Debunking Bibi's fairy tale about Israel's ancient history

Bibi's fairy tales told to the AIPAC convention about "historical Israel's" unbroken land claims debunked!

Jerusalem was an Islamic capitol more than a thousand years longer than it was a Jewish capitol.

Here is an excerpt from Juan Cole's post on his blog replying to Netanyahu's claim that "Israel has been building in Jerusalem for 3000 years" and has an historical exclusive right to all of it.


 3. Romantic nationalism imagines a "people" as eternal and as having an eternal connection with a specific piece of land. This way of thinking is fantastic and mythological. Peoples are formed and change and sometimes cease to be, though they might have descendants who abandoned that religion or ethnicity or language. Human beings have moved all around and are not directly tied to any territory in an exclusive way, since many groups have lived on most pieces of land. Jerusalem was not founded by Jews, i.e. adherents of the Jewish religion. It was founded between 3000 BCE and 2600 BCE by a West Semitic people or possibly the Canaanites, the common ancestors of Palestinians, Lebanese, many Syrians and Jordanians, and many Jews. But when it was founded Jews did not exist.

4. Jerusalem was founded in honor of the ancient god Shalem. It does not mean City of Peace but rather 'built-up place of Shalem."

5. The "Jewish people" were not building Jerusalem 3000 years ago, i.e. 1000 BCE. First of all, it is not clear when exactly Judaism as a religion centered on the worship of the one God took firm form. It appears to have been a late development since no evidence of worship of anything but ordinary Canaanite deities has been found in archeological sites through 1000 BCE. There was no invasion of geographical Palestine from Egypt by former slaves in the 1200s BCE. The pyramids had been built much earlier and had not used slave labor. The chronicle of the events of the reign of Ramses II on the wall in Luxor does not know about any major slave revolts or flights by same into the Sinai peninsula. Egyptian sources never heard of Moses or the 12 plagues & etc. Jews and Judaism emerged from a certain social class of Canaanites over a period of centuries inside Palestine.

6. Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then non-existent "Jewish people" in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was not even inhabited at that point in history. Jerusalem appears to have been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates for the united kingdom under David and Solomon. So Jerusalem was not 'the city of David,' since there was no city when he is said to have lived. No sign of magnificent palaces or great states has been found in the archeology of this period, and the Assyrian tablets, which recorded even minor events throughout the Middle East, such as the actions of Arab queens, don't know about any great kingdom of David and Solomon in geographical Palestine.

7. Since archeology does not show the existence of a Jewish kingdom or kingdoms in the so-called First Temple Period, it is not clear when exactly the Jewish people would have ruled Jerusalem except for the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Assyrians conquered Jerusalem in 722. The Babylonians took it in 597 and ruled it until they were themselves conquered in 539 BCE by the Achaemenids of ancient Iran, who ruled Jerusalem until Alexander the Great took the Levant in the 330s BCE. Alexander's descendants, the Ptolemies ruled Jerusalem until 198 when Alexander's other descendants, the Seleucids, took the city. With the Maccabean Revolt in 168 BCE, the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom did rule Jerusalem until 37 BCE, though Antigonus II Mattathias, the last Hasmonean, only took over Jerusalem with the help of the Parthian dynasty in 40 BCE. Herod ruled 37 BCE until the Romans conquered what they called Palestine in 6 CE (CE= 'Common Era' or what Christians call AD). The Romans and then the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium ruled Jerusalem from 6 CE until 614 CE when the Iranian Sasanian Empire Conquered it, ruling until 629 CE when the Byzantines took it back.

The Muslims conquered Jerusalem in 638 and ruled it until 1099 when the Crusaders conquered it. The Crusaders killed or expelled Jews and Muslims from the city. The Muslims under Saladin took it back in 1187 CE and allowed Jews to return, and Muslims ruled it until the end of World War I, or altogether for about 1192 years.

Adherents of Judaism did not found Jerusalem. It existed for perhaps 2700 years before anything we might recognize as Judaism arose. Jewish rule may have been no longer than 170 years or so, i.e., the kingdom of the Hasmoneans.

8. Therefore if historical building of Jerusalem and historical connection with Jerusalem establishes sovereignty over it as Netanyahu claims, here are the groups that have the greatest claim to the city:

A. The Muslims, who ruled it and built it over 1191 years.

B. The Egyptians, who ruled it as a vassal state for several hundred years in the second millennium BCE.

C. The Italians, who ruled it about 444 years until the fall of the Roman Empire in 450 CE.

D. The Iranians, who ruled it for 205 years under the Achaemenids, for three years under the Parthians (insofar as the last Hasmonean was actually their vassal), and for 15 years under the Sasanids.

E. The Greeks, who ruled it for over 160 years if we count the Ptolemys and Seleucids as Greek. If we count them as Egyptians and Syrians, that would increase the Egyptian claim and introduce a Syrian one.

