On April 2, 2002 the Israeli military, having already encircled Bethlehem, entered Manger Square as part of a sweep of the entire city ostensibly to round up Palestinian militants and youths who might be considering a suicide operation. With hundreds of Palestinians – militants, priests, nuns, and civilians – cornered in Manger Square, they had nowhere to escape except into the sanctity of the Church of the Nativity – the site Christians believe to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. The deadly Israeli military siege of the Church (and of the entire city) had begun, and would last for forty days and forty nights.

Fearing damage to one of the holiest sites of Christianity, the Israeli army initially fired only small arms at some walls of the Church. But by mounting remotely controlled guns with high-resolution cameras atop three cranes, Israeli gunners were able to kill one-by-one several Palestinians trapped inside. One Israeli attempt to take the Church by force set off a large fire in the Greek Orthodox monastery.

While the suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians were misguided deviations in the then 54-year-old Palestinian resistance to occupation and in the Second Intifada, and cannot be justified, civilian locations were chosen because Israeli military targets were inaccessible. Needless to say, such suicide bombings neither can be justified, nor did they achieve the goal of lifting the Israeli occupation. In fact, on the contrary, the occupation has only become progressively more restrictive and draconian. At the same time, armed Palestinian resistance to occupation is no less understandable than the armed Jewish uprising led by Marek Edelman against the Warsaw Ghetto or the armed resistance led by Nelson Mandela against South African apartheid.

Despite this, in recent years, Palestinians supported by Israeli peace activists and internationals have been increasingly turning to nonviolent resistance against the wall, house and orchard demolitions, abusive and violent Israeli settlers, and the occupation itself. Witnessing the primarily nonviolent civil disobedience tactics of the continuing revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt has given a powerful boost to Palestinian nonviolent resistance and its embrace by the Palestinian leadership.

Nevertheless, the suicide attacks of 2002 gave Sharon the pretext to use armed force to reoccupy the West Bank. This is despite the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which forbids collective punishment of an entire population for offenses of a few. Article 33 states: “No protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

In an opinion piece on “Israel and the plight of Mideast Christians” for the Wall Street Journal (March 9, 2012, p. A13), Michael Oren, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, claimed, “Palestinian gunmen seized Christian homes – compelling Israel to build a protective barrier between them and Jewish neighborhoods – and then occupied the Church of the Nativity, looting it and using it as a latrine.”

The fact is that Palestinian Christian civilians were among those trapped inside the Church of the Nativity. They did not choose to occupy it. Fearing for their lives, they were left with no choice but to take refuge in the Church. It was not Palestinian gunmen, but Israeli soldiers who seized private homes in Bethlehem. The only “looting” inside the Church was the human consumption of food offered by the priests from the stores of the monasteries. No Palestinian, whether Muslim or Christian, acted intentionally to desecrate the Church. The stench that prevailed throughout much of 40-day siege was of unbathed men, the decaying bodies of those killed by Israeli snipers and remote-controlled guns, and the traces of vomit from those who got sick. It was a direct consequence of the Israeli military siege.

Jiries Canavati is the Christian owner of a gift shop on Milk Grotto Street beside the Church compound. He witnessed the siege from within. Speaking to me inside the Church of the Nativity, he recounts why 248 Palestinians took refuge in the Church, and provides a harrowing eyewitness account of what it was like to be trapped under the Israeli military siege. His narrative has been edited very slightly for clarity.

Two weeks before April, Israeli soldiers were just preparing themselves with tanks, vehicles, soldiers, and they gathered themselves at the border [of the West Bank]. So they came on the first of April 12:00 midnight from all directions. They came from the Rachel Tomb, the checkpoint. They came from Beit Sahur where the Shepherd’s Field is. They came from al-Mukhabar village. They came from Beit Jala. They came from all the ways [directions].

Now, they cut the electricity in Bethlehem. And people, just to be honest with you, many of them were in the old town in the old center of Bethlehem. And they thought they were just watching a movie. They didn’t believe that soldiers are going to be here with tanks and that they will occupy the town – that it is really war.

So what happened was all the people were gathering in the town in the old center, in the old market. By 12:00 [midnight] to 1:00 [am] the helicopters came. They were shooting in all directions. They shot many people in the streets. Many young men were killed. No one could help. And I remember they shot many cars; they shot many houses. And by 2:00 to 3:00 [am] the tanks started to move toward Bethlehem from all directions. And I remember maybe 500 to 600 young men were in the old town of Bethlehem. By the time you saw people, they were shot in the streets. No one could help them. People from the first aid didn’t want to give help. No one helped them because they were shooting in all directions. So the situation became worse and worse. People had no chance. Almost 15 dead bodies were in the streets. They burnt cars and they burnt houses. All that is what happened.

At the end, one of the young men said, “We have no chance. You are talking about 500 to 1000 of the fighters. But we have 7,000 Israeli soldiers.”

They came with their vehicles, their tanks, their equipment, and their Apaches [helicopters]. And they were shooting bombs. It was really war.

So one of the young men said, “So what do you suggest?”

He said, “Let us go find a place to hide just to survive.”

And they said, “We have no place. We are here surrounded by Israeli soldiers.”

One of the young men said, “Let’s talk about the Church of the Nativity.”

And they called the Father. The Father said, “We love to give help, but if you can reach this area with soldiers and tanks everywhere.”

At the end one of the young men said, “Okay, we will do something.”

So what happened [was that] they came from around the main part of the Church. We have the Peace Centre. We have the Mosque of Omar. We have the Bethlehem Municipality [offices]. Even in the Syrian Orthodox Church there were people inside, and in the Santana Church there were people inside, and in the Lutheran Church there were people inside. So those churches the soldiers occupied. They invaded those churches. Why? Because [they were] not so important like the Church of the Nativity.

So at the end one of the young men said, “The only chance we have is the Church of the Nativity.”

So they came from the Catholic door. And the Father was a little late. So what happened was they shot the lock of the door and the opened the main door. They came inside. I was in Manger Square watching. I didn’t believe it. I was with my friends. And no one understood the situation. So we wanted to go back home.

I called my mom. “Mother, we are coming back home. How is the situation?”

She said, “Just don’t come back! Go away!”

I asked her, “What is going on?”

She said, “We have a lot of soldiers in our house. They occupied houses.”

We have three floors – one building. My cousins, my uncles, and my father — we live in three houses. There were 150 Israeli soldiers in those houses, and they stayed until the end – forty days – inside the home. So when they came to the Church of the Nativity, … I saw people just ran to the Church. They came to this path. I followed them. I had no chance [otherwise]. So we came though the Catholic door. The first group – we were like seventy. There was another group of maybe eighty. And the third group was a hundred. So we became altogether 248 people inside the Church.

We thought we would stay one day, two days, maximum one week, and then the Israeli soldiers will leave, and we will go back home. But in fact what happened inside the Church was there were some armed people who belonged to the Palestinian fighters and movements. So when the Israeli soldiers found out that some of them were armed, they said we want those. They considered them as “wanted.” So they started to siege the Church. They occupied the Peace Center, the Mosque [of Omar], the Bethlehem Municipality [offices], the whole neighborhood behind here. They occupied the Cassanova, the hotel for the Franciscans. They occupied the Terra Santa School. And behind the Church we have the Milgrota Church, we have Wy Sisters’ House, we have the Russian House, the Russian Hotel, and we have another building – the Multi-Catholic Society. And those were huge buildings and very high. So they occupied all the buildings and they put snipers everywhere.

More than that, what happened was that they brought three high cranes. They put them in Manger Square. Electronic machine guns attached with telescopes and video cameras, and they controlled it by computer. So they see you on the screen when you just move outside here or there, they just press the button and they shoot you. This is the way they shot people. The kind of bullet they used was the dumdum. The dumdum is the one that splits inside. If it touches your hand, your leg, your face, or whatever, you are a dead body. You have no chance.

At the beginning people here were very tired and very afraid, but at the end they said, “We have no chance. This [staying in the Church of the Nativity] is the only chance we have. We have to pray. We have to survive. We have to do our best.”

The fathers for two or three days were afraid, but after that not. So what happened was the fathers said, “We would like to help, but don’t forget you are in a holy place and this is the Church of the Nativity. So we don’t want more problems and any damage to the Church.”

By the time they saw the situation, the terrible things, the fathers became more friendly. They gave us a lot of food. We took from them for ten days the food of the monasteries. We have three churches – Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Catholic.

They opened everything and said, “Take whatever you want.” So we ate for ten days very good because the fathers just said, “Okay, take it.” But after ten days the fathers said, “Now we have a problem. We don’t have food to give you.” Why? Because we are talking about 248 [people]. It is a big number. If you have a big store, it will not be enough.

So after that we started to move from the field of the Church. Between the grass and the leaves, we started to move slowly until we reached the outer area. We called some neighbors.

