Turkey sending ten boats to break Gaza Siege

Turkish Charity IHH is now a Joint Venture Operator with FreeGaza to send ten boats in Next Flotilla to break the siege.

The involvement of Turkish Charity IHH in becoming a joint venture partner in sending siege-breaking boats to Gaza ratchets up the pressure on Israel. Despite the bandaging of wounds following the humiliation of the Turkish Ambassador, when Turkey threatened to end diplomatic relations, Netanyahu has put his foot in it again, telling France that mediation with Syria depends on a mediator both parties can trust, such as France. This is a clear statement that Israel does not trust Turkey, since Syria plainly does. The snub is great, since Turkey were the mediators until recently, and were credited with making ground between the sides. Commentators feel that in reality Israel wants to kick Syria into the long grass, as it has done with Palestine. Prime Minister of Turkey Erdogan has, as a result, again blasted Israel, again raised Gaza as a symbol of Israeli aggression and racism.

Soon IHH will be sending Turkish boats with Turkish crews: will Turkey stand by while Israel stops and 'arrests' them, or turns them back? This is shaping up to a crucial standoff, and the stakes are very high, for if Israel loses face, Hamas will be strengthened in its belief that Israel only understands force, and never negotiates, since the UN and US and UK, come to that, have failed to negotiate any relief for Gaza as friends.

Turkey risks not only losing face, and looking weak if Israel is allowed to stop Turkish Merchant ships on a lawful activity, but if it intervenes, it must have a strong diplomatic hand to prevent the US and the UK from trying to get it out of the club of Israel Supporters called NATO, and marginalising it along with all the other Moslem states that have resisted Israel.

Below is an article from the Independent (UK) by Fisk, that shows how Israel is prepared to use the mass murder of 1.5 million people against Turkey, only when it suits it. Up to now it has supported Turkey's cover up of the Pogrom, because it wants the Holocaust of Jews to be unique. That way Jews are uniquely privileged to do things others are not. It is shocking how they put pressure on Armenian survivors of that Holocaust, that they will not even permit to be Israeli citizens, to speak out against Turkey.

My dream is that Turkey admits its Holocaust, its Shoah, its ethnic cleansing under Attaturk, bravely, and apologise, and compensate. Its recent re-establishment of relations with Armenia is a good first step. Let Turkey please show that it can settle the question of refugees displaced by ethnic cleansing fairly.

Then let it defend its blockade breaking boats as they strive to do the same for the people of Palestine.

Robert Fisk’s World: ❝Israel can no longer ignore the existence of the first Holocaust

Recognition of the Armenian genocide is a paramount moral and educational act

Saturday, 30 January 2010

While Israelis commemorated the second Holocaust of the 20th century this week, I was in the Gulbenkian library in Jerusalem, holding the printed and handwritten records of the victims of the century's first Holocaust. It was a strange sensation.

The Armenians were not participating in Israel's official ceremonies to remember the six million Jewish dead, murdered by the Germans between 1939 and 1945, perhaps because Israel officially refuses to acknowledge that Armenia's million and a half dead of 1915-1923 were victims of a Turkish Holocaust. Israeli-Turkish diplomatic and military relations are more important than genocide. Or were.

George Hintlian, historian and prominent member of Jerusalem's 2,000-strong Armenian community in Jerusalem, pointed out the posters a few metres from the 1,500-year old Armenian monastery. They advertised Armenia's 24 April commemorations. All but one had been defaced, torn from the ancient walls or, in at least one case, spraypainted with graffiti in Hebrew. "Maybe they don't like it that there was another genocide," George told me. "These are things we can't explain." More than 70 members of George's family were murdered in the butchery and death marches of 1915 – when German officers witnessed the system of executions, rail-car deportations to cholera camps and asphyxiation by smoke in caves – the world's first "gas" chambers. One witness, the German vice-consul in Erzurum, Max von Scheubner-Richter, ended up as one of Hitler's closest friends and advisers. It's not as if there's no connection between the first and second Holocausts.

