A Gaza Freedom Marcher calls on Obama to practice what he preaches

Cairo, January 21, 2010 (Pal Telegraph)

Dear President Obama:

I have been told practically since I was old enough to read that I am privileged – and should feel proud -- to be an American. Not only because I enjoy unparalleled freedom and opportunities, but also because I live in a superpower that is so beneficent it helps spread those same benefits to the less fortunate around the world.

However, I have spent the last three weeks in one of the parts of the world we say we are helping, and I don’t feel proud to be an American. Or even that privileged. Let me tell you why.

As I write this, the news is dominated by the horrific earthquake in Haiti. And of course, the U.S has responded immediately with promises of massive aid. Here in the Middle East, Gaza has been experiencing the equivalent of an earthquake in slow motion for more than a year -- only this time, it’s a disaster that is all man-made, with substantial help from the government you now lead. The only mainstream media coverage it gets is of the high-stakes game played by you and the other political leaders, with the nearly 1.5 million ordinary people penned inside used as pawns.

Gaza2_075

Ever since Hamas won the Palestinian elections, the U.S., Israeli and European governments have imposed an almost total shut-down on the Gaza Strip, under the mistaken notion that punishing the people will force them to topple their government. The United States tried the same cruel tactic in Iraq with 13 years of sanctions, causing dramatic increases in infant-and-child mortality – killing more children than in the bombing of Hiroshima. Meanwhile, however, Saddam remained healthy and in power. You now seem intent on repeating the same mistake.

In Gaza, the blockade on the passage of goods and people through the crossings into this small strip of land has effectively imprisoned the population and slowed to a trickle the commerce that is the life blood of any independent community. Unemployment is now the rule rather than the exception and more than 80 percent of its residents are dependent on handouts from the United Nations. As Time Magazine reported last month: “A senior official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government recently confided to a U.N. colleague that Israel's goal for Gaza is ‘no development, no prosperity, no humanitarian crisis.’” In other words, as the U.N. official rightly interpreted, Israel will provide Gaza with an intravenous drip of relief to keep its 1.5 million inhabitants alive -- but just barely. Otherwise, the international community (read: U.S.-led coalition) might actually have to do more than make feeble protests.

The Gazans have dug a network of tunnels underneath their border with Egypt, which for the sake of its paymaster (Egypt is the second-largest recipient of U.S foreign aid,) and its president’s own desire to preserve his power, has acted in concert with Israel to turn Gaza into a prison. While you and your spokespeople portray the tunnels only as a conduit for weapons, you refuse to acknowledge that they play a vital “back door” role as Gaza’s emergency lifeline – a last-resort channel for necessities ranging from cement to computers…even to cars. Now, in a move described as “self protection,” Egypt is building – with the active support of the U.S., through the Army Corps of Engineers – a steel wall extending up to 82 feet below the ground, designed explicitly to close off these entrepreneurial attempts to resist being reduced to the existence of zoo animals – dependent on their “keepers” for their sustenance.

Shame on you, Mr. President. It wasn’t so long ago that you said these words in your lofty speech in Cairo, designed to bridge the divide between the Judeo-Christian West and the fast-growing Muslim world: “I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations – to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity…” Shortly after, when you accepted the peace prize that even you recognized you have not yet earned, you said, “No matter how callously defined, neither America's interests - nor the world's - are served by the denial of human aspirations.” Yet, how else can the ongoing denial of Palestinians’ right to freedom and independence be described, but as a denial of the same aspirations we ourselves fought to defend in our own revolution? I do not excuse any use of violence that harms innocent civilians, but after having been to Palestine (both Gaza and the West Bank) and taking time to get to know the people and their history, I would challenge any American – including you – who thinks he or she would not take any measures possible to resist the treatment they must endure. Yet – despite the ignorance on display when influentials such as Bono (New York Times; Jan. 2) wonder when they will produce their own Ghandi or Mandela – Palestinians have been practicing non-violence for decades. It just doesn’t get covered.