How did we charge the cellular phone? There was no electricity, no water, nothing at all. The only light inside the Nativity Church was the tower, the Christmas bells. Why? Because the tower is connected with the Bethlehem Municipality [offices]. It is the same line of electricity. Now, the soldiers were there at night. When they switched on the light, they gave us light, but they didn’t realize it. So one of the young men went up and he made a line and then he brought electricity to here. We started to charge the batteries. So we called some neighbors. They gave us food. But what happened was one of the young men was in the field. The soldiers saw him and they shot him. He was killed. They closed that area. So no one could move from that part.

One of the young men said that his brother works at the medical center, so let’s talk to him. We called him. The only people who could move at that time were the ambulances. Why? Because it was curfew the whole time. Every week they gave two hours for you to collect some medicines, some food, and that’s it. If they see you during curfew time, they shoot you right away. So this was what happened. We called him.

He said, “Okay, I would like to help. I have my ambulance car, and I can move. But what can I do? Just give me an idea.”

So we started to think. We found a way: the Beit Sahur Valley. We called people.

They said, “Okay, we will collect food there because the situation was more quiet than here.”

So they started to collect food from the houses, and then they gathered food at the medical center. The ambulance goes there to the medical center, carries bags in the ambulance, and then they bring as much as they can behind the Church of the Nativity. The young girls, 13 or 14 years of age, go walking at night. They carry bags from house to house, from house to house, until they reach the house which is in front of the Church. At night they carry the bags and then they throw them from the roof of the houses to the roof of the Church. We did that six or seven times to wait out thirty days. This is what happened.

Another mistake: One of the young girls got scared and she dropped a plastic bag in the street. She heard a soldier, so she ran away. The soldiers opened the food. They found rice, sugar, salt, bread, and all these things. So they closed everything, they occupied the houses, and they destroyed all these things. So we had no chance. I remember on the 28th or 29th [of April], we got eleven volunteers from the [Israeli] peace movement. On the 28th, they came through the main door, and they ran to the Church, to this part here. The governor of Bethlehem was inside, the fathers, and the director of the Catholic Society.

I asked him, “I saw people outside in the [Manger] Square.”

He said, “Open the door, open the door. I am the one who has the key.”

Why? Because the fathers cannot wake up at three or four in the morning when someone is injured or there is some problem.

So he said, “Take the key. Just follow orders from the governor and from the director of the Church.”

And then they say, “Open, open. Close, close.” So they said, “Open the door.”

I opened the door. People came inside. Eleven could come in, and seventeen were arrested by the Israeli soldiers. They were with their bags. There was some bread inside. They had also cameras. We took some pictures together. So we ate for four days together.

But the last one week – that was the worst and most terrible. No food at all. People started bleeding. Many people went to the use the bathroom. Everything they ate [went] “splat.” And I remember I was 79 [kilograms]. When I went outside of the Church, I became 63 [kilograms]. So in forty days, I lost 16 kilos. This is what happened.

Many people started to wake up in the morning screaming because they put loudspeakers and they started to bother people. They didn’t want anyone to sleep the whole day.

Many times they tried to occupy the Church and to invade the Church. One time, I remember, from the Catholic section … That is the place where they meet on Sunday and where they have the paperwork of the Church if someone wants to get married, if someone wants to make baptism, or whatever. They came also through the Greek Orthodox monastery. They burned the whole monastery. And many times they came through the walls. They put ladders and they started to come inside. Some of the people here started to shoot towards them [the soldiers] and they moved outside. This is what happened.

People here respected all the decisions. Why? Because they said, “This is a holy place, so we have to respect the Church.” The Church protected the people here. It saved the people. They were following orders.

They used to call Arafat in Ramallah. Arafat said, “Please, don’t shoot from the Church! Just take care of this holy place. This is the most important place in the Holy Land.” And people followed orders.

But what happened was that Arafat told them, “At the end, if you feel that you are going to die, that they want to kill you, that you are in a very dangerous situation, just shoot to let them go away.”

By that time, nine were killed in this Church and 26 were injured. For those people who were injured, we started – the governor, the leaders, and the father – to talk to Israeli leaders. They opened the door. They [soldiers] took them. Why?

The father and the governor said, “It is better for them to be in a hospital or in jail than to become dead bodies.” So until this moment they are still in prison.

Now, about the people who were killed – the first two dead bodies – we asked them, “Please, we have two dead bodies. Just take them.”

The first one was killed at the Catholic roof. He didn’t know the Church. He didn’t realize there’s locked doors everywhere. So he moved up to the roof just to check if he can find a way to bring food or if he wanted to run away to escape. So what happened was the soldiers were at the Bethlehem 2000 Building. They shot him with one bullet. We heard the bullets. We moved up to the roof. We saw him on the floor. So me and my friend carried him to bring him inside the Church. He was on his back like that. There was a little hole in his face which was like very very small. You cannot see it. So when we turned his head [we saw] he was completely destroyed from the back side. He was killed immediately.

And the second one was killed in the Casanova Guest House. He was looking for food. He said, “This is Casanova. This is a hotel for sure. I am going to find food.” They had nothing to eat. So what happened was he went down to bring food, and accidentally he found soldiers inside. He raised his head, and he saw the soldiers in front himself. They shot him with two bullets in the chest. We carried him. We brought him to here. He was 25 years old, married – wife and he has two daughters. All the time he cries like this, “My friend, I don’t want to die. Please help me! Do something! I’m still young. I miss my daughter. I want to see my wife. Please, please, please …” Five minutes, ten minutes maximum. You want to give to him. You want to support him. You have nothing! Bleeding, bleeding, and then he passed away. So those were the two dead bodies.

We asked the leaders, “Please! We have two dead bodies. Kindly respect our traditions. Just take them. Already finished. Just send them to their families. They want to bury them, to pray, whatever.”

They [the soldiers] said, “No. We don’t need them. Just keep them inside.”

What happened was at the Catholic part there were some boxes. Inside were instruments from Italy donated to the Church. We came to the boxes. We took the pieces outside of the boxes. We cut the boxes. We made two coffins. We put the dead bodies inside. They stayed inside the Church of the Nativity for fifteen days with us until the Israeli soldiers and the leaders agreed. They said, “Okay, bring!” We opened the door and they took them – two dead bodies.

Most of the people were shot from the cranes. Three of them were very accurate. If the first one misses, the second will touch immediately. This is what happened. They wanted to finish the problem.

Here the people inside the Church said, “We can stay here six months. No problem if we drink water with salt.”

The problem was what about our families? Many people were shot in their houses. They found out that there were dead bodies after ten days or one week or two weeks. It started to smell. They opened the door. They found a young girl with her mother. They were shot through the windows from the Apaches [helicopters]. I called many families and many friends. No medicine, no food was at the houses. Everything was very very difficult.

So they said, “At the end, we will accept any decision. It is not for us. But it is just for our families. We are here 248, but in this area we have 140,000. So we have to do something for them.”

And then they started to make a settlement through the CIA of America and the European Union.

They said, “We need a list with the names and the ID numbers.”

Se we put our names, ID numbers, and everything. And the CIA of American came at 3 o’clock in the morning. They took the list. They sent it to the Israeli leaders. At the end they showed that, “This one is dangerous. This one is not. This is wanted. This is not. This is a fighter. This is not.” They decided to send thirteen to Europe – they transferred them – and 26 to Gaza.

The worst thing in this situation was what happened when Colin Powell came here. He said, “Okay, we want to finish the siege. We want to finish the crisis. Arafat is in big problems in Ramallah.”

Remember what happened in Jenin? They killed a lot of people. There was a case in the United Nations against the Israeli government because of what happened in Jenin. The Israeli government said, “We will accept anything you need. Just close that file and then we will agree to do whatever you want.” Unfortunately, the Palestinian Authority said okay, they accepted it. So they closed that file in the United Nations, and then we lost that situation. After that they said, “Okay, let’s finish the siege.”

They brought all people here with the CIA in the morning at 6 o’clock. They opened the main door, one-by-one checking, pictures, inspecting your clothes and everything. They put them all in the buses. So they took the first thirteen to Europe. They sent the second 26 to Gaza. And they took the rest, like us, to the military point in Hebron. For two or three days, they made some investigation, and they released us. After that they put their names on the blacklist. They considered them “wanted” or “dangerous” anytime that you were here with fighters. They considered them as “bad” people. This is what happened.

So for me, I didn’t realize that it was really serious. What happened? The siege started on the first of April, and the end was on the tenth of May. After two weeks on the 25th of May, soldiers came to my house and they started to look for me. They called to my mobile. I told them that I am not going to come. I thought that they were playing games with me. I didn’t do anything. So what happened? I am the only one [in my family] who works. My father passed away. I have my little daughter. She is seven years old. I have my mom. She is sick. I am the only one taking care of the family. So if I go there to surrender myself, what will happen is that maybe I will stay two, three years or five years in jail. No one will ask about it. My family then will have nothing to eat.

So I called Israeli leader. I talked to him and I told him that I am not going to surrender myself. They came maybe 15 times to my house. They destroyed my house. They destroyed furniture, my car, everything.

After that my family caught me and they said, “You have no chance. The last message from Israeli intelligence said, “If we see you anywhere, we will shoot you.” At the end, my family put more pressure, and they told me, “You have a daughter. Do something for your daughter, not for yourself!”