F. The successor states to the Byzantines, which could be either Greece or Turkey, who ruled it 188 years, though if we consider the heir to be Greece and add in the time the Hellenistic Greek dynasties ruled it, that would give Greece nearly 350 years as ruler of Jerusalem.

G. There is an Iraqi claim to Jerusalem based on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, as well as perhaps the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin's dynasty), who were Kurds from Iraq.

9. Of course, Jews are historically connected to Jerusalem by the Temple, whenever that connection is dated to. But that link mostly was pursued when Jews were not in political control of the city, under Iranian, Greek and Roman rule. It cannot therefore be deployed to make a demand for political control of the whole city.

10. The Jews of Jerusalem and the rest of Palestine did not for the most part leave after the failure of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans in 136 CE. They continued to live there and to farm in Palestine under Roman rule and then Byzantine. They gradually converted to Christianity. After 638 CE all but 10 percent gradually converted to Islam. The present-day Palestinians are the descendants of the ancient Jews and have every right to live where their ancestors have lived for centuries.

Plus Ca Change......

photo: Eugene V. Debs at an anti-war rally in Canton, OH in 1918. He spoke against the U.S. participation in WWI and was jailed for sedition. He ran for president in 1920 from jail and got 1 million votes.



Just a reminder.... The campaign platform of Eugene V. Debs in the 1912 election campaign. Something from the past to look forward to. Note point 6 in "political demands." ABOLITION OF THE SENATE. Still a good idea.

THE SOCIALIST PARTY PLATFORM of 1912

Indianapolis, Indiana, May 12, 1912

The Socialist party declares that the capitalist system has outgrown its historical function, and has become utterly incapable of meeting the problems now confronting society. We denounce this outgrown system as incompetent and corrupt and the source of unspeakable misery and suffering to the whole working class.

Under this system the industrial equipment of the nation has passed into the absolute control of a plutocracy which exacts an annual tribute of hundreds of millions of dollars from the producers. Unafraid of any organized resistance, it stretches out its greedy hands over the still undeveloped resources of the nation-the land, the mines, the forests and the water powers of every State of the Union.

In spite of the multiplication of laborsaving machines and improved methods in industry which cheapen the cost of production, the share of the producers grows ever less, and the prices of all the necessities of life steadily increase. The boasted prosperity of this nation is for the owning class alone. To the rest it means only greater hardship and misery. The high cost of living is felt in every home. Millions of wage-workers have seen the purchasing power of their wages decrease until life has become a desperate battle for mere existence.

Multitudes of unemployed walk the streets of our cities or trudge from State to State awaiting the will of the-masters to move the wheels of industry. The farmers in every state are plundered by the increasing prices exacted for tools and machinery and by extortionate rents, freight rates and storage charges.

Capitalist concentration is mercilessly crushing the class of small business men and driving its members into the ranks of propertyless wage-workers. The overwhelming majority of the people of America are being forced under a yoke of bondage by this soulless industrial despotism.

It is this capitalist system that is responsible for the increasing burden of armaments, the poverty, slums, child labor, most of the insanity, crime and prostitution, and much of the disease that afflicts mankind.

Under this system the working class is exposed to poisonous conditions, to frightful and needless perils to life and limb, is walled around with court decisions, injunctions and unjust laws, and is preyed upon incessantly for the benefit of the controlling oligarchy of wealth. Under it also, the children of the working class are doomed to ignorance, drudging toil and darkened lives.

In the face of these evils, so manifest that all thoughtful observers are appalled at them, the legislative representatives of the Republican and Democratic parties remain the faithful servants of the oppressors. Measures designed to secure to the wage-earners of this Nation as humane and just treatment as is already enjoyed by the wage-earners of all other civilized nations have been smothered in committee without debate, the laws ostensibly designed to bring relief to the farmers and general consumers are juggled and transformed into instruments for the exaction of further tribute. The growing unrest under oppression has driven these two old parties to the enactment of a variety of regulative measures, none of which has limited in any appreciable degree the power of the plutocracy, and some of which have been perverted into means of increasing that power. Anti-trust laws, railroad restrictions and regulations, with the prosecutions, indictments and investigations based upon such legislation, have proved to be utterly futile and ridiculous.

Nor has this plutocracy been seriously restrained or even threatened by any Republican or Democratic executive. It has continued to grow in power and insolence alike under the administration of Cleveland, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft.

We declare, therefore, that the longer sufferance of these conditions is impossible, and we purpose to end them all. We declare them to be the product of the present system in which industry is carried on for private greed, instead of for the welfare of society. We declare, furthermore, that for these evils there will be and can be no remedy and no substantial relief except through Socialism under which industry will be carried on for the common good and every worker receive the full social value of the wealth he creates.

