Pyramids - Sea Suffering’s unstoppable nonviolent resistance

Excerpted with minor edits by Carolyn Bennett

“From the pyramids to the checkpoints, we have had many victories in Egypt" says Emily Ratner (January 3, 2010), an organizer and media maker based in New Orleans. Ratner is a member of New Orleans Palestine Solidarity (NOLAPS) and the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN).

Egyptian guards have been unable to stop us as we scream our demands from atop the pyramids, from the sidewalks of the U.S. and Israeli Embassies, and from the front pages of newspapers in Egypt, Kuwait, Yemen, and around the world. Allies have stamped these demands into the world’s streets as they march for Palestine’s freedom.

… While Egyptians turn us away from checkpoints and borders, we remember that it is the Israeli government that has demanded we be kept out of Gaza. The Israelis have made this demand because they are terrified of our movement. Their weapons and soldiers are no match for the ideas we carry with us, sparked in Palestine and now aflame in Egypt and throughout the world. Our global community joins Palestinian civil society in some demands of our own, which the Israelis cannot quell by preventing our passage to Gaza. As the Cairo Declaration states, we demand Self-Determination for all Palestinians.

We demand an End to the Occupation.

We demand Equal Rights for ALL within historic Palestine.

We demand the full Right of Return for all People of Palestine.

We insist that as a global solidarity movement,
We have the right to make these demands.

… We must make these demands because our work is too important to wait for the governments of the world to acknowledge that the Israelis will never offer Palestinians what they are owed. We can make these demands because we have the power of a global boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement that will some day be strong enough to cripple the Israeli economy, if we do the work we have promised here in Cairo. As Anna Julia Cooper so eloquently states in the U.S. passport that was rejected by Egyptians working on behalf of Israelis yesterday ─ we will make these demands because freedom is the birthright of humankind.

We celebrate our sisters and brothers in Gaza and throughout Palestine, who have worked so hard to bring us to this historic moment. We celebrate allies here in Cairo and around the world who are renewing their commitment to their crucial solidarity work by endorsing the Cairo Declaration. We celebrate all of the travelers who slowly make their way to Rafah, whether they arrive or not. May the Egyptians run our passport numbers thousands of times as they turn us back. May the Israelis be reminded again and again that they have only encouraged us to work more tirelessly than we have so far. May the U.S. government be reminded of the wisdom of Cooper’s words, spat on every time we are rejected at a checkpoint or border crossing. May we leave Cairo with more hope than when we arrived that the siege will end and Gaza and all of Palestine will be free.

Emily Ratner's full article is at Mondoweiss (http://mondoweiss.net/). She is an organizer and media maker based in New Orleans, a member of New Orleans Palestine Solidarity (NOLAPS) and the International Jewish anti-Zionist Network (IJAN). She can be reached at emily@nolahumanrights.org


Mondoweiss is a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective. The site is maintained by Philip Weiss of New York State and Adam Horowitz of New York City ─ “because of 9/11, Iraq, Gaza, the Nakba, the struggling people of Israel and Palestine, and our Jewish background;” mondoweiss@gmail.com