STILL HANGIN' ON A CROSS: The Gaza Freedom March

Monday, December 28, 2009

The Gaza Freedom March

The Egyptian authorities have told the organizers of the Gaza Freedom March once, twice, three times and four that we can’t go to Gaza, but the organizers will go back a fifth, sixth and seventh time, Medea Benjamin promised outside the U.N. offices in Cario here today
an international conversation over the issue is taking place here among the most diverse collection of people
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is saying that she came here to march, and she will march. Borders have fallen away here, and the American frame is gone.
the French. They are most inspired delegation. 300 of them are camped on the sidewalk outside the French embassy

“Reminds me a lot of the J Street conference, “Antony Loewenstein joked
It was a good joke because it was about the limiting American frame
No one here is talking about the two-state solution or land swaps.
Goldstone report says–those missiles aimed at houses with sleeping children
an international consensus
end of patience for war crimes
ethnic cleansing
an ideology

of Jewish exceptionalism supported by western governments
we are speaking out as civil society
We held a protest at the U.N. plaza here today
Medea Benjamin called up the hunger strikers
it did not matter that Hedy Epstein, the oldest of the strikers at 85, is a Holocaust survivor. In the U.S. that is her principal license to speak
Here it means little; her ultimate status is, She is from St. Louis, USA
the court of world opinion
global activists have embraced the cause
European and American left has accepted the issue
when we left we sang We Shall Overcome, mingling the American civil rights anthem with this international cause
No it doesn’t look like we will be getting into Gaza, still we are doing important work in Cairo, to transform ourselves and our presence on the world stage.