Mark Johnson's blog

I had lunch this week with a labor union organizer from Iran seeking support for the rights of workers in Iran. One of his biggest fears was that the implementation of additional sanctions would serve the interest of Iranian leadership making the case for foreign intervention as the reason for solidarity across all sectors in Iran. While it may appear that factions in Iran are sharp and irreconciliable there is a clear warning that movements in the direction of reform, and the well-being of the Iranian public, would be severely affected by new sanctions. Jim Fine's assessment below extends that analysis and provides background we should have in hand on the state of the sanctions legislation in Congress.  Mark C. Johnson

From Jim Fine at FCNL:

Even though we might be made blind to the evil afoot, we will not be silent. This is the lesson of modern history. We will sing a new song as strangers in a strange land: Let My People Go. While the Egyptians, Israelis, and Americans conspire to keep us from seeing the conditions of life in the world’s largest prison (sorry, no visiting hours this month), there is a chorus, a voice, 43 nations rich, which is lifted in greater harmony and crescendo than ever before to call for raising the siege of Gaza and thereby increasing the security of Israel.

Jared Malsin, Chief English Editor of Ma'an News Agency is being detained at Ben Gurion airport pending deportation. The deportation is being challenged in Israeli courts, and with a hearing scheduled for Sunday, January 17th, in Tel Aviv Central Court (though we still don’t know the time). His luggage has been released. He was permitted a brief phone call Friday afternoon during a visit by US consular staff. Castro Daoud, his lawyer, was given access to Jared by the Israeli authorities yesterday.

Jared’s friend, Faith Rowold, was deported at 6am Friday morning and is now in Prague.

The French brought two distinct delegations totalling well over 300 people to Cairo for the Gaza Freedom March. As the summary report below illustrates they were both well prepared from the beginning and still flexible and determined in their response to a repressive reaction by Egypt and an embarrasingly conciliatory response by the French Government to their appeals for support. They drew the admiration of all involved and maintained a delightfully positive perspective to the very end. I particularly enjoyed their dabke routine for the policemen on the afternoon of the Friday demonstration in front of the Israeli Embassy. See below and also http://www.europalestine.com.

One of the acts of conscience which impressed the Egyptian public, inspired the Gaza Freedom March delegation, and echoed compassionately through exchanges with Palestinians in Gaza, was the act of thirty delegates to initiate a fast at the beginning of the gather in Cairo. Especially impressive was that these individuals were always at the front of actions over the five days we were in Cairo, and always warm and interactive with the Egyptian Police, the public, press, and international delegation. This is the statement they issued as we prepared to disband in Cairo.

As we gathered with candles under a full moon, directly overhead, at the edge of Tahrir (Freedom) Square, in Cairo, Egypt, the few hundred here welcomed the New Year with increased hope that a week together might offer the momentum to advance the cause of peace in the Middle East and the release of Gazan Palestinians in particular from the state of siege they have suffered most intensely throughout the year just ended.

Things get messy when 1,300 people from 42 countires confront the intractable machinery of autocrats. The Egyptians have been successful in keeping the larger delegation from ever convening in one whole. Nearly 300 from France have occupied a sidewalk in front of the French Embassy for nearly a week, the remainder of the delegates are spread out through dozens of small inexpensive hotels and hostels, none with a meeting space for more than 75 people maximum and each also occupied by tourists and business folk. It has been a logistical quagmire, not adequately anticipated and not easily resolved. No local place of worship or public entity would consider provding us space for a gathering.

The young Egyptian soldiers who arrive by buses to whatever site where we convene, bear no guns or batons and are quick to smile, though their superiors try to keep them somber and reserved. Passing out yellow pens labeled in English and Arabic with the logo of the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), and greeting them with the traditional greeting, Salaam Aleikum, they whisper their names, ask where we are from, and even signal sympathies for our efforts. They are quick to smile, and despite their sympathies also have reservations about the Gaza situation based in their own political context.

Crossing into Bethlehem the second time was considerably easier because President Abbas was not using the checkpoint on Saturday; his entourage had tied up traffic throughout the district on Friday much as an American President’s cavalcade would in New York or Chicago. And we were only crossing the wall to sit in the offices of Wi’am which have recently moved in to “new offices” (the building was constructed in 1889), which look directly at the wall.

The journey to Gaza begins with the larger context of the conditions of Palestinians living under occupation and the life of Israelis in the face of occupation. Leila Zand and I spent the day with Mazin Qumsiyeh, new board member of the Palestinian Committee on Rapprochment, a branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and a grassroots group previously awarded the FOR Pfeffer Peace Prize.