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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.
Medea and Tighe let us know that we had the material for the three playgrounds we will be assembling in Gaza. Though we don’t actually have permission to bring them in! During the March trip, they also had no permission for the 1000 pink baskets for the women of Gaza, but the threat of lining them up at the border seemed to do the trick. We are counting on the same technique for the playgrounds.
As we crossed the Suez canal, we got an incredible view from the “Peace Bridge” of the maritime traffic up and down the canal. Carl, who lived in Egypt for 15 years in the 70s and 80s, gave us a thorough history of the canal as well as its political context. Monia then told Maher’s story, as well as her own as we continued through the desert. And Oruba taught us a Palestinian song.
Our two buses had a police escort the entire way. And just after the Suez canal, the checkpoints began. The first took close to 30 minutes to get through and we were informed that no photographs were allowed. Though what we were supposed to photograph of this small building in the middle of the desert was unclear. We breezed through the remaining 4 or five checkpoints until we arrived in al-Arish.
We are in our hotel, where we will hopefully stay just one night, heading to Rafah tomorrow. Al-Arish owes some of its livelihood to the international delegations passing through on their way to Gaza, so the locals all know why we are here and show signs of solidarity. A shopowner told us he read about us on the Egyptian newspaper.
We had a nice dinner in a local restaurant followed by a lecture by Norm Finkelstein as we relxed with tea in a bedouin tent. He started off by thanking CodePink for the invitation to join the delegation. “When I initially heard the name CodePink, my first thought was ‘flakey,’ but once I learned you we all really creating trouble, I knew it was a group I wanted to be involved with.” He went on to describe the Israeli assault on Gaza, citing all the reasons it was wrong to call it a war, as well as Israel’s motives behind the attack, which centered around maintaining their “deterrence capabilities.” The most reliable reports on the assault, according to Finkelstein were the ones from John Dugard, Human Rights Watch on the use of white phosphorous and Amnesty International’s report, which also included significant political statements such as calling for a complete arms embargo for both Gaza and Israel and called out the role of the U.S. in supplying arms to Isreal in violation of the Arms Export Control Act.
For tomorrow, plan A is Gaza! Plan B is camping at the border, with banners, toys and playgrounds on display.
Category: on the road