But the times, they are a-changing. For ever since Turkey began shouting about Israel's slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza a year ago, prominent Israeli figures have suddenly rediscovered the Armenian genocide. Who are the Turks to talk about mass murder? Has anyone forgotten 1915? For George and his compatriots – there are in all 10,000 Armenians in Israel and the occupied West Bank, 4,000 of them holding Israeli passports – they had indeed been forgotten until the Gaza war. "In 1982, the Armenians were left out of a Holocaust conference in Jerusalem," he said. "For three decades, no documentary on the Armenian genocide could be shown on Israeli television because it would offend the Turks. Then suddenly last year, important Israelis demanded that a documentary be shown. Thirty Knesset members supported us. We always had Yossi Sarid of Peace Now but now we've got right-wing Israelis."

Maariv and Yediot Ahronot began to mention the Armenian genocide and George Hintlian turned up on Israeli television with Danny Ayalon – the foreign office minister who humiliated the Turkish ambassador by forcing him to sit on a sofa below him – and Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin who said that Israel should commemorate the Armenian genocide "every year". The Israeli press now calls the Armenian genocide a "Shoah" – the same word all Israelis use for the Jewish Holocaust. As George put it with withering accuracy: "We have been upgraded!!!"

This piece of brash hypocrisy has not gone unnoticed by Yossi Sarid who has described how, a few months after Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the Gaza war, "an important Israeli personality telephoned me and said the following: 'Now you have to hit back at the Turks, to denounce them for the crimes they committed against the Armenians You, Yossi, have the right to do so...'" Sarid was appalled. "I was filled with revulsion and my soul wanted to puke," he wrote in Haaretz. "The person who telephoned me was an example of the ugly Israeli who had disgracefully been at the forefront of those who denied the Armenian Holocaust." So now "new tunes" – Sarid's phrase – are being heard in Jerusalem: "The Turks are the last ones who have the right to teach us ethics."

The bright side to this anguished debate is that one of Israel's top Holocaust experts bravely insisted – to the fury of then-foreign minister (now president) Shimon Peres – that the Armenian massacres were undoubtedly a genocide. Tens of thousands of Israelis have always believed the same; several hundred are expected to turn up at the Armenian commemoration on 24 April, and most Israelis refer to the Armenian genocide as a "Shoah" rather than the tame "massacres" hitherto favoured by the political elite.

Yet the most extraordinary irony of all occurred when the Armenian and Turkish governments last year agreed to reopen diplomatic relations and consign the Armenian Holocaust to a joint academic enquiry which would decide "if" there had been a genocide. As Israeli Professor Yair Oron of the Open University of Israel said, "I am afraid that countries will now hesitate to recognise the (Armenian) genocide. They will say: 'Why should we grant recognition if the Armenians yielded?' Recognition of the Armenian genocide is a paramount moral and educational act. We in Israel are obliged to recognise it." And American-Armenian UCLA Professor Richard Hovannisian asked: "Would the Jewish people be willing to forgo the memory of the Holocaust for the sake of good relations with Germany, if Germany were to make that demand?" George Hintlian described the Armenian-Turkish agreement – which in fact may not now be ratified by either side – as "like an earthquake".

We walked together in the cold afternoon through the darkened interior of the great Armenian monastery of Jerusalem with its icons and candles. George opened a cabinet to reveal a hidden staircase up which priests would creep for a secret week when invaders passed through Jerusalem. In this dank, pious place, Ronald Henry Amhurst Storrs, governor of British Mandate Jerusalem, would often sit to ponder what he called "the glory and the misery of a people".