I told them, “What?”

They said, “You have to surrender yourself.”

I felt very upset, and then I went to the Israeli intelligence. Three of them with M16s came and carried me without any clothes and put me in jail. I spent five months in jail. And then they sued me. They gave me 30 months. I spent half of the time inside [jail], and then I paid money. My lawyer was a Jewish guy. He was a very very good one. He said, “If you want to pay money they might release you because you are a Christian guy. And then we will let the Church help you.”

So they charged me 70,000 shekels, which equalled 17,500 dollars. Then they released me. And they said, “Don’t do any problem. Don’t do this and this and this.”

I told them, “I am going back to take care of my mom, my daughter, my business, and thank you so much.”

So this is the situation. I lived in prison. I lived between prisoners. I lived here in the siege. So I believe that everything that happened was just wasting time because both sides are suffering. The Israeli governments care about control, about money, about this and this and this. But who pays the price? The people. If you go to the Israeli people and ask them, they want peace. About Palestinians, most of them want peace. But for small amounts of people, like small groups or fanatics, you have to find a good solution for them. You have to stop them. Many innocent people from both sides were losing. Many innocent people were killed. And it is not a game. Our lives are a grace from God. I killed your brother. Tomorrow you kill my uncle.

When asked whether things have changed since 2002, Jiries Canavati told one more story:

[Not long ago] one of the young men was killed in Bethlehem. They buried him. If you ask why, you are not going to believe it. He was a [Palestinian] soldier with his uniform. He was in the street. He had to operate a [Palestinian Authority] checkpoint. They work with the tax department. They just check the cars, especially the big ones. When they bring goods, you have a tax invoice and you pay money for the [PA] government. So there was a van. They stopped the van. The driver didn’t want to stop, but wanted just to hit him. The Palestinian soldier just tried to open the door. When he opened the door, he found an Israeli Special Forces Unit with their machine gun. The Israeli soldier raised his weapon, and shot him with four bullets. He was afraid. The Palestinian soldier didn’t realize what was going on – that it was a Special Unit. He was 37 years old, married with children. And they killed him like that.

The Israelis called the Palestinian leaders in Bethlehem and they said, “We are sorry. We will open the file and make some investigation. We will see what was going on and how this happened.” It was like a mistake.

The Gaza Freedom March sought to highlight the plight of the 1.5 million residents of Gaza on the first anniversary of the Israeli invasion of the densely-populated Palestinian territory by entering Gaza with humanitarian aid for water purification, school materials, medicines, and other much needed supplies. After Israel tightened its blockade on Gaza after the election of a Hamas majority in the elections of January 2006, Egypt has refused to give open permission for foreign citizens to enter Gaza through Rafah until the last minute. Organizers of the Gaza Freedom March had been hopeful of obtaining permission, but were disappointed when Egypt closed the Rafah border in December 2009 under intense pressure from Israel.

The French ambassador to Egypt, Jean Félix-Paganon, told members of the French delegation of the Gaza Freedom March that the Egyptian government was preparing to grant permission for the March to proceed to Gaza until the deal was rejected by Israel. With 1,360 delegates from 43 countries converging on Cairo, Egypt revoked the permit to hold a large meeting in Cairo and the permits for buses to take them to the Rafah border via El-Arish.

Protesting the Egyptian Blockade

In response, the Gaza Freedom March launched protests in the streets of Cairo on 27 December 2009. The day began with a silent action, tying letter cards expressing solidarity to the people of Gaza to the railings of the Qasr el-Nil Bridge. Many Egyptian passersby stopped to add their own messages of friendship to the people of Gaza and Palestine. When police finally broke up the vigil, they ripped the cards off, leaving only the strings by which they were attached.

In the late afternoon, a plan to sail in dozens of feluccas (traditional Nile sailboats) was aborted by police, who closed off an entire section of the Cornish el-Nil where the feluccas are docked. The purpose of going onto the Nile River was to float 1,400 candles in biodegradable cups in memory of the Palestinians who died in the Israel assault one year ago. Gaza Freedom March delegates held their candlelight vigil anyway along the busy Cornish el-Nil street.

The more than 300-strong French delegation had gathered in front of the French Embassy in Giza, expecting to board buses for El-Arish. When the buses failed to arrive because their permits had been pulled, the delegates in a courageous act of defiance sat down in the busy four northbound lanes of Murad Street and set up tents. Hundreds of riot police from the Central Security Force were mobilized to enclose the protesters and move them onto the footpath in front of the French Embassy. Not knowing what the police would ultimately do, there was a great deal of fear at the beginning of the action. At one point the security force cordon increased to three layers. However, the French ambassador was apparently supportive, discouraging Egyptian authorities from using force and pressing for permits to travel to Gaza. Towards the end, the security cordon was relaxed, allowing anyone to freely enter and exit the encampment. The encampment lasted continuously for four days.

French delegate, Amar Aknouche, said he decided to join the Gaza Freedom March because of the injustice in Palestine. He noted, “Israel is the only ‘democracy’ which goes and kills children and erects an apartheid wall. I came here to express my solidarity with Gaza.”

Other large delegations – U.S., Canadian, British, Italian, etc. — approached their own embassies to appeal for support in pressuring the Egyptian government to open the Gaza border. The U.S. and Canadian embassies were particularly unhelpful because their governments had taken an official position of not dealing with Gaza because they classify Hamas as a “terrorist” organization. An additional special delegation went to the offices of the Arab League to seek its intervention.

Non-violent Civil Disobedience

Meanwhile, other Gaza Freedom March participants defied the lack of permits to travel to El-Arish. Thirty arrived successfully and checked into a hotel, after which they were placed under house arrest. After diplomatic negotiations, they were allowed out of the hotel, but blocked from going to the Rafah border. Over several days another fifty delegates boarded commercial buses at different times in Cairo and successfully passed through the multiple checkpoints outside of Cairo and along the highway from Bur Sa’id to El-Arish. However, they were all halted at the bus stand in El-Arish or at the final checkpoint before entering El-Arish. Police forced all foreign travellers, including those holding Palestinian passports, back towards Cairo under police escort at least up to the Suez Canal. Eight Europeans refused to go back, choosing instead to camp out at a checkpoint. A subsequent directive of the Ministry of Interior blocked all non-Egyptians from travelling east of the Suez Canal.

On 28 December, while negotiations continued with the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for permits to enter Gaza, a new avenue was opened through the United Nations office in Cairo. A negotiating team led by Philippine parliament member Walden Bello met with U.N. officials, but to no avail. Bello confided, “I know it’s a bit difficult right now with the situation here, but I don’t think they will be able to keep us away from there [Gaza] forever.”

The negotiating team was supported by nearly a thousand delegates rallying in front of the World Trade Center Cairo where the U.N. office is located. The scene was abuzz for hours with chants of “We want to go to Gaza,” “Free Gaza,” “We shall overcome,” and many more. There was music led by guitarists and an accordion player. Meanwhile, organizing meetings in the various national delegations were constantly going on in the background.

Eighty-five-year-old Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, used the occasion to announce her hunger strike to demand passage to Gaza. She explained, “I have come to a point in my life in regard to the Israeli-Palestinian issue, especially the Gaza issue, where I think I need to do something else because what I have done so far has not really caught the attention of my own government or the governments of the world who are silent on this issue. And so I’ve decided to go on a hunger strike.” She was quickly joined by others.

As at the French Embassy, the rally was visually contained by a solid wall of black-uniformed members of the Egyptian Central Security Force. But the wall could not hide the banners, Palestinian flags, and chants that flew high above the security cordon. The young recruits frequently expressed sympathy and smiles with the delegates. One symbolically crossed his wrists, signalling that his hands were tied. The Central Security Force recruits carried no arms, and have not done so ever since a 1987 mutiny. However, police (some of whom are armed) did filter the crowd and remove three Egyptian nationals. They also removed one Palestinian American woman, punched her in the face, and then released her. Twelve international delegates remained camped at the World Trade Center overnight.

Many Egyptian passersby and people in buses and cars also signalled their sympathy by waving to the delegates, for the Gaza Freedom March was exercising a limited freedom of assembly and speech accorded to internationals that would not be permitted among Egyptians.

On 29 December, the Syndicate of Journalists invited the Gaza Freedom March to join their members at their trade union headquarters for a rally for Gaza that lasted into the evening. Some Palestinian and Egyptian speakers moved beyond lifting the blockade on Gaza to chanting “down with Hosni Mubarak” and calling for “revolution.” The combined voices of Egyptians and internationals sent a powerful message of unity and solidarity on Palestine and opposition to the Egyptian government’s role in upholding the blockade on Gaza.

Divisive Breakthrough

Code Pink organizer, Jodie Evans, used her personal contact with Suzanne Mubarak, wife of President Hosni Mubarak, and chairwoman of the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC), to appeal for permission for the Gaza Freedom March to carry its humanitarian aid into Gaza. The response from Mrs. Mubarak’s office was positive with instructions to “help in any way possible.” After reviewing the details of the request, by the next day Mrs. Mubarak secured permission for 100 delegates and two buses to cross into Gaza on 30 December morning. Code Pink organizers were given only two hours to come up with a list of names.

