Waging Peace, Pages 46-47

Supporters Around the World Show Solidarity for Gaza Freedom March

ACTIVISTS in cities around the globe organized peaceful actions between Dec. 27, 2009 and the first days of January to send their elected officials and neighbors a message: The Israeli government must “Lift the Siege on Gaza Now!” London, Sydney, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Marseille, Reims, Belfast, Bern, Seoul, and towns across the West Bank, the United States and Canada held their own Gaza Freedom Marches or vigils in solidarity with 1,300 marchers from more than 43 countries who participated in the historic Gaza Freedom March. The Egyptian government prevented all but a handful of marchers from entering Gaza via the Rafah border crossing.

In Canada, a massive Gaza Freedom March was held at the Vancouver Art Gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia on Dec. 31, and another on New Year’s Day in Calgary, Alberta. More than 1,000 Gaza Freedom Marchers took to the streets of Toronto on Dec. 27, marching from the Israeli Embassy to Dundas Square. Toronto streets were packed with Sunday shoppers, who looked on or joined the march as it took over Yonge Street. Many snapped photos and honked horns in support when “Free, Free Palestine” was boomed from the sound truck. Local media covered the march and activists brought attention to the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel; Egypt’s (U.S.-inspired) unwillingness to open the Gaza borders to international activists; as well as Israel’s recent attacks on Palestinian workers and activists in the occupied territory.

Alaskans For Palestine gathered on Jan. 2 in 8 degree weather to show their support for the Gaza Freedom March and demand the lifting of Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Local NBC and CBS news affiliates covered the event on the local news.

This reporter’s camera—and this reporter!—froze at a march and vigil organized by DC activist Shelley Fudge, of Jewish Voice for Peace, outside the Chinatown Metro in Washington, DC on Dec. 30. It was so cold some people were reluctant to take their hands out of pockets to accept free copies of the Washington Report.

Andy Shallal, owner of the Busboys & Poets restaurants, updated the DC marchers, saying that his wife was in Egypt participating in the Free Gaza March. More than 200 participants soon warmed up, singing “Peace and Justice in the Middle East Song Lyrics” by Perry V. King to familiar tunes like “When the Saints Go Marching In” and “We Shall Overcome.” Steve France provided new lyrics to the Bob Dylan song “Blowin’ in the Wind”:

How many times must Gaza’s children bleed, before America will care?

(Yes and) How many homes will Israelis destroy, before we say it’s not fair?...

The answer, my friend, is in Washington, the answer is in Washington.

Lucy Murphy sang one of her very moving songs, “Palestine Needs Her Freedom.” There were no press reports of the DC vigil, and very little coverage of the travails of Gaza Freedom March participants in Egypt in The Washington Post.

A demonstration, again in sub-freezing weather, was later held in front of the Egyptian Embassy in Washington on Jan. 2, 2010. A press release passed out at the action stated it was being held in response to the sabotaging of the Gaza Freedom March by the Egyptian regime. Egypt receives about $2 billion a year in foreign aid from the American taxpayers, and Israel around $3.5 billion.

Women in Black was one of the organizations sponsoring a Jan. 1, 2010 “Vigil for Gaza” at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Photojournalist William Hughes interviewed Heber Brown III, a pastor at Blessed Hope Church in North Baltimore, who said he was privileged to support his Palestinian brothers and sisters because, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” People living in the Gaza Strip are living in the midst of a great injustice and an inhumane blockade.

“There are people from all walks of life standing up against the siege, including Jewish Americans,” the African-American pastor told Hughes. “No more means no more for everybody,” he insisted. “Whether you’re of African descent or survived the Holocaust, no community should suffer this kind of tragedy.”

Pastor Brown called on people to educate themselves about the Palestinian situation, and imagine what they would do in Gazans’ shoes.

Paul Verduin, Maryland coordinator for Friends of Sabeel”“North America, said he was in Baltimore to draw attention to the terrible ongoing tragedy of Gaza. “People just like you and me are suffering under great deprivation since the assault on Gaza one year ago,” Verduin said. “On this first day of 2010 people of faith just cannot condone this and support it.”

Noting that the United States provides $3 billion to the Israeli government for military aid, which it uses to continue the occupation, Verduin stated, “This just has to stop.”

Margaret Musgrove said she has been standing at this corner in Baltimore every Friday for one hour for eight years. “It’s my way of praying,” she explained. “I’m bearing witness for peace.”

Sally Robinson said she hopes more people in Israel will begin to realize the injustice that is being done to Palestinians.

A “First Night” march in Boston, MA was very spirited and successful. More than 300 vigilers distributed 1,000 flyers at a candlelit vigil, then marched past crowds on the streets who often cheered them on.

“Peace, Salaam, Shalom” was the New Year’s wish for Gaza from cold and hoarse supporters at a Gaza Freedom Solidarity March in Minneapolis, MN on the last night of 2009. Seven Minnesotans had gone to Cairo, hoping to march in Gaza. Coleen Rowley stayed behind in Minneapolis and wrote about her city’s march in an article published in the Huffington Post. While most mainstream media focused on stories about the big freeze and record snowfall, Rowley wrote: “It’s become clear that hope for peace no longer resides in any one leader but only through more people’s own exercise of creative nonviolence in the tradition of [Mahatma] Gandhi and Martin Luther King. As we see, the news on this first day of 2010 continues to be filled with Blackwater repercussions, military drone and terrorist bombings, and violent repressions of civilians throughout the Mideast, we must continue reminding our leaders in the U.S., Israel, Egypt and throughout the world that violence only begets violence, that war has not worked to reduce terrorism, that war is not peace and we cannot bomb the village to save it. The song of ”˜Peace, Salaam, Shalom’ must continue even if our voices get croaky from Minneapolis to Gaza and everywhere in between.”

Compiled by reports submitted to the Washington Report or on the Web site <www.gazafreedommarch.org>. Hughes’ interviews can be seen at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKK1ivLqLPA> and <www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_6sxfCtaE0&feature=sub>.

—Delinda C. Hanley