Field Trip
UPDATE: Hamas, a few links short of a human chain. JPost:
Despite concerns that Palestinian demonstrators against the continued blockade of the Gaza Strip would attempt to storm the border with Israel during a “human chain” demonstration Monday, the event itself proved an anticlimax and the thousands of Israeli security personnel manning the Israeli side of the border were not forced to cope with the nightmare scenario.
About 5,000 people, many of them schoolchildren released from school early to attend the event and university students, joined the “human chain” outside the town of Beit Hanun, about six kilometers from the border.
The crowd hoisted banners in English and Arabic, saying “End the siege of Gaza now,” and “Your siege will not break our will.”
Organizers had hoped to form a chain running the length of the 40-kilometer Gaza Strip, but turnout was well below expectations.
After the protest ended, some 2,000 Hamas loyalists marched to a checkpoint several kilometers away from Erez checkpoint. Hamas police, however, blocked the main road leading to Erez and called on loyalists to obey the law.
So the non-violence experiment was a bust, though also non-violent.
Earlier, re the terrorist group deployment of schoolchildren. AFP:
GAZA CITY, Feb 25, 2008 (AFP) — Palestinian schoolchildren were forming a human chain the length of the Gaza Strip on Monday to protest a crushing Israeli blockade, with Israeli forces on alert for any rush on the border.
Coming from around Gaza, they were joined by adults along the main highway traversing the centre of the impoverished coastal strip, known as Salaheddin Road, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
“The Siege of Gaza Will Only Strengthen Us,” “The World Has Condemned Gaza to Death” and “Save Gaza” were among banners brandished by demonstrators, who were gathering peacefully.
The Popular Committee Against the Siege, a politically independent group headed by Jamal al-Khudari, an MP with close links to the Islamist Hamas movement, had called for the demonstration against the months-long siege.
The aim was to construct a human chain from the sealed Rafah crossing on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt to the Beit Hanun (Erez) crossing in the north along the territory’s main highway.
I’d guess the aim is actually maximum embarrassment to Israel. No wincing, kids! There is nothing new about Palestinian terrorists, or Islamic terrorists in general, using children. It will be interesting to see whether Hamas actually intends this to be a non-violent Gandhi-MLK style protest, or if it is looking to provoke something with a lot of schoolkids as human shields/targets. All those kids, after all, have been schooled to expect a glorious death at the hands of the Zionists, barring that, a pathetic one. Ha’aretz reported yesterday Hamas’ Kumbayahist plans call for the kids to engage in a symbolic stonethrowing at the Erez border crossing, though not to actually hit anyone. I guess that’s about as Gandhian as Hamas gets. The organizers swear its a new leaf. Times of London:
“This is a peaceful and civilised act to let the people express their rejection of the siege and of collective punishment,” Jamal al-Khudari, leader of the Popular Committee Against the Siege, the pro-Hamas organisers, said. “We are raising a cry to the world for it to act.”
Ismail al-Ashqar, a Hamas MP, warned that, if the international community ignored the demonstration, “there will be a hurricane that will flood the whole region”.
Well, let’s be realistic. Non-violence has its limits. The question is always exactly where you draw the line, and what you intend to launch over it. Though I’d have thought if there was a hurricane out there somewhere, it would have flooded the region by now.
Topics: Palestinians
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 6:45 am on Monday, February 25, 2008
2 Responses to “Field Trip”
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February 25th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Apparently they went with the human chain because not enough people showed up to storm the Israeli side. Guess the Gazans didn’t feel like getting martyred for Hamas.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:49 pm
[...] guess the Hamas experiment with Gandhi-ism is pretty much done. The question is when the Israeli government and the Palestinian people’s [...]