LATEST UPDATE: Via Palestina convoy enters Gaza
For details, see Oui’s comment below. Thanks, Oui.
UPDATE to Egypt screwing the Gaza convoy, once again
Wednesday January 6, 2010
Sky News Online
Controversial MP George Galloway has been involved in scuffles with Egyptian police as a group of pro-Palestinian activists tried to get a relief convoy into the Gaza Strip.
According to medics 55 people were injured after the 520 activists broke down the gate at the port in El-Arish to protest against an Egyptian decision to ship some of the goods through Israel.
They blocked the two entrances to the Sinai port with vehicles and clashed with police who used water cannon to control the protests.
A statement by one of the convoy leaders, Kevin Ovenden, on the Viva Palestina website said that their situation was at “crisis point”, after rioting broke out in the port.
Mr Galloway said: “Together with myself and other leaders of the convoy we were in negotiations with the Egyptian authorities about their determination to remove more than 55 of our vehicles and send them to the Israeli checkpoint.
“We refused this because it is a breach of the agreement we reached in Akabar between the government of Egypt and the Turkish side and it completely unconsciounable that 25% of our convoy should go to Israel and never arrive in Gaza.
“Because nothing that ever goes to Israel, ever arrives in Gaza.”
The protests were sparked by an Egyptian decision to allow 139 vehicles to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, about 30 miles from El-Arish, but requiring a remaining 59 vehicles to pass via Israel.
Yesterday, Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Egypt screwing the Gaza convoy, once again
Egyptian authorities, not the Egyptian people, have been throwing monkey wrenches in the path of the Viva Palestinian convoy (as well as the Gaza Freedom March earlier, which fizzled in Cairo) at every turn. At present they are preventing the convoy from entering Gaza. It can only be hoped that these efforts have awakened more people around the world to the aftermath of Israel’s massacre of Gazan Palestinians a year ago. The Palestinians in Gaza, children and adults alike, continue to suffer from the illegal collective punishment caused by the siege.
We must also remember that Americans are in the forefront of this tightening the screws, the suffering, on the Palestinian people.
Ashamed to be an American today.
This email was received yesterday (January 5, 2010) from the Viva Palestina convoy.
To all friends of Palestine
Our situation is now at a crisis point! Riot has broken out in the port of Al- Arish.
This late afternoon we were negotiating with a senior official from Cairo who left negotiations some two hours ago and did not return. Our negotiations with the official was regarding taking our aid vehicles into Gaza.
He left two hours ago and did not come back. Egyptian authorities called over 2,000 riot police who then moved towards our camp at the port.
We have now blocked the entrance to the port and we are now faced with riot police and water cannons and are determined to defend our vehicles and aid.
The Egyptian authorities have by their stubbornness and hostility towards the convoy, brought us to a crisis point.
We are now calling upon all friends of palestine to mount protests in person where possible, but by any means available to Egyptian representatives, consulates and Embassy’s and demand that the convoy are allowed a safe passage into Gaza tomorrow!
Kevin Ovenden
Viva Palestina Convoy LeaderForwarded by Alice Howard
Viva Palestina UK – Administration Manager
Tel: 07944 512 469
Email: alice@vivapalestina.org
Website: http://www.vivapalestina.org/
This video from Press TV indicated that there was not only no movement toward overcoming restrictions on the convoy with respect to the number of vehicles and the number of the accompanying 450 activists that will be allowed into Gaza, but that the Egyptian authorities have now called in the riot police and have blocked the convoy.
We can only hope that Mubarak comes to his senses and stops sucking up to Israel and the US.
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The strategic and military ties between Greece and Israel are deepening in reverse proportion to Turkey’s estrangement from Israel and its growing closeness to Iran and Syria. Significantly, when the commander of the Greek Navy, Vice Admiral G. Karamalikis secretly visited Israel earlier this month, he won the sort of red carpet which the Israel Defense Forces high command rarely gives foreign military visitors. Israeli Navy chief Vice Adm. Eli Marum took him around Navy HQ in Haifa port plus unusual tours of the top-secret INS Dolphin Type 800 submarine and the Saar V class INS Eilat 501 corvette.
The military partnership between Israel and Greece is not new. In June 2008, their two air forces and navies conducted a joint war game, during which 100 Israeli fighter-bombers flew out from their bases as far as Greek skies and back, spanning a distance roughly equal to that between Israel and Iran. The exercise was meant to show Tehran the Israeli Air Force’s ability to cover the distance to Iran’s nuclear facilities and back. According to Western military sources, the maneuver included practice sorties by Israeli warplanes against Russian-made S-300 anti-missile missile batteries deployed by the Greek Army.
A Greek Film about Palestine
The Wall of Hate
Palestine and contemporary history
Gaza Aid one year ago
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
The first video was highly graphic and moving. Thanks for posting it.
When a regime relies on the intelligence, training, artifacts of oppresion and military hardware of master to survive that regime must do the bidding of master without question.
The Mubarak regime is a deeply corrupt, brutal totalitarian regime. They don’t care about the Egyptian people. They have no concern for the condition of the cities. They won’t even make an effort to keep the streets of Cairo clean to impress the tourists that are Egypt’s main industry. So, why should they give a damn about standing up for the rights of Palestinians when they know that would piss off their two main sponsors?
