ARRRRRR MATEY, WHO BE THE REAL PIRATES IN SOMALIA'S WATERS?

From THE INDEPENDENT

Johann Hari: You are being lied to about pirates

Some are clearly just gangsters. But others are trying to stop illegal dumping and trawling

Monday, 5 January 2009

Who imagined that in 2009, the world's governments would be declaring a new War on Pirates? As you read this, the British Royal Navy – backed by the ships of more than two dozen nations, from the US to China – is sailing into Somalian waters to take on men we still picture as parrot-on-the-shoulder pantomime villains. They will soon be fighting Somalian ships and even chasing the pirates onto land, into one of the most broken countries on earth. But behind the arrr-me-hearties oddness of this tale, there is an untold scandal. The people our governments are labelling as "one of the great menaces of our times" have an extraordinary story to tell – and some justice on their side.
Related articles

* US captain held by Somali pirates is freed

Pirates have never been quite who we think they are. In the "golden age of piracy" – from 1650 to 1730 – the idea of the pirate as the senseless, savage Bluebeard that lingers today was created by the British government in a great propaganda heave. Many ordinary people believed it was false: pirates were often saved from the gallows by supportive crowds. Why? What did they see that we can't? In his book Villains Of All Nations, the historian Marcus Rediker pores through the evidence.

If you became a merchant or navy sailor then – plucked from the docks of London's East End, young and hungry – you ended up in a floating wooden Hell. You worked all hours on a cramped, half-starved ship, and if you slacked off, the all-powerful captain would whip you with the Cat O' Nine Tails. If you slacked often, you could be thrown overboard. And at the end of months or years of this, you were often cheated of your wages.

Pirates were the first people to rebel against this world. They mutinied – and created a different way of working on the seas. Once they had a ship, the pirates elected their captains, and made all their decisions collectively, without torture. They shared their bounty out in what Rediker calls "one of the most egalitarian plans for the disposition of resources to be found anywhere in the eighteenth century".

They even took in escaped African slaves and lived with them as equals. The pirates showed "quite clearly – and subversively – that ships did not have to be run in the brutal and oppressive ways of the merchant service and the Royal Navy." This is why they were romantic heroes, despite being unproductive thieves.

The words of one pirate from that lost age, a young British man called William Scott, should echo into this new age of piracy. Just before he was hanged in Charleston, South Carolina, he said: "What I did was to keep me from perishing. I was forced to go a-pirateing to live." In 1991, the government of Somalia collapsed. Its nine million people have been teetering on starvation ever since – and the ugliest forces in the Western world have seen this as a great opportunity to steal the country's food supply and dump our nuclear waste in their seas.

Yes: nuclear waste. As soon as the government was gone, mysterious European ships started appearing off the coast of Somalia, dumping vast barrels into the ocean. The coastal population began to sicken. At first they suffered strange rashes, nausea and malformed babies. Then, after the 2005 tsunami, hundreds of the dumped and leaking barrels washed up on shore. People began to suffer from radiation sickness, and more than 300 died.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury – you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. When I asked Mr Ould-Abdallah what European governments were doing about it, he said with a sigh: "Nothing. There has been no clean-up, no compensation, and no prevention."

At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation – and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers. The local fishermen are now starving. Mohammed Hussein, a fisherman in the town of Marka 100km south of Mogadishu, told Reuters: "If nothing is done, there soon won't be much fish left in our coastal waters."

This is the context in which the "pirates" have emerged. Somalian fishermen took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least levy a "tax" on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and ordinary Somalis agree. The independent Somalian news site WardheerNews found 70 per cent "strongly supported the piracy as a form of national defence".

No, this doesn't make hostage-taking justifiable, and yes, some are clearly just gangsters – especially those who have held up World Food Programme supplies. But in a telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali: "We don't consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas." William Scott would understand.

Did we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our toxic waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We won't act on those crimes – the only sane solution to this problem – but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 per cent of the world's oil supply, we swiftly send in the gunboats.

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarized by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know "what he meant by keeping possession of the sea." The pirate smiled, and responded: "What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor." Once again, our great imperial fleets sail – but who is the robber?

j.hari@independent.co.uk

IRAN WANTS NUCLEAR WEAPONS! ... SO WHAT?

BIG CRISIS!! IRAN IS DEVELOPING NUCLEAR WEAPONS ....
THE CORRECT ANSWER IS: SO WHAT?

