Gaza Freedom March: Day 1 in Cairo

Mark Johnson and I arrived in Cairo late last night. My first impression of Cairo: polluted!

This morning we got together with all the members of Gaza Freedom March in three different hotels. We decided to go to The Sun Hotel. Everyone was there; Father Louie Vitale, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Medea Benjamin, and most of the people who took the Fellowship of Reconciliation's civilian diplomacy delegations to Iran in the past several years. It was very good to be with all these wonderful colleagues and passionate people.

There are many different faces and accents, there are groups from Japan, Italy, Spain, the Philippines, Mali, Turkey, England, France, and many others: all together almost 1,400 people from 42 different countries, to show their solidarity with our brothers and sister in Gaza.

But unfortunately, again, the government! Egyptian government is not going to allow us to pass the checkpoints and enter into Gaza. We gathered to think what to do. We got into different groups. I joined the Interfaith group which the Fellowship of Reconciliation is a part of. We decided to have our peace pilgrimage no matter what. We have brought many humanitarian goods with us and want to help Gaza’s children, and we won't let Egyptian government stop us.

After we finished our meetings we decided to go in front of UN office and stage a sit-in. We did. Everyone came, except 130 people mostly French citizens, who had already left for Al-Arish on the border. Another strong step French citizens took was that 300 of them sat in front of their embassy to pressure their government to push the Egyptians to open the borders. The French are the heroes of the day.

Italians will go to their embassy tomorrow. We Americans decided to go to our embassy tomorrow also. All day we stood in front of the U.N. building in Cairo and sang songs, chanted, and prayed for peace and justice. Some of the older members of the group, including Father Louie Vitale, 77; Hedy Epstein, an 85-year-old holocaust survivor; and some others are on hunger strike.

Today was a very nice day of solidarity, with Egyptian police surrounding us — almost 200 of them, mostly with no guns or cold weapons.

I pictured my brothers and sisters in Iran, with the riot police, armed to the teeth!!

Tomorrow is another day; I am looking forward to entering Gaza!