Nice report at Phillip Weiss's blog from some of the people that got into Gaza last week.
_________________________
_________________________
I asked her why she said Gaza is worse than the prison she worked in back in Pennsylvania
My group is leaving Gaza over the next couple of days. A few of us don’t want to leave. We feel connected to the place, and the people have been universally welcoming. They all say the same thing. They want to be part of the world, their cause has been cast away by the world.
A number of us feel guilty that we half-believed the propaganda about Gaza. I did myself. I thought it was a fearful place and I was taking my life in my hands. One friend is angry at herself for worrying about her safety constantly before she left. Now it feels egotistical next to these people's safety. John Ging of the U.N. said that if the people were really indoctrinating their children with hatred in the schools, then how come we have been safe everywhere we go?
We had a meeting of the group tonight to go over tomorrow's schedule, and someone asked for people to reflect and Susan Johnson spoke about how wrenching it was to meet so many intelligent people whose largest desire is to live a normal life.
“I’ve done work in prison,” she said. “This is worse than being in prison. How people can be so cruel to other people-- I don’t understand, I just don’t understand it. I can understand how people in the United States don’t know it’s as bad as it is. That's because of the press, and we’re probably at this point the best hope these people have for getting the word out. I look on that as a really big responsibility. I don’t want to let them down. I’m not ready to leave.”
Comments
Post a Comment