US feminist organization 'Women for Peace' is to take advantage of US President Barack Obama's visit to Egypt on June 4 to stage a convoy with about sixty-eight US and Canadian activists, mostly women, as well as four Jewish activists. They arrived yesterday at Egypt's Rafah border crossing to go to the Gaza Strip. They are due back to Cairo in conjunction with the US President's visit.
The delegation has issued an international petition calling on Obama to visit Gaza, see for himself the destruction there and put pressure on Israel and Egypt to open their borders with Gaza. The petition is due to be submitted to the US Embassy in Cairo. The organization is also going to stage a demonstration in Cairo calling for the US to stop backing Israel's war crimes. Col. Ann Wright, one of the leaders of the organization, is a retired army colonel and former diplomat in the US State Department who resigned in protest at the war in Iraq back in 2003. She said that if President Obama could visit Saudi Arabia at the last moment to attend a private dinner with the Saudi king, he could certainly visit Gaza, too.
Medea Benjamin, one of the founders of the CODEPINK organization for peace and a member of the delegation, said they believed that President Obama should seriously change US bias toward Israel and visit the Gaza Strip himself.
She added they were confident that, if he heard and felt the suffering of the people by himself, he would exert the necessary pressures on the Egyptian and Israeli governments to open their borders now.
Omar Hallak, one of the participants in the convoy, said they wanted their visit to coincide with Obama's one to call on him to visit the Gaza Strip and listen to the suffering of the Palestinians under siege. He also said that the delegation was carrying toys for children and was getting ready to build playgrounds for Gaza's affected children.
