Saturday, December 19, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
In struggle and anticipation
It's dark and rainy here in Geauga County Ohio. Next week at this time I will be in Amman Jordan with Nic, Helaine and Jesse. So I spent this afternoon gathering my music and found some old recordings from the first Greenpeace concert in 1970. My brother John posted a link and I thought I would give Amchitka, as the concert is known, a listen.
I was 19 years old and a student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I'd transferred from Wisconsin after a year of strikes, National Guard deployments onto the campus, tear gas, and learning, for the first time, about imperialism.
Soon after arriving at Antioch I learned about Zionism. Twelve of us sat crowded in the living room of a small damp house where the campus radicals lived. For three hours a professor, who was also a professed revolutionary, lectured about how Israel had come into being. He explained how it was a political doctrine created in the late 1800's.
I do not remember moving from my seat. Hearing about the terror upon which Israel was established.
I listened well and went on to speak at teach-ins and demos in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people. In 1973 I moved to kent, Ohio and with a group of students who were part of the Attica brigade formed a student group called "Jewish Americans in Support of Palestine." Our preferred method of organizing was to go door to door in the dorms. Some people wanted to hear our rap, many others wanted to cause serious bodily harm! But we were young and undaunted and
very commited to the truth and very good at running down hallways!
My ex-husband and I hosted anti-Zionist seders at my apartment for a few years. I look back and and can remember every detail of the first meal when 24 Palestinian and Iranian students showed up (and no one else)and got their first look at gefilte fish. We ended up ordering pizza and talking long into the night, getting to know each other and finding common dreams and struggling over questions for which there were no simple answers.
Those were days when everything and anything seemed possible and though my memory is vague I think we simply assumed that by the time of this letter the Palestinians would have returned home.
So, this trip, this journey, this Gaza Freedom March is a matter of my heart and of not letting go of an old promise made over lousy pizza in 1970, in a room full of people who were great friends who had just met, to stand up and speak out until Palestine was free.
The music of those times has stood the test of time and, I hope, so have I. I am honored to be traveling to the Gaza Freedom March and to be going with all of you, new friends, great friends, though we still have not yet met.Can't wait to get there.
In struggle and anticipation,
Hope
I was 19 years old and a student at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I'd transferred from Wisconsin after a year of strikes, National Guard deployments onto the campus, tear gas, and learning, for the first time, about imperialism.
Soon after arriving at Antioch I learned about Zionism. Twelve of us sat crowded in the living room of a small damp house where the campus radicals lived. For three hours a professor, who was also a professed revolutionary, lectured about how Israel had come into being. He explained how it was a political doctrine created in the late 1800's.
I do not remember moving from my seat. Hearing about the terror upon which Israel was established.
I listened well and went on to speak at teach-ins and demos in support of the struggle of the Palestinian people. In 1973 I moved to kent, Ohio and with a group of students who were part of the Attica brigade formed a student group called "Jewish Americans in Support of Palestine." Our preferred method of organizing was to go door to door in the dorms. Some people wanted to hear our rap, many others wanted to cause serious bodily harm! But we were young and undaunted and
very commited to the truth and very good at running down hallways!
My ex-husband and I hosted anti-Zionist seders at my apartment for a few years. I look back and and can remember every detail of the first meal when 24 Palestinian and Iranian students showed up (and no one else)and got their first look at gefilte fish. We ended up ordering pizza and talking long into the night, getting to know each other and finding common dreams and struggling over questions for which there were no simple answers.
Those were days when everything and anything seemed possible and though my memory is vague I think we simply assumed that by the time of this letter the Palestinians would have returned home.
So, this trip, this journey, this Gaza Freedom March is a matter of my heart and of not letting go of an old promise made over lousy pizza in 1970, in a room full of people who were great friends who had just met, to stand up and speak out until Palestine was free.
The music of those times has stood the test of time and, I hope, so have I. I am honored to be traveling to the Gaza Freedom March and to be going with all of you, new friends, great friends, though we still have not yet met.Can't wait to get there.
