A Month by the Sea

by Dervla Murphy

  Twelve minutes later a limousine picked us up and as the driver was about to start, three young men gathered around his door, leaning on the bonnet, demanding a lift to Gate 2. They all spoke together and as the argument lengthened we protested, quite vigorously. ‘No problem,’ said the driver, ‘wait five minutes’ – at which point I again misbehaved, thumping my fist on the window beside me, not caring at that moment if I broke it. The driver then took fright and accelerated hard, leaving the young men shouting furiously and waving their fists. We sped under the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ archway, then crawled through three checkpoints where Egyptian soldiers in crumpled uniforms spent time fumbling with our passports and examining our departure tax receipts as though they were likely to be forged.

  Since my arrival there had been a development in the long, wide corridor leading to the Travel House concourse. Four mobile booths displayed hand-written bilingual notices – ‘Government of Egypt Customs’. Each was equipped with a luggage weighing-scales and two cheerful, friendly customs officers over-keen to justify their existence. They opened and examined every item of everybody’s baggage. At one stage I caught Gunnar looking at me rather anxiously, perhaps fearing the enraged old lady would have a stroke and die on the spot.

  Hundreds of obviously stressed-out travellers thronged the vast passport control concourse where our final ordeal was a currency crisis. Passports cannot be stamped before the departure tax is paid and only Egyptian pounds (of which we had none) are acceptable and the bank in the corner was firmly locked. It was now 5.20 and a policeman told us it wouldn’t open until the morrow. But for the Swedes, I might have spent that night in Travel House. Gunnar disappeared for some ten minutes and returned with a bank clerk. But then our passports had to be taken upstairs and it was 6.40 before I was free to half-run to Gate 2 where I could see Abdallah frantically waving, wreathed in smiles. He was accompanied by his charming eldest son because he had expected quite a long delay …

  Epilogue

  In mid-June we had heard that Freedom Flotilla II hoped soon to be on the high seas. At the end of the month my ISM friend Tom flew from Cairo to join the US vessel, Audacity of Hope. Perhaps she was inauspiciously named; yet again the sailor activists were thwarted. Greece and Cyprus had given in to US bullying and saboteurs crippled the Swedish Juliano and the Irish MV Saoirse.

  Working fast, the Flotilla’s international supporters (a group whimsically known as ‘the Flytilla’) proposed a 9 July protest meeting in Bethlehem to publicise the bullying and sabotaging and to challenge Israel’s tightening restrictions on foreigners’ entry to the West Bank. Meanwhile, Ruth Zakh of the Israeli embassy in Dublin had provided a classic example of the Zionists’ much used smear technique. She accused Freedom Flotilla I, which lost nine activists to the IDF, of being ‘associated with IHH, an Istanbul-based terrorist organization’. IHH is a Turkish ISI, legally registered as a charity and an energetic advocate of non-violent movements.

  I had just arrived home when the Irish Times reported an unprecedented Israeli reaction to the ‘Flytilla’. Certain European airlines had been given a list of 342 ‘suspected activists’ who would be denied visas at Ben-Gurion airport – the carriers to foot the bill for any passengers on one-way tickets. As a result (according to a smug Israeli police spokesperson), more than 200 people holding tickets for Tel Aviv were not allowed to board their flights. (Perhaps the airlines feared Mossad saboteurs.) Two US women who arrived in the small hours of 8 July were deported instantly, followed later that day by 65 others, from France, Switzerland and Germany. More than one hundred from a variety of countries (including a middle-aged Irishwoman named Dee Murphy: no relation) refused to sign deportation papers and were held for a week in Ben-Gurion’s ‘detention facility’. Netanyahu denounced them all as ‘provocateurs who would reinforce Palestinian pro-Flotilla rallies’. My good Beit Sahour friend, Mazin Qumsiyeh, Professor of Genetics at Yale, noted that this crackdown confirmed the Flotilla movement’s effectiveness. He was well satisfied with the publicity given to Israel’s gangster-like interference with the legitimate operations of international airlines.

