We did it! Up until the moment we did, I didn’t quite believe we would, but we did!

Went to bed last night thinking, “Yeah, Starhawk, you’ve done this a hundred times, yawn, nerves of steel, sleep like a baby,” and of course I hardly slept at all, adrenaline racing, had to pee a hundred times. Got up this morning ahd rumors were flying around that the Egyptian security forces were blocking the hotels, so we got out quickly. Fortunately I had packed and organized my stuff the night before as that is the part of an action that is most stressful to me. Nothing makes me more crazy than needing to get out the door in a hurry and not being able to find some crucial piece of gear, and I nearly always can’t find some crucial piece of gear, due to that plague of Snatchers that follow me around, hiding my keys, lining their burrows with my socks and decorating them with my ATM cards.

Some of the Canadian delegation who are staying here were saying that police were outside—but that turned out not to be true. I was almost sorry, because Wendy had scouted alternative exits over the roofs of Cairo and what a story that would make! But I was happy enough just to get out and not be stuck inside all day. I can write novels another time.

Lisa had already left for a meeting at one of the hotels—turned out the security forces were blocking everyone into the Lotus, where the main Code Pink organizers were staying, but not the other hotels, including the one where the meeting was happening.

I decided to sit down below, however, and keep watch. Actually I didn’t see the need for going 9 flights up and probably having to walk back down all nine, and sitting in a smoky meeting where I wouldn’t be able to hear anything. There was a chair against the wall near the entrance so I sat down to wait. Actually, Cairo is a great place to people-watch and I had one of the most relaxing little bits of time I’d had here yet, watching the women in their various head=-carves and the men with liquid brown eyes that could have come off an old tomb painting. Eventually people from our march began to drift by, stopping to share news and rumors. One Policeman was watching the hotel, but I didn’t see any signs that groups of them were massing for a raid. But the rumors were flying—the action was on, it was off, the locations was changed, the time was changed..

Eventually Lisa and the women from the meeting came down. The plan was for shcok troops of women to be first out into the streets—for a couple of reasons. The first—the cops are less likely to brutalize women. Not entirely unlikely, but less. The second—to shift those old gender dynamics where the guys do the brave and dangerous things and the little women stay behind. The third—because these women are strong and smart and don’t run ego-dramas.

We began to filter around Tahrir Square. I was following Lisa who moves at a really fast pace. I am a slow walker but when I need to, I can keep up with her and she was in full-on battle mode and nothing was going to slow her down.

We all drifted into the area around the Museum where our plan called for us to gather unobtrusively and then flash-mob into the streets. I wasn’t sure this was going to work. Nobody was sure this was going to work—but it was the plan and at this point that was all we had. The police were out in force around the museum because we had organized this in classic nonviolent mode, openly and not secretly. That was a good thing, because communication has been so excruciatingly difficult when we are trying to simply tell each other something that adding security culture and secret codes on top of it would have made everything utterly incomprehensible to most of us, while the secret police would still have known what we were going to do. There they were…there we were. The clock was ticking—it was almost ten. An officer came towards Lisa, trying to move us further down the road. The traffic opened…and she took the space, running out into the traffic and unfurling a flag. We followed, and suddenly, from all over small groups of people were swarming and collecting and filling the road.

We began to march—for about ten yards. Then the cops surrounded us, and they were mad. They were pushing and shoving people, and I noticed a few run in and grab a guy who was filming with a video camera on a tripod. They had hold of him and were pulling on his camera and others were pulling on him so I ran over to do what I do—which is insert myself into the middle and sweetly get in the way. Between all of us we extricated him and his camera and now people were sitting down to hold the space. And there I was, sitting on the ground staring at the knees of a line of Egyptian riot cops. I had a little Talking Heads moment, you know the song, “And I asked myself…how did I get here?” Then the cops moved in and started grabbing people. They grabbed Michael from the media team and we grabbed him back and finally pulled him in toward us. He was holding his ribs..a woman grabbed my arm and we linked up.

Then I saw Lisa being grabbed by five big cops. They were pulling her away into the police lines and she was lying prone and being pulled by her wrists. I thought, “Goddess, they’re taking her away and there’s too many of them. There’s nothing I can do for her.” And then I thought, “Fuck that!” and leapt on top of her, grabbing her waist and lying over her legs. I can’t actually explain how I did that when usually it takes me ten minutes and a battle plan to get up, but adrenaline is a wonder drug.

