The March to Gaza strides face-first into the complicated reality of the Middle East

Globe and Mail

17-06-2025

Last March, journalist and author Douglas Murray sat down with Jane Dutton of South Africa's Eyewitness News to talk about the war in Gaza. At one point in the interview, when Ms. Dutton noted that Gaza is 'completely sealed off,' Mr. Murray asked her to clarify: 'By who?'
'By the Israelis,' Ms. Dutton replied.
'And who?' Mr. Murray prodded.
'By the Israelis, by the U.S. and whoever else supports the Israelis,' she said.
'And who else?' Mr. Murray asked again.
'Isn't that enough?' she says.
'As you know,' Mr. Murray says after continuing to press her, 'Gaza also has a border with Egypt. Why do you not mention Egypt? Egypt has a stronger fence to fence in the people of Gaza than Israel does.'
Ms. Dutton, who has been a broadcaster for at least two decades (notably, most with Qatari-funded Al Jazeera) appears genuinely surprised by the information. She tries to brush it off, though the rest of the interview is punctuated by similar humiliating fact-checks.
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It's a truly remarkable, yet illuminating, watch; if a journalist paid to report on the topic could be ignorant to such a basic component of the current dynamic in the Middle East, it helps to explain why, for example, university students might feel confident ostentatiously sharing their support for Hamas. The most charitable explanation is that they're only getting part of the story.
The ignorance of Western activists to the complicated history of the region was streamed to thousands of cellphones over the last week as people from all around the world arrived in Egypt for an event billed as the March to Gaza, aimed at bringing attention to the plight of Palestinians and demanding that aid be allowed into the region. Instead, Egyptian authorities confiscated passports, forcibly detained activists, and prevented them from making their planned journey to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza. Many seemed surprised that Egyptian authorities so readily cracked down on their peaceful protest; in one video, a man says to an Egyptian police officer, 'We can do it in America – why can't we do it here?'
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In another, a white Welshman confronts a line of Egyptian officers in riot gear, insists that they do not have to follow orders from their superiors and implores them to 'stand with your Islamic peoples.' He goes on: 'We are here for humanity. What are you here for?' On Facebook, a South African participant shared a map of their intended path, which erroneously placed the Rafah crossing by the southern Israeli city of Eilat – nowhere near the Gaza Strip.
One requires a precise medley of arrogance, ignorance and hubris to fly to a foreign country and attempt to breach a decades-old barrier to enter an active warzone, all while lecturing the Egyptians about freedom of assembly and their obligations to their Muslim brothers and sisters. The Egyptians' relationship with Palestinians in Gaza is far more complicated than whatever superficial notion might exist in the minds of travelling Westerners; they've long been concerned about Islamic extremism leeching into their country via Hamas, and have enduringly resisted allowing an influx of internally displaced Palestinians to seek refuge in Egypt. Cairo fortified its border to Gaza after militants blew holes in its wall in 2008, and subsequently reinforced it with huge concrete barriers after destroying Hamas's underground tunnels. Though Egypt officially supports Palestinian statehood, its support for Palestinian people has been tepid and cautious. In fact, in the decade prior to Oct. 7, many more Palestinians crossed to or through Israel, according to UN data – not Egypt.
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Those marchers would have spared themselves a good degree of angst had they briefed themselves on even the most rudimentary facts. They might have also reflected on a similar march – the Gaza Freedom March in 2009 – during which most participants were denied entry to Gaza, and considered whether this time would be different.
Some participants have insisted that trying is better than nothing, when Palestinians are being slaughtered and denied necessary food and medicine. That's an understandable view. But it's also a symptom of a Western saviour complex that assumes that thousands of foreigners flying into Cairo and demanding local authorities allow them passage into Gaza will actually make the situation better, not worse. Indeed, if their presence has any effect at all, it will be to entrench the broad view of Egyptian authorities that they should further tighten their control of the border, lest they inadvertently invite more foreigners to try to cross the passage they've spent decades trying to secure.
This is the reality that marchers to Gaza confronted, literally, on their voyage to Rafah. As they have since learned, the situation is not as simple as you might see portrayed on, say, South Africa's Eyewitness News.