Society is divided into warring groups and classes, based upon material interests. Fundamentally, this struggle is a conflict between the two main classes, one of which, the capitalist class, owns the means of production, and the other, the working class, must use these means of production, on terms dictated by the owners.

The capitalist class, though few in numbers, absolutely controls the government, legislative, executive and judicial. This class owns the machinery of gathering and disseminating news through its organized press. It subsidizes seats of learning-the colleges and schools-and even religious and moral agencies. It has also the added prestige which established customs give to any order of society, right or wrong.

The working class, which includes all those who are forced to work for a living whether by hand or brain, in shop, mine or on the soil, vastly outnumbers the capitalist class. Lacking effective organization and class solidarity, this class is unable to enforce its will. Given such a class solidarity and effective organization, the workers will have the power to make all laws and control all industry in their own interest. All political parties are the expression of economic class interests. All other parties than the Socialist party represent one or another group of the ruling capitalist class. Their political conflicts reflect merely superficial rivalries between competing capitalist groups. However they result, these conflicts have no issue of real value to the workers. Whether the Democrats or Republicans win politically, it is the capitalist class that is victorious economically.

The Socialist party is the political expression of the economic interests of the workers. Its defeats have been their defeats and its victories their victories. It is a party founded on the science and laws of social development. It proposes that, since all social necessities to-day are socially produced, the means of their production and distribution shall be socially owned and democratically controlled.

In the face of the economic and political aggressions of the capitalist class the only reliance left the workers is that of their economic organizations and their political power. By the intelligent and class conscious use of these, they may resist successfully the capitalist class, break the fetters of wage slavery, and fit themselves for the future society, which is to displace the capitalist system. The Socialist party appreciates the full significance of class organization and urges the wage-earners, the working farmers and all other useful workers to organize for economic and political action, and we pledge ourselves to support the toilers of the fields as well as those in the shops, factories and mines of the nation in their struggles for economic justice.

In the defeat or victory of the working class party in this new struggle for freedom lies the defeat or triumph of the common people of all economic groups, as well as the failure or triumph of popular government. Thus the Socialist party is the party of the present day revolution which makes the transition from economic individualism to socialism, from wage slavery to free co-operation, from capitalist oligarchy to industrial democracy.

Working Program

As measures calculated to strengthen the working class in its fight for the realization of its ultimate aim, the co-operative commonwealth, and to increase its power against capitalist oppression, we advocate and pledge ourselves and our elected officers to the following program:

Collective Ownership

1. The collective ownership and democratic management of railroads, wire and wireless telegraphs and telephones, express service, steamboat lines, and all other social means of transportation and communication and of all large scale industries.
2. The immediate acquirement by the municipalities, the states or the federal government of all grain elevators, stock yards, storage warehouses, and other distributing agencies, in order to reduce the present extortionate cost of living.
3. The extension of the public domain to include mines, quarries, oil wells, forests and water power.
4. The further conservation and development of natural resources for the use and benefit of all the people . . .
5. The collective ownership of land wherever practicable, and in cases where such ownership is impracticable, the appropriation by taxation of the annual rental value of all the land held for speculation and exploitation.
6. The collective ownership and democratic management of the banking and currency system.

Unemployment

The immediate government relief of the unemployed by the extension of all useful public works. All persons employed on such works to be engaged directly by the government under a work day of not more than eight hours and at not less than the prevailing union wages. The government also to establish employment bureaus; to lend money to states and municipalities without interest for the purpose of carrying on public works, and to take such other measures within its power as will lessen the widespread misery of the workers caused by the misrule of the capitalist class.

Industrial Demands

1. The conservation of human resources, particularly of the lives and well-being of the workers and their families:
2. By shortening the work day in keeping with the increased productiveness of machinery.
3. By securing for every worker a rest period of not less than a day and a half in each week.
4. By securing a more effective inspection of workshops, factories and mines.
5. By the forbidding the employment of children under sixteen years of age.
6. By the co-operative organization of the industries in the federal penitentiaries for the benefit of the convicts and their dependents.
7. By forbidding the interstate transportation of the products of child labor, of convict labor and of all uninspected factories and mines.
8. By abolishing the profit system in government work and substituting either the direct hire of labor or the awarding of contracts to co-operative groups of workers.
9. By establishing minimum wage scales.
10. By abolishing official charity and substituting a non-contributary system of old age pensions, a general system of insurance by the State of all its members against unemployment and invalidism and a system of compulsory insurance by employers of their workers, without cost to the latter, against industrial diseases, accidents and death.