The talking heads and commentariat are getting hysterical about Iran becoming a nuclear power. From the neolithic Limbaugh and the aptly named Krauthammer to the editorial board of the New York Times, all are worried about what would happen if the crazed Ahmadinejad got hold of a nuke. Well, actually the President of Iran doesn't have control of the armed forces. The top Islamic cleric does. He hasn't necessarily exhibited overt signs of insanity, but maybe he's covering it up.

For a while the CIA thought they had the goods on him when they got secret recordings of him saying "god will guide us when we eradicate all the nonbelievers with atomic fire." But then it turned out they had been given tapes of a conversation an inebriated Christian Zionist leader was having with his dog, spot. Someone had translated it into Farsi as a joke.

Democrats and Republicans, Senators, Representatives, Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin have all declared that: "Iran can't' be permitted to have nuclear weapons."

Shouldn't someone ask: "why not?"

"We must have a nuclear-free Mideast!" has been one oft repeated refrain. Israel has roughly 300 or 400 nuclear warheads. They've been producing nukes for many decades without any criticism of upsetting the balance of power or wantonly defying anti-proliferation treaties. Rather, no one who is listened to has pointed out Israel's mass production of atomic bombs and it's possible consequences.

In Iran's neighborhood India, Pakistan, Israel, China and Russia all have nukes. What's the problem with Iran having a few? Who is the U.S. to lecture anyone about having too many weapons of any kind? Especially nukes. What is the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons?

The counter argument goes: Only responsible, civil, peaceable powers can have nukes. A good argument. Take Israel and the USA, they haven't invaded anyone lately, well, at least this week.

Kim Jong Il seems awfully weird and he's got nukes. Well, a few anyway and they don't seem to work very well, but he has them. Has he dropped them on any one yet? No. So the USA is the only country that's ever used atomic weapons.

How uncivilized and wacko is the current Iranian regime? They are so far from our Western values that they have yet to invade another country since they took power in 1979. What is with these guys? Don't they have a military/industrial complex like all reputable countries have? Actually, Iran as a country under any kind of government hasn't invaded any other country for more than 200 years. More evidence of their unsuitability to be a nuclear power.

People who like to run governments don't usually do thing that will lead to their obliteration. Whoever lobs a nuke at the US (if they can get it that far) will be obliterated. Period. If Iran lobs a nuke at Israel ditto. Would Israel nuke Iran if they knew that nukes would come back at them?

Look at Pakistan. Could their nukes fall into the hands of radical Sunni fundamentalists? Perhaps. Sunni fundamentalists hate the Shia (which the Iranians are) as infidels. Maybe they would be crazy enough to use nukes against Iran. Unless Iran had a deterrent. If Iran had nukes then maybe the US or Israel can't attack them with impunity. The 50 years of cold war "balance of terror" the "Mutually Assured Destruction" of both the USA and the USSR in a nuclear exchange did keep the peace. There was no winning a nuclear war. And there is still no winning a nuclear war now, especially if the country you want to attack has atomic weapons.

So, I don't see a problem with Iranian nukes. But if Newt Gingrich ever gets one we are all in trouble.

Palestinian Hip Hop group "Dam" (Blood) "Who's the Terrorist?" (Meen Erhabbe)

71% of Americans don't want US to take sides in Israel/Palestine Conflict

SOMEONE TELL OBAMA THERE ARE TWO SIDES TO THE ISRAEL/PALESTINE CONFLICT

This is an excerpt from Glenn Greenwald's article in Salon.com

Glenn Greenwald
SUNDAY JULY 20, 2008 08:35 EDT
Rendering public opinion irrelevant

One of the most striking aspects of our political discourse, particularly during election time, is how efficiently certain views that deviate from the elite consensus are banished from sight -- simply prohibited -- even when those views are held by the vast majority of citizens. The University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes -- the premiere organization for surveying international public opinion -- released a new survey a couple of weeks ago regarding public opinion on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including opinion among American citizens, and this is what it found:

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.

