Back from Gaza: Kevin Neish Home Safe

I'm Home

by Kevin Neish

Just a very quick rough note to let anyone listening know, that I returned home to Victoria last Friday afternoon. When I’m in a better frame of mind I’ll see about writing a bit more about my final experiences.

I had already been turned away at the Rafah crossing on Sept 8th, along with a bus full of Palestinians, some of whom had already been turned away 4 times or more. It was a bus full of sick folks trying to get critical treatment in Egypt or abroad, students trying to get to scholarships in distant countries, business people trying to get back to their now failing companies abroad and others in similar crucial situations, all just trying to temporarily leave Gaza. When we were turned away, after waiting for 5 hours, there was not a word of protest or complaint, just a dignified and orderly return to the bus and Gaza.

When I did get through to Egypt on Friday, it entailed the usual humiliating treatment by Egyptian authorities. Being herded like cattle, pushed, shoved and yelled at. Hours of waiting in an over crowded filthy customs hall. Passports are returned, by being flung across the room at you. At one point, a soldier intently looked at my passport and then at me, and then handed it back, to the wrong person. But everyone just patiently and quietly waited for the Egyptian “yay or nay”.

A well educated Palestinian women, heading to a prestigious scholarship in Europe, for her own safety asked to travel in our private “foreigner” taxi from Rafah to Cairo. She was safer, but even so, she was constantly insulted by soldiers and police at the 7 or so check point stops we had to get through. For 7 hours she quietly endured outrageous sexual come ons, insults, ethnic put downs and having her suitcase repeatedly emptied out onto the ground by uniformed thugs, using all the authority an M-16 could give them. To be a Palestinian in Egypt, is now seemingly against the law.

Being white and male, I received better treatment, but being Canadian may now offer little added protection, as John Greyson and Tarek Loubani will testify to from their Cairo prison cell. I have no doubt that Mr. Harper, and his pro-Israel Canadian government, are happy to see them stay in prison due to their pro-Palestinian beliefs. Stateless Canadians, due to their political beliefs.

Needless to say, I have no photographs for you of the burned out check points, scorched military buildings, rows of howitzers, tanks and APCs and dozens of fortified gun emplacements across the Sinai.

When I left Gaza, the situation was getting even more desperate, then even the “standard” horrendous situation I had been witnessing for the last 3 months. Little or no gas, diesel, propane, food, electricity, medicines, work or hope. This new cooperative double blockade, from Israel and Egypt, means the only available border Gaza has, the Mediterranean Sea, is even more important then ever. We need to support any ship, coming or going to Gaza, and break this illegal and immoral blockade, before more people needlessly suffer and die.

If Gazans are offered no hope or assistance, and Israel continues to blatantly break the Nov. 2012 ceasefire agreement, then the Palestinians may strike out in desperation and anger with their rockets.

And then the Western media will ask “why are the Palestinians angry?”

Kevin