By now, you may have seen the video of an American pro-Palestinian activist imploring Egyptian police to let him through a checkpoint. “We can do it in America, why can’t we do it here?” he asks.
And this pretty much sums up the entire farce that has been the Global March to Gaza, where 7000 pro-Palestinian activists planned to simply walk into Rafah, where they believed that they would be invited in like they would to Valhalla, and subsequently free the Palestinian people from “Israeli oppression.”
Except it hasn’t proven quite so simple in reality. It appeared many of the activists had not planned out the trip, nor looked up Rafah on a map. Most didn’t have permits to enter the Sinai, and others didn’t seem to know what they were doing there.
The convoy’s plan was to fly to Cairo, take coaches to Arish, and then walk to the Egyptian border with Gaza at Rafah.
Despite planning a three-day hike that would see them arrive on Sunday, none of the activists have succeeded. Many have been arrested, detained, deported, beaten by locals, and harassed.
The Egyptian police members quite simply looked bamboozled by the very sight of the sun-hatted Westerners attempting to enter their country like misguided good Samaritans gloriously. Several videos of the officers depict them just standing there, eyebrows raised.
The thing is, as much as these activists have joined hands with Islamists and many Arabs in the Red-Green Alliance, the horseshoe theory only goes so far: These Western activists, many of whom may be very well intentioned, do not know what they are doing, and they most certainly don’t understand the Middle East.
One video depicted a Welsh nurse being told that the police could not let her through the checkpoint at Ismailia because they were following orders not to do so.
Another activist is seen pleading with them: “But you don’t have to do this, you don’t have to follow orders. I’ll get on my knees and beg you.”
The thing is, police do have to follow orders. Lax as law enforcement may be with pro-Palestinian protesters in the UK, Canada, or the US, Egypt, as well as other countries in the region, do not work that way.
And this is the crux of so much of this activism: Applying a “woke” lens to the geopolitical nuances of the Middle East does not work.
I spoke earlier with Dalia Ziada, an Egyptian expert and researcher. She now lives in the US after she had to flee her country for expressing support for Israel and condemning Hamas’s October 7 massacre. Diverging opinions don’t work in Egypt, and freedom of speech is not protected.
“Even Egyptians can’t get into the Sinai without a permit,” Ziada said. “The Sinai is huge and will take days to march across. Do they think that Egypt will just open it for them with open arms?”
Western activists are just useful idiots
Unfortunately, these Western activists are the useful idiots of the Islamist movements in the West. The Left might have allied itself with radical Muslims, but it is not on the same level as they are.
Major Telegram groups organizing these missions are led by Arabs in the host countries. They pull the strings, organizing the trips. The rest respond in an idealistic and naive way.
“I’ve come to sightsee, it’s my first time here and I want to see Egypt,” says a woman from northern England at a checkpoint in one video. “I’m not being allowed to do that, it’s very oppressive.”
For a bunch of people who like to feel oppressed already, this gives them another opportunity to play victim. However, the victim card that works so effectively in the West doesn’t hold any sway in the East.
These individuals don’t deserve the forceful display from locals and authorities that they receive, but hopefully, this will teach them to think with their brains before setting out to play hero.