In struggle and anticipation,
Hope
Saturday, December 12, 2009
My thanks to a very generous contributor
I want to publicly thank George Saltzman for his very generous gift to the Gaza Freedom March. His words are inspiring too. Here is the e-mail he sent.
Fred
------
Oaxaca, Mexico, Friday 11 December 2009
Dear Fred,
It was good talking Wednesday evening and learning that you will be a member of the MECR delegation traveling to Egypt and (hopefully) Gaza later this month. And to hear that the thirteen from MECR will be part of over a thousand Americans making up the total delegation. I hope a great deal of information about the desperate situation of the Gazans is widely publicized as a result.
As for naming me, as I said, I would prefer not to be anonymous. The reason is that I think the example of someone without very much wealth going beyond so-called "charitable contributions" might inspire other privileged people to consider giving up their material advantage (or at least a good part of it) in order to really participate in closing the great gap that separates us, the world's privileged, from its overwhelming majority of pillaged. Although my donation may be large compared to the others, it is less than the money each of the thousand-odd delegates is spending to make the trip and be a participant. My point is simply that we who collectively have legal control over much of the world's disposable wealth ought to consider whether, for example, an expensive trip we contemplate making is justified in terms of the social good it provides. I think that this huge delegation to Palestine meets that criterion, and of course I want you all to be very successful as political activists.
All the best, George
See You in Cairo
Dear All,
See you in Cairo! With high hopes for extensive media coverage and the beginning of a new peace initiative.
Helaine
See you in Cairo! With high hopes for extensive media coverage and the beginning of a new peace initiative.
Helaine
Sunday, December 6, 2009
International Participation in December 31 Gaza Freedom March Tops 1,000 As Registration Closes
by Medea Benjamin
Over 1,000 delegates from 42 countries have signed up to participate in the December 31 Gaza Freedom March that will mark the one-year anniversary of the Israeli invasion and call for an end to the siege that has brought 1.5 million people to the edge of disaster.
Organizers cut off registration on November 30 to give the Egyptian officials enough time to clear the group for entry into Gaza, but also because the numbers were becoming unwieldy. "No one has ever taken a group this size into Gaza," said coordinator Ann Wright, whose skills as a retired U.S. army colonel are coming in handy organizing the logistics for such a massive group.
Since the registration closed on November 30, organizers have been besieged every day with people begging to be added to the list. "I have to turn down 15-20 people every day," said Emily Siegel. "It has been an insane few weeks, with emails pouring in from people all over the world who want to join. I feel terrible turning them away but we started out thinking we would take 300 people and now we have over 1,000."
The international delegates hope to join some 50,000 Palestinians inside Gaza, including students, teachers, health workers, women's groups, farmers and fishermen. The march will start in a neighborhood in northern Gaza in which nearly every building was devastated during Israel's attack and continue for three miles to the Erez border with Israel. At the same time, Israeli and Palestinian activists will be marching toward the Erez crossing from the Israeli side. Upon reaching the border, participants on both sides will release balloons, fly kites and wave flags to demonstrate their solidarity with one another.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the December 2008 Israeli invasion that left over 1,400 dead, this initiative is designed to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing siege that continues to imprison the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. But with the borders still closed, there is no guarantee that the internationals will be allowed in. Gaza is bordered by Israel and Egypt. Both governments have sealed their borders, but sometimes the Egyptians will make exceptions. That's why Tighe Barry, a Hollywood prop man who has become the "fixer" for the international delegation, has traveled to the region six times in as many months to prepare for this march. "We've told the delegates that there are no guarantees we'll get into Gaza, but we are certainly doing everything humanly possible to convince the Egyptians to let us in," said Barry from Cairo, where he has been spending his days negotiating with officials in the Foreign Ministry, in addition to running around arranging hotels, food and buses for 1,000 people.