The initial acceptance of the offer proved to be tactically divisive for both the Gaza Freedom March and for the Egyptian government. After raging internal arguments and Palestinian calls for “all or none,” the Gaza Freedom March belatedly, but wisely, decided to decline the offer and allow only Palestinians with family in Gaza, key media personnel such as a Telesur team, and a handful of individuals to deliver humanitarian aid to board the buses. Meanwhile, Mrs. Mubarak’s intervention reportedly enraged Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu al-Gheit for having undermined his ministry’s monopoly over political decision-making on the Gaza border crossing. He, in turn, tried to drive a wedge through the Gaza Freedom March by praising those selected (falsely as if by the government) to go to Gaza as “good and sincere,” while denouncing those remaining in Cairo as “hooligans” “acting against Egyptian interests.” Fortunately, that divide-and-rule tactic only served to unify delegates.

Free Gaza Square

On the day of the actual Gaza Freedom March from both sides of the wall (Gaza and Israel) to the Erez Crossing, 31 December 2009, delegates in Cairo planned to symbolically “march to Gaza” by walking peacefully in the streets of downtown Cairo. But because of the official ban on public political demonstrations, organizers adopted the tactic of initiating the march with “flash mob” and “swarm of bees” techniques. It worked for only about twenty minutes before the “swarm” became trapped between the traffic and hundreds of police.

In the ensuing melee, a solid wall of Central Security Forcers first began pushing demonstrators away from trapped buses, with officers attempting to ram the human wall from behind. Once the buses were cleared out of the way, police (not Central Security Forces) began grabbing delegates and throwing them onto the footpath. Some officers used fists to hit delegates, including several women. Two reported that their headscarves were ripped off. Seven delegates were reportedly injured. One American man had blood on his face that required treatment at the medical station set up by march organizers. He had been clubbed with a two-way radio by a plainclothes police officer.

Once confined to a 500-square-metre area of footpath, Gaza Freedom March delegates erected banners and Palestinian flags, and proclaimed the site “Free Gaza Square.” Within its confines they spoke about the political accomplishments of the week, and the unfinished tasks ahead. Challenged by the lack of democratic rights in Egypt, delegates were more determined than ever to break the siege of Gaza and challenge their governments’ acquiescence to the blockade.

Ali Abunimah, a founder of Electronic Intifada, observed, “Gaza is harder to visit than a prison. They are turning back all the buses. It is too bad we didn’t get into Gaza. But the most important thing is that Al-Jazeera has carried it [Gaza Freedom March protests in Cairo] throughout the Arab world.”

Another participant observed, “One positive development is that we raised more media attention about the plight of Gaza by demonstrating in the streets of Cairo that we would have by marching in Gaza” due to the comparative lack of media access to Gaza.

Late in the evening, hundreds of Gaza Freedom March delegates gathered once again in the open plaza in front of El-Mogamma, the monolithic state office building that houses the public entry point into much of the central government bureaucracy, to hold a candlelight vigil to celebrate the new year. They held candles and arranged more candles on the pavement to create the luminous word “Gaza” within a circle. People spontaneous began passing out sweets. The novelty of this action was immensely popular with Egyptian passersby who joined in the hundreds, swelling the crowd. Then plainclothes police moved in to filter out and sweep away all Egyptian nationals. Even simple collective celebration of the new year is a “luxury” not available to Egyptians. A double-row contingent of the Central Security Force also moved in, until senior commanders were told to back off, removing the contingent to a distant corner of the plaza. The state itself held no official new year festivity, as if fearing its own future.

The Cairo Declaration

In the new year, the Gaza Freedom March concluded with three important events. First, it convened an ad hoc convention to ratify the “Cairo Declaration” jammed into a small hotel restaurant. In a move spearheaded by the South African delegation, an international working committee drafted a document putting forth a globally-unified plan of action for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli apartheid and “to compel Israel to comply with international law.” With the concurrence of civil society representatives in Gaza and the West Bank, the document reaffirms commitments to “(1) Palestinian self-determination, (2) ending the occupation, (3) equal rights for all within historic Palestine, and (4) the full right of return for Palestinian refugees.” The historic document includes 128 initial signatories from 16 countries.

Second, the Gaza Freedom March hunger strikers held a press conference at the Syndicate of Journalists to conclude the official hunger strike, although a few vowed to continue their hunger strikes until they returned to their home cities. Over the course of the hunger strike, the number of participants had swollen to 27. Hedy Epstein said that she felt “strengthened” by her actions seeking justice for the people of Gaza.

There was the usual Central Security Force cordon. But it was plainclothes police that disconnected and took down the al-Jazeera video camera and escorted the cameraman away from the scene. In previous incidents during the Gaza Freedom March, three Egyptian journalists had been arrested for photographing demonstrations, and one was arrested in the midst of interviewing a Gaza Freedom March delegate. One Egyptian photojournalist asked me to send a photograph, saying that, “I would be arrested for taking photographs of the demonstrations. Egypt is no democracy.”

Third, a flash mob demonstration was organized in the afternoon in front of the high-rise building housing the Israeli Embassy. Demonstrators rapidly appeared from the south side of the traffic circle between the University Bridge and the Giza Zoo. For at least ten minutes, demonstrators swarmed throughout the crossroads and the end of the bridge before Central Security Force personnel in riot gear arrived to move them onto a narrow strip on the south side of the bridge opposite the Israeli Embassy. While there was little police intimidation inside the security cordon, aggressive harassment by plainclothes police outside the cordon was particularly severe. One French cameraman was physically threatened on the University Bridge even as he was walking away from the demonstration and showing his French passport.

Shortcomings and Accomplishments

Mass media coverage of the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo had reached around the world, even though many major western media networks refused give more than cursory attention. In Egypt, the events received front-page coverage in opposition newspapers like Al-Wafd, Al-Sharouq, al-Dastur, and the independent Al-Masri al-Youm and Daily News Egypt. But newspapers like the semi-official Al-Ahram, and government-owned Al-Akhbar and Al-Gumhuriya ignored the events as if they did not exist. Yet even the pro-government Egyptian Gazette could not avoid publishing a front-page photo of the demonstration at the Israeli Embassy. While avoiding day-to-day coverage, Al-Arabi and Al-Karama end up splashing headline photos of Gaza Freedom March activities in their weekend editions.

Except for the Syndicate of Journalists, the relative absence of Egyptian participation and solidarity with the Gaza Freedom March could have been interpreted by delegates as the result of either severe political repression or political indifference. But anti-government Egyptian activists pointed out that Gaza Freedom March organizers failed to reach out to them and establish coordination. In fact, Egyptian labour unions, students, and organizations of civil society have a long history of struggle in the streets of Cairo and other towns for democratic rights in the face of the overwhelming force of the state apparatus. Nevertheless, six full days of political demonstrations in Cairo by a large group of visiting internationals is without historical precedent.

The struggles in Cairo and the new construction of a steel wall deep into the earth at the Rafah border also highlight the fact that the Egyptian government has been bought by U.S. aid following the Camp David Accord of 1978, in this instance to help enforce the Israeli blockade.

Delegates of the Gaza Freedom March were defeated in their desire to travel to Gaza, but, as a result of the struggles in the streets and embassies of Cairo, they were more determined than ever that the blockade of Gaza by both Israel and Egypt must be lifted. Bitur Nabi Tammam of Bahrain saw the bright side, “Even if they don’t allow us to cross, I think it has accomplished the purpose that from all over the world you see people left their families, left their homes, to come here to say ‘freedom for Gaza,’ ‘freedom for Palestine,’ ‘open the gates!’”

What was touted as a “war” between the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) and Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement that controls Gaza, was much more of a one-sided assault which left 1,417 Palestinians dead, including 116 women and 313 children (926 civilians, 255 police, and 236 combatants), versus 13 Israelis killed (3 civilians and 10 soldiers of whom 4 were killed by friendly fire). The Israeli invasion destroyed or severely damaged 22,000 buildings — including 24 mosques, 34 medical facilities, 31 police stations, 240 schools, and 700 factories and businesses. Even clearly-marked ambulances were targeted, killing paramedics and preventing them from evacuating the wounded. The attacks displaced an estimated 50,000 people.

The Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, chaired by South African Justice Richard Goldstone, himself sympathetic to Zionism, found that both the IDF and Hamas had committed war crimes, though it laid most of the blame on Israeli forces. In defiance of serious human rights concerns, on 3 November 2009 the U.S. House of Representatives shamefully passed H.Res. 867 condemning the Goldstone Report.

While Israel withdrew its settlements and occupation forces from Gaza in September 2005, its control over Gaza’s borders has only tightened. Once it became clear that Hamas would win the democratic election of January 2006 for the Palestinian Legislative Council, Israel sealed all border crossings with Gaza, allowing in less than a third of Gaza’s minimum import requirements for water, food, medicines, fuel, and essential supplies. With a population density twice that of most Western suburban cities, Gaza cannot possibly feed itself. After the destruction of one year ago, Israel has completely banned the importation of building materials, making it impossible for Gaza residents to rebuild their homes. Some border crossings, such as Kissufim and Sufa, have been obliterated. Today Gazans are trapped in what is often called “the world’s largest prison.”