Political Demands

1. The absolute freedom of press, speech and assemblage.
2. The adoption of a graduated income tax and the extension of inheritance taxes, graduated in proportion to the value of the estate and to nearness of kin-the proceeds of these taxes to be employed in the socialization of industry.
3. The abolition of the monopoly ownership of patents and the substitution of collective ownership, with direct rewards to inventors by premiums or royalties.
4. Unrestricted and equal suffrage for men and women.
5. The adoption of the initiative, referendum and recall and of proportional representation, nationally as well as locally.
6. The abolition of the Senate and of the veto power of the President.
7. The election of the President and Vice-President by direct vote of the people.
8. The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court of the United States to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress. National laws to be repealed only by act of Congress or by a referendum vote of the whole people.
9. Abolition of the present restrictions upon the amendment of the constitution, so that instrument may be made amendable by a majority of the voters in a majority of the States.
10. The granting of the right of suffrage in the District of Columbia with representation in Congress and a democratic form of municipal government for purely local affairs.
11. The extension of democratic government to all United States territory.
12. The enactment of further measures for the conservation of health. The creation of an independent bureau of health, with such restrictions as will secure full liberty to all schools of practice.
13. The enactment of further measures for general education and particularly for vocational education in useful pursuits. The Bureau of Education to be made a department.
14. The separation of the present Bureau of Labor from the Department of Commerce and Labor and its elevation to the rank of a department.
15. Abolition of an federal districts courts and the United States circuit court of appeals. State courts to have jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of several states and foreign corporations. The election of all judges for short terms.
16. The immediate curbing of the power of the courts to issue injunctions.
17. The free administration of the law.
18. The calling of a convention for the revision of the constitution of the U. S.

Such measures of relief as we may be able to force from capitalism are but a preparation of the workers to seize the whole powers of government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of the whole system of socialized industry and thus come to their rightful inheritanc

"Jewish" democracy in action

More strides by the great Jewish Democracy

This article from Haaretz illustrates the theocratic-nationalist direction Israel is heading towards. It's obvious that in Israel (and the territory it controls) democracy is for Jews only, not Palestinians.
Now Jewish democracy is gradually morphing into an anti-democratic theocracy. Besides the segregated buses, White Citizens Style vigilantes are patrolling some neighborhoods in Jerusalem to break up any "mixed" dating between Jewish and non-Jewish teenagers.
The increasingly powerful religious parties are calling for "Torah Law" (Sharia, anyone?) to be instituted. Are secular Israelis fighting a rear-guard action?

From Haaretz

By Nir Hasson

Around 1,000 demonstrators marched Saturday evening outside the Prime Minister's residence in Jerusalem to protest Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz's decision to allow the continuation of single-sex bus lines that serve the Haredi community.

Protestors held signs that read "Israel is not Tehran" and "Free Jerusalem."

"The struggle against segregated bus lines is only part of the larger struggle for civil marriages, equal military service and more," Meretz MK Nitzan Horowitz told the protestors. "We are not the minority, we are the majority and we are standing up for our rights. If the segregated buses continue to operate, we will board them and not follow the segregation rules."
Earlier Saturday, opposition leader Tzipi Livni expressed her support for the struggle against single-sex lines in a letter to the organizers of the protest.

"This is not an internal issue for a certain segment of the population," she wrote. "I see this struggle not only about transportation but also as a struggle for the character of Israel as a free, Jewish and democratic nation."

Brotherhood of the Blues Jug Band live at the Jalopy Theater

ERNESTO "EL MEXICANO-CUBANO" AKA "GATO LODO" SINGS "WHO DON'T LIKE THAT?" OR "A QUIEN NO GUSTA ESO?" GET THEIR NEW CD, A RANDOM CHANCE RECORDS RELEASE, "WORD TO MOTHER" FROM AMAZON, IMUSIC,EMUSIC, AND SIMILAR SITES, OR ASK AT A RECORD STORE (YES THEY STILL EXIST).

Simon Wisenthal Center's "Museum of Tolerance" Desecrates a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem

Museum of Tolerance we don't need
The Simon Wiesenthal Center should abandon its plan to build a facility on the site of a Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem.
By Saree Makdisi, Op-ed I n the Los Angeles Times, February 12, 2010

The Simon Wiesenthal Center's plan to construct an outpost of Los Angeles' Museum of Tolerance atop the most important Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem is temporarily in disarray. This presents an opportunity to call on the center to abandon this outrageous project once and for all.  The site in question is Ma'man Allah, or the Mamilla Cemetery, which had been in continuous use for centuries until 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were expelled or driven into flight and their private property, including Ma'man Allah, was handed over to Jewish users. 

Like Muslim and Christian sites throughout Israel -- which, as a 2009 State Department report pointed out, implements protections only for Jewish holy sites -- the cemetery has long been threatened. Parts of it have been used as a roadway, parking lots, building sites and Israel's Independence Park. Among the trees in the park, Palestinian tombstones can still be seen, eerily and all too appropriately.