The diversity of the international delegation is impressive, with people coming from Austria to Yemen, from Belgium to Bangladesh to Brazil. Some 100 students have signed up, as have seniors in their seventies and eighties. The marchers include judges, doctors and physicists; businesspeople and union reps. Faith-based members include imams, rabbis and priests. Affinity groups have formed of artists, women, military veterans, diplomats, lawyers and health workers. A muralist from California, Kathleen Crocetti, will build a mosaic memorial to all who died during the invasion. Julia Hurley, a student from New York, has raised thousands of dollars for school supplies that Israel has banned.
Nora Hassanaien, a British student at the University of Warwick, has family in Gaza whom she has not been allowed to visit because of the closed borders. "Watching the atrocities on television last year and not being able to do anything was devastating," she recalled. "It will mean a lot to me to be part of a peaceful march, with people all over the world uniting in solidarity."
Hilary Minch is an Irish development worker. "This will be a remarkably poignant time to visit Gaza. It will be filled with sadness, given what the people of Gaza have endured and lost and continue to suffer. I want to stand beside them and show my solidarity. This is the least I can do."
Organizers cut off registration on November 30 to give the Egyptian officials enough time to clear the group for entry into Gaza, but also because the numbers were becoming unwieldy. "No one has ever taken a group this size into Gaza," said coordinator Ann Wright, whose skills as a retired U.S. army colonel are coming in handy organizing the logistics for such a massive group.
Since the registration closed on November 30, organizers have been besieged every day with people begging to be added to the list. "I have to turn down 15-20 people every day," said Emily Siegel. "It has been an insane few weeks, with emails pouring in from people all over the world who want to join. I feel terrible turning them away but we started out thinking we would take 300 people and now we have over 1,000."
The international delegates hope to join some 50,000 Palestinians inside Gaza, including students, teachers, health workers, women's groups, farmers and fishermen. The march will start in a neighborhood in northern Gaza in which nearly every building was devastated during Israel's attack and continue for three miles to the Erez border with Israel. At the same time, Israeli and Palestinian activists will be marching toward the Erez crossing from the Israeli side. Upon reaching the border, participants on both sides will release balloons, fly kites and wave flags to demonstrate their solidarity with one another.
Marking the one-year anniversary of the December 2008 Israeli invasion that left over 1,400 dead, this initiative is designed to draw worldwide attention to the ongoing siege that continues to imprison the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. But with the borders still closed, there is no guarantee that the internationals will be allowed in. Gaza is bordered by Israel and Egypt. Both governments have sealed their borders, but sometimes the Egyptians will make exceptions. That's why Tighe Barry, a Hollywood prop man who has become the "fixer" for the international delegation, has traveled to the region six times in as many months to prepare for this march. "We've told the delegates that there are no guarantees we'll get into Gaza, but we are certainly doing everything humanly possible to convince the Egyptians to let us in," said Barry from Cairo, where he has been spending his days negotiating with officials in the Foreign Ministry, in addition to running around arranging hotels, food and buses for 1,000 people.
The diversity of the international delegation is impressive, with people coming from Austria to Yemen, from Belgium to Bangladesh to Brazil. Some 100 students have signed up, as have seniors in their seventies and eighties. The marchers include judges, doctors and physicists; businesspeople and union reps. Faith-based members include imams, rabbis and priests. Affinity groups have formed of artists, women, military veterans, diplomats, lawyers and health workers. A muralist from California, Kathleen Crocetti, will build a mosaic memorial to all who died during the invasion. Julia Hurley, a student from New York, has raised thousands of dollars for school supplies that Israel has banned.
Nora Hassanaien, a British student at the University of Warwick, has family in Gaza whom she has not been allowed to visit because of the closed borders. "Watching the atrocities on television last year and not being able to do anything was devastating," she recalled. "It will mean a lot to me to be part of a peaceful march, with people all over the world uniting in solidarity."
Hilary Minch is an Irish development worker. "This will be a remarkably poignant time to visit Gaza. It will be filled with sadness, given what the people of Gaza have endured and lost and continue to suffer. I want to stand beside them and show my solidarity. This is the least I can do."
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