Gaza - Church, press and people are now looking the other way.
But the blockade goes on.
Had an amazing meeting to finish off York's
100-Day '
Fast for Gaza' last night. Our Guest of Honour was Waqar from Sheffield. He's been all the way to Gaza but had never been to York before!
Waqar gave us a blow-by-blow account of the journey from Sheffield to Gaza - and his own personal journey in what must have been a life-changing experience. (Viva Palestina are sending another convoy on
October 3rd. So all you guys who want to get in on a mad mission-with-a-purpose, go to their website NOW; - I say 'mad' only because it is crazy ideas that change the world, and a lurking doubt as to whether this is the best method logistics-wise to get the stuff to Gaza. But what-the-hell - next time I hope there will be a York bus/ambulance/fire-engine/F15 in the convoy.)
Why did this magnificent convoy get so little mention in the British Press - the world Jewish conspiracy? the anti-GG (Geogre Galloway) lobby? No - the bloody complacent, spineless British Press, who can't recognise an exciting story-with-a-purpose when they see one.
God, they should make a film out of it! (The only mention I saw was when some of the guys were picked up by the fuzz in Lancashire on
terrorism allegations, only to be let free 3 days later by which time they had missed the boat.)
(See Rod Cox's blog for a very different point of view on Ge Ogre Galloway: could this be a case of two magnificent egos rubbing each other up the wrong way?)Anyhow, Waqar has a video on Youtube - it's
hereor you can just Google "Waqar Viva convoy".
I should warn you - there's some pretty ghastly pictures in it. But also a lot of guys changing their lives and changing the world. It must have been tough, but it must have been fun.
Waqar took us through Sheffield, London, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisa, Libya (where Colonel G donated 100 large trucks full of supplies - now I bet THAT was reported in the Tripoli Telegraph!), and then into Egypt which was the only place where they were seriously harassed. It's in situations like that where the good old British passport can be extremely useful.
I can't summarise Waqar's story; but we taped part of it and I hope to put that up soon here.
The bad news is that in Gaza it's the same old story - unchanged for 61 years, except that it's got worse. And I'm angry that our press, church and people are now looking the other way.