Anotther couple of people piled onto me and her. 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. I was happy there—holding ground when riot cops are shoving is one of the things I’m good at. Most of the cops looked a bit sheepish and ashamed of what they were doing, but one or two were triggered and angry and out of control. I saw one cop head butt a protester, others were beating and punching people with their nightsticks. They were pushing other people onto the curb and roughly forcing them through the lines into a crowd that was already so tight there was hardly room to move. I saw several of the women I’d trained and I just stayed there and grabbed them and pulled them through the lines of cops into our space. I felt a bit like a midwife, birthing them backwards, into the womb of our community now contained by a circle of cops on a wide stretch of sidewalk. Some of them were frightened, some were exhilarated. All looked happy to see me.

And then the tension eased. The cops formed their ring, we had our space, in the circle of Cairo’s largest, central square, and people were chanting “Free, free Palestine!” and singing “We Shall Overcome.” I looked over and found myself standing next to Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, singing, “We are not afraid, we are not afraid, we are not afraid today.”

Then I saw Lisa, safe and relatively unscathed although she had a hurt wrist and sore ribs. I gave her some homeopathic arnica and Bill Ayers gave her some chocolate. Carrying chocolate—that mark of an experienced activist!

We all felt great about the action. 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. I even had a lovely nap in the sun, next to a beautiful French Algerian organizer with luminous green eyes.

And now the New Year has come, and I must sleep! May our new year be blessed with loving friends and strong comrades to strengthen us for all the work ahead the earth and for justice.

GFM 4 12-29 Morning

So, back to yesterday. I never made it over to the French Embassy, where the French contingent has been encamped, surrounded now by the Egyptian police and not allowed to leave although people have been allowed to pass in food and water. Our encampment in front of the World Trade Center (yep, that’s what it’s called!) that houses the UN was actually a lively and spirited demonstration, with women dancing and an Italian clown parading and the student contingent playing with a gigantic Palestinian flag. Personally, I was fighting my Bad Attitude comprised of exhaustion, low blood sugar, unresolved grief and a recent loss in hearing that upped the volume of tinnitus in my left ear so that even a quiet conversation sounds like echoes in a wind tunnel and a loud demonstration is like the whole world just got tuned to a place halfway between stations on the radio. I was asking myself that dangerous question, “Don’t I have a real life somewhere and shouldn’t I be there, now, living it?” I’d brought my battered old doumbek but didn’t really feel like playing it, until two guitarists, an accordionist and another drummer joined a group of Italians singing “Bella Ciao.” It’s just not possible to stay in an evil mood when Italians are singing “Bella Ciao.”

So I went looking for something useful to do. The police had us surrounded and blocked in, and lines of people were standing in front of them, face to face, to keep them from pushing in the barricades further. In some sense all these confrontations are about space—political space to protest, spaces of freedom in which the people of Gaza might actually live their own lives. Right, I remembered, that was the reason I was there and not back home happily trying to unclog a blocked-up hydroelectric system in the pouring rain, We had created a micro-Gaza right there in the plaza, and again, that is the point of nonviolent action—to dramatize an invisible wrong and make it visible, put in the face of the world so it can’t be ignored.

Lisa was in the middle of the crowd running a spokescouncil meeting that she’d somehow pulled together. She has an amazing ability to work a crowd in the midst of clamor and chaos and somehow bring them all to some point of clarity. Plus she has a naturally loud voice and can make herself heard. Between the roaring gale going on in my left ear and my naturally soft voice being even more so due to the horrible air exacerbating my asthma, I just didn’t feel like that was the place I could do much. If the Goddess in her infinite wisdom had gifted me with a loud voice, not to mention making me slim and glamorous, I could have ruled the world. But she didn’t, so I just have to muddle along as best I can.