In 2002, the Wiesenthal Center -- which had been given part of the cemetery by the city of Jerusalem -- announced that architect Frank Gehry would design a complex to be called the Center for Human Dignity-Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem. Ground was broken in 2004. Palestinian and Muslim concerns were ignored until a lawsuit led to the suspension of excavation in 2006. In 2008, the Israeli Supreme Court -- dismissing the appeals not only of Palestinians with relatives buried there but also the protests of Jews appalled by desecration of any cemetery -- cleared the way for the project. 

The center claims to see nothing wrong with erecting what its leader, Rabbi Marvin Hier, calls "a great landmark promoting the principles of mutual respect and social responsibility" on top of what remains of another people's cemetery. It has resorted to endless dodges to support its claim.

To those protesting construction on ancient cemetery land, the center says it's merely using a part of the site that has been a parking lot for years. To Jews outraged at desecration, it says, in effect, that different standards apply to Muslim cemeteries than to Jewish ones. To Muslim clergy and legal scholars who insist on the inviolability of cemeteries in Islam, the center disagrees, in essence claiming that it knows more about Islamic jurisprudence than they do. To those who protest today, the center asks where they were in 1960, when an Islamic judge approved Israel's construction of the parking lot (it does not, however, mention that he was a state employee, nor that he was subsequently removed from office for corruption). 

To archaeologists who say the site should be spared construction, the center says that only a couple hundred bodies needed to be moved. And with reference to Palestinians who have filed legal actions and persisted in expressing anxiety over their families' remains, Hier had this message just last month: "The case is over; get used to it." 

That was his paraphrase of the high court's dismissal of a final appeal made by Palestinian families based on the testimony of Gideon Suleimani, the chief archaeologist at the museum site. Suleimani said that the Israel Antiquities Authority withheld from the court his opinion that construction should not be approved, and that the site still contains four layers of Muslim graves dating from the 12th century. "We're talking about tens of thousands of skeletons under the ground there," noted Suleimani.

Last month, Gehry announced that he had decided to pull out of the project, citing other commitments. At the same time, the center said it was scaling back the museum; it is short of its original $200-million fundraising target. Now the center lacks an architect and a plan. Hence the opportunity to stop this project.

This week, moreover, Palestinians with relatives buried in the cemetery made a last-ditch effort to end its continued desecration. They appealed directly to the United Nations, pointing out that the desecration violates international conventions forbidding discrimination and protecting cultural heritage, the manifestation of religious beliefs and the right to culture and family. 

Protecting the cemetery should never have become a legal issue. This project is something that any decent human being should recognize as wrong. And it can still be reversed -- if the Wiesenthal Center can be persuaded to turn "tolerance" and "human dignity" into principles for action, not just empty slogans. For all its sanctimoniousness, the center now presides over a big hole from which scores of bones have been unearthed. Those remains were disinterred without respect. As Suleimani put it: "The Muslim dead have no one to defend them." It is not, however, too late to safeguard the rest of those as yet undisturbed. 

In wanting to lay the dead to rest, however, we should think also of the living. Displacing living people -- something Israel does every single day -- is hardly any better than displacing dead ones. And this disgraceful episode is only part of a much longer history of displacement and dispossession dating to 1948.The real lesson of Ma'man Allah and the museum project is this: Peace will come to Palestine/Israel only when the blind insistence on displacement ends and both peoples are allowed to belong to the same land. 

Saree Makdisi is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA. He is the author of, among other books, "Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation."




SUPPORT THE MAMILLA CAMPAIGN, SEND YOUR PROTESTS TO THE WIESENTHAL CENTER

Simon Wiesenthal Center, 1399 Roxbury Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90035
phone: 800-900-9036, email: information@wiesenthal.net



To get more informantion: info@malliacampaign.org, Mamilla Campaign, mamillacampaign.org
Center for Constitutional Rights: www.ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/mamilla

After the first anniversary of the war on Gaza The Butcher of Gaza is coming to NYC!

Demonstrate against the "Friends of the IDF" gala at the Waldorf-Astoria 49th and Park on Tuesday March 9th, 6pm! click on the hyperlink for details.

After the first anniversary of the war on Gaza The Butcher of Gaza is coming to NYC!

WHAT HAPPENED IN CAIRO / Gaza Freedom March

It's now February 18th. It took me a long time to get around to finishing and posting this article about the events of late December/early January. At first I thought I should just forget about it, but I also felt like I have to make some pretty heavy criticism along with talking about the positive things that came from the Gaza Freedom March

What Happened in Cairo:

With the Gaza Freedom March Dec. 23 to Jan 5
My (Rick Congress) narrative of events, evaluations and political conclusions insofar as I can draw them.

WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED AS THE INTERNATIONAL GAZA FREEDOM MARCH WAS IMPORTANT

THE ROLE PLAYED BY CODE PINK WAS DAMAGING TO OUR MOVEMENT AND WAS NO MISTAKE; IT'S ABOUT WHO THEY ARE.

