AFP) pays more attention to these developments. On Monday, AFP reports that Hedy Epstein and other members of the Gaza Freedom March have begun a hunger strike to press the Egyptian government to allow them to enter Gaza:
An 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was among a group of grandmothers who began a hunger strike in Cairo on Monday to protest against Egypt's refusal to allow a Gaza solidarity march to proceed.
American activist Hedy Epstein and other grandmothers participating in the Gaza Freedom March began a hunger strike at 1000 GMT."I've never done this before, I don't know how my body will react, but I'll do whatever it takes," Epstein told AFP, sitting on a chair surrounded by hundreds of protesters outside the United Nations building in Cairo.
On Sunday, AFP reported on the efforts of the Viva Palestina aid convoy to enter Egypt with the support of the Turkish government:
An aid convoy trying to reach the blockaded Gaza Strip through Egypt was still stranded in Jordan on Sunday amid Cairo's refusal to let it cross through its territory.
Members of the convoy, which is led by British MP George Galloway, were however hoping for a solution thanks to mediation by Turkey to enter Gaza through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba, the most direct route.
The British-initiated aid convoy has at least been mentioned by the BBC, but NPR has not reported on the U.S.-initiated Gaza Freedom March.
Wouldn't you be a little bit curious to know what explanations the New York Times, the Washington Post, and NPR would provide for ignoring these developments? Why not ask the Public Editor at the New York Times, ask the Ombudsman at the Washington Post, and ask the Ombudsman at NPR to give it their best shot?
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Heddy Epstein said: "It is important to let the besieged Gazan people know they are not alone. I want to tell the people I meet in Gaza that I am a representative of many people in my city and in other places in the US who are outraged at what the US, Israeli and European governments are doing to the Palestinians and that our numbers are growing.”
The United States directly supported Israel’s deadly assault on the Gaza Strip for Israel used weapons paid for and supplied by the United States during “Operation Cast Lead.”
U.S. F- 16s, hellfire missiles, and ammunition used by the Israeli military devastated the Gaza Strip for 22 days and U.S.A. corporations also directly profited from “Operation Cast Lead.”
Caterpillar and Motorola equipment were used by the Israeli military during its assault on the occupied Gaza Strip. American made Caterpillar bulldozers demolished the civilian infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip.
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.
The Rest @
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1533&Itemid=227
Have a cigar.
Your comment displays an elementary lack of understanding of Oppressor/Oppressed dynamics.
But if you don't believe that and want to read some other distorted view of the realities there, you can always go to Al Jazeera's web site.
Most Americans couldnt point to america on a map, let alone Gaza. You think US citizens are better informed about the middle east than all other people on earth? Or people who LIVE in the ME? Keep sucking on Fox's teat.
Most of the people in Gaza are refugees from Israeli terror. Israeli troops and their precursers conducted a fair number of massacres, ordering people out of their houses, lining them up and gunning them down in mass. Then they used loudspeakers in other places, telling people to leave their homes or be slaughtered "like they were at Deir Yassein" All part of the plan to get rid of the Arabs of Palestine to make room for Israel, to "cleanse" (term used by Israel's founders) the land of its native inhabitants.
Current propaganda by Israel is focussing on both deflecting the many human rights reports of deliberate murders by Israeli troops in Gaza Dec. 2008/Jan 2009, denying the independent, unbiased data they collected, e.g. about the children they burned to death with white phospherous, the deliberate squeezing of the Gazan economy, denial of adequate clean water, nutrition, building materials sufficient to bring shelter to those whose homes were destroyed by Israel, medical supplies, not to mention jobs. All in order to achieve a political outcome favorable to Israel.
ROCKETS.
Hamas shot them deeper and deeper and deeper into Israel.
For those who think Israel or the US have any influence over Egypt's decisions regarding the terrorist Hamas government, remember that Egypt is scared of the Muslim Brotherhood, the parent organization of Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood is oppressed in Egypt. You can't expect the Egyptians to have any sympathy for their allies in Gaza.
Now--I wonder what is so wrong with those modest suggestions? Let the games begin...
ISpeaking of dropping pretenses.
It is highly revealing that those who are vociferously claming support for Palestinian suffering only support those Palestinian who suffer at the hands of Israelis.
Today, right now hundreds of thousands Palestinains are deprived of basic medical care, human rights, education rights, work rights, and freedom ofo movement and even a right to -rebuild their own houses.... In Lebanon.
WHERE ARE THE ALLEGED PALESTINIAN SUPPORTERS?
I've to read even SINGLE post by alleged supporters of Palestinian suffering about 500,000 Palestinian
ethnically cleansed from the Kuwait not that long ago. Why not?
Those Palestinains who suffer at the hands of Lebanese, Syrians, Kuwaitis are completely and totally ignored. Shame.
Gaza aid convoy to change course
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/12/200912281583520582.html
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/gaza-march-press
Indeed, the US public does support such a state but I suspect the cause is not a function of the reasoned moral assessment of the acts of Palestinians vs. those of Israel because such a reasoned assessment would have generated a posture similar to that of international legality which tends to look unfavorably at not just the rock attacks of the Palestinians but the root causes (occupation, settlement, refusal of Palestinian right of return or compensation, denial of Palestinian suffering caused by Israel's founding, refusal to recognize the Palestinian "right of self-determination, etc.) It is a function of ignorance resulting from slanted media coverage as suggested in the article above.
It is entirely unconvincing to use US public opinion as an explanation for the lack of sympathy for Palestinians & the corresponding sympathy for a state which has the most egregious record of violations of UN resolutions (not mentioning those which were vetoed by the US).
The causal arrow is in the opposite direction: public opinion is the result not the cause of media coverage
This Stockholm syndrome is not that rare as one may think.
haha. WHat a comedian. WHEN did Americans have "empathy for" the Palestinians, EVER?
But, there has always been a small faction that did understand and advocate for the Palestinian's. Einstein happens to be one.
The debate Naiman had with a Iranian-American Professor recently, carried by The Real News, organized by chicago leftists was revealing.