”The March to Gaza” Woke Imperialism: A Detailed Retrospective

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In this video, the discussion centers around the 'March to Gaza,' a protest that gathered over 4,000 activists from around the globe aiming to demand the opening of Gaza's Rafah border. Despite their efforts, the protest was quashed by Egyptian authorities, highlighting significant cultural misunderstandings and political miscalculations. The video delves into the history of the region, the motivations and perspectives of various involved parties, and the broader geopolitical context, including the complicated relationships between neighboring countries and the people of Gaza. The narrative challenges common perceptions, offering a detailed analysis of the event and its implications.

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Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about the infamous march to Gaza. No. That so many hilarious visit videos have come out on of like these woke people being whipped by like Egyptian children not understanding, make these like impassion please to like Egyptian, like police, like

Speaker 4: You do have a choice.

You

Speaker 5: are humans. We are here for humanity. You are part of humanity. You are my brother.

Simone Collins: help your Islamic brothers.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. And the narrative that has come out on the right. These people just don't understand the sentiment in Egypt. These people just don't understand, you know, like they, they assume a sort of pan Muslim you know, identity, identity. , And because of this, because of this narrow progressive understanding, they did this incredibly foolish thing where they thought they were gonna get all the way to Gaza.

And obviously that was never a possibility. It

Simone Collins: seems like they did no coordination with the Egyptian government. 'cause most of the resistance seems to be indeed led by police and government. Yeah. So

Malcolm Collins: we're gonna come at this with a, this is one of those instances where if you're in a right wing media bubble you are being misinformed.

Mm-hmm. About what actually happened.

Mm-hmm.

I'm not gonna say that it doesn't make them look stupid but they did, for example, coordinate with the Egyptian government or at. And the Egyptian government didn't get back to them. They didn't tell them all this was gonna happen. Oh, okay.

Simone Collins: That then it doesn't count.

That does not count. They basically

Malcolm Collins: an ambush for them. They should have known that this ambush would be laid, and we'll get to why they should have known this.

Okay.

Mostly it has to do with the number of governments that, that have been destabilized by allowing Gazans to come in the time that Hamas blew up the wall between Egypt and Gaza, and like half a million to a million people flooded into Egypt and caused major disruptions in murder waves and stuff like this.

The people of Gaza are very murdery. You know, whenever a country takes them in it's usually a few years before mass deaths start.

If you're wondering why they so persistently end up revolting against the countries that took them in and housed them and gave them aid and trying to kill their leadership or trying to kill other people within the country. A lot of this, and I wanna point out I say this without judgment, has to do with how they contextualize the concept of death.

And I'd say, I say this without judgment because within my own family and culture, we have a unique contextualization of death. You know, we believe that you're not supposed to overly indulge in it. You're not supposed to let it emotionally affect you. And so, you know, I, I've got to be accepting of how other people are deviant in how they contextualize something like death, while also accepting the practical implications of these differences, specifically the people of Gaza. As you'll see in this video here of this mother , her two of her kids just died and she is cheering and looks like it's the happiest she's been in her entire life. And she's got a bunch of other women, some of whom presumably had kids who died as well, who are also very excited.

She's talking about how she's hoping that her grandkids also die soon. And the reason is, is because she believes that Eve. In a war against, you know, whether it's Jews or Muslims who believe something a little different from them, if they get killed in one of these wars, it's an auto path to heaven.

And because of that it is the most desirable life path. So if they settle down in a country and find peace and stability, and yet this part of their culture isn't eradicated, they have a strong motivation to create revolutions just due to their culture. And you can say, well, then we should eradicate their culture.

And it's like, well then one that's cultural genocide and two, what does that even look like? Like are you saying you wanna separate the kids from the parents and then raise them in like separate boarding schools so they don't build this concept? Like, it's not like the concept is out of line with their religious beliefs.

Well, many Muslims don't relate to death this way. This isn't the only region of the world. World where Muslims relate to death this way. They're just more extreme than any other Muslim group. And so I think to say that like, we have the right to erase this is wrong. But I also think it's understandable why other countries I.

