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8B The Statement Wednesday, February 24 2010
PERSONALSTATEMENT
A CONVOY IN CONFLICT,
BYAHMAD HASAN
F ollowing Israel's bombardment of
the Gaza Strip last winter, George
Galloway, a member of the British
Parliament known for his support of
the Palestinian cause in the Arab-Isra-
li conflict, embarked on a nationwide
tour in the U.S. calling for Americans
to take action and help the people in
Gaza exercise their right to live freely.
He emphasized that change will
not be realized until citizens of the
U.S. stand up and tell Israel its unilat-
eral siege of the Gaza Strip cannot be
tolerated. According to Galloway, the
most tangible way to help would be to
send a humanitarian aid convoy to the
besieged area.
Attending his stops in Ann Arbor
and Dearborn, I was inspired by his
words and ready to take action. A few
weeks after Galloway's trip through
the Midwest, a group of students from
the University created an organization
known as ActionGAZA.
Fast-forward to October 2009, and
the group found itself collaborating
with Viva Palestina - an organiza-
tion led by Galloway. In November,
ActionGAZA decided to send money
we had raised with Viva Palestina's
December convoy. In an effort to
ensure that our money would be used
to buy necessary medical equipment
for the impoverished Palestinians in
Gaza, I signed up to travel with the
convoy. While I understood the dan-
gers and risks involved with the trip,
I was totally unprepared for what was
in store.
On December24,tarrived in Amman,
Jordan, and took a five-hour taxi ride to
Aqaba, a southern coastal city in Jordan.
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"There's growing awareness
about this kind of thing in the U.S.
and worldwide," he said. "So we get
swamped with c-mails from people
who are interested in this sort of
thing. But whatever the routes are,
they don't include the University."
Steve and Rachel Kaplan have been
at the University for 52 years. They
said in that time, they have watched
campus become less and less focused
on the natural environment.
"It's easy to lose track of how
important the trees are," Steve
Upon arrival, I realized how large our
convoy was and how many trucks of aid
we had. This had been Galloway's third
convoy in one year and was by far his
largest, with 515 participants and 250
trucks ready to be filled with medical
aid, food and clothing.
The medical supplies had already
been purchased in Amman but were
not set to arrive until the next morn-
ing. The plan was to load up the trucks
the next day and leave for Egypt that
evening. From the port of Aqaba, we
would sail to Nuweiba, Egypt, and
drive to Rafah, which borders Gaza.
Egypt had been notified of the con-
voy's plans, expressed its support and
posed no problems to the route we had
chosen. However, it wasn't until we
arrived in Aqaba, filled our trucks with
the supplies and prepared to leave that
Egypt suddenly imposed a new policy:
to enter Gaza, we had to abide bythree
guidelines.
First, the Egyptian Authority made
it impermissible to sail from the portof
Aqaba to Nuweiba, statingthatour only
option would be to sail from Latakia,
Syria, to El-Arish, Egypt. This would
mean traveling backwards hundreds
of miles - a waste of time, money and
energy. Second, Egypt demanded we
coordinate our efforts with the Unit-
ed Nations Relief and Works Agency,
therebysurrendering all humanitarian
aid to the United Nations. Third, the
Egyptian authorities demanded the
convoy's leaders must negotiate with
Israel to get into Gaza, despite the ille-
gality of Israel's occupation ofthe Gaza
Strip accordingto international law.
We drove hundreds of miles back
Kaplan said. "And you would think
since there's a lot of mental fatigue at
a university, it would be a high prior-
ity for things that include trees, and
it's not clear that that's the case."
One aspect of campus that has
remained focused on the natural
environment, however, is the Arb.
Bob Grese, director of Nichol's Arbo-
retum and the Matthaei Botanical
Gardens, said the space often serves
as diversion for students.
"I think the Arb is an escape for
students. It's a place to hang out. It's
a place to get away from some of the
hustle and bustle of campus," he said.
"It's a place for immersing yourself in
a more natural setting, taking walks,
still far from entering Gaza.
After landing, we immediately
headed for the seaport to regain con-
trol of our trucks. Upon arrival, we
were locked in and barred from leav-
ing. Although we had made it to the
port, Egypt created another obstacle
for our convoy - refusing to let 50
of our trucks in and stating the only
way for any to get in was to send them
to Latakia, Syria and remained there, through an Israeli checkpoint.
stuck, for four days before securing a Negotiations took place at the lead-
boat to carry our trucks to El-Arish. ership level with Egyptian President
We were then forced to take a charted Hosni Mubarak, but the efforts were
flight to El-Arish airport because it futile.
was "illegal" for both passengers and Refusing to take our vehicles any-
trucks to travel on the same boat. where but Gaza, we protested and the
Afraid that Egyptians would take Egyptian Authority sent 2,000 police-
man to stop us from
a leaving El-Arish, A
"We had succeeded inbreaking leavictEbrih.tA
conflict broke out and
approximately 50 con-
the siege, but there was still 50 voy participants were
much more to do:" hospitalized. Seven,
m c m rincluding a U.S. citizen,
were taken hostage, and
our aid hostage, we got permission for many of our trucks were heavily dam-
12 convoy leaders to ride on the ship. aged. We were not released from the
With knowledge of our aid convoy, seaport until the following day.