The worldwide consensus is crystal clear -- citizens want their Governments to be neutral and even-handed in the Israel-Palestinian conflict, not tilted towards either side. And that consensus is shared not just by a majority of American citizens, but by the overwhelming majority. Few political views, particularly on controversial issues, attract more than 70% support among American citizens. But the proposition that the U.S. Government should be even-handed -- rather than tilting towards Israel -- attracts that much support. That's not an "anti-Israeli" view -- to the contrary, it's a position that America can and should resolve that violent, four-decades-long dispute by being even-handed rather than one-sided.
Similarly, when asked "How well do you think Israel is doing its part in the effort to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict," citizens around the world, by a large margin, believe that Israel is doing either "not very well" or "not well at all" (54% -- compared to 23% that say it's doing "very well" or "somewhat well"). And there, too, that worldwide view corresponds to American public opinion as well. 59% of Americans say Israel is doing either "not very well" or "not well at all" -- compared to only 30% that say it's doing "very well" or "somewhat well." And Palestinians don't fare much better worldwide (38-49%) and fare worse in the U.S. (15-75%).
Yet not only is the view of "even-handedness" completely unrepresented among mainstream political figures in the U.S., it's deemed political death to go anywhere near expressing that view. Back in 2003, then-presidential-candidate Howard Dean expressed the exact position favored by an overwhelming majority of Americans, yet triggered an intense and even ugly controversy by doing so:

Dean's Israel troubles began at a Sept. 3 campaign event in Santa Fe, N.M. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that day, "It's not our place to take sides." Then, on Sept. 9, he told the Washington Post that America should be "evenhanded" in its approach to the region.
That's all Dean said. It's a view held by more than 70% of Americans. It ought to be completely uncontroversial -- if anything, it ought to be that view that is deemed a political piety. But what happened? This, according to an excellent account of that "controversy" in Salon by Michelle Goldberg:
The media and the Democratic establishment reacted as if Dean had called Yasser Arafat a man of peace. On Sept. 10, 34 Democratic members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, wrote Dean an open letter. "American foreign policy has been -- and must continue to be -- based on unequivocal support for Israel's right to exist and to be free from terror . . ." they wrote. "It is unacceptable for the U.S. to be 'evenhanded' on these fundamental issues . . . This is not a time to be sending mixed messages; on the contrary, in these difficult times we must reaffirm our unyielding commitment to Israel's survival and raise our voices against all forms of terrorism and incitement."

The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported that Dean had badly damaged his own campaign. "Sources in the Jewish community say that Dean has wrecked his chances of getting significant contributions from Jews . . ." the paper wrote. "Many believe Dean's statement will drive more Jews toward Lieberman and Kerry, enabling Kerry to take the lead again."
Dean was roundly attacked by the political elite for uttering "anti-Israel" comments, notwithstanding the fact that Dean is married to a Jewish woman, raised his children as Jews, and, most amazingly of all, had a campaign that was managed by Steve Grossman, a former President of AIPAC. But no matter: Dean had uttered a Forbidden Thought -- forbidden even though it is embraced by the vast majority of Americans -- and thus Grossman and Dean had to subject themselves to abject Apology Rituals:

According to the Dean campaign, the uproar involved semantics, not substance. "Here's what I think happened," says Grossman, Dean's campaign co-chair. "Howard made some comments in someone's backyard in New Mexico that were shorthand, if you will, for some of his Middle East views. In the course of those remarks and some others in the subsequent days, he used some language that gave people consternation, and it was immediately jumped on by Joe Lieberman and John Kerry that somehow Howard Dean was breaking faith with this 55-year tradition of the United States' special relationship with Israel, which is patently absurd". . . .
I
f Dean's Israel position really puts him far out on the left, it proves that not showing unequivocal support for the Jewish state remains a political poison pill -- for members of either political party. . . .
After all, according to Grossman, the candidate remains in sync with the goals of Bush's Israel policy. . . . No serious candidate took a position to the left of Bush. Indeed, it's precisely because there's no real leftist alternative that Dean's been cast in that role. . . . . But a campaign is always more about images and impressions than carefully formulated positions, and that's where Dean has blundered.

It was conventional wisdom that that Dean had committed some grave mistake even though, as The Nation's John Nichols highlighted at the time, Dean was expressing the overwhelming majority view even back in 2003:
More troubling is the condemnation by Pelosi and other party leaders of even a hint of "evenhandedness." That smacks of the old game of positioning Democrats to the right of the Republicans on Middle East policy -- in a perceived contest for Jewish-American votes and contributions. The problem with this approach, as Middle East scholar Stephen Zunes points out, is that "this suggests you cannot be firmly committed to Israel and question [Israel's hawkish Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon's policies. If that's where Democrats put themselves, they don't leave room to debate Bush on the issue." They'll also have a tougher time appealing to American voters -- 73 percent of whom, according to a recent University of Maryland poll, prefer that the United States not take sides.

