BTL:International Solidarity Actions Commemorate on One Year Anniversary of Gaza Invasion : AZ IMC

International Solidarity Actions Commemorate on One Year Anniversary of Gaza Invasion

Talk by Israeli-American Dr. Aram Ayalon, associate professor of education at Gaza solidarity event in Hartford, Conn., produced by Melinda Tuhus

Dec. 27 marked the one-year anniversary of Israel's assault on Gaza, in which 1,400 Palestinians died in the three-week military invasion -- more than half of them civilians, including some 200 children. To mark the anniversary, and in solidarity with 1,300 activists from 42 nations who converged in Egypt last week with plans to enter Gaza via the Rafa border crossing, events were held around the world demanding an end to the blockade of Gaza, which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians and has been closed off by both Egypt and Israel.

Egypt refused to allow the international activists entry into Gaza, harassing, detaining and arresting some as they attempted to make their way to the border. Egyptian security police broke up a non-violent commemoration of the Israeli invasion of Gaza organized by the Gaza Freedom March at an Egyptian bridge that crosses the Nile River near Cairo.

Dr. Aram Ayalon, an Israeli-American who is an associate professor of education at Central Connecticut State University was one of the speakers at a Dec. 27 solidarity event in Hartford, Conn. sponsored by a dozen local groups. The following is a portion of his brief talk, in which he recounts the events which led to his support for the rights of Palestinians to build their own nation.

For more information on the campaign to lift the Gaza Blockade, visit the Code Pink website at http://www.codepink4peace.org

Related links:

* "One Year After the Israeli Invasion of Gaza, World Leaders Fail to Act, but Global Citizens Step Forward," by Medea Benjamin, commondreams.org, Dec. 27, 2009 * Gaza Freedom March at http://www.gazafreedommarch.org

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If AIPAC, Alan Dershowitz and the Mossad were make a wish for what they hoped Israel’s opponents would kick off the year with, they would be hard pressed to come up with anything better than last week’s Gaza Freedom March fiasco.

From across the Atlantic, leadership for the scheme was provided by none other than George Galloway, the legendary British loudmouth who so pleases foes of American foreign policy that they continually fail to notice that he’s picked their pockets for the umpteenth time.

And providing leadership and logistics from the American end was Code Pink, a group whose operational abilities currently extend to getting six people into a department store to smear themselves with mud and take photos of each other before getting arrested.

With such an able crew at the helm, what could possibly go wrong when they convinced over 1200 anti-Israel activists from around the world to fly to Egypt where they were told they could march to the Egyptian side of the Gaza border and join protestors in Gaza (as well as other GFM events around the world) in a massive demonstration of solidarity?

Well, to begin with, no one seems to have gotten all of the I’s dotted and T’s crossed with the Egyptian government before asking over a thousand people to spend their vacation time and cash flying to Cairo in hopes that they’d be allowed “go mental” at the tense Egyptian-Gaza border.

And so, protestors were left cooling their heels in their Cairo hotels for days on end. Absent planning or leadership, some activists simply started harassing Egyptians, going down the usual checklist (hunger strikes, sit-ins, etc.), only to discover that the Galloway/Code Pink axis had sold them out by cutting deal with the Egyptian government to let 100 leadership-chosen activists enter Gaza after all.

I’ll have more on the GFM over the coming days (including its hilarious attempt to crash First Night celebrations in Boston), but given the focus of this blog, the point of bringing up GFM is the resolution that this intrepid vanguard created to try to salvage the wreckage they caused in Egypt, their masterly Cairo Declaration.

And what new, innovative, brilliant tactics form the basis of this new gauntlet they are throwing down to the world: why none other than Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), with a focus on international trade unions.

As noted, I’ll have more to say on GFM and BDS in the coming days, but for now I’d just like to invite Code Pink to embrace their Cairo Declaration and begin right now to get the AFL-CIO (or any American labor union) behind their squalid little project. And their success or failure in this endeavor will allow us to directly measure the capability of their leadership and popularity of their cause (or lack thereof).

Boy, you miss a couple of days of action with the “Free Gaza” peace caravan and – lo and behold – they’ve finally managed to kill someone!

Given that the riot George Galloway and his Gaza Freedom Marchers triggered only did in an Egyptian policeman, don’t expect Alan Rickman to produce a play featuring this now-dead Egyptian lounging on his childhood bed reading excerpts from his diary. Alas, international “peace groups” like Gaza Freedom March (GFM) or the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) only bestow sanctified martyrdom on those they manage to get killed if it serves some “higher” (i.e., useful) political purpose.

But just maybe there is method in Galloway’s madness. Having succeeded in pointing out to the world that Gaza does indeed have two borders, perhaps by heating up the Egyptian-Gaza supply line (which will no doubt lead to increased closures and tighter security), the Freedom Marchers have ensured that their meager, symbolic deliveries to Gaza will be among the last.

Or perhaps there is no method to any of this, just the desire of several hundred political tourists to feel like they’re part of an action-oriented political vanguard (with First Class accommodations and return trip tickets, of course).

During the last couple of weeks when the global Israel-hating community has been trying desperately to recreate the hysteria that accompanied last year’s Operation Cast Lead, I’ve been thinking about why 100% of the attention has been heaped on Gaza with virtually no concern left over for Palestinians living on the West Bank.

There are, of course, simple answers to this question (which may be true, even if they’re pat). Gaza clearly suffers scars of the recent conflict, and Gazans do face security measures that have since been lifted in Palestinian territories less interested in exporting howitzer canisters and suicide bombers into Israel. But, then again, West Bank Palestinians certainly have needs and increased freedom of movement means the peace caravaners could easily get a percentage of their aid gifts to Ramallah if they wanted to.

There is also talk about Hamas as a “democratically elected government” vs. the “corrupt” Palestinian authority. But this seems to ignore the enthusiasm these Friends of Palestine had for the Godfather of the current corrupt government in the region, Yassir Arafat, who still found Western supporters flocking to pay homage to him ten years into his five-year elected term.

There is another explanation, one that forces us to confront the fact that the sympathies of “peace activists” of the Galloway, GSM, ISM, Code Pink variety tend to fall disproportionally not on those suffering the most, but on those most likely to pull a trigger, fire a rocket or self detonate. Paul Berman, quoting Camus, points out that “the sinister excites,” and that the “transgression of suicide murder” can arouse a vicarious thrill that is as passionate (and occasionally sexual) as it is perverse.

Those locked in a fantasy of their own unquestionable virtue and political potency don’t only open themselves up to manipulation by con artists like George Galloway. They also help dramatically increase the amount of suffering in the world by combining: (1) a fetishistic desire for the thrill of vicarious violence; (2) a willingness to encourage such violence (under the guise of supporting the weak); and (3) an impenetrable shield of self righteousness that prevents them from comprehending the notion that they might possibly be responsible for creating (rather than alleviating) the suffering of those they claim to care about.

Could even Severus Snape come up with a nastier and more volatile witches brew than that?

such a scee...
"begin right now to get the AFL-CIO (or any American labor union) behind their squalid little project."
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devotion...
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"Apparently, the Dissident Voice petition asking AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka to abandon 60+ years of uninterrupted devotion to Israel -"
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the AFL-CIO has been a tool of the CIA at least since they helped overthrow the democratically elected government of Chile, so this is no real option, as the leadership of the AFL-CIO is more concerned with devotion to "Is Rea"l than their membership.
The problems with most unions is their paid off leadership. That's another reason that labor in America has been dysfunctionalized.