YOU MAY ASK WHY I'M "AIRING DIRTY LAUNDRY IN PUBLIC? BECAUSE WE HAVE TO LEARN FROM THIS EXPERIENCE


I went to Cairo as one of the approximately 1400 people from 43 countries who planned to enter Gaza through the Rafa border crossing in order to participate in a mass march along with thousands of Gazans to mark the first anniversary of the criminal Israeli assault on the people of Gaza. The major demand of the GFM was to end the embargo and open up the borders. The collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian people of Gaza since 2006 for having the temerity to democratically elect the government of their choice is causing not just hardship but malnutrition and death. The totally unjustified military assault in December 2008 and January 2009 killed 1400 people destroyed neighborhoods and essential infrastructure. The embargo has made rebuilding impossible.

Unfortunately this embargo is not just another typical Israeli excess. It is designed to crush the will of the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza and is backed up by the Obama administration and the Egyptian government as well (the more than 30 year Mubarek reign can’t be correctly described as an “administration.” It’s more of a dictator/presidency for life…and now he is angling to be replaced by his son).

I had gone to Gaza in March 2009 on a 62 person Code Pink delegation. We were allowed, at that time, by the Egyptian government to go through (with the 350 person multi-vehicle Viva Palestina contingent from the UK coming in right behind us). In June of 2009 other delegations from the US had been able to cross into Gaza from Egypt.

But the Gaza Freedom March was distinctly unwelcome. The Egyptian government made it clear that they were not going to let us in to Gaza. It was decided to go to Cairo anyway and try to pressure the government to let us through.

Our pre-arranged meeting spot on December 27th for all 1400 members of the GFM to assemble for an orientation was a big meeting space at a location in downtown Cairo that was owned by a Christian church. But the Egyptian government had revoked all the permits and permissions for us to even gather. So began our cat and mouse game with the Egyptian authorities and police.

We held organizing meetings in restaurants, in open public squares and in three different hotels simultaneously along with cell phone and email communication and managed to organize protests over a five day period that had the riot police running around after us and generated a lot of publicity in the Egyptian and Mideast press. Most gratifying was the response of the people of Cairo. It didn’t take long for all the cab drivers to know what we were up to. We’d get in a cab to take us from the hotel to a planned illegal demonstration and the we’d get a “Gaza?!” and a thumbs up from the cab driver.

There was some attrition among the GFM participants. Some didn’t feel up to the pressure of our semi-clandestine protests and returned home, or decided to travel to Tel Aviv and participate in the "Open the Borders” protest planned for the Erez border crossing in Israel on December 31st. But most of us remained. We spent the better part of a week holding protests demanding that the border with Gaza be opened. There were several actions of 300 to 800 of us with banners and signs. We went to the location of the United Nations offices and rallied. We were invited by members of the Journalists Syndicate to their headquarters to join their protest against Egyptian policy toward Gaza. Many hundreds of us and Egyptians gathered on the steps of the Journalist's Syndacate, while inside the building 700 Egyptians held a meeting critical of the Mubarek government’s doing the bidding of the U.S. and Israel. We rallied 700 strong at the Israeli embassy demanding an end to Israeli war crimes and occupation...and this is only a partial list. Besides the Cairo actions some GFM participants tried to go to the Egypt-Gaza border. The police stopped them at various points along the way.

Egyptian activists used the political space we created by our presence to risk open protest against government policies. Whenever we gathered for a public protest we were immediately surrounded by riot police who put up metal barricades around the perimeter of our rally. Sometimes there were two or three rows of black uniformed police with more of them waiting in formation a few yards away. In general the police didn’t want to arrest the internationals. They wanted to contain our actions and stop any interaction between us and the people.

Passers-by shouted sympathy with our protests and thanked us for doing publicly what they couldn’t do without risking jail and or getting beaten up by the police. People brought us water, coffee, one Palestinian couple brought us lunch while I and others held up signs against Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people behind a barricade at the entrance of our Hotel (the Lotus Hotel, where we were staying—which was also the de facto nerve center of the GFM in Cairo) It was blocked by a police barricade and rows of cops to keep us from joining a protest that was held in front of the Egyptian Museum).

Organizationally things were catch as catch can…very ad hoc and ragged, maybe semi-organized is the best description, with last seconds changes happening. Code Pink had put out the call for the Gaza Freedom March and organized the registration of participants and made housing arrangements and arrangements for our itinerary in Gaza, which obviously was canceled. I wouldn't fault Code Pink greatly for having trouble keeping things organized under pressure. They tried. Many participants thought they should have had more of a "Plan B" instead of seemingly winging it.

Code Pink also deserves credit for getting the Gaza Freedom March going and for their previous work organizing Code Pink trips to Gaza. During the organizing work in the US and other countries many non-Code Pink activists became part of a steering committee which also met in Cairo to try and plan activities as best they could. This structure tried to function but again was stressed.