It's pretty extraordinary that in a democracy, the political elite is able to render completely off-limits a view that the vast majority of Americans support. They actually render majority-held views unspeakable and then remove the issue entirely from what is debated. No matter what one's views are, there is no denying that our policy towards Israel is immensely consequential for our country. Yet, by virtue of the fact that presidential candidates are required to affirm essentially the same orthodoxies, there's very little difference in their positions towards Israel and therefore our current policy approach towards Israel will simply not be part of anything that is debated, even though most Americans overwhelmingly oppose that course.
Indeed, as soon as he secured the Democratic nomination, Barack Obama made a pilgrimage to AIPAC in order to avoid the "Howard Dean mistake" and to vow that there would be no such debate over Israel in this election:
I have been proud to be a part of a strong, bi-partisan consensus that has stood by Israel in the face of all threats. That is a commitment that both John McCain and I share, because support for Israel in this country goes beyond party. . . .
And then there are those who would lay all of the problems of the Middle East at the doorstep of Israel and its supporters, as if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the root of all trouble in the region. These voices blame the Middle East's only democracy for the region's extremism. They offer the false promise that abandoning a stalwart ally is somehow the path to strength. It is not, it never has been, and it never will be.

Our alliance is based on shared interests and shared values. Those who threaten Israel threaten us. Israel has always faced these threats on the front lines. And I will bring to the White House an unshakeable commitment to Israel's security.
That starts with ensuring Israel's qualitative military advantage. I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat -- from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As President, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade -- investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation.
In fairness, Obama did attack what he called the "failed status quo"; disputed that "America's recent foreign policy has made Israel more secure"; and pointed to "eight years of accumulated evidence that our foreign policy is dangerously flawed." Moreover, Obama -- to his great credit -- spent the primary season making some important and unorthodox points about Palestinian suffering and pointing out that the President should not be blindly supportive of everything Israel's right-wing does, that being "pro-Israel" doesn't mean a refusal to oppose Israeli actions.
But by uttering such Forbidden (though quite mainstream) thoughts, Obama was mercilessly attacked as anti-Israel and even anti-Semitic, and with the nomination secured, the crux of his June AIPAC speech was an affirmation of our political establishment's mandated Israel orthodoxy: the continuation of America's one-sided alliance with Israel, as highlighted by commitments such as this:

Finally, let there be no doubt: I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally Israel. Sometimes there are no alternatives to confrontation. . . . That is the change we need in our foreign policy. Change that restores American power and influence. Change accompanied by a pledge that I will make known to allies and adversaries alike: that America maintains an unwavering friendship with Israel, and an unshakeable commitment to its security. . . .
As members of AIPAC, you have helped advance this bipartisan consensus to support and defend our ally Israel. And I am sure that today on Capitol Hill you will be meeting with members of Congress and spreading the word. But we are here because of more than policy. We are here because the values we hold dear are deeply embedded in the story of Israel.

Again, the point has nothing to do with one's views of the best policy towards Israel. The point is that a position which the vast majority of Americans embrace is one that, simultaneously, is forbidden to be expressed, and the election consequently will involve no debate over that issue....

Interview with Huda Naim, a leader of Hamas in Gaza

photo of Huda Naim by Felice Gelman

The following is an article written by Felice Gelman in her blog "Gaza Views." She is reporting on a meeting that the Code Pink delegation had with a leader of Hamas in Gaza during its visit there in the middle of March.

I could hardly claim to be an expert on Hamas, but, since the U.S. has decided to have no contact with them (and therefore know nothing about them), here is an addition to the little information we have.

We met with Huda Naim, a woman who is a member of the Palestinian Parliament, for Hamas. Her responsibilities in Gaza include sitting on the government’s committee for human rights. She understands English well, but spoke to us in Arabic – translated for us by an Egyptian American member of our delegation.

She has five children, and a master’s degree in social work. She became involved in politics initially through the student unions at the university, and then founded a public relations firm.

Everything that follows is a paraphrase of her narrative.

