Today is my second visit to the American Embassy to put in writing my total disappointment with the United States government's lack of interest in helping Americans with Gaza Freedom March to travel to Gaza "without delay or hindrance" as our passports so declare.  I requested that American Citizen Services urge Ambassador Margaret Scoby to use the power and prestige of her office to intervene with the Egyptian Security Service to expedite our travel to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. I requested a written reply of the action taken.  It seems the least I can do as an American who cares deeply about the fate of the people in Gaza.
 
Although the headline in today's Egyptian Gazette says "Rafah open as of today," 1,300 internationals still in Cairo are not invited into Gaza without a permit that we must wait 20 days to obtain (although Egypt could issue it immediately if it wanted to).  Individuals and small groups that have tried to travel to El Arish have been turned back at the Ismalia crossing at Suez, about half way to El-Arish. 
 
At the embassy I talked to a Palestinian man and his small daughter from New Jersey whose entire family is in Gaza.  Even he was turned back at Ismalia. I shared his anger and deep disappointment at Egypt's intransigence and America's lack of any meaningful action to help either its own citizens or the people of Gaza.

For America to sit on its hands while Israel continues to bomb an already devastated open-air prison of 1.5 million people is unconscionable.  The United States does nothing to end the Egypt-Israeli siege of Gaza or to mobilize international efforts to come to the aid of the Gaza Palestinians.  President Obama says we are the change.  More than a thousand of us are here to change an intolerable political and humanitarian crisis in Gaza.  We cannot see any indication that President Obama is paying attention.