Miserable it has been for thousands of Armenians here. Up to 15,000 lived in Palestine until 1948, many of them survivors of the first Holocaust. But 10,000 of these Armenians shared the same fate as the Palestinian Arabs, fleeing or driven from their homes by the army of the new Israeli state. Most lost their businesses in Haifa and Jaffa, many of them seeking refuge – for the second time – in Jerusalem. A few set out for Cyprus where they were dispossessed for the third time by the 1974 Turkish invasion. As George put it bleakly, "Today, 6,000 Armenians are residents of Jerusalem and the West Bank. They cannot travel and they are counted as Armenian Palestinians. For Israeli bureaucracy, they are Palestinians."

George himself is the son of Garbis Hintlian who, as a 17-year-old, survived the death march from his home at Talas in Cappadocia. "We lost my uncle – my grandfather was axed to death in front of him." After the 1918 armistice, he worked for the British, carrying files of evidence to the initial (but quickly abandoned) Constantinople trials of Turkish war criminals. To no avail.

And glory be, if the tables haven't changed again! Turkey and Israel have made up and become good friends again. Yossi Sarid anticipated this. "Let us assume that Turkey will renew its ties with Israel. Then what? What then? Will we also renew our contribution to the denial of the Armenian Holocaust?❞

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Turkey refuses to lie down

It's great to hear that Turkey is standing up for itself in various spats with Israel, refusing to let its diplomats be humiliated in a row about how Israel is depicted in two different dramas on Turkish TV. Turkey says it is upholding its right to free speech and that what is inside its borders is none of Israel's business. Israel responds by summoning the Ambassador and belittling him publicly, and Turkey demands an unequivocal apology or it will break diplomatic relations tomorrow.

Turkey could be a major player in the liberation of Gaza. A Turkish NGO, but accompanied by many Turkish MPs, was on the Viva Palestina convoy, and it was the same Turkish NGO that procured the very expensive ferry that took the 200 vehicles to El Arish from Syria by sea after Egypt changed its mind at the last minute and sent the convoy back by this route. The Turks have a particular bee in their bonnet about Gaza, so the fact that the Government supported NGO have signed up to send two boats on the next FreeGaza voyage from Cyprus to Gaza is really exciting.

The Turkish boats will not be allowed to dock in Greek Cyprus because the G Cypriots do not recognise the breakaway Turkish sponsored state of North Cyprus. The EU has been trying to broker a peace deal, prior to the Greek part becoming part of the EU, but although the Turks voted overwhelmingly for it, the Greeks voted it down. As a result, only the Greek part was admitted to the EU.

So the Turkish boats will presumably travel separately and join at sea. The Cypriots, however, a small nation without much in the way of a Navy, are getting pissed off at the way that Israel has been stopping the FreeGaza boats, which their little government has invested a lot of time into. And as it stands, there is nothing to stop the Israelis arresting the whole flotilla of an expected six boats, just as they arrested or rammed various previous boats.

A Turkish Warship might stop them!

Turkey has a legitimate interest in this area and if a warship accompanied the boats, it would only be in accord with international law and the Geneva Conventions, which make it Israel's responsibility to allow the places they occupy to have a normal life, and failing which, anyone can legally run the blockade to relieve the humanitarian problems so created.

Turkey would be protecting its own merchant shipping, and would surely score Brownie points with G Cyprus for helping their boats too. As a major power in the area, Turkey cannot be simply overridden and ignored like Cyprus or even Greece - the flag of the last boat captured. The UK and US could hardly protest, since they proclaim a wish to lift the siege, and the reaction would be very interesting, to say the least.

Am I dreaming? Maybe, military brinkmanship can never be desirable, and responsible nations do not enter into it lightly - that's why we're so angry with Blair, who did. And the ISM, the ideology behind the FreeGaza group, are a non-violent movement that would prefer to sail to Gaza with a cargo of humanity so valuable that Israel dare not stop it without raising the wroth of the world. The ISM will work with everyone, but will not put itself under obligation to anyone, party or state. I doubt that FreeGaza will 'sign-up' to Turkish protection.