Even United Nations relief supplies pile up at the border crossing because Israel will not allow much of it into Gaza. Crumbling infrastructure damaged by Israeli bombing – water treatment, sewage treatment, and electricity generation – cannot be repaired replacement equipment and spare parts. Water contaminated with nitrates is causing young children fall chronically ill. With only a small fraction of the amount of fuel needed to sustain a subsistence economy getting in, most areas of Gaza have at best a few hours of electricity per day. The tunnels under the Rafah border between Egypt and Gaza that both Israel and Egypt would like to seal are truly the lifelines that now prevent famine.

Israel argues that the blockade is necessary to weaken Hamas’ rule over Gaza, claiming that Hamas seeks to “obliterate” Israel and all Israelis. In my interviews with Hamas leaders, none ever advocated such an outcome. The sentence so often cited by Israel in Hamas’ Covenant uses the word “invalidate” in reference to Israel as the exclusively Jewish state that systematically denies Palestinians the right of return to their ancestral homes, yet grants a “birthright” for young American Jews, many of whom have never previously set foot in Israel.

Naturally, Palestinians cannot accept such exclusion and subjugation under Israeli rule any more than Jews can accept being pushed out of Palestine. So any solution must accept both peoples regardless of where they came from, whether in a single democratic state or in two sovereign states side-by-side sharing Jerusalem as their capitals. Hamas, like Fatah, has officially committed to a two-state solution even though it would leave the right of return largely unresolved.

The blockade of Gaza must be lifted to avert a humanitarian catastrophe. Non-governmental relief organizations, such as Oxfam, have rightly blamed the United States and European powers for their acquiescence to the blockade. One key element of a roadmap towards peace is the recognition of Hamas as the democratically-elected representative of the Palestinian people, which Israel must include in peace negotiations.

In response to the siege of Gaza that began after the beginning of the Second Intifada (Palestinian uprising) in September 2000, and turned into a veritable blockade after January 2006, opposition to the blockade has come from around the world. First, it was the Free Gaza Movement that sent two small wooden fishing boats from Cyprus to Gaza City, arriving on 23 August 2008 with 43 human rights activists. This was followed by several more boats until the IDF rammed one and boarded another before forcing it to Ashdod. With the sea once again sealed, no boats could break the siege in 2009. But several delegations have, with difficulty from Egyptian authorities, broken the siege by entering from Sinai.

On the first anniversary of the Israeli assault, the Gaza Freedom March of 1,360 human rights activists from 42 countries, another Viva Palestina convoy, and peace activists from Israel will converge on Gaza to challenge the siege in an unprecedented show of solidarity with the residents of Gaza. Some 50,000 Palestinians are preparing to join them in an historic non-violent march to the Erez Crossing.

Unfortunately, the Egyptian government that plays a part in enforcing the blockade on Gaza frequently makes it difficult for international delegations, and next to impossible for Palestinians and Egyptians, to cross the Gaza border. Days before the announced entry dates of 27 and 29 December 2009, the Egyptian authorities declared that the Rafah border, through which the two international delegations plan to enter Gaza, will be closed for “security reasons” pending delicate Egyptian-mediated negotiations over an exchange of prisoners between Israel and Hamas. Then the Egyptian government gave the green light to Viva Palestina, while continuing to withhold permission from the Gaza Freedom March, claiming its papers were “not in order.” Just as abruptly a day later, the Egyptian government reversed itself, reportedly refusing Viva Palestina entry from Jordan into Egypt after the prisoner exchange negotiations broke down. With interlocking issues and intense external pressure from both sides, it is as if there was a tug-of-war going inside the Egyptian government. The situation continues to change from moment to moment.

Despite the obstacles, participants in the Gaza Freedom March and Viva Palestina convoy are determined to press forward. The eyes of the world are watching. This is about Palestinians, Israelis, and people from around the world uniting together, sowing justice to reap peace.

In the early years following Israel’s seizure of the Gaza Strip during the Six-Day War in June 1967, Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals routinely crossed the border between Israel and Gaza without much difficulty. Palestinian fishermen routinely sailed as far out to sea as necessary to secure a good day’s catch. International freighters continued to arrive at Gaza Port to unload their goods and take on Palestinian fruits, flowers, and other products. Among the first casualties of the Israeli occupation was the loss of trade and tourism with Egypt, but life went on for most Gaza residents. Over the years, many would eventually find employment in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Be’er Sheva, Tel Aviv, and elsewhere inside Israel, mostly in construction and services – 130,000 workers commuting from Gaza to Israel at its peak.

However, owing to the heightened tensions of occupation of both Gaza and the West Bank, illegal Israeli settlement activity, successive breakdowns in the peace process, and the Palestinian Intifadas, the situation of Gaza residents continued to deteriorate. Employment inside Israel for Gaza residents was largely cut off by Israel during the Second Intifada beginning in September 2000, and completely eliminated with the economic siege imposed on Hamas in Gaza in January 2006.

As part of the Oslo Process that began in 1993, the Gaza-Jericho Agreement of May 1994 established a fishing limit for Gaza fishermen at 20 nautical miles from the shore. A “Maritime Activity Zone K” 1.5 nautical miles wide was established as a “security” buffer from the Israeli sea boundary inside Gaza’s territorial waters and extending out from shore to the 20-nautical-mile fishing limit. It would be a “closed area” patrolled by the Israeli Navy. A similar “Maritime Activity Zone M” one nautical mile wide was demarcated as a buffer on the sea border with Egypt. Zone M would be patrolled not by the Egyptian Navy, but exclusively by the Israeli Navy. The offshore area in between these security zones was designated “Maritime Activity Zone L” within which Palestinian fishermen were allowed to fish.

In the context of a surge in suicide bombings inside Israel and the comprehensive Israeli military assault on all the occupied Palestinian territories launched at the end of April 2002, Israel demanded tighter limits on Gaza fishermen, as if unarmed fishermen could be any sort of realistic threat to Israel’s security. In August 2002, the Bertini Agreement restricted Gaza’s fishing limit to 12 nautical miles from shore.

When the Israeli government forcibly evicted thousands of Israeli settlers from Gaza and then withdrew its own troops by September 2005, it labelled the move “disengagement.” Many thought that the occupation of Gaza was coming to an end. But on 25 January 2006, the day of Palestinian elections, Israel sealed off Gaza by closing the last open crossing at Erez citing “security concerns” relating to the anticipated strong polling for Hamas. The six functional crossings into Gaza have never been fully opened to anything but a trickle of people and goods since that time.

The final election results gave Hamas an absolute majority in the Palestinian Legislative Council, 74 seats out of 132. After the elections, Israel continued to severely limit the flow of people and goods into and out of Gaza in an attempt to destabilize popular support for Hamas and block Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian government headquartered in Ramallah in the West Bank. It systematically arrested most of the newly-elected Hamas members. By default, Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas took the reigns of government as president and appointed a Fatah colleague, Salam Fayyad, as prime minister, despite Hamas having won the parliamentary right to form a new government.

Map of ever more restrictive fishing limits unilaterally imposed by Israel on Gaza.

In April 2006, as part of the ever-tightening noose around Hamas-ruled Gaza, the Israeli Navy began enforcing a 10 nautical mile limit on Gaza fishermen. In October 2006, it changed its mind and reduced the limit to 6 nautical miles.

The drastic lack of employment, and the obstacles placed on the supply of food, drinking water, medicines, fuel, and electricity became a chronic collective punishment on all Gaza residents under occupation in full violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Gaza is a strip of land approximately 40 kilometres long by 7 kilometres wide. It includes cities, towns, 8 major refugee camps and several minor ones, agricultural land, and uncultivatable sand dunes and saline intrusion areas. With nearly 1.5 million people, Gaza has an overall population density twice that of a typical suburban U.S. city. Gaza cannot possibly feed itself. It has no developed natural sources of energy – neither fossil fuel extraction, hydroelectric potential, nor alternative energy sources. It has no natural aquifers to provide renewable fresh water. As a relatively unindustrialized territory, it is completely dependent on the outside for nearly all of its consumption needs. Lacking inputs and cut off from export markets, Gaza’s two industrial export zones at the Erez and Karni crossings are now idled.

Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza changed nothing with respect to the wall and fence that completely encircle Gaza from its northern boundary with Israel to its southern boundary with Egypt. Even the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt (primarily for people) is effectively controlled by Israel through remotely-controlled video cameras, European Union monitors, and Egyptian immigration authorities who have acceded to Israeli demands to exercise veto power over any person or baggage moving through the Rafah crossing. The Kerem Shalom crossing for goods from and to Egypt is controlled directly by Israel because trucks must cross Israeli territory to and from the al-Auja crossing far to the south on the Egyptian-Israeli border. The remaining checkpoints not only are opened by Israel very sparingly, but are each opened by Israel for very specific purposes. The Erez crossing in the north is the primary gateway for people, but not for goods. Nahal Oz crossing is the primary entry point for liquid fuels. Karni crossing is the main gateway for food, medicines, and manufactured goods. Sufa crossing was primarily for bulk aggregates and building materials, but like Kissufim and Ele Sinai crossings are now effectively closed.