Of the various country delegations the French, some 300 strong, were the most organized. They basically occupied the entrance way and sidewalk in front of the French Embassy, demanding that they aid them in getting the Egyptians to let us go to Gaza.

Very important also was the presence of the South African delegation which included members of COSATU, the trade union that has taken the lead in South Africa in enforcing a boycott of Israeli goods. While in Cairo they drafted the “Cairo Declaration” which was an international call to renew the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement. It was enthusiastically embraced by all of us and helped point the way to future actions. They had a terrific, colorful banner they unfurled at our actions which quoted Nelson Mandela on South Africa’s solidarity with Palestine.

As the GFM activities seemed to come to a close, it looked like we had won a moral victory. Under extra pressure from the Obama administration and the Israeli government to not let the GFM into Gaza, the Egyptian government, knowing which side its bread is buttered on, stopped us from getting to Gaza. There was no way we could get around that.

But we had made waves and generated a lot of publicity for our demand of ending the Siege of Gaza. On that note and with a renewed commitment to working for a free Gaza and a free Palestine, we could have gone home knowing that we had accomplished something…fought the good fight. Many were disappointed that they didn’t get to see Gaza, meet with the people and join the freedom march. That’s understandable. But it’s important to think about these thing politically, and strategically—this is a long struggle, there are no short-cuts.

However things didn’t end on that note. Code Pink an organization dedicated to short-cuts, cutting political corners and flashy gimmicks, saw to that.

While representatives of the various country delegations met in steering committee meetings along with Code Pink leaders to supposedly decide as democratically as possible what to do, Code Pink by itself had been meeting with Egyptian president Mubarek’s wife, who is the head of the Egyptian Red Crescent.

In March of 2009 she had given her blessings to the Code Pink delegation to Gaza which went to celebrate International Women’s Day on March 8th. At first the Egyptians had hinted that maybe they wouldn’t let us in, or had to think about it. But then with Madame Mubarek’s support we were able to board buses and were escorted to the border for a fairly easy entry into Gaza. Members of the Egyptian Red Crescent were on our bus and at the Rafa border gate for photo ops.

This time around the Egyptian Foreign Minister made a public statement as we arrived in Cairo that the Gaza Freedom March would definitely not be let into Gaza. The catch turned out to be “…Gaza Freedom March not let in.” Code Pink getting in was another matter.

Without the knowledge of the GFM steering committee or rank and file, the leaders of Code Pink made a deal with Madame Mubarak that 100 people would be allowed into Gaza as a Code Pink humanitarian mission. The terms of the deal were that it would not be a GFM group, no citizens of Arab countries or French (the most militant and, I suppose, irritating, part of the GFM to the Egyptian government) could go.

When this became known to everyone on the GFM the reaction was negative, by a landslide. Code Pink leaders told the steering committee that this was a done deal and no one could make them back out of it. Constituent delegations of the GFM met and most were against this deal. Rather than being a “deal” or a “compromise” it was rightly seen by a majority as a dishonest maneuver and an act of backstabbing deceit by Code Pink. They didn’t care if the majority weren’t informed. All they cared about was that Code Pink could talk with the president’s wife and get their people in under the name of Code Pink and to hell with the Gaza Freedom March participants.

The reaction against Code Pink’s treason was so strong that they began to realize that they had to do damage control. Medea Benjamin came to a New York delegation meeting in a hotel room at the Lotus and tried to explain away their actions by saying they made a mistake by not notifying the GFM steering committee, but were under pressure to accept the offer on the spot, and were inexperienced in this sort of thing, and she was sorry if they were misunderstood and this would not split the movement, but was a partial victory, and that the Code Pink delegation would represent all of the GFM and that the Palestinians in Gaza wanted them to go, etc.

These argument didn’t fly and some of us predicted that the Egyptian government would use this against us. Her reaction was, "Oh not they can’t do that."

The next morning the newspapers ran a statement from the Foreign Minister that Code Pink and Egyptian government representatives had picked 100 of the "peaceful" people who really wanted to help Gazans and that the rest of the GFM participants were "hooligans" who just wanted to make trouble.

The same evening that Benjamin had come to the NY delegation, there was a marathon steering committee meeting that ran to 4 a.m. a majority prevailed to cancel the 100 person delegation, that it was all or none and that the GFM was unified. Code Pink went along with this too (so they said officially...probably with fingers crossed behind their back).

BUT

This was a Code Pink style “cancellation.” The buses were ready that morning to take the 100 “peaceful” people to Gaza and Code Pink leaders and Egyptian government authorities were out rounding up people to fill the two buses at the same time that non-Code Pink GFM members were telling them not to go. One of the Code Pink leaders was heard saying that it would “ruin my relationship with Madame Mubarek” if they didn’t fill the buses.

Eighty six people ended up going on the bus. Some were reporters, some were Palestinians who wanted to see family members and some, who didn’t understand or care about the political issues, just wanted to go.