Hamas initially was organized to provide the social services that were sadly lacking for the Palestinian people, and is the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood. In 1987, it declared itself a resistance movement to the Israeli occupation and broadened its activities beyond social services. After the signing of the Oslo accords Hamas decided it had to place more emphasis on political activities in order to participate in the nascent Palestinian Authority. The main reason for this was that, outside the government, Hamas was unable to stop negotiations that were leading to the loss of more and more Palestinian land.

Hamas is not against negotiations in principle, but rejects the current form of negotiations. Hamas sees the “peace process” as just a vehicle for the erosion of Palestinian rights and lands. They believe there is now nothing left for a viable two state solution.

Hamas also felt it had to become involved in politics because the internal corruption and cronyism of the Palestinian Authority was beyond redemption.

It had boycotted the 1996 parliamentary elections, and had no other opportunities for political office because all municipal positions were appointed until 2005. In the 2005 elections, all the political parties agreed to establish a quota for women’s seats in order to insure women’s participation in the government. For these elections, the country was divided into three regions, with elections held in one region at a time. In the first regional election, Hamas women won more than 90% of the seats in the women’s quota, and Hamas men won a large majority of the seats as well. This was a complete surprise to the Fatah Party, who controlled the Palestinian Authority. They were so surprised, they simply seated the winners. When the regional election was held for the second district, the same thing happened. The Palestinian Authority challenged the results, and there has been no resolution of those challenges. In the face of Hamas’ popularity, the regional elections for the third district were never held.
The U.S. had urged the Palestinian Authority to hold new parliamentary elections. When the results were announced – that Hamas had won the majority of the vote in fair, democratic elections – the U.S. cut off relations on the night of the announcement. There were no talks with Hamas, no discussions about what Hamas would do in the government. Hamas was both surprised and hurt by this reaction. They do not believe they have posed any opposition to U.S. policies other than their opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. They were equally shocked that Europe simply followed in the U.S. footsteps.

Hamas has repeatedly tried to open negotiations with the West and sees itself as a moderate Islamic party that can interpose itself between the West and the radical Islamists. It sees itself as a moderate, tolerant party. Hamas has done nothing to impose Sharia, or to interfere with the rights of others.

Asked about the shooting and killing of Fatah members after the takeover she pointed out that, once Hamas took power, the Palestinian Authority ordered all its security personnel to stay home and not report to work. Hamas was forced to deploy a police force very quickly, with inadequate training. They have been working on training and improving that police force ever since. She also agreed that Hamas has its extremists, but that it is very difficult to stop them without showing some tangible benefit for abstaining from extremism.

She said that the youth of Gaza are deeply depressed and bitter. They do not believe they have any prospects for a normal life. We can do without food, she said, but the loss of an entire generation is terrible.

Hamas is working hard for a unity government because it is needed to keep Fatah from completely surrendering all the interests of Palestinians, but believes the Quartet has stopped the formation of such a government by demanding that Hamas specifically recognize Israel. Hamas has agreed to a long term truce, to accept all previous agreements and to accept a state based on the 1967 borders, but this is not enough for the U.S. and its allies. She said that this is not possible politically for Hamas. She likened it to demanding Netanyahu recognize Hamas before beginning any talks.

Asked about the Hamas charter and whether it wanted to destroy Israel, she said you must distinguish between our charter and our actions. Our actions have always been pragmatic and supported a resolution within the 1967 borders.

Asked about suicide bombers, she responded that it is not right to isolate this issue. Israelis have been attacking and killing Palestinians for 60 years, and after the Oslo accords these attacks simply increased.

Asked about her views on the new U.S. government, she said she has some hopes for Obama, but believes Hillary Clinton will remain an obstacle to peace.

Scenes from Gaza March 7-11, 2009

walking through alleyways in Jabilyia Camp, Gaza City
Meeting with Palestinian women who had been detained by Israel
Meeting with leaders of the Center for Human Rights

MY TRIP TO GAZA WITH CODE PINK

photos: 1)bombed out residence. 2)I'm with Daniel -center- a paramedic, four of us on the delegation stayed at his home during our time in Gaza, also in photo, on the left, is Daniel's friend Gassan who helped us get around Gaza. 3)we visit with a family - child with bandaged arm suffered shrapnel wounds from the Israeli attack. 4) The Code Pink delegation in front the Egyptian side of the border crossing gate into Gaza. The Corries and Alice Walker are part of group holding banner.