On the day Bono’s op-ed was published, three such leaders were languishing in Israeli prisons. One is Mohammad Othman, detained on Sept. 22 when he was returning home from speaking in Norway about nonviolent strategies to oppose Israeli oppression and land confiscation. He was held for 107 days without charges, much of it in solitary confinement and without access to an attorney, before he was finally released. last_gaza_067 The second is Abdallah Abu Rahma, a schoolteacher, farmer and a leader of the Bilin Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements. In the last 20 years, Israel has confiscated more than 50 percent of Bil’in land for Israeli settlements and the construction of the separation wall. Supported by Israeli and international activists, Bil’in residents – led by Abu Rahma -- have peacefully demonstrated against the wall every Friday for the past five years. I joined them in June and met him personally. I can attest to his leadership and avocation of non-violence.. He was dragged from his home on Dec. 10. After holding him for several days, Israel finally came up with a charge: “illegal weapons possession” – referring to the peace sign he had fashioned out of spent teargas cartridges and bullets that Israel had shot at the demonstrators. (One such cartridge pierced the skull of Tristan Anderson, an American who was photographing the aftermath of a nonviolent march, requiring part of his right frontal lobe to be removed.) The third is Jamal Jumah, a veteran leader in the grassroots struggle against the wall, who was taken by Israeli occupation forces on Dec. 16 and was held in shackles and often blindfolded during Kafkaesque Israeli military proceedings until he was released almost a month later.

But this bias in favor of Israel is not surprising. The United States has a long track record of backing Israel regardless of its actions. After all, we have vetoed UN resolutions criticizing its policies more than 40 times. You didn’t start it and it’s now clear you are not serious about changing it. (The Jerusalem Post on Jan. 13: “The United States says that it is not considering rescinding Israeli loan guarantees or otherwise sanctioning the country,” according to a spokesman for the State Department.) But what I do – probably naively – find somewhat surprising is the total lack of support the State Department has shown its own citizens. From the moment I and other American Gaza Freedom Marchers set foot on Egyptian soil, the U.S. Embassy in Cairo has done practically all that it can to pretend that we don’t exist…or rather, as if we should agree with the government party line and go away.

When the Egyptian government continued to deny our request to enter Gaza to be with the Palestinians on the one-year mark of the Israeli invasion that so destroyed their lives, we exercised the ultimate civil liberty for which America is known. We were met with a tight cordon of helmeted riot police, containing the protestors for about five hours. Yes, the person in command while the ambassador was on leave, Deputy Director Matthew Tuellar, eventually met with two of the march representatives. He agreed that every U.S. citizen has the right to see a consular officer, and after a long delay, the protesters who remained were allowed to see a lower-ranking staffer one-on-one to express their grievances. However, those offers were long in coming and rather grudgingly given, and I am convinced that if the U.S. Embassy so chose, the riot police could have been called off while we peacefully expressed our protest over our government’s support of the Israeli siege. And a meeting with Tuellar should have been immediately granted.

But what I have found most upsetting is the complete lack of U.S. willingness to foster the people-to-people exchange we say will help bridge the East/West divide. Some participants in the Freedom March want to live and work in Gaza with non-governmental organizations dedicated to emergency relief, human rights monitoring and mental health treatment. However, the only way Egypt will allow us into Gaza right now is if we present a letter from our embassies asking that our entry be permitted. This hasn’t been a problem for individuals with Indian citizenship; the only person who has been granted entry into Gaza since Egypt clamped down in the wake of the Viva Palestina “uprising” (other than a 50-person MP delegation from Europe) has an Indian as well as American passport. He wisely bypassed the U.S. and sought the assistance of India. He got in, and is still there, working on an MIT research project. Ireland has signaled a willingness to help its residents as well. But those who live in the U.S., Canada, UK, Germany and Portugal have been flatly turned down by their embassies. Why? “It’s dangerous,” we’re told. In other words, and I quote, “we’re protecting you from yourself.” Hmmm….and those young men and women who are sent to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why don’t you protect them too?

Gaza_123_copy My roommate in Cairo is a Canadian woman who is married to a Palestinian journalist in Gaza. She is trying to bring him to Canada, but in the meantime, she has not seen him in six months. However, her embassy will not give her a letter either. So…what are they protecting her from? Her husband? What about bridging that divide we keep talking about?

President Obama, either the staff that represents you in your embassies around the world has not heard your speeches, or you didn’t really mean them. Which is it?

Awaiting your response, in Cairo….

Pamela Rasmussen

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites