Friends,
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With your encouragement and financial support, FOR staff and allies traveled to Egypt at the end of 2009, carrying a message of peace, justice and reconciliation.
Helping to lead the Interfaith Satyagraha of the Gaza Freedom March, FOR leader Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb wrote,
We cannot truly work on this issue without understanding the meaning of resistance in our lives. For Jews, I believe resistance requires serious study and practice of the Torah of Nonviolence. Nonviolence is the only way forward. Violence will destroy our beautiful tradition. By struggling in solidarity with those who oppose militarism and support boycott, divestment, and sanctions we are also renewing the most sacred elements of our tradition that require us to protest in the street, pursue justice and peace, and avoid violence. It is not an easy road.
As you already know, the road from Cairo to Rafah was shorter than we had hoped, and the Egyptian government blocked our entry into Palestine. But as FOR Executive Director Mark Johnson wrote, we should not cast blame at Egypt alone:
The complicity of these major world powers became very clear to those of us who participated in the Gaza Freedom March. The Egyptian government, most certainly with an arm twisted by the Israeli and U.S. governments, did not welcome us into their country as they initially indicated they would. Our meetings were spied on and infiltrated. U.S. officials in the embassy reiterated that we should not have come to march in solidarity with the Palestinians. When we decided to march in spite of this, we were met with riot cops, barricades, and scores of secret police. Many of us were assaulted and a few suffered serious injuries.
Yet we see the Gaza Freedom March as an important and successful step toward justice and reconciliation in Israel and Palestine. Now we ask you to join us in following up by pressuring Congress and the White House to change U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine, by attending the March 7-8 Grassroots Advocacy Training and Advocacy Days in Washington, D.C.
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Yes, we dream big, but that shouldn't stop us from recognizing the concrete ways in which this event moved the efforts of peace forward:
- While Egypt prevented our travel into Gaza, in a place where the dictatorship forbids any gathering of six or more people, our nonviolent rallies and protests made plain the repression that this US-sponsored state imposes on its people to an international media. FOR members coordinated nonviolence training on the streets of Cairo to help lay the groundwork for these expressions of resistance.
- Egyptian activists were repeatedly able to use the "cover" of international solidarity to hold strategy meetings about fighting the repression in both Egypt and Gaza. As a first step, international members of the March signed on as plaintiffs in a lawsuit with our Egyptian counterparts to challenge the legality of the wall now being built on the Egyptian border of Gaza.
- With the leadership of the South African delegation, a Cairo Declaration solidified the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement through "campaigns to encourage divestment of trade union and other pension funds from companies directly implicated in the Occupation and/or the Israeli military industries."
- Hedy Epstein, 85, a survivor of genocide under the Nazis, led the Gaza Hunger Strike, declaring "we will feast when Gaza feasts" and helping communicate the beliefs of thousands of Jews around the world who work for both peace and justice in the Middle East. The Interfaith Gaza Satyagraha played a key role in the hunger strike, including FOR members David and Jan Hartsough, Fr. John Dear, and others.
- The French delegation set a model for active nonviolence, with continued pressure on the French embassy that gained widespread coverage in both France and Egypt, and inspired other national delegations to hold similar demonstrations.
For more reflections and stories from the Gaza Freedom March, we encourage you to read entries on the FORPeace blog.
We are determined to keep pressure on our own country to help end the siege of Gaza, and we will work with our brothers and sisters around the world to create a beloved community of justice.
If you find this work important, please consider supporting our continuing work in interfaith reconciliation with a donation, and join us in Washington this March to help make policy change for the people of Gaza