On the other hand, Israel is positively reckless in its military adventures, not just in its 'own' occupied territories, but in Lebanon, which it overflies daily, and in bombing Iran and Iraq and Syria; not to mention the assassination squads of which it is so proud, and which have killed many innocent people and snatched Vanunu (the man who told us about Israeli Nuclear Weapons) back from political Asylum in the UK and imprisoned him for life. And the world has so far failed to act even when hundreds of Europeans, including MPs, get attacked or arrested by Israel or by Egypt on their behalf. The UK Government failed to respond to MPs who asked that the Government protest to Israel when a British registered FreeGaza boat was rammed in what was clearly international waters. The impunity of the Israeli Military has to end, and I dare to hope that the present row over the content of Turkish television soaps may yet provide the Causus Belli for Turkey, already seething about the lack of substance in the condemnation of Israel over Gaza. Actually, there's a lot that can be done that's less than a warship.

With the next FreeGaza fleet scheduled to sail in the spring, I hope for interesting times.

A New Year

A Happy, Productive and Successful New Year to:

This posting is about Abd Rabo Husein, of Yibna, Rafah, but before his story, can I say Congratulations to all who have travelled out to Gaza on the Viva Palestina Convoy, or with Code Pink direct to Egypt, or by themselves to El Arish. May you be successful in this new Year. All have been subject to arbitrary Egptian actions. Those on Egyptian soil have been arrested or attacked by riot police, whilst the Viva Palestina convoy has been forced to return to Syria and set off by boat for Gaza from there via El Arish in Egypt. They could have driven to Gaza from Aqaba after a short ferry crossing to Taba or Nuweiba in a few hours, but this would have meant travelling along the Israeli border on a road closed to foreigners. Why is it closed just to foreigners? Think Israeli security demands, and a supine, greedy Egyptian Government.

This ludicrous demand by the Egyptians means the boat will have to sail past Israel, and then on past Gaza to El Arish. It thrilled me to think that three boats, 200 vehicles, 500? people, would be sailing within 30 miles of Gaza Port, and a little leftwards turn would sail them directly to their destination. But the Egyptians have thought of that, and decreed that only vehicles will travel by sea. People must fly.

My heart goes out to all those people who have given up a large slice of their time to try and break the siege of Gaza, and they deserve respect and support. Many participants will be constrained by time, and will soon have to return for work or study, but signs that people are hardening their positions comes from hearing of those now in their 5th or 6th day of hunger strike in Cairo.

A key moment in breaking British resolve to stop unlimited immigration by Jews into Palestine after World War II came with the arrival of the ship Exodus, which was turned back from Haifa, and which Zionist Terrorists threatened to blow up with all its passengers if it wasn't allowed to land. The UK Government gave in to this threat by terrorists, and effectively, by giving in, gave Palestine into the Zionist control. This episode has been an important learning experience for Palestinian armed groups too.

Let us not threaten to blow up the boat, but must it travel without passengers at all? And must it go to El Arish instead of directly to Gaza? And must the British Government continue to be completely spineless where Palestine is concerned? The Old Man, below, is a timely reminder of British impact in Palestine:

His name is Abd Rabo Hussein and he was born and lived in Yibna, in what is now Israel. He worked for the British military at Lod airport - what is now known as Ben Gurion Airport. When the Exodus Immigrants, and all of the other immigrants decided at the point of a gun that Palestine would become Israel and that Israel had no room for Yibna which would be cleansed of Palestinians and annihilated, he was turned from a British Asset into a stateless refugee. His work for the British Military, which, as in modern Day Iraq, would have made him a target for Jewish Terrorists, cut no ice with the UK Government, who refused to help him in any way. He fled to Gaza where he was settled in a tent in Rafah Refugee Camp (Yibna Section). When the partition of Palestine, and subsequent land grab by Israel, did not produce the expected return of refugees, and when the UK Government, despite UN resolutions, did nothing to facilitate return, these tents became permanent houses, no bigger than the tent plot provided by the UN:

This is still the case today, and this is one such house, the house of a young family who we see in their kitchen with their only form of heating and cooking.

After the dust from the wars following partition cleared, Mr Hussein found himself in Egypt. He hadn't moved, of course, but Gaza became an Egyptian province. At that time, before the Suez nationalisation, there were British Military bases in Egypt, and Mr Hussein thought that would be a good place to work. The British thought so too, and he was employed for several years in the plating shop and as an electrician on a RAF base near the Suez canal.

Once again the British were not interested in his welfare, simply his work output, and once again they abandoned him to his hovel in Gaza. Once back in Gaza he set up a small workshop, since he was a skilled fitter, and found a small prosperity. But then, after the 1967 'Six Day War', he found himself back in Israel once more, again without moving.

Israeli occupation brought mixed fortunes to the inhabitants of Gaza. It humiliated them, made trade and commerce subject to extreme difficulty, often costing ten times more in bribes to Israeli authorities to move stuff out of or into Gaza via the Israeli port of Ashkelon, than the shipping costs from Ashkelon to, say, China. But unskilled labourers could find work on Israeli settlements at poverty wages compared to Israel, but above average compared to Gaza. But that would not help a skilled fitter like Mr Hussein, so he continued to work in his shop:

He continues to work there today, doing the same work as when the Israelis were there, after they left, and now that he finds himself under siege. He makes the little cookers that the young family have in the picture above, although he can only do this if you can give him the metal from scrap or somewhere, since the import of all metal is prohibited. Living close to the tunnels, as he does, is no help if you don't have the money to buy the goods that come that way.

All his life he has been a hard worker, a skilled fitter, a loyal servant of the British Crown, a deeply law-abiding citizen, a refugee in a place that has been three different countries, none of which is his home, because his home has been stolen, like his country, and eradicated, at least physically. Now he is subject to three governments (Hamas, Fatah/Israel, the UN) at the same time! He is nearly 90 years old. He has no pension, no country takes responsibility for him, and he must work until he dies, although because he lives in a UN refugee camp, he will at least get basic rations and some healthcare.

Whilst rich Israelis sue Germans and others in International courts for property that their families often sold to Nazis (but, as they say, under duress) some of those Israelis live on Land and in Houses they stole from this man and his compatriots, without shame, without guilt, without any empathy. Having a relative who was in a concentration camp or who fled from the Nazis has become a badge that descendants think entitles them to steal what they like. But mostly, they are the descendants, why do they think their Father's suffering should entitle them to privilege, when they give such little care to those whom they continue to kill themselves in the Ghetto of Gaza?

Abd Rabo Hussein is still alive, and he wants to go home. He still remembers his English friend Sgt Cowell, from the plating shop, and would like to contact him.

Hedy Epstein, victim of the Holocaust, is also alive, and her memories of the Holocaust have persuaded her to be on Hunger Strike in Cairo in support of Mr Abd and all the other refugees and besieged Palestinians. Special regard must be directed at those whose suffering leads them not to demand this and that from innocent third parties, but to empathy with those now in a similar position.

I wish them both well, and a happy, productive and above all successful new year, and I hope that Mr Hussein can join Ms Epstein in having grim memories, but that are only memories, of events that have finally ended.

Etiquette at the Rafah Border

It looks like Viva Palestina has become a travel agency for adventurers who want to say that they have been to Gaza! It seems that they were let in without most of their aid (again). When will their leadership start doing something that helps Palestinians rather than helping the Israeli/Egyptian Axis to defuse the Anger in the West. People think the Convoy helps to break the siege, but, it is just collaborating with it!!

