March to Nowhere

What is the point of the March to Gaza

On June 12th the Global March to Gaza began.

British pro-Palestinians packed their sunscreen and beige summer wear and flew to Egypt. I don’t believe there was much marching en route. Comfortable, air conditioned flights mostly. As Greta Thunberg landed back in Sweden after her own relaxed deportation from Israel, more Europeans set off for the Egyptian border with Gaza.

The aim was to march to the Rafah crossing and get humanitarian aid to Gazans. Force the border crossing open and I suppose flow through it. I have no real idea how this was going to work and I’m not sure they did either. The level of ignorance and naïveté became apparent once these sun touched activists met the first line of resistance: the Egyptian authorities.

At the airport they were detained and immediately refused entry. Or stopped at the border, detained and deported. If they made it into the country then checkpoints filtered out the suspicious and confiscated their passports until they agreed to leave. Some tried to masquerade as tourists and with a sly light in their eye pretend they were just headed for the very small museum in Ismailia which is not a big international destination. The northeastern city is a short four hour drive to the Rafah crossing though.

The Egyptians are not stupid. Perhaps the colonial and patronising mindset of those arriving from British shores has not entirely left that psyche in the past.

Some tried to get through the lines of police by begging and pleading as did this Welsh pro-Palestinian nurse. The flavour of histrionics is so common to this movement. He raved about the “smell” of Palestinian mother’s breasts and berated the officers for not standing up for Muslims as he was. The woman filming him was smiling in that knowing way. Enjoying the drama. For this is theatre after all.

Others tried the tactics they enact in Europe. They sat down and refused to move. The Egyptian authorities are not the same as the Europeans. Snatch squads of locals went into the crowd and took people away one by one. Violence erupted. The pro-Palestinians seemed bewildered, shocked. Outraged. One Irish politician was detained and his passport taken. The privileged narcissism flowed off them. They demanded. They commanded. Nothing worked and they were humbled. They seemed appalled that their presence wasn’t wanted.

The march certainly won’t be of practical help either. They will get nowhere near Gaza. Egyptians have built up the many fences and walls along the miles they share with Hamas. Whatever aid they might be carrying in their backpacks and carry ons will never get to its destination. Now they have started to understand that, the pro-Palestinian foreigners have started distributing it to any Gazan they can find. This has been roundly condemned by the organisers of the march as disrupting established groups and bringing danger to networks within Egypt.

They are doing actual harm to Gazans.

I would argue they do harm here too. Not only to the Palestinian cause, but to our society. Maybe while they’re sitting in an Egyptian detention centre, they could reflect on that.