activisms_46-56.qxp_August/Sept 2022 Activisms 7/7/22 7:53 PM Page 47
infrastructure, water filtration plants and Palestinian homes. The next planned phase of the Poor People’s Campaign is a massive grassroots presence in the halls of the House and Senate in September. —Mary Neznek
WAGING PEACE
PHOTO JAMAL NAJJAB
Repression Grows in Egypt Amid Growing Economic Concerns
Members of several pro‐Palestine delegations to the Poor People’s Campaign march in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2022. a war-first foreign policy and mass incarceration. Instead, the campaign believes investments in housing, health care and education should be the country’s top priorities. The Poor People’s Campaign distributed hundreds of black and yellow signs noting that 43 percent of the U.S. population, 52 percent of children and 32 percent of the electorate (140 million people), are poor and low income. The march included individuals of all races, nuns from the Sisters of Mercy clad in purple, human rights advocates, labor unions and others saying, “We won’t be silent anymore.” Each state was represented with a personal narrative broadcast from a dais interspersed with choirs and live music. One poignant message that resonated was the inequity of health care and affordable housing during the COVID-19 pandemic. On this point, a father shared the despair and depression that led to the suicide of two of his adolescent children in a Native American community that lacks access to basic physical and mental health services. Representatives from Jewish Voice for Peace, the Virginia Coalition for Human Rights, the Episcopal Peace Fellowship: Palestine-Israel Network, the American Friends Service Committee, the Quaker AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2022
Palestine Israel Network and Vermonters for Justice in Palestine were among the marchers. Their signs included messages on behalf of the rights of Palestinians, such as, “Support Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Ethnic Cleansing.” These groups believe that the message of the Poor People’s Campaign, a national call for a “moral revival,” must include addressing the militarized U.S. policy in Israel/Palestine, the right of Palestinian return and reparations for the original ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians that took place in 1948. After years of lobbying and public messaging, Vermonters for Justice in Palestine led a coalition that in 2021 successfully petitioned Ben and Jerry’s to cease production and sales of their products in illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. This fall the coalition will take their case before the Burlington, Vermont City Council to petition for a human rights-based selective investment screening against U.S. and Israeli corporations that are profiting from the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza. Veterans for Peace marched with a model of a weaponized drone produced and funded by U.S. tax dollars that Israel uses in Gaza causing widespread civilian casualties, destruction of hospitals, schools,
The Arab Center Washington DC held a webinar on June 23 titled, “Egypt’s Uncertain Future: Political, Economic and Human Rights Challenges.” Mona El-Ghobashy, a professor at New York University, argued that President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi oversees a draconian authoritarian regime that is more oppressive than the government of former President Hosni Mubarak. “This regime is fundamentally a counterrevolutionary alliance,” she said, meaning that Sisi’s principal goal is to make sure that the events of the 2011 revolution that unseated Mubarak don’t repeat themselves. To strengthen itself against unrest, ElGhobashy said the Egyptian government has utilized heavy-handed repression, deployed an ideological campaign of coercion and used international funding to solidify its grasp on power. On the first point, El-Ghobashy noted that the Egyptian government utilizes “pre-emptive policing” that aims to “nip in the bud any potential protest” before it even materializes on the street. Sisi “doesn’t wait until four or five people gather on a street corner” to take action, she said. The scholar also pointed out that nine years after he assumed power by overthrowing democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi, Sisi has effectively eliminated all opposition voices from within the parliament. While past regimes carried out “semi-contested elections,” the infrequent elections held by Sisi’s government are solely to legitimize his rule, El-Ghobashy noted. In addition to the harsh stick of repression, El-Ghobashy said the government is
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
47