What troubles me is not Mubarak’s corruption, but America’s financial support of his regime, our supply of sensor equipment to detect underground tunnels across the Gaza border, and now the building of an iron wall to prevent tunneling, which must be financed by the US.
Add to that the White House and Congressional rebuke of the UN Goldstone Report, and it just not hard to understand the difficulties experienced by the Viva Palestina convoy and the Gaza Freedom March, both humanitarian efforts.
The enemy is us, no question.
You won’t get any argument from me on that. However, if the Mubarak regime were not so corrupt and self-serving they would not so easily be held in thrall to the U.S., so they are certainly part of the problem, and the proximate cause of the troubles. The fact that they are doing all this in cooperation with their masters in the U.S. and Israel does not alter that.
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I wouldn’t be surprised if the U.S. soon is engaged in renewed negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas:
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
These are positive steps. But then we get reports such as this one:
Bold in the text was added. What the hell does this mean? Mitchell and Clinton were just brushed off. Obama has the tools to pressure Netanyahu, aid to Israel, but will never use it. And as long as Netanyahu knows that, he is in charge, not Obama.
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Jerusalem Post: ‘Reports on Emmanuel comments inaccurate’.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
That’s a good one: JPost corrects Haaretz. I wonder about that, a denial after discussing the nonexistent peace process with an Israeli diplomat.
The problem here is that the peace process frankly doesn’t exist and the Obama administration is doing nothing about it. In fact, when did we last hear a statement about it from Mitchell or Clinton? They have for all practically purposes, dropped it, waiting for the 10 month phony hiatus in settlement building, until I suspect the administration will concede that Netanyahu was right.
And this old Eba Eban statement was repeated by Emanual on the Charlie Rose Show a month or so ago: the Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity. When I heard that, it was evident to me that the Palestinians are being set up as the fall guy again, and when the expansion of settlements resumes for real (read openly) in 10 months, the Palestinians will be blamed….by the White House.
Obama will risk being a one termer by using the nuclear option, withholding aid to Israel.
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(Al Jazeera) – A humanitarian aid convoy carrying food and medical supplies has arrived in the Gaza Strip nearly a month after it embarked from the UK.
Members of the much-delayed Viva Palestina convoy began passing through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Wednesday, waving Palestinian flags and raising their hands in peace signs.
Al Jazeera’s Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Gaza, said the first wave of vehicles were greeted by Gaza’s Hamas leaders as well as members of a Turkish humanitarian organisation that aided in bringing the convoy to the strip.
“We had been expecting the arrival of the convoy amid much fanfare but it almost caught the Palestinians here by surprise,” he said.
“The doors suddenly flung open and within minutes the first batch of about 12 or so vehicles made their way from the Egyptian side to the Palestinians.
“But we are expecting about another 120 or so vehicles, so there is no doubt that a great deal more activity is expected.”
Violent clashes
Our correspondent said participants of the convoy are expected to spend the next 48 hours distributing the aid supplies.
The convoy’s arrival in Gaza followed violent clashes between Egyptian security forces, Palestinians and members of the convoy.
Hours before the convoy’s arrival, an Egyptian soldier was shot dead during a clash with Palestinian protesters who had gathered along the border to protest a delay in the convoy’s arrival.
Egyptian forces opened fire to disperse the stone-throwing protesters, and at least 35 Palestinians were wounded in the ensuing clash, according to Hamas officials.
Late on Tuesday, more than 50 people were wounded during a clash between Egyptian authorities and international members of the convoy.
The protests were sparked by an Egyptian decision to allow 139 vehicles to enter Gaza through the Rafah crossing, but requiring a remaining 59 vehicles to pass via Israel.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
Thanks for posting this news, Oui. I am wondering now if the convoy leaders had to compromise again in order to move on, as they did in Aqaba.
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In a flurry of meetings in Washington and in European capitals this week and next, senior administration officials will explore new approaches to bringing the two sides together.
The new tack would include preparing letters for Israeli and Palestinian leaders that would lay out the endgame and guarantee U.S. support for a negotiated end to the conflict.
Former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-ME) speaks at the State Department's headquarters.
Clinton and Mitchell are scheduled to meet at the State Department with Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman and Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh.
“Judeh will stress the importance of relaunching negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis under a clear and time-bound plan that addresses final status issues between the two parties, achieves a just and lasting peace and establishes an independent Palestinian state,” the Jordanian Embassy in Washington said.
Following those talks, Mitchell will travel Sunday to Paris and Brussels for meetings with his counterparts from the so-called Quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the European Union, the United Nations and Russia — and European diplomats before a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories later in the month, U.S. officials said.
When he travels to the region, Mitchell is expected to be carrying letters of “guarantees” outlining the U.S. position.
The letters are likely to contain gestures to both sides. For the Palestinians, that would include criticism of settlements and the belief that the borders that existed before the 1967 Arab-Israeli War be the basis of a future peace deal. For the Israelis, they would acknowledge that post-1967 demographic changes on the ground must be taken into account, meaning that Israel would be able to keep some settlements.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."