Israel arbitrarily expanded its patrol On January 7 - an entire week off-
of the Mediterranean Sea from five schedule - we were allowed access
kilometers off the coast to 25, making into Gaza. It took the trucks one full
the sea journey longer. Our ship was day to cross the Rafah border. Floods
also followed until it passed the border of ecstatic Palestinians poured into
of the occupied territory, and at one the streets, celebrating our victory of
point, was confronted by the Israeli breaking the siege. The people of Gaza
naval fleet in an attempt to intimidate showered us with nothing short of love
the passengers to end the journey. and appreciation, and for the first time
Meanwhile, the chartered flight on the journey, we felt safe despite
only fit 120 people at a time, so the con- the fact thatthe U.S. considers Gaza a
voy was forced to split into five groups. "danger zone."
The entire American convoy was The way we were received by the
scheduled to fly on the first plane, but people of Gaza brought tears to many
due to a last minute decision, Galloway and was the most overwhelming expe-
decided to board the first plane. I was rience of the three-week-long adven-
one of five who volunteered to take the ture. Despite the fact that we were
second flight to allow Galloway onto only allotted 48 hours in the territory,
the first. Coincidentally, it was this see- we had made it into Gaza.
ond flight that nearly crashed into the With such limited time, I gathered
Mediterranean Sea due to an engine a group of about 15 members from the
failure. After another day's worth of U.S. constituency. We collected the
delay, we made it to El-Arish, but were personal aid we wished to distribute
and began our exploration of Gaza.
We visited about 25 families, all of
whom had experienced some kind of
loss and grief as a result of the previ-
ous winter. It seemed as though every
family we encountered had suffered
the death of at least three immediate
family members.
Of those visited, we had the honor
to meet the Samouni family. Thirty
two members of the Samouni family
were killed by Israel during its assault.
Subhi Samouni, the only man left in
the family, begged me to adopt his
eight-month-old orphaned nephew,
Mohammad.
That night, we were informed that
the Egyptian Authority had demand-
ed George Galloway leave and our
period of stay had suddenly been cut
to 36 hours. As we tried to tour the rest
of Gaza and examine the destruction
from the previous year's attack, we
heard bombing. We were later noti-
fied that Israel had dropped bombs
onthe tunnels running between Gaza
and Rafah, killing three Palestinians.
Shortly thereafter, we heard that
Galloway had been forcefully taken
out of Gaza, police-escorted to Cairo
International Airport and deported.
A few hours later, we went through
the same process: the entire convoy
was put on Egyptian buses and police-
escorted to the airport. We were
detained for hours, some of us even
days, and deported as well.
I returned home confused, tired
and almost oblivious to everything
that had happened. We had succeeded
in breaking the siege, but there was
still so much more to do. As humans,
we cannot sit in silence while nearly
two million people starve to death
under a morally reprehensible and
illegal siege. Israel will continue to
undermine its own security and legit-
imacy the harder it tries to crush the
Palestinians' desire to live free and
dignified lives.
- Ahmad Hasan is an LSA sophomore.
In this planning with the new
hospital, Grese is implementing the
results of research that the Kaplans
have known for years - that the natu-
ral environment has a positive effect
on humans - to liftthe moods of hos-
pital patients. But even for students
who may not realize they're being
influenced, the campus' landscape
architecture has a daily impact.
"A lot of times the way the outside
looks to you actually does have an
influence on you and its got the capac-
ity to make you feel better," Hunter
said. "That's one of the things that
landscape architects take into con-
sideration when they're doing their
designs for outdoor space."
all of those things."
One fourth of the Arb is owned by
the city of Ann Arbor and the Univer-
sity owns the remaining three-quar-
ters. Because of this division, Grese
said he works to serve not only the
University community, but also the
greater Ann Arbor community.
The budget for both the Arb and
the Botanical Gardens is $1.5 million
per year.
Grese has been working with the
designers of the new C.S. Mott's Chil-
dren's Hospital and Women's Hospi-
tal, which is being built adjacent to
the Arb, to make sure patients have a
good view of the scenery.
"The idea is to try and encour-
age them to get outside the hospital,
and then potentially they might take
walks in the Arboretum as well," he
said.
There is also a strip ofland between
the Arb and the new building that
Grese is designing as a children's
garden. He said he would like to see
a space that is colorful and welcom-
ing to patients, siblings and parents
- maybe even including a treehouse.
"We're trying to make it a really
child-friendly space so it would be
really enticing and would look fun
from the windows too, so that if you
couldn't get outside, it would be fun
to watch from the windows," Grese
said.