Meanwhile, the border itself has been progressively expanding. What started as a border fence became a wall. A second parallel security barrier eventually enclosed a security patrol zone containing in some places two parallel security roads. After disengagement, a 500-metre-wide buffer zone was implemented by the Israeli Defence Forces on the Gaza side of the border, within which any Palestinian is frequently shot at. This deprives Palestinian farmers holding lands within the buffer zone of the ability to cultivate their lands. After the January 2009 Israeli invasion, the buffer zone was expanded to two kilometres.

Gaza had a commercial airport southeast of Rafah, but Israel severely bombed its runway. All Palestinian air traffic has been banned under Israeli occupation and after “disengagement.” That leaves the sea. The Israeli Navy controls all waters around Gaza and does not allow any vessels in or out of Gaza’s fishing limits. There are over 700 registered boats, mostly fishing boats, registered in Gaza. The boats provide a livelihood for 3000 Palestinian fishermen according to a United Nations survey. The wooden boats operate out of four wharfs at Gaza Port, Deir al-Balah, Mawasi Khan Yunis, and Mawasi Rafah. Of these, only the larger fishing boats at Gaza Port can sail far from shore; the smaller boats at the latter three wharfs are only capable of navigating along the coast. But after the Israeli military assault on Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, even the larger fishing boats cannot venture more than 3 nautical miles from shore owing to the Israeli Navy enforcing a draconian new limit.

Israeli Navy water cannon blasts into the wheelhouse of a Palestinian fishing boat operating well within the 6 nautical mile fishing limit in effect in October 2008 (photo courtesy of Darlene Wallach).

Not only has Gaza effectively become the world’s largest open-air prison, but the walls of the prison have been progressively closing in on its inmate population. The only way to avert a humanitarian catastrophe is to lift the siege of Gaza and restore the ability to travel freely and engage in viable economic activity — fundamental human rights presently denied.

A previous Pastors for Peace Caravan school bus in Vedado, Havana: defying the U.S. blockade for eighteen years.

Ahead of the Organization of American States summit in April 2009, President Barack Obama announced that visits by Americans to Cuba will be allowed once annually instead of once every three years, and the $300 per quarter limit on remittances will be lifted – but only if they have relatives on the island nation. Restrictions on investment in Cuba will also be eased – but only in telecommunications. Obama has signalled his willingness to ease the 47-year-old U.S. economic embargo on Cuba, but not yet for the rest of us. While still couched in the language of regime change, Obama’s overtures represent a ray of hope for breaking down the barriers that have separated Americans and Cubans and prevented them from learning from each other.

Meanwhile, the effects of the U.S. embargo (Cuba calls it a blockade) are much more intrusive than the mere absence of American goods. Patient monitors and CT scanners from Europe and Japan that have seen only a few years of use are often idled by the inability to procure assemblies or accessories that contain U.S. parts. Despite these difficulties, the Cuban health system guarantees every resident access to care, resulting in a life expectancy (78 years) equal to that of the United States. There are no denials of claims here, no patients turned away for lack of insurance.

Thousands of Cuban doctors and medical personnel continue to serve in countries ranging from Bolivia to Pakistan to South Africa. Meanwhile, Cuba brings in hundreds of new foreign students for medical school from poor countries and the United States alike, completely free of charge. And Cuba’s biotechnology industry is a leading-edge exporter of both genetically-engineered and low-cost generic drugs.

Yes, the dug-up roads are decaying. The crumbling houses are discolored with mildew. The sputtering cars are American antiques of the 1940s and 1950s, frozen in time, but kept running through miraculous Cuban ingenuity. That is the tunnel image most Americans have of Havana. The images are there along the fabled seaside Malecón, in Habana Centro, and in Habana Viejo, where most of the historical tourist attractions are located. But outlying suburbs like Miramar, smaller cities like Santa Clara or Sancti Spiritus, and even rural villages have houses and shops that are more modern and well kept, roads that are nicely paved, and newer motor vehicles from Europe, Canada, Japan, and China. It is just the inverse of unequal development in most other Latin American countries. Cuba has chosen to focus its finite resources on ensuring that everybody has housing first, and only afterwards renovating existing buildings for the eyes of foreign visitors. There are no foreclosures here, no tent cities of the homeless.

The U.S. notion that the embargo is needed to pressure Cuba to embrace “democracy” and ultimately expedite “regime change” is based on the assumption that the Cuban people have no say in the affairs of their country. In fact, people routinely chose representatives to municipal assemblies, which in turn elect members of the provincial assemblies, and in turn elect the 614 members of the Asamblea Nacional del Poder Popular (National Assembly of People’s Power). The constitution calls for the National Assembly to elect the State Council, and the State Council to elect the president. So while Cuban citizens do not directly elect the president and members of the National Assembly, they do so through a tiered pyramidal democratic structure that ensures greater accountability of each of each layer of representation to the layer below it because electors at each level are actually able to get to personally know those whom they are electing.

The Cuban electoral system is in effectively a one-party democracy in which candidates for elected office are pre-screened by a participatory nominating process. The U.S. electoral system is in essence a two-party dictatorship in which the two major parties and the media collude to systematically deny credibility and electability to any candidates of third parties, or even candidates within the two dominant parties who are outside of the “mainstream.” It is far from clear that one system is really more politically democratic or dictatorial than the other. While both systems are flawed (they both perpetuate incumbency and state power), it would be a gross misstatement to call one an unqualified “dictatorship” and the other an unconditional “democracy.”

On freedom of the press, Cuba is not a place where one can buy a foreign newspaper or magazine on the streets. But then neither is Granma, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, readily available on the streets because it is largely distributed through the vast array of political, economic, and social organizations through which every Cuban citizen is engaged in one way or another. Freedom of the press is one area in which Cuba would do well to lift restrictions. Having survived the extraordinary stresses of the Special Period in the 1990s, Cuba can rest assured that allowing independent Cuban media and opening up to responsible news sources from Latin America and the world will not degrade, but rather invigorate, the public intellectual discourse, the perceived quality of life, and Cuba’s strength as a nation.

The distorted view most Americans have of Cuba is molded by their inability to visit Cuba to see for themselves. People in the United States and Cuba have much to learn from each other. In April 2009 a Congressional delegation, led by Congresswoman Barbara Lee, visited Cuba to review policies on trade and cultural and academic exchanges. The same opportunity needs to be afforded to all Americans in order to formulate a rational national policy towards Cuba based on realism and mutual respect.

The international community of nations has spoken out against the U.S. embargo on trade and travel to Cuba through 17 consecutive years of resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly. With each passing year the United States government has become more and more politically isolated on this issue. The last vote on October 29, 2008 was 185 to 3 against the U.S. blockade, with 2 abstentions. Those opposed were the United States, Israel, and Palau. Palau, along with the Marshall Islands and Micronesia which abstained, are all former U.S. colonies that remain highly dependent on the U.S. economic and military umbrella. Palau, incidentally, is so dependent on the United States that when no other country on the planet would agree to take 17 Chinese Uighurs held in Guantánamo Bay as so-called “enemy combatants,” because no country wanted to legitimize the systematic U.S. denial of protections guaranteed to prisoners of war under international law, Palau agreed in June 2009 to take them after intense U.S. pressure. Only afterward did Albania, in no less desperate economic situation itself, ultimately relent to taking four of the 17 Uighurs.

Even the Cuban-American exile community, which has traditionally backed the U.S. embargo because their families lost properties in the 1959 Revolution, has been gradually shifting in preference to selectively lifting the embargo and travel restrictions to ease family visits and for the younger generation to rediscover the land of their parents. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba has not posed any conceivable threat to the security of the United States.

On the contrary, the United States is harboring a Cuban-born Venezuelan man – Luis Posada Carriles – who has been convicted in absentia for various terrorist attacks and conspiracies in Latin America, including the 1976 bombing of Cubana Flight 455 that killed all 73 people on board. Detained in 2005-2007 for illegal presence in the United States, Carriles is now free. If President Obama is truly concerned about security and thwarting future terrorist attacks, he would move to extradite Carriles to Venezuela or Cuba, both of which have demanded that he face trial in their courts.

On the other hand, the Cuban Five (Los Cinco) – Fernando González, René González, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino – were arrested in 1998 for activities related to gathering intelligence on a number of militant Cuban-American exile groups, including Brothers to the Rescue, that have been accused of organizing illegal and often violent activities inside Cuba. The Five were convicted in 2001 on all 26 counts by a Federal District Court in Miami, where they could not possibly have received a fair trial. So far, the Obama administration has refused to reconsider the case, and, in fact, successfully pressured the Supreme Court to deny a review. If President Obama is truly interested in justice, he should reopen the case against the Cuban Five for independent review, and allow visits by family members from Cuba. If The Five’s only crime was thwarting terrorism, then they must be freed.