Before we came on the march, I’d been in contact with members of the Interfaith delegation about doing trainings for the marchers. No opportunity had yet arisen to do anything of the sort, but I went to check in with them. While we were talking, some kafuffle took place over at the line with the police. A cop hit a woman in the face, we were told. So we went over—but by then, other people had stepped up. One of the white-haired women from the Michigan Peace Team was walking up and down the line talking to the blank eyed officers in fine nonviolent style. Some of the Italians were being, well, Italian—loud and expressive, but basically, things were calm. But we brought up some more people to hold a line, facing the cops. I resisted joining it—I’m a Gemini, an air sign, I like to stay loose at these things and float around. But then a devastatingly handsome young man held out his hand to me and I couldn’t resist. So I ended up in front of these hard-eyed Egyptian security guys, with the grim expressions that reminded me that these are the folks the CIA gets to do their real torturing for them. But honestly, I was bored. So bored that I decided to make use of the time, if possible, to improve my Arabic. From my time in the ISM I had learned a few useful phrases: ‘thank you’, ‘please’, ‘tea without sugar’ and ‘Tank!’ Actually the first Arabic phrase I learned was ‘Fi jesh?’ which means, roughly, “Is the Army up ahead?” As opposed to a time in my life when I was much younger, and the first German phrase I ever learned was “I am really horny.” Ah, but that’s another story..

But knowing I was coming on this trip, I had downloaded some language-learning programs and listened to them long enough to learn to count to ten and to say, “I would like to eat something.” No doubt a useful phrase. I smiled at grim cop in front of me, held up one finger, and said, “Wehed?” His eyes locked on mine. I held up two. “Efnayim?” He ventured a smile, nodded encouragingly, and said “Taletha.” “Arbah” I replied, holding up four, and before I knew it the entire line of cops within earshot were grinning and nodding encouragement as I counted to ten, then patiently instructing me on to eleven, twelve, thirteen…There’s a music to the Arabic numbers that is quite hypnotic, and before I knew it I was up to a hundred, with my team cheering me on. Then we started over again, and over. They were all gazing at me with fond, paternal eyes, like a father looks at a promising child, and they stopped looking to me like potential torturers and started looking more like sweet young men doing a job that wasn’t really their choice to begin with.

Then they switched shifts, and I had to start all over again. But damn if it didn’t work just the same way with the new guard. The truth is, the personal sympathies of these guys are already with us, mostly. They aren’t subject to the same political pressures as Mubarak. The young ones in uniform are conscripts, just doing their time.

Ah—but I’m running out if I want to get to the French Embassy, the American Embassy where I’m told people are being detained, to go support the hunger strikers who will be vigiling at 2 pm—including Hedy Epstein, an 88 year old holocaust survivor, and start planning for tomorrow when we have decided to march toward Gaza if we have to leave from right here in Cairo. Let me just say that by the end of the day, after some food and some shifts in the organizing, I felt good again. Glad to be here, glad to be part of this, hopeful that whether or not we get to Gaza we will succeed in our true aim—to focus the world’s attention again on Gaza, on the illegal state of siege the Israeli’s are perpetuating there, on those who died and on the shattered homes and infrastructure which cannot be rebuilt because Israel will not let in supplies. I’ll do my best to keep writing and posting, but now off to do a bit of living.

See pictures and leave comments on: http://starhawksblog.org

So far unscathed, I got sucked into doing media work for most of the afternoon. About a hundred people went out to the Kasr al Nil bridge around noon—the bridge to the large island in the middle of the Nile. They placed cards and flowers on the bridge to commemorate the more than 1300 Gazans who died in the Israeli assault that began a year ago today, on December 27, 2008. The police eventually showed up and ordered them off the bridge, but didn’t arrest anyone.

The plan for the afternoon was to meet at 4 pm down by the Nile and take feluccas, the small sailboats that go up and down the river. On the boats, we could meet in small groups and then converge later for a larger meeting. We hurried down there (I spend a lot of these actions trailing after people who are younger, faster and slimmer) and eventually I jumped in a taxi with a few other women at Lisa’s suggestion. A knot of activists were surrounded by a thicket of cameras. The police were blocking us from getting on the boats, and shut down the rental place. But we gathered, a group of several hundred, which we had been expressly forbidden to do. Medea Benjamin, one of the Code Pink leaders, jumped up and made an impromptu speech. “Who here wants to take a boat on the Nile, like tourists do?” she asked. Everyone raised their hands. “Who here wants to go to Gaza?”

The crowd began cheering and unfurling banners and chanting “Free Gaza!” We lit our candles in cups and held them aloft. There were people from all over the world in the crowd—young students and old people, every imaginable mix of countries and races and religions. The spirit was strong, and as more and more police arrived, everyone remained calm. The crowd began marching back down the riverside, and then the police threw up a cordon and blocked us in. Lisa was trying to negotiate and persuade the head officer to let us march down back to the bridge and disperse there, but he wouldn’t go for it. The police were not in riot gear—most of them seemed to be in plain clothes, and their hearts weren’t realy in keeping us blocked in. They held hands to barricade us, and they kept smiling. People lifted up their arms and ducked under and got out, and from time to time they opened up and let people out, without much rhyme nor reason. Basically, they are personally in sympathy with our cause, and that’s working in our favor.

