US Press Ignores Egyptian Suppression of Gaza Freedom March
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/29-5
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
CommonDreams.org
US Press Ignores Egyptian Suppression of Gaza Freedom March
by Robert Naiman
Cairo - The government of Egypt is taking a spectacularly hard line
against international solidarity efforts in support of civilians in Gaza
on the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion, blocking peace
marchers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe from even approaching the
Egyptian border with Gaza and blocking an aid convoy that has the
support of the Turkish government from entering Egypt at Nuweiba. Even a
peaceful protest at UN offices in Cairo was largely walled off from
public view by Egyptian police.
It seems that any pretense of Egyptian government concern for the
suffering of Palestinian civilians has been dropped, along with the
pretense that there is anything less than 100% cooperation from Egypt
and its US and European patrons with Israel's program of punishing
Gaza's population for the political crime of having provided majority
support to the Hamas movement in a legislative election.
Meanwhile there is largely a U.S. press blackout of these striking
developments. A search of the New York Times and the Washington Post
only turns up a tiny AP story on the websites of the Times and the Post.
As has frequently been the case, Agence France-Presse [AFP] pays more
attention to these developments. On Monday, AFP reports that Hedy
Epstein and other members of the Gaza Freedom March have begun a hunger
strike to press the Egyptian government to allow them to enter Gaza:
An 85-year-old Holocaust survivor was among a group of grandmothers
who began a hunger strike in Cairo on Monday to protest against Egypt's
refusal to allow a Gaza solidarity march to proceed.
American activist Hedy Epstein and other grandmothers participating
in the Gaza Freedom March began a hunger strike at 1000 GMT.
"I've never done this before, I don't know how my body will react,
but I'll do whatever it takes," Epstein told AFP, sitting on a chair
surrounded by hundreds of protesters outside the United Nations building
in Cairo.
On Sunday, AFP reported on the efforts of the Viva Palestina aid convoy
to enter Egypt, with the support of the Turkish government:
An aid convoy trying to reach the blockaded Gaza Strip through
Egypt was still stranded in Jordan on Sunday amid Cairo's refusal to let
it cross through its territory.
Members of the convoy, which is led by British MP George Galloway,
were however hoping for a solution thanks to mediation by Turkey to
enter Gaza through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba, the most direct route.
The British-initiated aid convoy has at least been mentioned by the BBC,
but NPR has not reported on the U.S.-initiated Gaza Freedom March.
Wouldn't you be a little bit curious to know what explanations the New
York Times and the Washington Post would provide for ignoring these
developments? Why not send them a little note?
Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Skipper: Professor, will you tell these people who is
in charge on this island?
Professor: Why, no one.
Skipper: No one?
Thurston Howell III: No one? Good heavens, this is anarchy!
-- _Gilligan's Island_, episode #6, "President Gilligan"
Stan de SD
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/29-5
> Tuesday, December 29, 2009
> CommonDreams.org
> US Press Ignores Egyptian Suppression of Gaza Freedom March
> by Robert Naiman
>
> Cairo - The government of Egypt is taking a spectacularly hard line
> against international solidarity efforts in support of civilians in Gaza
> on the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion, blocking peace
> marchers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe from even approaching the
> Egyptian border with Gaza and blocking an aid convoy that has the
> support of the Turkish government from entering Egypt at Nuweiba. Even a
> peaceful protest at UN offices in Cairo was largely walled off from
> public view by Egyptian police.
>
> It seems that any pretense of Egyptian government concern for the
> suffering of Palestinian civilians has been dropped,
Maybe the Egyptians are fed up with a bunch of rabid fruit-loops
digging tunnels under its own border? The Egyptians may have their
lapses from time to time, but they are no dummies. They realize that
the same Hamas kooks pushing the Pallies in Gaza into this ongoing
insane suicidal war with Israel wouldn't hesitate to stir up shit as
well on the streets of Cairo or Alexandria against an Egyptian
government they see as too "accomodating" to the west and not militant/
religious enough for their tastes.
Danny Boy, I know that you're way too ignorant and blinded by your own
wack-doodle views to understand the situation in the middle east, but
years ago there used to be a joke that every time the Arabs went to
war, they would all take a solemn vow to fight Israel to the very last
Egyptian. Some time back those same Egyptians, in particular the late
Anwar Sadat, took a long hard look at the situation King Hussein had
in Jordan with the Black September fiasco, and decided that they
didn't need any of that mess. Egypt, like Jordan, will make the
perfunctory condemnations in order to give the appearance of pan-Arab
solidarity, then look the other way while their idiot brethren
Palestinians (literally and figuratively) bring rocks to a
gunfight... :O|
> along with the
> pretense that there is anything less than 100% cooperation from Egypt
> and its US and European patrons with Israel's program of punishing
> Gaza's population for the political crime of having provided majority
> support to the Hamas movement in a legislative election.
It wasn't a "political crime". You and the other anarcho-commies
conveniently ignore the fact that after Israel vacated the Gaza Strip
and pretty much gave the Pallies most of the concessions they wanted,
they were rewarded for their efforts by Hamas setting up Qassam rocket
launchers in schoolyards, hospitals, and even in residential
neighborhoods, then started shooting them at Israeli towns. Hamas
doesn't want peace - it wants to force the Gazan people into mass
martyrdom for its lunatic cause...
(rest of Danny Boy's patent nonsense snipped for brevity...)