I was part of a delegation of 62 people that entered Gaza on March 7, 2009. The purpose of the trip was to challenge the Israeli/Egyptian & US sanctioned blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, which has been in force since the Palestinian elections of 2006. The people of Gaza are being "collectively punished" for democratically voting Hamas into majority control of the Palestinian national legislature, defeating the late Yassir Arafat's Al Fatah organization. After a brief civil war Hamas took full control of Gaza, it's main base of support, and Fatah remains nominally in charge of the West Bank (under Israeli tutelage).

All of this transpired before the deadly three week air and land attack on Gaza by Israel. The excuse for the attack, which killed 1400 civilians (many of them children and women)and wounded thousands of others, was to stop the rockets launched from Gaza into Israel. For the previous 18 months before the massive attack there was a "truce" observed by both sides. Part of the truce arrangement was that the borders be opened so that Gazans could get food, building materials, cross into Egypt and Israel to work, and in general make a living. Israel never opened the borders. During this truce Israel kept making "surgical" strikes to kill what it called "terrorist leaders." If three or ten people in the vicinity of the strikes were killed, then that's just bad luck. Many more Palestinians were killed in these attacks during the "truce" than Israelis were killed by all improvised rockets ever fired from Gaza.

The massive attack of January 2009 was way out of proportion to the goal of stopping a few low-tech rockets from being launched. In fact it was planned long in advanced and was sitting on the shelf waiting for an excuse to be used.

BUT ... back to my trip!

Besides challenging the blockade of Gaza, Code Pink (a Venice, California-based women's anti-war organization formed to oppose the US invasion of Iraq in 2003) went to participate in International Women's Day meetings throughout Gaza that were organized by UNRWA (United Nations Relief Works Agency). So after gathering in Cairo, the group bussed across the Sinai to the Rafah border crossing (from Rafah, Egypt to Rafah, Palestine).

From our briefings and discussion by email before we all met in Cairo we knew that there was a good chance we would not be allowed in Gaza. The Egyptian government is dependent on U.S aid and is also vulnerable to Israeli pressure to keep up the blockade. There is also no love lost between Hamas and the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarek. So we had a "plan B" ready. We would camp out in front of the border, generally make a nuisance of ourselves and try to get a lot of publicity.

However, we were able to generate a lot of support. We had a large, very diverse group with participants mainly from the US, but also from Canada, Australia, Pakistan and Egypt. Also on the trip were Alice Walker, writer of The Color Purple, and Cindy and Craig Corrie, the parents of Rachel Corrie who was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver in Gaza while protesting home demolitions in 2003. The Corries have since started a foundation and are highly regarded in the Arab world.

Having sponsorship from the UN organization in Gaza was also helpful. So, rather than fighting us, the Egyptian government decided to join us. Mubarek's wife is the head of the Egyptian Red Crescent Society and while we were gathering at the border we learned that the Red Crescent had officially endorsed our mission. Another factor that eased us through the border was the arrival at the Egypt-Gaza border of a 100 plus vehicle motorcade with humanitarian aid from Britain. They had driven through Europe, entered Morocco and proceeded through North Africa and Egypt. Led by George Galloway, a Member of Parliament for the RESPECT party (he was elected in a largely Muslim district). Galloway has been on the progressive political scene in the UK for some years and is a major thorn in the side of the Labor Party and it's policies of following US world policy.

I entered Gaza with the delegation on March 7 and left with most of the participants on March 11. Several other members of the delegation remained a few days or weeks longer. I was using Spring break time from my teaching job to make the trip & had to be back for classes.

WHAT WAS GAZA LIKE?

I had been to embattled, desperately poor countries before. I spent most of the 1980s shuffling between the US and Nicaragua working to help the Sandinista revolution in the face of the US/contra aggression. But I had no idea what to expect in Gaza. It is definitely a different place. I had never been to the Mideast before.

Palestine is not historically as poor as Central America. They've had a history of small businesses, orchards, farms, and have struggled to give good education to their children. The Israelis have been undermining these accomplishments step by step in an attempt to break their morale as a people. With the blockade the standard of living has been falling rapidly. Besides the economic degradation, a public health risk has been created by the Israeli's depletion of Gaza's water table. They have been pumping out fresh water from Gaza which has caused salt water from the sea to seep into the groundwater. Children as especially susceptible to kidney problems as the salinity of the drinking water increases.