Eventually, they moved aside and let everyone go. People felt strong and empowered by the action. We had been told that the Egyptian government did not want us to protest in Cairo, to be interviewed by the press, to interact with Egyptians. And we had done all of the above.

Our canceled meeting had been rescheduled and moved several times, but finally we had it outside, in the middle of Tahrir Square, a big central square in downtown Cairo, right out in the open. What I love about explicitly nonviolent actions, and what sometimes gets lost in the attempts we make to accommodate diverse tactics and security culture, is that in-your-face attitude we can adopt when we aren’t trying to hide what we’re doing. The authorities say, ‘you cannot meet in groups larger than six people,’ and cancel our permit for a building, so we meet in the center of town in the public square. We create a dilemma for the authorities—either arrest us, these hundreds of internationals with large bases of political support, or concede this political space.

The cops left us alone. But—all the busses that we’d rented for our attempt to go to Gaza tomorrow have been cancelled due to pressure from the government. Ordinary Egyptians, who live here, don’t have the privilege we enjoy and are not immune to threats.

The French contingent went en masse to their embassy, threatening to encamp on its lawn, and got them to intervene with the Egyptian government and they got security permits for their busses. Or so we’ve heard—I don’t know yet if the busses actually arrived or were allowed to leave.

With all the stress and continually changing conditions, I’m still deeply thrilled to be here. Under the clamor and the smog lies a sense of age and a whiff of ancient things. That river we’re walking besides is the Nile! I see a scraggly cat and think, ‘This is where cats come from!” I see a man in flowing robes and kaffiyeh who could have been standing there for a hundred years.

Tomorrow Ann Wright, a U.S. diplomat who resigned in protest against the Iraq War and who has become a dedicated activist, will take another delegation to the foreign office to continue their negotiations. Please keep up the calls and the writing.

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=1946

Your support is keeping us safe and will hopefully open the road to Gaza—not just for us, but for the people whose lives and health and freedom are blighted by this siege.

Starhawk is one of the most respected voices in modern earth-based spirituality. She is also well-known as a global justice activist and organizer, whose work and writings have inspired many to action. She is the author or coauthor of eleven books, including The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, long considered the essential text for the Neo-Pagan movement, and the now-classic ecotopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing. Starhawk’s newest book is a picture book for children, The Last Wild Witch.

This must be a short email because we have no electricity (as usual) and I am almost out of battery power. A short note on the electricity problem here. Every couple days we lose electricity for an hour, two hours, six hours…you get the picture. It is an irritating nuisance at first. But then the injustice of it sinks in. We’ve only been here two weeks and it is extremely inconvenient. But for people living here, it is a real problem and an injustice. Why can’t they have normal electricity like everyone else?

We are sitting today in a surgeon’s clinic and all of a sudden the electricity goes out. The surgeon remarked that this wouldn’t happen in the States. I had to concede. He has no generator in his office that is located in middle of the city where he does check ups with the locals. (His surgical work is at Al Shifaa Hospital). So when there is no electricity he has to examine patients in the dark (or rather he can talk to them, but not really examine them).

It is a real frustration for people here, not to have electricity all the time and for it to shut off at random (and usually) inconvenient times. For example, the other day we were invited to dinner at a family’s house. We walk in their house and it is dark. No electricity. Not the best way they would like to host guests. In the end it was fine. We ate a romantic candle-lit dinner : ) But I think you get the picture of the real electricity problem we have here.

Anyway, there is this really funny song that was made about the electricity always going out. I can’t wait to share it with people back home!

Anyway, today we talked to some children (mostly around 10 years of age) about life here in Gaza. They love it, of course. All kids love home. They loved the Qattan Center (library), the beach, the gardens (about three in all of Gaza). Kids are naturally content. But they do need more here. Parks (thank you, CODEPINK!) and play places and the like. Of course none of that stuff is allowed in and it cannot be built here with the siege and no building equipment.

The kids, and this is something quite typical of Gazans, are real doers though. They really make the best of their situation. Now on summer vacation, they all go through a regular system of activity: Library visits, play in the park, time on the beach, Quran school, going to the mosque for prayer, and attending other activity centers. It is quite amazing how much determination the people here have to be normal and live life to the full. They refuse to let their besieged condition harm their development (as much as they can, of course).

