by Medea Benjamin

Obama will give a major policy talk at Cairo University on June 4, intended to start mending the rift between the United States and the Arab world. During the Bush years, many Arabs turned against the United States because of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Graib. But the issue that is really at the crux of the tensions with the United States is the intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what many perceive as a one-sided U.S. policy in support of Israel.

The Obama administration has taken a positive stand on the Israeli settlements, calling for a complete freeze. “[Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told reporters.
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Today we traveled from Cairo to al-Arish, about 25 km from the Rafah crossing. The meeting point in Cairo was hard to miss, with all the backpacks, people donning pink and police and security officers. One of the officers congratulated us on bringing the solidarity of the international community to the people of Gaza.

We also met a few late arrivals, one of whom was Monia, the wife of Maher Arar, a Syrian citizen living in Canada who was arrested at JFK airport in New York and rendered back to Syria where he was tortured and held for over a year. Monia, originally from Tunisia, said she heard about the trip and just had to come along.
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