Do not want to take them in and why they keep revolting and refusing common sense peace deals when Israel offers it to them because that's not what they want. What they want is war and the opportunity to die.

Gaza Mom: شهداء لا ولا ولد وأفتخر فيهم،

والحمد لله أجرنا بمنا يقلبنا خيرا منها، ونتنياهو مستعدين أن نضحي ايضا وايضا وايضا ال خذ من دمائنا وأرواحنا وأولادنا، وأيضا لفاد مستعدين هؤلاء سبيل الله. الله اكبر ولله الحمد لله الحمد الحمد لله، وهذه فكري كل الشهداء.

Speaker 2: الحمد لله الله اكبر ولله الحمد لله الحمد.

لماذا؟

Gaza Mom: لماذا؟ لأن أولادي في الجنة وهم إن شاء الله رب العالمين، شرف.

Malcolm Collins: It also helps explain when people are like, how is Hamas, you know, getting people to give them their babies to like put it potential sites where they're gonna be missile.

And if you see this woman and how she's like, oh, I can't wait till my grand babies die. You would see. How within a portion of the population, and I'm noticing here, I'm not saying everyone in a population is like this. You don't need everyone in a population to have this perspective. If you have, you know,

3%.

of the population has this perspective, that's enough to almost inevitably lead to a revolt.

So here you might be saying, okay, well almost every time they're taken into a Jewish majority country or a Muslim majority country, they start trying to kill people. Why don't we just take them into Western countries? Right. Well, Denmark attempted that in 1992, they took in 321 individuals 204 of the 321 refugees.

64% had been convicted of a crime by 2019. And that's defined as serving serious fine or jail time and excluded traffic violations

descendants. Okay. So you can be like, okay, well this is just a first generation, well, no it's not. Of the next generation, 34%, ha. Who were born in Denmark. Also had been convicted of a crime by 2019. And keep in mind, like that's including the ones who are too young to have committed a crime. I would note here when you're contrasting this 64% conviction rate if you look at only men in Denmark, the conviction rate is only 2%.

And that's if you're looking at the highest crime demographic, 15 to 2064. And then if you're like, okay, well at least they're not an enormous strain on the state. Well, it turned out that by 2011, 82% of the group was on some form of public support.

So essentially even intergenerationally, they just become parasites of the state. In terms of employment if you search for immigrants by Lebanon, which is often where the Palestinian lab immigrants were categorized, so keep in mind this isn't like as concentrated as sample set. In Denmark, only 43% of the men and 23% of the women aged 30 to 60 were employed.

So less than even 50% of the men , and almost none of the women.

and if you want to come to me to be like, well, are you saying that they can't change or they can't improve? And I'm like, I'm not saying that. All I'm saying is the stats, when they've gone to these countries, they started killing people. When they've gone to these countries, they've become an enormous drain on state resources.

So first when people say gazans are poor and live in poverty because Israel, is doing all these horrible things to them, , I'd point out that even in environments like Denmark, , we see the same thing and we see similar behavioral patterns., press F to doubt also.

I'm not saying this is in their nature. I'm not saying this is a, you know, an inevitability of who they are. I'm saying this is what has happened every time.

And with that history, I'm not going to sit here and pressure other states to take a population that has repeatedly victimized the populations of states that have done kindnesses to them in the past.

But it, it helps understand why, while the people. Across the Middle East, support you know, the, the quote unquote like Palestinian. Cause governments across the Middle East want nothing to do with these populations and are actually quite terrified of them.

And, and view,, I'd be like, I have a lot of friends who are like, I call them, I guess you could say, like elitist or, or power player, like, Muslim types , in like Middle Eastern environments. And behind closed doors the general vibe or, or conversation is Israel's doing the world a favor right now.

And they want. They, they want the most extreme outcome to be the outcome that happens. And they are trying to pressure Israel actually into a position where that's what ends up happening. Huh. Without it looking like that, that's what they're doing to their people. Because no, keep in mind, like Goins have tried to assassinate like multiple heads of state in the past.

Like if you are a head of state in the Middle East this is like, a, a, a band of like agitators and assassins from your perspective.

Mm-hmm.

And so you wanna play both sides while geopolitically doing what you can to achieve a certain outcome. So one is understanding why this happened, understanding what the protesters understood and what they didn't understand, because it was clear they didn't understand this.

They didn't understand how much and, and why the Egyptian government was just not even gonna begin to allow them to protest. Mm-hmm. But another thing that we often get wrong is this was not. Even a majority Western or woke audience. The, the caravan actually had multiple factions with some of them coming from Islamic majority countries.

Like Tunisia.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yes. Right. What was with this, I saw that there was this big Tunisian contingent, but why?

Malcolm Collins: Hmm. They never got outta Tunisia, by the way, and we'll get into why that happened as well. , Oh, before I get further, we've also gotta talk about like, the hypocrisy of all of this.

For example, a leading figure in this, who we'll see throughout, this is an Irish politician who is gay and has a husband and removed all of that and the pride flags from his social media before going to Egypt, which I think sort of shows this. Understanding that he's fighting for people who would have him killed and imprisoned.

Well this is,

Simone Collins: this is something that I do wanna explore too though, that, I mean, we're talking about over 4,000 activists from more than 80 countries. And you know, these, that this is, it's a lot, you know, people are flying from between five hours to over 20 hours to get to this. They're spending a lot of money to do this.

I it's hard to get anyone to come out and, and do some things. Yeah. And they ended up

Malcolm Collins: getting like left in the hot sun to get terrible sunburns

Speaker 6: We have just been violently dragged into the buses here at the first checkpoint.

Malcolm Collins: being,

Simone Collins: and I, I think they, you know, most of them weren't shocked by this. They kind of expected to be met with resistance. And that was part of the, like no, they, it's a feature outta bug No.

To

Malcolm Collins: be met. Was it US or UK style resistance? Mm. Not Egyptian style resistance. Okay,

Simone Collins: fair, fair, fair on that. But they, they knew the risks. I still think it's really notable that in an, an age of more on wheat, and I think we've had before this many people. Are putting this much on the line, even if just their money and time to come out and engage in this and they know that it wasn't gonna be comfortable.

They're coming out with, you know, these backpacks and like really expecting to, you know, do a buggy thing. No, but they,

Malcolm Collins: they, they're also coming out with their phones for selfies and to talk on social media and Yeah. I mean,

Simone Collins: yes, there, there is clout chasing Absolutely. But again, we're still talking 4,000 people.

Simone, this

Malcolm Collins: is, this is the Riviera of clout chasing. This is the Gaza border. Okay. Was this the Fyre Festival of Protests? This was, no, this was the fire festival of clout chasing that is exactly what this was. And that's what makes it so interesting. Oh God. All right. pro-Palestinian activists rally in Tunisia before departing for Egypt as part of the global march to Gaza Convoy June, 2025.

Their shorts read All Eyes on Rafa highlighting the goal of opening Gaza's Rafa border in. Early 2025 as Israelis war on Gaza intensified in a full blockade starved the enclave, international activists organized a global march on Gaza. Their aim was to pressure world leaders to end what they described as a quote unquote genocidal siege.

The plan was unprecedented in scale. Thousands of people from dozens of countries would converge in Egypt to march on the Rafa crossing on God's border to demand the entry of humanitarian aid. The initiative was spearheaded by groups across the ideological spectrum from woke Western peace activists to Arab Civil Society groups, a coalition of Tunisian organizations, including the country's Labor Union.

And Human Rights League led a caravan called the Samad Convoy, which deported Tunisia on June 9th, 2025, picking up supporters in Algeria and Libya. In parallel grassroots networks like the Palestinian Use Movement Code. Pink and Jewish voice from labor helped rally around 4,000 foreign activists from 50 to 80 countries to fly into Cairo by June 12th.