A parallel opportunity for rapprochement between the U.S. and Cuba is arising out of acknowledgements by both the Bush and Obama administrations that harsh interrogation methods and torture were used at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay, and President Obama’s announced intention of closing the prison within a year of taking office. In fact, the prison itself appears to violate the very terms of the lease agreement of February 23, 1903 that grants “the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose.” One aspect of putting this dark period in U.S. human rights history behind us is to terminate the lease and return Guantánamo Bay to Cuba once the prison is closed. This will be another substantive gesture that the U.S. and Cuba can live together with mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty.

Having lifted the embargo just a little and let the Pastors for Peace Friendship Caravan through, President Obama needs to carry through on his promise of change by ending the U.S. embargo once and for all.

But on August 10, 2008, two small Greek-flagged boats finally arrived from Greece to Chania, Cyprus. They were the 21-metre long SS Free Gaza (غزة الحرة) and the 18-metre SS Liberty, named in memory of the 34 American sailors who were killed when Israel attacked the USS Liberty in apparent error during the Six Day War in 1967. Before their arrival in Chania, the identity of the vessels had been a closely-guarded secret for genuine fear of Israeli sabotage. Once the vessels were renamed and presented at a press conference, activists remained on board both vessels 24 hours a day for security reasons.

After days of additional delays due to soaring prices for supplies and diesel fuel, a shortfall in funds, and turbulent weather, the vessels finally departed Crete en route to Cyprus, where they will take on the remaining half of the activists waiting apprehensively in Nicosia. Along the way, the activists have received tremendous support, including material assistance, from local residents in Crete and Cyprus.

Some forty peace and justice activists from 17 countries will be on board, including Israeli peace activist Jeff Halper, founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Other notable individuals include 84-year-old Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein of Saint Louis, Missouri; Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; members of the European Parliament; a survivor of the Palestinian catastrophe (al-Nakbah); and Free Gaza Movement co-founders Paul Larudee and Greta Berlin. Including professional crewmembers and journalists, the number of people on the two boats could reach as high as sixty.

Threats

The Israeli government and Zionist organizations like the Anti-Defamation League have tried (unconvincingly) to link the Free Gaza Movement and its affiliations to the International Solidarity Movement to armed Palestinian resistance organizations that they have labelled as “terrorists.” In fact, the Free Gaza Movement and the Break the Siege campaign in particular have received no funding from any Palestinian organizations, armed or otherwise. The $200,000-300,000 raised for the voyage from Cyprus to Gaza has been entirely from small fundraising dinners in private homes and restaurants, individual contributions, and from the sale of fair-trade Palestinian olive oil rebottled in Berkeley, California by community volunteers. Donna and Darlene Wallach, twin sisters of Eastern European Jewish descent who have lived for many years in Israel and the Palestinian territories, were among those tireless volunteers and will be on the boats to Gaza.

More ominously, Lauren Booth reported on August 15, 2008 that a dozen threatening anonymous calls, text messages, and voice mails had been received by Free Gaza participants in Nicosia. This escalated to family members of activists. Booth reported that on August 14, an anonymous call to her husband in France threatened, “Your wife is in great danger. These ships will be blown up.” Who but a state intelligence agency like the Mossad could readily obtain private telephone and mobile numbers around the world?

Meanwhile, the Israeli daily newspaper Ha’aretz reported on August 17, 2008 that Israeli “defense officials favor forcefully blocking two boats which a group of U.S.-based activists plan to sail to Gaza to protest what they call ‘the Israeli siege on the Strip.’” The statement was based on a position paper by the legal department of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, arguing that Israel has the right to use force against the protesters under the Oslo Accords, which gives Israel responsibility for Gaza’s territorial waters.

Why Gaza?

When the Israeli government withdrew thousands of Israeli settlers and troops from Gaza at the end of 2005, it called the move “disengagement.” Many thought that the occupation of Gaza would come to an end. But on January 25, 2006, the day of Palestinian elections, Israel sealed off Gaza by closing the last open crossing at Erez owing to “security concerns” relating to the anticipated strong turnout for Hamas. Karni crossing had been closed since January 15, 2006, and three other checkpoints had been open only intermittently.

The final election results gave Hamas 74 seats out of 132 in the Palestinian Legislative Council, and an overwhelming majority in Gaza. After the elections, Israel proceeded to tighten control over the flow of goods and people into and out of Gaza in an attempt to destabilize popular support for Hamas and block Hamas’ participation in the Palestinian government headquartered in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Gaza is a strip of land approximately 40 kilometres long by 7 kilometres wide. It includes cities, towns, 8 major refugee camps and several minor ones, agricultural land, and uncultivable sand dunes and saline intrusion areas. With nearly 1.5 million people, Gaza has an overall population density twice that of a typical large U.S. city or roughly comparable to a European city. Gaza cannot possibly feed itself. It has no natural sources of energy — neither fossil fuels nor hydroelectric potential. It has no natural aquifers to provide a renewable source of fresh water. As a relatively unindustrialized territory, it is completely dependent on the outside for nearly all of its consumption needs and the majority of its viable employment.

After 1967, Gaza residents gained employment inside Israel and became dependent on the crossings for daily commutes to their jobs in Ashkelon, Tel Aviv, the Negev, and elsewhere. But that source of employment was largely cut off by Israel during the Second Intifada, and completely eliminated with the economic siege imposed on Hamas in Gaza in 2006. In reality, the drastic lack of employment, and the obstacles placed on the supply of food, drinking water, medicines, fuel, and electricity became a chronic collective punishment on all Gaza residents in full violation of international law.

Israeli “disengagement” from Gaza changed nothing with respect to the wall and fence that completely encircle Gaza from its northern boundary with Israel to its southern boundary with Egypt. Even the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt is effectively controlled by Israel through European Union monitors who have acceded to Israeli demands to have veto power over any person or baggage moving through the Rafah crossing. The Kerem Shalom crossing for goods from and to Egypt is controlled directly by Israel because it operates on an intervening sliver of Israeli territory. The remaining checkpoints not only are opened by Israel very sparingly, but are each used by Israel for very restricted purposes. The Erez crossing in the north is the primary gateway for people, but not for goods. Nahal Oz crossing is exclusively for liquid fuels. Karni crossing is the primary entry point for food, medicines, and manufactured goods. Sufa crossing is mainly for bulk aggregates and building materials. Kissufim and Elie Sinai crossings are effectively closed.

Gaza has a commercial airport southeast of Rafah, but all Palestinian air traffic is banned by Israel. That leaves the sea. The Israeli Navy controls all waters around Gaza and does not allow any vessels in or out of Gaza’s fishing limits. There are over 700 boats, mostly fishing boats, registered in Gaza. The boats provide a livelihood for 3000 Palestinian fishermen according to a United Nations survey. Under the 1993 Oslo Agreement, the fishing limit for Gaza fishermen was set at 20 nautical miles from the shore. A “no fishing zone” 2 nautical miles wide was established as a security buffer from the Israeli sea boundary (as if fishermen were a threat to Israel’s security) within Gaza’s territorial waters and extending out from shore to the fishing limit. A similar “no fishing zone” one nautical mile wide was established on the sea border with Egypt. But in 2002 as a result of the comprehensive Israeli military assault on all the occupied Palestinian territories launched at the end of April, the Bertini Agreement restricted Gaza’s fishing limit to 12 nautical miles. Then, as part of the ever-tightening noose around Hamas-ruled Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces began enforcing a 6-nautical-mile fishing limit from October 2006. Not only has Gaza effectively become the world’s largest open-air prison, but some of the walls of the prison have been progressively closing in on the inmate population.

So it is not surprising that perhaps hundreds of Gaza fishing boats may be preparing to greet the uncertain arrival of the SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty. In Gaza Port alone, there are over 470 registered boats. If the Israeli siege is broken by sea, it will be a tremendous morale boost to Gaza fishermen whose operating territory has shrunken from the Eastern Mediterranean before 1967 to a mere sliver of coastal water under Israeli military control. Even in the years following the Israeli occupation, Gaza Port continued to be a bustling hub not only for fishing but for international shipping as well. I remember well in 1973 how ocean freighters used to wait in queue offshore for a berth in Gaza City’s cargo port. Few places on Earth have witnessed such a drastic and comprehensive economic decline under military occupation.

The SS Free Gaza and the SS Liberty either may pave the way for unrestricted international access to Gaza by symbolically breaking the Israeli naval blockade, or they will be stopped by the Israeli Navy which will prove that Israel still occupies Gaza despite its denials. The action places the Israeli government on the horns of dilemma, out of which neither outcome will work in its favor. It is only regrettable that no Arab government or organization has had the courage to challenge the Israeli blockade.

