[R-G] Activists visit Gaza to witness aftermath of war

[Anthony Fenton]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090309.wgaza09/BNStory/International/home

Activists visit Gaza to witness aftermath of war


ORLY HALPERN

 From Monday's Globe and Mail

March 9, 2009 at 4:44 AM EDT

JERUSALEM — They are organic farmers, art gallery owners, writers and  
activists - regular people. And this week they are doing what Foreign  
Minister Lawrence Cannon would not do on his trip to the Middle East  
last week: They're visiting the war-ravaged Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

The visitors include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker and  
about 60 other people who arrived over the weekend to celebrate  
International Women's Day and see for themselves what life is like for  
Palestinians after Israel's devastating 22-day offensive.

The group visited women's centres and organizations across the Gaza  
Strip yesterday, handing out about 2,000 aid baskets. They listened to  
the stories of the women, some of whose children were killed in the  
war. Over the next few days they will visit refugee camps and  
neighbourhoods levelled by Israeli shells and artillery.

"This is not a gimmick; it's a strategy," Kim Elliott, Toronto  
publisher of the independent news website http://www.rabble.ca, said  
in a phone interview from her hotel in Gaza City. "It's for [us] to  
see what it's really like and make the personal connection and go back  
to [our] homes to talk about it."

Ms. Elliott plans to give a presentation to the Canada-Palestine  
parliamentary committee upon her return. She is not alone. A 300- 
person convoy called VivaPalestina and led by the controversial  
British MP George Galloway arrived yesterday at the Rafah crossing.  
But whether the visitors will be able to bring pressure on their  
governments to change their policies remains an open question.

"All great changes come from minorities," Alice Walker insisted during  
a phone interview from the home of a Palestinian family where she was  
being hosted.

"In fact, they usually come from two to three people - especially if  
they are writers," said Ms. Walker, best known for her novel The Color  
Purple. She said she danced, sang and ate and listened to the women  
and that she saw "a lot of sadness on the faces of the children."

The visitors not only had to take a bus for hours from Cairo across  
the Sinai Desert, they were required to pay their embassies to write  
letters declaring that they assumed sole responsibility for their  
lives upon entering the Gaza Strip.

"It cost $130!" said Ehab Lotayef, a 50-year-old Montreal engineer who  
was able to enter Gaza with the assistance of the U.S. women's peace  
group Code Pink, which organized the delegation.

"I think they didn't want a bunch of women with big banners camping  
out at the border crossing," said Sandra Ruch, 52, a Torontonian and  
program co-ordinator for Women's Coalition for Peace in Israel and  
Independent Jewish Voices in Canada.

The VivaPalestina convoy was not as lucky. Egyptian border officials  
would not allow them to bring in all the supplies that they had  
brought. The group is now waiting at the border, according to Egyptian  
media.