As part of a ten-day mission to the region, the UN SG’s Special Representative for Sports for development and peace, Wilfried Lemke of Germany, will visit Gaza today and tomorrow, and will enter Gaza via Israel’s Erez crossing, or “Border Terminal”.
UPDATE AND CORRECTION: According to information in a UN press release prepared by an information officer accompanying the UN’s “top sports envoy”, Lemke apparently could not enter Gaza on Sunday, because the IDF had closed the Erez checkpoint [possibly because of the demonstration described below]. So, he must have made a round-trip on Monday, when Erez was open, despite what Israeli sources reported was an unusual Palestinian attack, reportedly involving cars and horses carrying explosives, on the Nahal Oz fuel crossing in middle Gaza, after which every crossing but Erez was closed. The formal UN press release reported that Lemke said, after meeting young Palestinian athletes at a sports stadium in Gaza City: “I am deeply touched by the plight of the people of Gaza”. This UN press release can be read in full here.
In an interview at the American Colony Hotel on Saturday evening, Lemke said that the mission was his idea, after the IDF’s Operation Cast Lead (27 December-18 January), and that UNSG BAN Ki-Moon had fully endorsed and backed the proposal.
Last evening, back in Jerusalem after a long trip through the northern West Bank to see sports projects in the cities of Nablus and Qalqilya, Lemke explained that when he learned from different media reports about how professional and prepared German soldiers returning from duty in Afghanistan had been affected by psychological shock [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder], he realized how much worse the situation must be for Palestinian children, particularly those in Gaza after the recent large-scale Israeli military operation there.
About six and a half weeks ago, he said, he travelled to UNHQ/NY to discuss a proposed intiative with the UNSG. “We have to do something to help the children in Gaza”, Lemke said he told the SG. “Perhaps I can bring some sports to them and their communities”.
Lemke said that BAN “totally agreed”, and said: “Yes, go there and see what’s going on. Try to build up some programs with NGOs and other organizations … Don’t worry about the funding, just think about projects. Listen and learn what the UN can do”.
Lemke has, according to his official UN biography, “over 25 years of professional experience in both sport and politics”. The bio explains that “From 1999-2008, he served as Senator of Interior and Sport of the German State of Bremen, as well as Senator for Education and Science. Mr. Lemke was manager for 18 years of Werder Bremen, one of the top football clubs in Europe. In this capacity, he notably engaged in fundraising and the initiation of relief projects in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States”. The bio can be read in full here.
He said that he will report on what he sees in Gaza, and will “bring this to the Secretary-General, and to our partners, and will make very complete proposals, when we have learned our lessons in Gaza, to do some very small steps” to help the children there.
Lemke also said that he was deeply shocked by the situation he saw in Jerusalem, and how much worse it was than during his last visit here 15 years ago. “And when I saw The Wall”,., Lemke shook his head, and his voice trailed off. He continued, a moment later: “I don’t want to be a politician. I just want to tell you my feelings when I saw it … This visit today is completely different than what you read in documents”.
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It is not clear whether Mr. Lemke was aware that a coalition of groups [Women for Peace, Code Pink, and the Coalition against the Siege] have prepared an day of protest actions at Erez crossing today, calling for the construction children’s playgrounds in Gaza — a project that is made difficult by the blockade imposed by the Israeli government and administered by the Israeli military that prohibits imports of many items that would be needed to construct playgrounds (including almost everything that is not a basic essential but that in other places would be taken for granted as a normal part of life).
[I did not ask Mr. Lemke last night if he know of this planned protest action because I was not aware of it until a press release arrived this morning. All I can say is that he did not mention it...]
According to the press release I received this morning, “More than 750,000 children are incarcerated without a trial in Gaza – the largest prison in the world. It is forbidden to send toys and playground equipment into Gaza. The Israeli authorities define even paper and crayons a ‘Security Hazard’. In defiance of this obituary [sic – it should probably read “arbitrary”] and cruel regulation, a delegation of Israeli and American feminists, residents of neighboring towns, the clownish doctor Patch Adams and the Israeli Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army (ICIRCA), will travel on Sunday to the Erez Checkpoint. We will come to the sealed crossing armed with Slides, Swings, Kites, Magic castles and similar deadly weapons, in order to pass them through to the besieged and bombed kindergartens in Gaza. The action is organized by the Coalition of Women for Peace (Israel) and Code Pink (USA). The Code Pink activists have already achieved the construction of one kindergarten playground in Gaza, and staged a rally during President Obama’s speech in Cairo, demanding the president put his money where his mouth is, and cut the US funding of the siege on Gaza. Patch Adams, the protagonist of the 1998 Robin Williams film, will stage a border-line clown show deflating the ballooning cruelty and arrogance of the siege and highlighting the absurdities robbing the children of Gaza of their right to a life of safety, freedom, and laughter. The Clown Army will be aiding and abetting. Code Pink will attempt to traffic the playgrounds through the border. If apprehended by the Israeli army, insistent on denying the children of Gaza – hundreds of whom have been killed and thousands orphaned in the long years of siege – the fundamental right of PLAY, the Playgrounds will be erected on the border”.
Some of the American members of Code Pink who were demonstrating today at Israel’s Erez crossing had apparently been in Gaza last week — they entered and left via Egypt’s Rafah crossing.
Here’s a photo of the demonstration at Erez today, published in Haaretz:
And here’s a photo of the demonstration published in YNet today — the demonstrators were, apparently, obliged to construct their playgrounds on the Israeli side of the border after all, rather than in Gaza:
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Photos from the demonstration at Erez today posted on Dohiyi Mir blog, here