If you go to the West Bank, the 'rule' is not to take advantage of the invitation usually extended by the Israelis to foreigners to go to the front of the queue at checkpoints (AKA behaving like an Israeli), and to stay in line and wait with the Palestinians. It's called Solidarity, whereas queue jumping is called Arrogance.
What should the procedure be at the entry to Gaza? Make up your own mind: here's an extract from a posting by the FaceBook Group International Campaign to open the Rafah Border, who are camped at Rafah sometimes on hunger strike, trying to force open the gates:

" Elated at news of the arrival of the Viva Palestina convoy, many of these (Palestinian) families, exhausted and in debt, came today to try their luck at Rafah, hoping that the Egyptian police would be more lenient and that they might be able to get some help from members of the convoy.


But that was, unfortunately, not the case: for these families the day turned into a nightmare. They had arrived early in order not to miss the convoy, so they waited all day in the scorching sun. The first members of the convoy began to arrive around 2 pm in buses under heavy security.


Then the horror began: at this very moment, the Egyptian riot police set upon the Palestinian families them and began forcibly evacuating them. People were shouting, screaming, weeping—and the cops kept on beating them savagely.


We tried to slip into Rafah Gate in the midst of the confusion. We even succeeded, but were then dragged back out.


The scene we were witnessing was once again so shocking that Iman, furious, was shouting insults at Mubarak and his minions.


Laila got into one of the buses and called for the help of the members of the convoy, but they replied that there was nothing they could do. “We want to get into Gaza and we don’t want any trouble.”


A man in the bus called out, “I’m a Palestinian.” And one Palestinian woman, stuck in Egypt for many days couldn’t help saying to him, “Oh, fine, you’re a Palestinian from America and I’m a Palestinian from Gaza. You can get in and I am not even allowed to return to my home in Gaza.” By then the Egyptian police had arrived and they pulled Leila and this woman out of the bus.


No contact between Palestinians and foreigners. That has been the order of the day every day since we pitched our tents here at Rafah.



We can understand the attitude of the members of this impressive convoy, with its buses, refrigerator trucks and vans. It has been so difficult for them to get this far with half of their humanitarian aid(the other half was confiscated in Alexandria) that it was hard for them to jeopardize delivery of the remaining supplies by attempting to help the people they were watching being beaten up before their very eyes. They would have been heavily penalized—they would have been refused entry into Gaza.



How can one comprehend Egyptian policy? How can one understand these Egyptian policemen who viciously beat the Palestinians and treat them like sub-humans, like enemies? Why prevent the Palestinians from returning to their own homes? Who gives the orders? Why not tell them what procedures they need to follow? And, by the way, is there one? We have asked these questions countless times, and each time we got a different answer. "

After a Slow Start, The Pictures That I brought Back From Gaza Finally Become an Exhibition

It is such a relief to have finally got something organised - and pretty damn good it is too. Thanks to Sally for some artistic input so we have an aesthetically appealing show, and thanks to Dr Joseph O'Neill for arranging some places for the Exhibition to be seen. More on this soon, but what do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=575N0JRzaIs

Hunger Strike at Rafah Border

There is a hunger strike at the border by Doctors who have been refused entry to Gaza. Let us hear those Politicians who are capable of making noise, make a noise right now. There is no web-site that I can give you where you can get updates for yourself, but PSC UK (palestinecampaign.org) may carry information from time to time. The hunger strike began on May 19th. The doctors concerned were refused entry on May 16/17.

Those striking include five Britons, 3 Belgians, and a Greek. Further info from their colleague who has returned: david.shove@googlemail.com

If you wish to also write directly to the FCO, you could address your letter to Bill Rammell [Minister Foreign and Commonwealth Office <psrammellinfo@fco.gov.uk>] and/or David Miliband [Secretary of State- Foreign and Commonwealth Office private.office@fco.gov.uk], otherwise write to your MP or other power-broker.