  Four months later the MV Saoirse – carrying no aid cargo, only passengers – sailed from the Turkish port of Fethiye accompanied by the Canadian al-Tahrir. Some 50 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast both vessels were boarded by Israel’s piratical sailors; they had not entered, and were not planning to enter, Israeli territorial waters. The fourteen Irish citizens were detained for a week before being deported. I have signed on for Freedom Flotilla III.

  Middle East Conflict Timeline

  1897 First Zionist Congress in Switzerland establishes the World Zionist Organisation to secure a ‘home for the Jewish people in Palestine’, in response to European, and particularly Russian, anti-Semitism.

  1917 Balfour Declaration. In a letter to Lord Rothschild, Britain’s Foreign Secretary, Lord Arthur Balfour, announces his government’s support for the establishment of ‘a Jewish national home in Palestine’. The British also make a potentially contradictory promise of independence for an Arab nation covering most of the Arab Middle East in exchange for Arab support against the Ottomans.

  1920–48 Mandatory Palestine. In the aftermath of World War I, Britain is awarded a legal commission to administer Palestine, confirmed by League of Nations. Arab discontent with British rule and increasing Jewish immigration leads to clashes between all parties.

  1939–45 Some six million Jews are murdered in the Holocaust by Nazi Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are displaced, fleeing Nazi persecution.

  1947 Britain announces that she will withdraw from Palestine in 1948 and hands over responsibility to the UN. The UN passes Resolution 181, which recommends dividing the territory into separate Jewish and Palestinian states and is accepted by the Jewish Agency but rejected by the Arab Higher Committee. The plan was never implemented, overtaken by civil war on the ground.

  May 1948 The State of Israel is proclaimed in Tel Aviv. British troops withdraw and Palestinians face al-Nakba, the Catastrophe. In a fiercely fought battle for territory, by the end of the year Israel occupies some 75% of what had been the British Mandate. Almost three quarters of a million Palestinian are forced from their homes and settle in refugee camps in Jordan, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon.

  1949–67 Gaza is ruled by Egypt, initially under the auspices of the All Palestine Government.

  June 1967 During The Six Day War, known as an-Naksah (The Setback) to the Palestinians, Israel doubles its land-holding, taking Gaza and the Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.

  1973 Yom Kippur War. To try to regain territory lost in 1967, Egypt and Syria launch attacks against Israel on the festival of Yom Kippur. Three weeks later Israel has reversed all her initial losses.

  September 1978 Egypt and Israel sign Camp David accords, leading to the return of the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt in 1982.

  1987–93 First Intifada. The Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory consists largely of non-violent resistance.

  1993 Oslo Accords. During secret talks in Norway, the Palestinians recognise Israel’s right to exist within her pre-1967 borders, and Israel agrees to gradually cede control of the Palestinian territories to the Palestinians. Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shake hands on the White House lawn after signing the Declaration of Principles, but the most difficult issues, such as the status of Jerusalem, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees, are undecided. These prove impossible to resolve in the suggested five-year timeframe.

  July 2000 Camp David Peace Summit. In the seven years since the Oslo accords, continued Palestinian suicide bombings and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza undermine the peace process. This attempt to address outstanding issues, initiated by President Clinton, is unable to break the deadlock.

  2000–05 The Second Intifada is characterised by an intensification of suicide bombings by P
alestinians in Israel, and of targeted Israeli assassinations of Palestinian militants, as well as Israeli air strikes and incursions into Palestinian areas of self-rule. Israel begins to build a wall dividing the West Bank.

  2005 Israeli withdraws troops and settlers from Gaza.

  January 2006 Hamas, an Islamist party whose charter then denied Israel’s right to exist, wins a majority in the Palestinian parliamentary elections and forms a government, but Israel, the US and the EU refuse to negotiate with it.

  March 2007 Hamas and Fatah form a national unity government, headed by Hamas’ Ismail Haniya. Israel still refuses to negotiate, calling Hamas a terrorist organisation. Behind the scenes, Israel, Egypt and the US conspire with Fatah to isolate, weaken and topple Hamas.