Having your cake and eating it too must be some sort of principle of Code Pink. They realized that they had to go along with the majority and “reject” the deal, but they then sneaked off and tried to carry out their agreement with Madame Mubarek. Sucking up to her was more important than building a serious Pro Palestinian movement.

One of the arguments that was used in favor of sending the Code Pink-only buses in the all night steering committee meeting was that the Palestinians in Gaza wanted us to come. However, there is good reason to suspect that Code Pink didn’t tell the Palestinian GFM leaders in Gaza the full story of the conditions they agreed to (it was not to be a GFM group only Code Pink, no French etc). Early the next morning, having been told of the Egyptian government’s statement about peaceful people and hooligans, the Palestinian leaders in Gaza said they buses should not come, that it was a trick to split the movement and make both of the Mubareks look good.

Why am I laying out all of this? Airing dirty laundry in public. Should we let bygones be bygones. Wasn’t it a mistake, and Code Pink is sorry, so everything is OK now? Everything is not OK. Activists should know not to trust Code Pink in the future. Their actions in Cairo were not an abberation for them … it’s an example of how they function.

The problem is that this action by Code Pink was not a mistake. It was a calculated cutting loose of the Gaza Freedom March so that Code Pink could bask in the limelight and get the glory of succeeding in getting a delegation into Gaza. Any other consequences they didn’t care about, because all they care about is their own image.

Medea Benjimin and Jody Evans have been around the political scene for a long time. They were not born yesterday, they know what they want to do.

This act of treachery (and the fact that they were and are oblivious to the damage it has done) didn’t come out of inexperience or evil intent. It comes from Code Pink’s political outlook.

It wasn’t good enough for them to carry out a series of protests in Cairo, raise demands to open the borders and end the siege of Gaza and leave Egypt knowing that we had tried our best, gotten some good publicity for the Gaza Freedom March and developed some unity and trust that could be developed into a broader international movement around Gaza and Palestine. Code Pink isn’t interested in this sort of “boring” organizing work. They needed instant gratification.

The be all and end all of their activities consist in having influence in the Democratic Party. They are under the illusion, or better, delusion, that they are players in the big leagues. They can sit down with Madame Mubarek. They can persuade Obama, or some congressperson or senator to change their views on Israel and Palestine (fat chance) just by the powers of their persuasion.

Madame Mubarek is part of the ruling party’s apparatus. Her husband has been in power for over thirty years. He has turned Egypt into a kleptocracy, a police state and is a dependent client of the U.S. This also means he is an active collaborator with Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Mubarek’s wife is part of the team. She’s not doing anything that Mubarek or the chief of security don’t approve of. They just put on different faces, hard cop, soft cop.

The Democratic Party is committed to the Zionist narrative and will give anything to Israel. Obama has stocked his administration with pro-Israel politicians (and even with Israelis, Rahm Emanuel anyone?) George Mitchell is blundering around like a pathetic clown with nothing to do and Obama and Netanyahu are partners, not adversaries. It’s clear by now that Obama supports Israel’s actions, all of them, will do nothing to stop or curb their ethnic cleansing campaign.

Obama supports Israel because he believes in Israel, not because he’s being restrained by some lobby, or hasn’t studied the issue. He’s just as much an enemy of ours as G. W. Bush was. The major difference is that his image and smooth talking makes him a more effective representative of U.S. imperialism and more effective in throwing sand in the eyes of the people about this issue.

I think it’s possible that the reluctance of the GFM leadership in Cairo, when it was pretty much in the hands of Code Pink, to raise demands that directly took on the U.S. and Obama’s role in keeping the attacks on Gaza going is a reflection of the illusions they have about Obama… that he’s secretly on our side…somehow he really doesn’t mean it when he gives Israel more military aid than Bush did, or send troops into Afghanistan, bombs Pakistan, maybe Yemen and Iran are next.

It also took pressure from the non-Code Pink GFM participants to finally get a protest rally organized at the Israeli embassy.

The real weight we can have to be “players,” and put pressure on Obama is not by small gimmicky and flashy publicity stunts, but by doing the hard work of educating the population about the reality of Zionism and the negative effects of our governments policies of aid Israel in its crimes.

We have to change U.S. public opinion. Serious bottom-up organizing has to be done on BDS, education has to be done to make the American people aware of what Israel has been doing. Demonstrations should be organized, marches on Washington demanding “end the siege of Gaza, end the settlements, no ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, equal rights for all…”

.We have to build a movement that has the capacity to draw in people who aren’t already convinced. We need to put our trust in that movement and use it as a way to effect change.

The experience of the Gaza Freedom March in Cairo pointed the way towards a more serious bottom up Pro-Palestinian rights movement in the U.S. and the around the world. I don't think we can rely on an organization like Code Pink to be a reliable part of such a movement.