This kind of action deserves and requires great publicity, so I suggest that everyone write letters to their newspapers, at least. This is mine:

Dear Sirs

                                    As a regular reader of the Independent I am disappointed that I only found out about the hunger strike at Rafah by personal contacts, and not through your paper. As the idea of a newspaper does carry a notion that people might read it to find out news, could I ask you to cover, daily, the brave action, begun on May 19th, of these five British, 3 Belgian and I Greek persons? I think that reporting their progress is the least we can expect for people prepared to die for an ideal gaining nothing for their personal or national benefit. Even Gandhi did not do as much.

The Hunger strike is designed to force open the gates of Rafah at the border between Egypt and Gaza. The closure of the borders of Gaza by Israel, who also are the puppet-masters behind the Egyptian closure at Rafah, is illegal, and were the UN's forceful attitude to Israel about food delivery through the borders not keeping the Palestinians alive, it would be no less than mass murder. As it is, it is random murder of individuals unlucky enough to require the advanced services of these 8 doctors and 1 specialist nurse.

 

       Rod Cox

Depression, Libel threats, home sweet home.

It's now a week since I got off the plane from Egypt. I managed to avoid depression for only a couple of days, and now I'm fighting to stay positive. Even in Gaza, I was obviously aware of the impact the recession is having on our business, but I feel guilty about leaving my partner alone for so long. We foresaw this recession and thoroughly reorganised our business and our borrowing, adjusting the payment profile to give us a three year breathing space, but it's still a struggle, and we have had to sell assets just to pay the bank. Lucky that we have an asset to sell, but it is galling that my taxes are keeping alive the monster bank that we are also feeding with our interest payments that are way above base rate, and if we fail to feed it, it will have no hesitation in devouring us.

But, on top of that, as soon as I got off the plane, I got a distressing phone call from Frances who, entirely of her own volition, publicises this blog. She was extremely distressed and almost incoherent. My first re-action was to publicise the threat she had received, but I felt that I needed a statement from her, and she was far too upset to give one. I'm afraid that, together with other bad news, and the enormous task of organising the exhibitions of Art, which I have hardly got moving at all - really I need some volunteer assistance - the problem sent me into a paroxysm of doubt and inaction.

I really want to thank the small number of people who, knowing none of this, contacted me in support and asked me to keep writing now I'm back. Are you sure that you mean it?

A week later and Frances has finally felt confident enough to make a statement: she had been rung up by Kevin Ovenden (Galloway's 'Fixer'), and threatened with Libel. Not me: her. As a journalist, Frances is not used to being threatened, and is paralysed by the fear that Newspaper editors will shun her. But today, at last, she has made a brief statement about it, and, of course, we have Kevin's Answerphone message. So now I can write about it.

If there is a libel in my Blog, Kevin, then the correct addressee for your threats is me, no-one else. However, there is no libel, so I am expecting you to withdraw your threat to Frances, with good grace, immediately.

This is what happened on the convoy:

It was so badly organised that drivers were asked to drive dangerously long sections, little support was offered to them by the convoy leadership, with Mr Galloway declaring, on video, that he had no responsibility for the members, who should drop out if they couldn't keep up. Attempts to inform the leadership of gross errors in planning, such as the labelling of the journey from Bordeaux to Madrid as 200kms instead of 550kms, simply exposed the informant to abuse.

The convoy continued in a state of fear and abuse. Persons who disagreed with the leadership were threatened with removal whilst racist and violent incidents went unremarked. There was a campaign against reporting which was certainly not hindered by any action by the leadership. Information from the leadership to the drivers was sparse and uninformative. The political situation was never spelt out, or discussed, leading to a considerable degree of paranoia; and frequent route changes forced on host countries by the leadership in countries both friendly and hostile meant that no-one was ever aware of our true status or realistically could grasp our situation. For many convoy drivers the trip was a surreal blur of adulation by the public and tight police control which was never explained or even discussed.

All, of this, though is small beer compared to what was achieved in the end, and everyone must make up their own mind on this. George - not Kevin Ovenden - is a hero in Palestine, of that there is no doubt, and he has brought some attention to the issue of the border at Rafah. However the opportunity missed is greater than the gain, in my opinion.

