French anti-genocide marchers talk of abuse as Egypt collaborates with Israel – but march is proceeding anyway
French anti-genocide marchers, arriving back in France after being detained and deported on arrival in Egypt by the Sisi government, have accused the Egyptian security services of offering them food sabotaged with nails and screws before deporting them:
The Egyptian authorities turned hundreds away, but thousands are reported to have made it through to begin the march. Turkish journalist Furkan Caliskan filmed the moment Egyptian authorities deported him and dozens of other activists yesterday. Caliskan accused the Egyptian regime of refusing a peaceful march while turning a blind eye to Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians:
Look at Egypt, which won’t allow a peaceful march while people are being brutally massacred in Gaza.”
“What kind of justice is this?”
Around 4,000 participants from some 80 countries travelled to Cairo. Hundreds were immediately deported but thousands are said to have got through, with thousands more travelling in the ‘Sumud Convoy’ across North Africa to Egypt for the march.
British journalist Crispin Flintoff, who made it through to Cairo, said that the Egyptian regime’s treatment of marchers arriving had induced fear and “paranoia” among travellers, but that the thought of the terrible suffering of the people of Gaza under Israel’s starvation blockade and constant bombing was keeping everyone’s resolve strong:
The march has set off this morning, despite the Sisi government’s conduct, because no formal ban has been put in place:
Participants of the Global March to Gaza will gather peacefully at a campsite outside Cairo today, continuing preparations for a historic, peaceful action to end the siege on Palestine and call for the opening of a humanitarian corridor through Rafah.
We have not received formal authorization to begin the march. However, we remain fully committed to coordinating with Egyptian authorities and pursuing all channels of communication to ensure full legal compliance. Our intent is not to challenge the law but to work in accordance with it.
This peaceful gathering includes medical professionals, parliamentarians, lawyers, and humanitarians from more than 80 countries who have come together with a unified message: the blockade must end and humanitarian aid must flow freely to the people of Palestine.
We continue to urge the Egyptian government to permit this peaceful march, which aligns with Egypt’s own stated commitment to restoring stability at its border and addressing the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Most of the crew of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition Madleen, which was rammed and seized by Israel in international waters early on Monday, have returned home after being released by the colonising authority. However, the last three hostages – who were due to fly home today – remain captive after the Israeli government said it would delay their release ‘because of Iran’s attack’ on Israel, leaving out of course that the Iranian attack was retaliation for Israel’s unprovoked mass bombing of Iran and its assassination of senior Iranian military officers last night.
Dutchman Marco van Rennes and Frenchman Pascal Maurieras and Yanis Mhamdi remain in Givon prison, victims of Israel’s piracy, which has not been condemned by the colluding British government despite the Madleen’s registration as a British vessel. Last night released hostage Rima Hassan, a French MEP, told a crowd of anti-genocide activists in Paris that a new Flotilla vessel is already set to sail to Gaza.
The Jewish anti-Zionist Congress, which is meeting in Vienna from today, has called for the immediate expulsion of Israel from the United Nations and from its associate EU membership for its crimes in Gaza and internationally.
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Turkish journalist Furkan Caliskan filmed the moment Egyptian authorities deported him and dozens of other activists yesterday.
Now imagine him being stopped by a British wooden top…“What’s your name, sonny???
*Yikes!!*
Anywho, I hope the ‘overlanders’ fare better than the ‘Madleen’ crew – although,given this latest report…🫤
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
– John F Kennedy
And there’s the issue of the present moment in a single sentence.
Assuming the minimum objective is to stop the slaughter, starvation and genocide of an entire people, the evidence so far is that regular peaceful protest on city streets, flotillas and convoys is having insufficient effect in achieving that objective.
Attempting to shame decision makers in Tel Aviv, Washington, London, Paris et al by asking nicely, pleading, signing petitions etc is having minimal if any impact on those – from the proxies to the string pullers – who have no shame. If anything, they are escalating by actively pursuing regime change not only in Iran but in Russia, China and anywhere else who does not bend the knee to the out of control oligarchy running the minority of the planet that is the West.
Those who attempt to challenge these forever war policies aimed at plundering the rest of the planet are at best ignored, jailed, cancelled and physically attacked, or at worst eliminated from existence.
On one point, those making these decisions are accurate. The current moment is an existential one. Either the 1% and their useless idiot servants cease to exist or the 99% cease to exist. There is no in-between. One or other must prevail at the expense of the existence of the other.
The moment a sufficient number of the 99% understand that reality and stop asking nicely by forcibly stopping those running this shit show from running it by the only realistic means possible – ceasing the existence of those elites and their servants who are actively threatening our existence – is the moment when a realistic movement towards achieving those objectives will occur.
Until then, the current strategy is, as Kennedy recognised, just pissing into the wind.