  June 2007 Battle of Gaza. As trust between Hamas and Fatah breaks down, Hamas seizes power in Gaza, ousting Fatah officials.

  2007 Blockade of Gaza. Israel and Egypt seal most border crossings. Israel maintains that this is to prevent Hamas obtaining weapons with which to attack Israel. Egypt maintains that recognizing Hamas by opening the border would undermine the Palestinian National Authority and drive a permanent wedge between the Palestinian factions.

  December 2008–January 2009 Gaza War. The Israel Defence Forces’ Operation Cast Lead begins on December 27th, ostensibly to stop rocket fire into Israel. A ceasefire was agreed on January 18th, after the death of at least 1300 Palestinians and 13 Israelis, four of the latter from friendly fire. The UN Goldstone Report, released in September 2009, accuses both sides of war crimes.

  May 31st 2010 Israeli commandos board ships of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters, killing nine passengers, some at point blank range. The boats are attempting to deliver aid and building materials through the blockade.

  June 2010 International pressure forces Israel to lessen the restrictions on importing goods into Gaza, but a 2011 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs assessment concluded that this had not resulted in a significant improvement in people’s livelihoods in Gaza.

  May 28th 2011 The Rafah Gate reopens in the wake of the overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt.

  Glossary

  al-Qassam the military wing of Hamas, created in 1992

  al-Shatat Palestinians living outside Israel and the OPT

  Dayton Brigade

  US-trained Palestinian forces operating on the West Bank

  Eretz Israel all the territory of Ottoman Palestine (Greater Israel)

  Galabiya (Ar.) a loose, collarless floor-length robe worn by men and originating in Egypt

  Goldstone Enquiry

  Commission set up by the UN to investigate Israeli and Palestinian war crimes during Operation Cast Lead

  Gush Emunim a political movement, no longer officially in existence, committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights

  Hasbara (Heb.) propaganda

  Hijab (Ar.) a headscarf worn in front of men and in public to cover a woman’s hair

  International a foreigner (usually an unpaid volunteer) living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and supporting Palestinians in various non-violent ways

  Intifada a period of intensified Palestinian struggle against occupation. The First Intifada ran between 1987– 93, the Second from 2000–5

  Islamic Jihad a small Palestinian armed organisation, formed in 1979 to fight for the sovereignty of Palestine and freedom from Israel

  Jilbab (Ar.) an ankle-length, long-sleeved overgarment worn by women

  Mizrahi a Jew whose family migrated to Israel from an Arab country

  Nakba the 1947–8 uprooting of the Palestinians from their homeland

  Naksa Day anniversary of Israel’s seizure, in June 1967, of the West Bank from Jordan, the Sinai from Egypt and the Golan Heights from Syria.

  Olga Appeal call for political reform issued by a gathering of Israeli scholars and activists in 2004

  Oslo Accords Agreements signed in 1993 and 1995 between the PLO and Israel

  Salafist Muslims who emphasise their rigid adherence to seventh-century Islam

  Samoud (Ar.) fortitude (sometimes defined as a mix of courage, obstinacy and pride)

  Tánaiste Irish deputy prime minister

  Thobe (Ar.) an ankle-length robe with small collar, worn by men and originating in Arabia

  Abbreviations

  ADL Anti-Defamation League

  AIPAC American Israel Public Affairs Committee

  AMA Access and Movement Arrangement

  BDS Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign

  EUBAM European Union Border Assistance Mission

  HLF Holy Land Foundation

  ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross

  IDF Israel Defence Forces

  IEM Inborn Error of Metabolism

  ISI Islamic Social Institutions

  ISM International Support Movement

  IUG Islamic University of Gaza

  JNF Jewish National Fund

  OPT Occupied Palestinian Territories

  PA Palestinian Authority, renamed PNA – the Palestinian National Authority

  PFLP Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

  PLC Palestinian Legislative Council

  PLO Palestine Liberation Organisation

  PWWSD Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development

  SCF Save the Children Fund

  UNRWA United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East

  Bibliography

  Abunimah, Ali, One Country: a Bold Proposal to End the Israeli– Palestinian Impasse (Henry Holt 2006)