One thing that struck me about these kids were that they were so normal, like other kids. It’s a pity they can’t be allowed to be totally normal.

One little girl, Rawda, said she did not like the beach because it was scary. While another boy, Khadr, said what he didn’t like about Gaza was his cousins. Another girl, Iman, said she didn’t like the boys in the park.

Until this point the conversation was one that could be had anywhere in the world.

But then I asked them about the War. They were afraid, they said. Of course. They described, it very matter-of-fact tones, the time period. The fear. The noise. The fear of losing a father because his phone was out. The memory of losing cousins. The memory of seeing your aunt in the street killed. Of your father running out to her. Of seeing your neighbor’s house bombed. Of leaving your house.

Rawda, the little 8 year old, said she tells her mother now that she is afraid the Israelis will come back. And her mother tells her not to say that. I wonder how the mother feels, unable to promise her daughter that she will be okay. That the monsters under the bed are not real. She must be devastated.

The children told me how their mothers were scared for them. How the adults around them would cry and scream during the war.

I asked how they felt about the Israelis. One said I don’t like them because they killed my cousins. Another boy said I don’t like them because they come her and kill us and ruin our homes and they have no mercy.

These children have lived through a nightmare. They are still pure and innocent like other children. But they’ve had to experience what no adult can handle. I wonder what impact this will have on them. And I only pray that they are protected from further assault and injury. They don’t deserve this.

There biggest concerns should be their bully cousins, and the scary sea. Not images of terror, massacre, and an ever-present threat of its return.

After a short legal briefing on ramifications of being arrested as a foreigner in Israel (“almost 100% likelihood of deportation, strong likelihood that restrictions will be placed on returning to Israel), we had a wonderful meeting with Haneen Zoubi, who is the first woman in Israel to be elected an MK from an Arab party, the Tajub Party.  Ms. Zoubi is a fascinating, and powerful, woman.

Right from the get-go she helped reinforce why we, at least the majority of us who are US citizens, are here, by noting, “most of our problems come from the US government.”   While this may be a bit of a stretch, there is no doubt that the US plays a central role in supporting and continuing the conflict.  Over the next hour or so Ms. Zoubi shared her unique perspective with us, and I think it’s safe to say that everyone was moved by her experience.  She stressed that those Palestinians living in Israel, numbering 1.2 million (18% of the population), have accepted citizenship, but will not give up their historical rights.  “If Israel will be a state for all, we want to participate.”  She also elaborated on the absurdity of Israel promoting itself as “the only democracy in the Middle East,” as it is far from a democratic state.  Rather it is a state based on religion that talks about “Zionist citizenship” and demands that citizens must adopt the Zionist dream – that of a Jewish state.  But Ms. Zoubi noted that people have a right to aspire to the Zionist dream,”but not at my expense.”

Ms. Zoubi also discussed the settlements, a hot topic at the moment.  Since 1948 Israel has confiscated 93% of the land that was Palestine, leaving just 3% for the Palestinians. Even since the Oslo Accords of 1993, Israel has been massively expanding the settlements – in fact, there are no THREE times as many settlements as there were in 1995.  East Jerusalem, the majority Palestinian part of the Holy City, has been consumed by settlements, to the point that it is now, “a small neighborhood among settlements.”  Ms. Zoubi made the important point that even if the checkpoints are dismantled, the question remains about what to do with the 600,000-plus settlers in the Occupied Territories.  As she pointed out, Israel is making the facts on the ground make a two-state solution impractical.

Finally, Ms. Zoubi touched on the internal conflict among Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, between Hamas and Fatah.  She was quite critical of the Palestinian Authority’s (controlled by Fatah) complicity in the attack on Gaza and its stonewalling of Hamas.  But she said she finds hope in some of the most absurd things that are being proposed in the Israeli Knesset, such as loyalty laws that would demand that all Israelis, including Israeli Palestinians, pledge loyalty to the Israeli, Jewish, Zionist state, a law that would prohibit commemorating the Nakba (the tragedy of 1948, when the Occupation began), and a law that would prohibit even questioning the idea of a “Jewish democratic state” (as she keenly pointed out, this could land many Israeli, Jewish academics, judges and officials in jail).  In her opinion, the fact that such extreme laws are being proposed, and Israeli politics is moving so far to the right, are signs that they are in crisis.  In a more light-hearted moment, when we asked Ms. Zoubi how it is being in the Knesset with those proposing such laws, such as the extreme right-wing leader Avidgor Lieberman, she said simply, “I don’t sit in the cafeteria.”

