Gazans participate in 'biggest jailbreak ever'

The following is based on a talk given at New York City Workers World Forum on Jan. 25.

The whole world watched in wonder on Jan. 23 when the blockaded Palestinian people of Gaza blew up the walls imprisoning them and walked en masse into Egypt.

It was the biggest jailbreak ever.

In a bold challenge to Zionism, imperialism and reaction, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children, many flashing victory signs, poured over, around and through the demolished wall into Egypt to get the food, medicine and other survival supplies they had been denied. There was no stopping them. [According to BBC, by Jan. 26, 700,000 Palestinians had crossed into Egypt, approximately half of Gaza’s 1.5 million people, and they were still coming—ed.]

After getting what they needed to survive, the people turned around and went back to Gaza, to defend Palestinian land and continue the struggle

Imperialism’s weaknesses exposed

The people of Gaza have exposed the fundamental weakness of imperialism, Zionism and their local agents. The huge military colossus of the U.S. and Israel can hurt but cannot defeat a people’s movement. The whip of repression—the daily Israeli bombardments and supply, food and medicine shortages—did not quell the people or consume their struggle.

On the contrary, the Palestinian population turned the terrible six-month siege of Gaza into a fire forging the rebirth of the Palestinian struggle on a new level. This remarkable development is testimony to the strength of a mass movement and a bold leadership responsive to its needs.

Gaza’s mass defiance gives heart to all under the iron heel of imperialism and capitalism. Surely those Palestinians on the West Bank will never look at the apartheid wall that imprisons them in the same way.

U.S., Israel and the European imperialists hoped to pummel, starve, freeze and sicken the Gaza population into turning against Hamas, which it elected. This has badly backfired. Today, the prestige of Hamas is higher than ever. The Jan. 23 New York Times interviewed all classes of Palestinians breaching the wall and independent Fatah supporters. All said, “This was the best thing that Hamas did.”

Further isolated are the forces of Mahmoud Abbas, which are seen as aligned with the U.S. and Israel, and which attended imperialism’s so-called peace conference at Annapolis where the siege of Gaza was not even on the agenda. On Jan. 24 Hamas leaders called for unity and invited Abbas and the Ramallah government to run the Rafah border crossing jointly with it. So far, Abbas has refused this offer.

Israeli war crimes make Gaza a Warsaw ghetto

Israel’s blockade and siege of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza began in June [2007], when Hamas took over the government there. This punishment of the civilian population because Israel, the U.S. and the European imperialists did not like Gaza’s government was a blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions governing the treatment of an occupied people, and a war crime.

Gaza became a Warsaw ghetto. Unable to get supplies or export goods, the civilian economy collapsed, leaving the majority jobless and dependent on U.N. food handouts for survival. Gazans died because their medicines were no longer available. There was hunger, then starvation. And all this time, the small strip of land was bombarded by Israel using high tech U.S. weapons.

Then, on Jan 17, Israel shut off fuel shipments, plunging Gaza in darkness and rendering hospitals ineffective.

Hamas responded by organizing daily demonstrations at the closed Rafah crossing into Egypt, demanding that the border be opened. On Jan. 22, a demonstration of Palestinian women in traditional dress was beaten bloody by Egyptian security as they sought to cross the border and buy food and medicine for their families. (BBC, Jan 22). The people had had all that they would take.

In the wee dark hours of Jan. 23, 17 explosions ripped through the concrete and corrugated metal wall with Egypt. Most of the seven-mile wall blockading Gaza came tumbling down. While Hamas did not take credit, the Jan. 24 London Times, after interviewing Gaza residents, determined that this was not only a Hamas action, but the moment had long been planned. For months, the Times said, Hamas had been secretly slicing through the heavy metal portions of the wall with oxyacetylene torches.

Residents were told to stay away from the wall the night the explosions went off, the Times said.

The next day, a Hamas spokesperson would not take credit for exploding the wall. “We are creating facts,” he said, adding, “We warned the Egyptians yesterday that people are hungry and dying.” Hours later the wall was demolished. (New York Times, Jan. 24)

People and leadership united

Blowing up the wall was not just an audacious action. It was a bold move that spoke to the needs of the people. Gaza’s residents did not have to coax people to cross. In fact, they couldn’t be held back. Some 350,000 crossed the first day, with Hamas forces acting as guides.

They crossed over on foot, by donkey cart, in beat-up pickup trucks. While most came to purchase needed food and supplies, some came to see relatives on the other side of Rafah they hadn’t seen in months. Some young people had never been out of Gaza, and they came just to breathe the air and feel free.

They returned carrying sacks of flour, jerry cans filled with olive oil and gasoline, medicine, cigarettes and carts filled with cement. They walked farm animals and camels into Gaza, giving the “V” for victory sign when news cameras were spotted. When Egypt used water cannons and riot police to close the two main border crossings on Jan 27, Palestinians bulldozed another hole in the fence and used a crane to hoist needed goods over the barrier.

Egyptian security stood by, with many guards showing clear sympathy with the Palestinians and others overwhelmed by the sheer numbers crossing over.

Just a few weeks ago, with much fanfare, the Bush administration held a conference at Annapolis and claimed it wanted a resolution to the Palestinian question. Washington’s response to events in Gaza makes it clear that Washington is no friend of the Palestinians. On Jan. 23, the U.S. was the only U.N. Security Council member opposing a statement condemning Israel for the blockade of Gaza.

Why? Turning events on their head, Washington insisted that the criminal and genocidal blockade of Gaza was an act of Israeli self-defense, because Palestinians in Gaza continue to fire homemade rockets into Israel. Surely the rocket firers would gladly trade these rockets for the cruise missiles the Pentagon gives to Israel.

Speaking from Syria in Jan. 24, Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, explained, “The siege was before and after the firing of rockets. We stopped firing rockets many times, but the siege had not come to an end; we ceased the resistance tactically for several months, but the aggression and occupation continued.” (Palestine Information Center, Jan. 24).

The breaking of the blockade of Gaza is a continuation of other mass actions in the Middle East.

For example, in 2000 Hezbollah and allied fighters liberated southern Lebanon from a decade of Israeli occupation. Their success was due to their deep roots in and support from the population.

In the summer of 2006, less than 3,000 Hezbollah people’s fighters stopped the heavily armed Israeli army in its tracks, preventing it from invading Lebanon.

Today in Iraq and Afghanistan all the might of the Pentagon cannot stop the resistance, because these movements have the support of the people, and, in fact, are the people.

The Bush administration, aided by the establishment media, has tried to hide the mass character of these struggles. Nothing, however, could hide the fact that the breaching of the wall between Gaza and Egypt was done by the Palestinian people themselves.

These struggles need and deserve the support of all who value freedom and justice.