  Aloni, Udi et al., What Does a Jew Want? On Binationalism and Other Specters (Columbia University Press 2011)

  Arrigoni, Vittorio, Gaza: Stay Human (Kube Publishing 2010)

  Cook, Jonathan, Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (Pluto Press 2008)

  Davis, Uri, Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within (Zed Books 2003)

  Hass, Amira, Drinking the Sea at Gaza: Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege (Henry Holt 1999)

  Hilal, Jamil, ed., Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution (Zed Books 2007)

  Karmi, Ghada, In Search of Fatima (Verso 2002)

  Kemp, Martin, ‘Dehumanization, Guilt and Large Group Dynamics, with Reference to the West, Israel and the Palestinians’, British Journal of Psychotherapy (2011) 27 (4)

  Levy, Gideon, The Punishment of Gaza (Verso 2010)

  Lock, Sharyn and Irving, Sarah, Gaza Beneath the Bombs (Pluto Press 2010)

  Milton-Edwards, Beverley and Farrell, Stephen, Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Polity Press 2010)

  Morris, Benny, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist–Arab conflict, 1881–2001 (Vintage Books 1999)

  Nimni, Ephraim, ed., The Challenge of Post-Zionism: Alternatives to Israeli Fundamentalist Politics (Zed Books 2003)

  Pappé, Ilan, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (Oneworld Publications 2006)

  Qumsiyeh, Mazin B., Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human Rights and the Israeli–Palestinian Struggle (Pluto Press 2004)

  Reinhart, Tanya, The Road Map to Nowhere (Verso 2006)

  Roy, Sara, Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector (Princeton University Press 2011)

  Ruthven, Malise, Fundamentalism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP 2007)

  Said, Edward W., Peace and its Discontents: Essays on Palestine in the Middle East Peace Process (Vintage Books 1995)

  Sandercock, Josie et al., Peace Under Fire (Verso 2004)

  Shlaim, Avi, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Penguin 2000)

  Index

  Note: Dervla Murphy’s friends, contacts and helpers have been gathered under the heading ‘contacts’.

  Abbas, Mahmoud 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Abdel-Razeq, Omar 1

  Abu Shanab, Ismail 1

  Abu Walid al-Maqdas 1

  Abunimah, Ali 1, 2

  Adams, Gerry 1
<
br />   adoption 1

  al-Agha, Mohammed 1

  agriculture child labour 1

  collapse of 1

  honey 1

  IDF destruction of 1, 2

  organic 1

  soil and water contamination 1, 2, 3

  tree losses 1

  water supply 1

  airport 1, 2, 3

  alcohol 1, 2, 3

  Almond, Marc 1

  Arab Spring, effect on Palestinians 1

  Arafat, Yasser 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

  Argo, Daniel 1

  Arrigoni, Vittorio 1, 2, 3, 4

  Ayalon, Danny 1

  Ayyash, Yahya (The Engineer) 1, 2

  al-Azhar University 1, 2

  Balata refugee camp 1

  Balfour Declaration 1

  Ban Ki-Moon 1

  banks and banking 1, 2

  Barghouti, Marwan 1, 2

  Bauer, Yehuda 1

  Beit Hanoun 1, 2, 3

  Ben-Ami, Shlomo 1

  Ben-Gurion, David 1

  Benvenisti, Meron 1

  Biletzki, Anat 1

  bin Laden, Osama 1

  binationalism 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

  Black September 1

  Blair, Tony 1, 2, 3

  blockade and building materials 1

  effect of 1, 2, 3

  history of 1, 2

  illegality of 1

  Israel’s restrictions lessened 1, 2

  see also tunnel economy

  border area and civilian casualties 1, 2

  creation of 1, 2

  IDF security zone 1, 2, 3

  mines 1

  Nakba Day protest march 1, 2