After this we moved into a clowning workshop, which was quite an event.  Along with our delegation clowns, the famous Patch Adams and Fungus A. Mungus, a number of Israeli clowns have been participating in our events and helped to lead the workshop.  Fungus brought clown noses for everyone, which have come in very handy so far.  Lunch was at the fantastic New Vegan Bar in Tel Aviv, a great space run by a bunch of Israeli activists, with delicious food.

Saturday evening was our first real action in Israel.  As part of a global day of action against the Occupation and calling for an end to the siege in Gaza, there was a demonstration in Tel Aviv.  As we approached the square where the demonstration was to begin, there was a heavy police presence, but it was not intimidating.  It’s hard to say how many participants there were, but a safe bet would be somewhere around 600-800.  It was very encouraging to see Israelis protesting on this issue, and it was also wonderful to see Patch in action for the first time.  There’s really no way to describe Patch’s character – you’ll just have to see the pictures for yourself.  The clown contingent was definitely one of the most colorful and entertaining parts of the demonstration, and of course CodePink made our presence known with our shirts and a number of great signs and banners.

Finally, we headed for the border.  Upon arriving at the wonderful ADUMAMA farm that is hosting us while we attempt to enter Gaza, we met up with our compatriots who had come from Egypt, including Medea Benjamin and Colonel Ann Wright.  They had a much more arduous trip than us, having been held at the border for around eight hours.  It was great to see them, and before turning in for the night, we received a report back from the delegation that had entered Gaza through Egypt, including the full details on the letter that Hamas had giving CodePink to deliver to President Obama.

Day 2 – 7

Today was the big day, the day that we would try to enter Gaza.  After a lovely breakfast on the farm, we got on the bus and headed for the Erez crossing.  The Erez crossing consists of a small parking lot, a huge terminal (which is virtually empty these days), and a small border post.  It was great to see quite a bit of press there, as well as the truck that was carrying the playground for Gazan children!  While Patch led most of the delegation (and attracted loads of media attention) to the border post, others unloaded and constructed the playground.

The border guards did ask for our passports, so for a brief moment, getting in seemed like a possibility.  Quickly we created a festive atmosphere, with an Israeli samba band and the clowns leading the way.  We also had kites, which added to the fun.  However, there was a somber moment when we spoke with a Gazan woman who is forced to come to Erez at least every three months, if not more frequently, to renew her permission to stay in East Jerusalem, where her husband and children live.  Sometimes she only receives the permission for a week, and has to return a week later.  She has not been allowed back into Gaza to see her family for 12 years, for if she did, she would not be able to get back to East Jerusalem and her family there.  This woman’s story really struck a chord with a lot of the delegates, and served to show exactly why we were there.

Patch was again fantastic, playing with children and making police and soldiers smile, and after it became clear we would not be getting in, he started a poker game with everyone’s passports.  After a couple of hours, and a stray kite, the police got tired of us and kicked us out.  While it was disappointing not to be let in, it was fully expected, and it was a great action that drew attention to the issue.  Check out an article about it here (and check out the guy on the right J) – http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3727445,00.html

This afternoon a few of the members of our delegation headed to Tel Aviv to talk with the US embassy about our situation (which unfortunately was closed).  We will also be pressing the Israeli foreign ministry to let us in, and we did receive a number from the border guards for the IDF to attempt to gain permission to enter.

Back at the farm we had a wonderful lunch, followed by a tour of the farm.  It is a fascinating place, focusing on permaculture, and with very interesting buildings built out of the soil.  Then the conference began, and there were several very interesting workshops.  Ruchama Marton, a founder of the Israeli chapter of Physicians for Human Rights, and her colleague Tammy discussed the health care situation in Gaza.  One of the most disturbing things we learned today is that the Israeli government is making it so that nearly every one who applies for a permit to exit Gaza for medical treatment undergoes interrogation.  This puts people in extremely difficult situations, as acquiescing to such interrogations can be seen as collaboration in the eyes of Hamas, so many people choose simply not to seek medical treatment outside of Gaza, even though health care facilities there are “miserable,” with ongoing shortages of medical equipment, medication, and trained personnel.  They also clarified something that has been widely noted in the international press – Hamas’s decision to stop issuing referrals to Israeli hospitals.  It turns out that Israeli hospitals are the most expensive in the region, so it made simple economic sense to do so.