The Gaza strip is 25 miles long south to north and 3 to 7 miles wide from the sea to the Israeli border. On March 8, I helped deliver 1000 baskets with cosmetics and consumer products which were gifts to Palestinian women attending UN sponsored International Women's Day meetings. It was something for the men on the delegation to do. We had a truck loaded with baskets and I was in a car following the truck. We made deliveries from border to border. I got to see all of Gaza in less than half a day. One and a half million people are packed into this small strip of land. Because of the blockade most people are unemployed and most families depend on UN food aid to live.

Most of the population of Gaza comes from Palestinians who were chased off their land by the Israeli army in 1948. Gaza is a mostly urban place with lots of buildings of a few stories, say 4 to 7, packed closely together. Often entire extended families live in one multi-story buildings. The main refugee camp in Gaza City, Jabalyia, has 125,000 people. The camp is not one of tents but of cement building with narrow alleyways. There are commercial centers with small stores and eating places, markets and car traffic (also a lot of horse and donkey cart traffic).

The large number of children is also striking. Something like 40% of the population is 15 and under. Many of the children looked sort of dazed or shell shocked. When I met families, I saw a few children who had been wounded in the Israeli assault. Everyone had a story about children being killed in bombings or shot by Apache gunships or snipers on the ground.

The first two nights I was in Gaza I heard loud bangs. In the morning our hosts and their neighbors talked about where the Israeli airstrike took place or if it was an F16 or an Apache. After I left Gaza I heard by email of other attacks. This is as close to a state of "normalcy" that Gaza ever achieves.

Walking though the streets you would see a row of buildings and one or two would be demolished by F-16 or Apache helicopter strikes. Some of the buildings hit were police stations, Hamas offices, government buildings, but others were medical clinics, schools, or residences. Daniel, a Palestinian paramedic in whose house four of us were staying, showed us around different neighborhoods. "In this house everybody died, a family of 12," "Over here six kids were killed, it was just a house nothing political."Daniel himself is a story. He is a 28 year old Ukrainian-Palestinian who grew up in the Ukraine, his mother was a ballerina, and at age 20 he came to Palestine to help his people. He is a nurse and a paramedic (which he became while in the Ukrainian army). He lives in his family house in Jabalyia on the first floor. The other floors house his three uncle's families.

Daniel speaks Ukrainian, Arabic and English. Sometimes I heard him speaking Ukrainian on his cell phone. "There are a few of us around here," he said, "and I call my mother a lot too." He knew Rachel Corrie and was driving the ambulance that responded to the emergency call when Rachel Corrie was killed and took her body to the hospital.

Some of the neighborhoods on the eastern border with Israel were largely leveled. They bore the brunt of the leading forces of the ground attack. We saw people in tents provided by the UN living next to their wrecked homes. Some families, despite warnings of the risk, lived in their partially destroyed homes. As we toured the area we were warned not to go through the wrecked homes or pick up anything. Unexploded cluster bombs or white phosphorus remained around the area.

Besides getting to know individual Palestinians and seeing the war damage first hand members of the delegation also attended meetings with different groups, many of them were NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) that had UN sponsorship, such as women's health and right groups, children's centers, legal organizations, agricultural groups, student groups, etc. From funds that delegation participants were able to raise before their Trip Code Pink made a cash donation of $10,000 to a Community Mental Health Clinic, a Women's Center and a Children's center.

A few meetings made a special impression. We met with the head of the UN operation, John Ging, an Irishman, veteran international relief worker, diplomat and scholar. You may remember news reports on the Israel attack on the UN school where several people were killed. Israel claimed that Hamas was firing mortars from the UN school grounds. John Ging was shown on national TV newscasts denouncing these claims as bogus. He became an object of ire for the pro-Israeli lobby such as AIPAC and certain morally corrupt members of the US Senate and Congress.

Most of the people we spoke to, both average citizens and representatives of various groups said that they didn't support any particular party. They wanted peace, they wanted us to tell the American people that they were not terrorists and they expressed hope for a unified government. While we were in Gaza leaders of the PLO were in Egypt negotiating with Hamas leaders.

So this is a thumbnail sketch of what I experience in Gaza. I'll be adding other stories to flesh out the picture, as well as adding some pictures -- some I took, and many were taken by participants in the Code Pink delegation. Also you should go the the Code Pink website to see more stories and photos from Gaza.