The Egyptian political rallies which we were almost compelled to attend, assured us that we would be ushered through the Rafah border at 12 noon on the Sunday. There was no talk of any conditions, and no argument from George, and so the convoy drove on believing that we had negotiated the ending of the siege.

Convoy members pay great attention to a speech given by the Egyptian Ruling Party

In El Arish, however, the Libyans, who plainly did have an idea of what was going on, started a riot, which the convoy buckaroos, fed up of being treated like aliens, were only too happy to re-inforce. The violence was not considerable, but the Egyptian Police did not hesitate to get revenge by 'allowing' youths to attack the convoy with bricks. Most people in the convoy thought that they were fighting simply for the right to travel as a whole, rather than in groups, but the Libyans were fighting for the basic right to take aid through Rafah, which most UK drivers thought George had achieved.

George at this time was at the Rafah border, unaware of the explosion that had happened behind him. He came back and found the convoy in belligerent mood, surrounded by Egyptian riot police, in a large scale stand-off. He had almost 250 vehicles, including 3000 tonnes of Libyan aid, and possibly 500 people, if we include those who arrived from the UK by plane, and at least 150 Libyans, as well as the convoy's core 250 souls. These were his negotiating tools. The convoy would have sat there for ever, I believe, if that is what it took to get the gates open. But perhaps others had a schedule to keep to, so it was only a matter of an hour or so before George was back telling us that we must unload the aid, agree to donate the vehicles or not cross through Rafah with them, and agree to leave Egypt directly after leaving Gaza. This, he told us, was an improvement on the previous arrangement, and the best that he could achieve. He had been assured that the aid would be delivered by the Red Crescent through the Israeli Controlled crossing immediately. But of course, it wasn't, and isn't.

In other words, he negotiated that there be no change to the conditions applying at Rafah, except that our vehicles be allowed in one way. Great publicity for us, but no long term use at all. Crucially, All our non-medical aid was still under the control of Israel, the deal was done without threatening agreements with Israel, and still no exports of any kind are to be allowed.

What exactly did we achieve, Kevin? We threw away a large and belligerent opposition to the closure, sacrificing it to political expediency and a quick headline. The world's press were waiting for us in Gaza, and hurriedly made their way to El Arish as well. This would have been the perfect moment to spell out that our demand was for an unconditional opening of the border.

My Friend Syfian points to the tent on the house where Sheikh Nizar Rayan, and 11 innocents including 7 children were killed by a one tonne bomb. Hamas 'hardliner' Rayan had for three years previously led the campaign to non violently resist Israeli house bombings by sitting on roof tops of threatened homes.

But we blew it, and meekly accepted the status quo, with a special dispensation for us to go through, and then to meekly leave the country. So what were the conditions that were in force BEFORE you negotiated such improved terms with the Governor as a result of the demonstration, George?

A minor inconvenience of your agreement, was that when I left I was compelled to travel with the transitting Palestinians. This was as a direct result of your agreement, and if you wish to sue me for Libel, i will welcome the opportunity to spell it out in Court. I didn't mind travelling with Palestinians, and their conditions were an eye-opener, but i would not have been under escort if it were not for your agreement. And my van! Of course, cars are not allowed out of Gaza under any circumstances, but I went there to fight such rules. However, I could not fight the Galloway Rule. I was not being detained by the evil will of Israel, nor of Egypt, but by an agreement made by Galloway. When i asked why only the part of the Galloway agreement that prevented me from doing things was being implemented, and why the aid was not being delivered that had also been agreed, they simply said that the agreement made was subject to Israeli control, and that was always part of the agreement.

There are other groups massing to fight this closure. I hope that they sit on the border until the gates are open without conditions. And when you come along in July, George, just make sure that you don't undermine them by negotiating an end to their actions for your own benefit.