We also heard from Tania Hari of GISHA, the Legal Center for the Freedom of Movement, whose main premise is that “when you control something you have responsibility for it.”  GISHA was instrumental in getting the Fulbright scholarships for several Gazan students reinstated after they had been revoked because Israel refused to allow the students to leave Gaza.  Concurrently there was a session on Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) and one by a woman (unfortunately I cannot recall her name at the moment) from the Free Gaza movement, which I attended.  The Free Gaza Movement is the group that brings boats to Gaza in an attempt to open up access by sea to Gaza. She discussed the tragic situation in Gaza, particularly how difficult it is for Gazan fishermen, which was very interesting to me since I work on fishing issues.  Although Gazans are supposed to be able to use the waters out to 20 miles, if they go beyond six miles they are shot at and harassed.  This is a serious problem, as 40,000 Gazans depend on fishing for their livelihoods (and similar problems occur with agriculture, with farmers being shot at).  She stressed the importance of taking about the Occupation as a whole.  While it is crucial to end the siege on Gaza, Gaza is part of Palestine, and what is taking place in East Jerusalem (such as settlement building and a wall being built in the middle of it) is also a siege, and, ominously, she noted that if we don’t stop the Occupation, in the future the situation in the West Bank will be similar to that in Gaza.  Along these lines, she emphasized the need for a political solution to the problem, not simply a humanitarian one.  On other important point she made was that all Israelis know what is going on in the Occupied Territories, because all Israelis must serve in the army.  This is a very important fact to remember.

After another wonderful meal, part of the group decided to go to Sderot, the town that has been the target of many of the rocket attacks from Gaza, to attend a film festival and perhaps speak with some of the residents.  Those of us who stayed behind received a real treat in the form of Patch Adams telling us a bit of his life story, reciting a fantastic T.S. Elliot poem, and showing us a documentary of a trip that the city of Rome funded to bring a bunch of clowns to Afghanistan shortly after the war began in 2002.  Patch is truly an amazing and inspiring man, on the road for 300 days a year for the last 26 years working peace and justice.

Day 3 – 8 June 2009

It was back to the border today for our second attempt to get into Gaza.  After another delicious breakfast, we boarded the bus and headed to the Erez crossing once again.  Early this morning, as many have probably heard, according to the Israeli media, some militants attacked the Karni crossing in Gaza and four were killed, so we were expecting the security forces to be on high alert.  However, it was almost even more relaxed than the day before (but we also did not approach the fence and border post until just before leaving).

Today we were highlighting the absurdity of the restrictions on what goods can enter Gaza.  It is far easier to list what is allowed in, as only something like 35 items are allowed in.  Among the contraband is matches, light bulbs, sugar, coffee, tea, paper, pencils, chocolate, balloons, concrete (and all building supplies) and so much more.  At the sign for the border crossing, we set up a fence that represented the border and set up a bucket line that passed the prohibited goods under the fence and into Gaza.  We had this bucket line going for some time, all the while chanting, “What do we want? Tea!…Let the tea in!,” etc., etc.  After the bucket line had been running for a while, we marched up to the fence, where we chanted about letting in these items, and once it became clear that they would not be allowed in, we decided to move it, but we left tea bags, balloons and a few other items on and at the fence.

From there we decided to head to the Kerem Shalom crossing, which is a crossing that is just used for goods, not people, and is about 45 minutes away from the Erez crossing.  We especially expected that tensions would be high here and we would quickly be run out, but again, we were allowed to do our thing.  It was a really beautiful action here as well, as we got right to the gate where the trucks enter and leave and made the same big spectacle there.  We also reconstructed the playground there, which was great fun.  A video cameraman from Reuters showed up, so we also recreated the bucket line there.  Patch had great fun with a couple of the men working the border crossing, making them laugh throughout the whole time, and he also got a ride in one of their vehicles.

Here is an AP article with a mention and pictures of today’s action (take note that it is a blatant lie that we did not request permission to enter Gaza, we most definitely did, as described above):
http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_12539223

And here are a few more AP photos:
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/slideshow/photo//090608/481/d35a6b73f5a24a68a99b4ed8913c1d70/#photoViewer=/090608/481/d0d020c19ae84125a3c590533ddfb2a0