Yesterday, we pledged to sponsor a group on route to a gathering in KL in conjunction with the Malaysian convoy for Viva Palestina II, the second brave humanitarian wave to break the brutal siege of Gaza. Will they make it? Knowing the Egyptian authorities can be vindictive and treacherous, we can only pray. We shared our grim feelings and heard a brief tale of the harrowing and bewildering events of the first convoy. It was amazing that it got through even though the multinational team had to endure being pelted by stones and tear-gassed. Egyptian riot police even battled charged them. The activists and aid workers stood their ground and never relented nor did they fight back even under severe provocation. Many were bloodied even the old and the senior citizens among them. They did manage to get through to bring the aid into Gaza and they made their point although it came at a price. They had come from all walks of life to bring a ray of hope to the forgotten Palestinians. We salute them.
Many activists have tried to enter Gaza to bring help and aid but it is such an uphill struggle against unfriendly Egyptian bureaucrats and harsh border guards. If you brought a medical team, sometimes the medicine gets through but the medical doctors and personnel are turned away and vice versa. If you insist then you are threatened or even arrested. One unfortunate medical team leader was harshly treated.
When a friendly ambassador tried to intervene and help, the Interior Minister no less told him off simply that it was an Arab matter and the ambassador did not understand Arab issues. Actually, there is no humane reason to obstruct aid and aid workers from entering Gaza. But for some intriguing and ghastly purpose, Palestinians are being made to suffer openly in the eyes of the world. The Arab regimes are directly and categorically complicit and responsible, and in this case the Egyptian government is the key culprit by perpetuating and collaborating in the inhuman siege and the punishing sanctions imposed upon Gaza. That is as contemptuously Arabian as you can get!
Everyone knows about the steel walls being built sophisticatedly to block the smuggling tunnels, the lifeline of Gazan survival. Underground walls are funded and constructed with US assistance. How could such feats of engineering be so ruthless. Now, if the Egyptians do not want to help the Palestinians then they should not be in the way and be so cruel as to add to the suffering and persistently frustrate relief efforts. But that is the way it is when corruption has made its way into the deepest crevices of authorities and people in power. They only answer the master's call and we all know who their masters are in Tel Aviv and Washington. The latest fatal gassing of Gaza tunnel workers is an example of the extreme measures they take to prolong human suffering. Murder is just an option for corrupt people.
At the same time, the West Bank is being flooded with goods and amenities, semblance of relative peace and comfort. It is deliberately being spruced up to make clear who among the Palestinians are condemned. Those who do not conform shall be evicted and exiled to where else but Gaza, the biggest illegal prison on planet earth. If you are a Palestinian in the territories, you either be grateful for being in occupied West Bank or suffer in the slums of Gaza. In the meantime talk is being spun endlessly around "settlements freeze" as if it is the main issue. This blatant deception is simply an elaborate cover up and scheme to deprive and eliminate physically, economically and emotionally 1.5 million innocent Palestinians from the face of the earth. The real issue is the wanton injustice being perpetuated and perpetrated by Israel, funded and abetted by the USA, and collaborated by corrupt Arab regimes.
So back to the second Viva Palestina convoy, may your journey be safe and may you be successful. You carry the burden and the guilt of the world upon you. We know it ought to be our right and responsibility to wage war to free Gaza and save its inhabitants. It is our right since time immemorial and it is in the UN charter as the right of all nations and peoples to be free and be safe from imposed cruelty. But since everyone is powerless and paralysed by the sheer inhumanity of it all, we better do our bit to remind the world of its guilt in not freeing Gaza and to bring some relief to its people. We do this so that on the Day of Judgement, we can all be accounted with what we did to help. For the ones against us and stopping us, their accounts are not of our concern.
Let us all support Viva Palestina,
ma'a salama fi amanillah.