It is the responsibility of all activists for human rights and social justice worldwide to stand behind the courageous passengers of the SS Free Gaza and SS Liberty in the coming critical days as they prepare to depart from Cyprus. This is an act of nonviolent civil disobedience following in the footsteps of Mahatma Gandhi — unarmed ordinary people with an unshakable moral conviction facing down one of the most powerful military machines on Earth. Global awareness is key. The probability that they will be harmed is drastically reduced if the eyes of the world are focused on Gaza’s coastal waters. The siege of Gaza must be broken!

This story of a Palestinian village in the Negev is a perspective on al-Nakbah (النكبة) at the age of 60.

Sheikh Ibrahim is the leader of the Palestinian village of Qiryeh al-Sir (قريۃ السير) just beyond the outskirts of Be’er Sheva, Israel’s fourth largest and fastest growing city. His red kafiyeh is traditional among Bedouins in the Negev, Jordan, and the Arabian peninsula. But most Palestinian Bedouins have long since given up on a former nomadic lifestyle and have taken up permanent residence in spread-out impoverished villages.

Sipping a cup of Arabic tea on the carpeted earthen floor of his tent, the Sheikh recalls how 90 per cent of Bedouins were evacuated from the Negev to Jordan in 1948 as part of al-Nakbah. In 1953, Israel imposed military rule in the Negev, he says. Had the remaining Bedouins not abandoned their once nomadic lifestyle, they too would have been expelled, losing their claims to their houses and fixed lands under military occupation. Even then, they resisted expulsion under threats of death. Those who fled and later tried to return to their pre-1948 settlements were killed, he said.

Sheikh Ibrahim complains that 21 Palestinian houses were demolished here just the week before this interview. Israel never offered land for legal settlement in Qiryeh al-Sir, which has a population of 4000. While Israel strictly prohibits Palestinians from digging water wells, it never offered to provide a water connection to the village. Only after years of struggle, the village finally negotiated a supply of water from an industrial pipeline that runs through the village.

In fact, the State of Israel provides Qiryeh al-Sir with no roads, no sewage, no schools, and no social services. Even though a thermal power plant was built in the midst of the village and a myriad of high voltage transmission lines tower above its houses, Qiryeh al-Sir receives none of that electricity. Instead villagers must use generators to supply their electricity needs. This is despite the fact that residents pay all Israeli taxes, except property tax since the Israeli government does not recognize Bedouin claims to the land. In contrast, Jewish settlers — many arriving for the first time directly from foreign countries — are provided will all services and leasehold titles before they even move in, Sheikh Ibrahim laments.

In Ottoman times, Bedouins used to move from hill to hill, grazing their flocks, within territorial limits that were registered by the Ottoman administrators. But Israel has persistently refused to recognize Ottoman and British land titles, even when presented with written documents. The only pre-Israeli land titles recognized are those issued by Jordan during its administration of the West Bank from 1949 to 1967.

Why? Because Qiryeh al-Sir is one of scores of ‘unrecognized villages’ that the State of Israel wants vacated by moving all Bedouins into five recognized Palestinian towns in the Negev. The reason is basic. Bedouin villages, though relatively sparsely populated, sprawl over vast tracts of land. The Israeli government wants the land for future Jewish settlements and desert agriculture. Therefore, it wants to concentrate all Palestinian Bedouins into five compact recognized towns by providing full services to lure them.

One such recognized town is Shqeeb al-Salaam (شقيب السلام) whose houses and shops look much like any modern Palestinian town in the West Bank. Unlike the unrecognized villages, there are paved roads, streetlights, schools, shopping centres, and petrol stations, but no tents, few animal sheds, and not much land in between the buildings.

There are estimated to be 160,000 Palestinian Bedouins living in the Negev. Some 80 per cent live in 53 unrecognized villages. As residents within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, they were granted Israeli citizenship in the 1970s on the condition that they join the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), yet they enjoy few of the rights and privileges of citizenship on their ancestral lands. Thousands of additional Bedouins live in small unrecognized villages scattered in the Judean Desert of the West Bank.

Economically, they are also second class citizens. Privately-owned factories only hire Bedouins to do cleaning jobs, explains Sheikh Ibrahim. But even those jobs are increasingly being given to Ethiopian or Russian Jewish immigrants. That explains the makeshift sheds that many villagers live in. It is an increasingly hard life in a modern industrially-advanced society.

It is fitting to ask whether al-Nakbah could be repeated, whether in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ or in the name of Eretz Yisrael (the land of greater Israel). In the Negev today, the systematic and deliberate expulsion of Palestinian Bedouins from their traditional homes is a slow process. Once in a while, a handful of houses are administratively selected for demolition, thus attempting to isolate individual families and divide the community. But at the current rate, if it took 60 years to expel 20 per cent of the Bedouin population, it will take another 240 years to expel all of them. The remaining residents of Qiryeh al-Sir are determined to resist displacement, Sheikh Ibrahim insists. For the Bedouins of the Negev, al-Nakbah, albeit slowly, has never ended.

This year in 2007, the fear is surprise raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that are terrorizing hard-working undocumented immigrants who have no criminal history. The ICE raids have broken up families, and too often have inadvertently turned children who were born in this country into orphans. The raids have equally terrorized family members who are undocumented immigrants, legal residents, or US citizens.

Another fear they have in 2007 is that the new immigration reform laws being introduced in Congress will create a legal underclass of workers on temporary visas, so-called “guest workers.” One new bill being offered as a carrot to the more than 12 million undocumented workers in the United States is the STRIVE Act (Security Through Regularized Immigration and a Vibrant Economy Act – HR 1645) introduced by Congressmen Luis Gutiérrez and Jeff Flake. Unlike HR 4437, HR 1645 would provide a path to citizenship, albeit a very long and tortuous one involving four stages: a two-year security waiting period, a six-year wait on a temporary work visa, a minimum five-year wait as a permanent resident before applying for citizenship, and finally the processing queue for citizenship. Most importantly, the STRIVE Act continues to stress border security over immigrant worker security. The temporary work visas for low-skilled jobs would make “guest workers” vulnerable to abuse by employers, a pattern that is widespread among temporary foreign workers in the oil-exporting Arabian Gulf countries.

Thus, the importance of May Day 2007 for immigrant communities in the US is not only of demanding fundamental constitutional rights for immigrants, but for economic rights as immigrant workers. It was chosen because May Day is a living tradition in the Latin American countries from which most of the undocumented immigrants in the US come. May Day is also an international day of labor solidarity.

May Day itself was born, in part, out of fear of police raids on immigrant workers. In 1884 the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions, predecessor of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), called for an eight-hour workday. When implementation appeared unlikely, a general strike was called in Chicago on May 1, 1886. On that day, some 80,000 workers marched down Chicago ’s Michigan Avenue in what is generally recognized as the first May Day parade. In the succeeding days, supporting strikes broke out in other cities, such as Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and New York City.

On May 3, four striking workers were killed by police at the McCormick Reaper Works in Chicago. At an evening rally on May 4 in Haymarket Square, called to protest the killings, police moved in to disperse the crowd when a bomb went off, killing seven policemen. Police retaliated by firing into the crowd of workers, killing and wounding an unknown number of civilians.

Determined to crush the labor agitations, police interrogations and arrests went on through the night and the ensuing days. Homes of workers, most of whom were immigrants from Europe , were raided in the middle of the night. Hundreds of immigrants were rounded up without charges. A police rein of terror descended on the organized workers of Chicago and their families.

Eight people, including five German immigrants, were eventually charged and convicted for the deaths of the policemen, even though no evidence was ever presented directly linking them to the bombing in Haymarket Square. Four of the defendants were publicly hanged in 1887.

In Paris in 1889, the International Workingmen’s Association (Second International) called for worldwide demonstrations on May 1, 1890, commemorating the struggle of Chicago workers. The international tradition of May Day was born.

It took another three decades for workers to incrementally win the eight-hour working day through struggles with individual companies. Finally, the Adamson Act was passed by Congress in 1916, establishing a statutory eight-hour working day for railway workers with additional pay for overtime work.

Today May Day is traditionally celebrated in most industrialized and developing countries around the world as International Workers’ Day. Among major nations, the United States is the only one to have successive governments and the trade union bureaucracy consistently resisting recognition of May Day, fearing the connection with labor movements around the world. Seeking an alternative date, Labor Day was created to recognize the contribution of American workers on September 5, 1882 in New York City. In 1884, the first Monday in September was selected as a holiday from labor. However, it was not until 1894 that Congress made Labor Day a national holiday. But without the heritage of strikes and labor struggle, Labor Day emerged and remained a completely depoliticized day.

In contrast, May Day, because of its deep roots in US working class struggle, is richly symbolic of labor activism. Contrary to popular myth in the US, May Day did not originate abroad, but rather from the very US trade union movement that brought about the basic eight-hour working day that is taken so much for granted today. From the struggle against a guest worker program that would create a stratum of second class workers to opposing the ICE police raids, the immigrant workers’ rights movement of today is following in the footsteps of the heroic Chicago workers who gave birth to May Day. May Day is a true American immigrant worker tradition. Now being revived after 70 years of dormancy, it is gradually regaining support among established labor unions that a slowly coming around to back the movement for immigrant workers’ rights.