And I love the Jews who, who, you know, whine about this stuff, and almost none of them are above replacement. You're not really j like, you don't have an invested interest in the future of the Jewish people. If you and your kids are not above replacement rate, you know, and, and, and so it's really just sort of this ultimate, I think, betrayal of Jewish identity to, you know, put the actual Jewish people who will continue to exist in the future.

It, it's such a threat. Goals and expectations. Organizers made clear their protest was symbolic. They did not truly expect to walk into Gaza. I will note here some protestors believe that other protestors clearly thought they were gonna get into Gaza. See the above section given the fortified border.

And I'll put a picture of how fortified the border is here. It is comical to think they would ever get through if they had looked at pictures of this.

Mm-hmm. I mean,

I guess it's not that they just politically pressure them but again. They thought that they were dealing with like la anti rioters. I, I don't even think they thought they were dealing with that.

They thought that they were dealing with like partially sympathetic like Muslim police or something. These people had no sympathy. Some of them had had their, you know, well, even if

Simone Collins: they did, I, I think they're much more concerned about taking care of their families and job security than they are about, oh, well this foreigner who's screaming at me in English and a translator is now also trying to scream at me.

I, they've convinced me I will put my family on the line. My job

Malcolm Collins: started with explanations of why this time wouldn't be like the time when Hamas blew up the wall and the country was flooded by Goins and a bunch of people died, or the time the Goins tried to start a revolt, or the time the Goins you know, started killing.

Yeah. Like, or the, the time majority, we'll get into all of that in a second, but like, they didn't even like address as the point that whenever this has happened in the past, Goins start killing people in other Muslim majority countries. Some even describe it as standing on the right side of history by bearing witness to Gaza, suffering the marchers plan to travel by bus from Cairo to Sinai.

City of Resh then undertake a roughly 50 kilometer three day march on foot to the Rahho crossing, camping near the border before returning to Cairo on June 19th. Crucially, organizers sought advanced permission from Egypt. They say they applied through the Egyptian embassies weeks beforehand, hoping the government would quietly tolerate the protest.

So the government never replied, and that's why they thought they might quietly tolerate them.

Hmm.

In public comments. The group emphasized that the march would be peaceful and humanitarian focused solely on opening aid corridors, not on any unlawful entry. That was never gonna happen if you understood the geopolitics of the region.

Despite these intentions, many observers question the marcher's realism. Egypt classifies a rahho border zone in North Sinai as a restricted military area off limits to outsiders without special permit. Oh dear. Dock border is fortified with concrete walls barred with wire and heavily armed checkpoints.

And if you're like Egypt can't really be that afraid of the Gazen people, like they can't really view them as like insane monsters who just randomly murder anyone who they live next to. Look at the size of this wall. Look at no, look at, look at the number of layers and look at the size of this wall.

This isn't like the Berlin Wall. This is people who are terrified of what's this is attack on Titan stuff. Okay. That is what Egyptians put up. Out of fear of what you see as as starving harmless children or something on the other side.

Simone Collins: You not to say that there are not starving harmless children on the other side, which makes me all the more angry about what Hamas does.

Malcolm Collins: Right? But the point being here is if, if you're ever like, come on, other Muslim countries aren't actually that terrified of the Gazans. They don't actually see them as that different from other Muslim populations, do they? Look at the size of these walls, look at the security measures, look at the number of treats on this border.

This is not like us where we're like, we would really prefer that fewer Mexicans come in taking our jobs. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is like. You're trying to keep out like an a like on the, this is like the, the wall from like Game of Thrones. This is like, there is something truly terrifying on the other side of this wall from the perspective of the Egyptian government.

I point this out because Gigi, because Egypt isn't exactly a country with tons of money to spare, this is a very honest signal of just how threatening in terms of their defense budget, the Egyptian government found the Gazen people. To give you more context here, here is the Tyrannosaurus enclosure from Jurassic Park , and here is the wall between Gaza and Egypt.

Simone Collins: Hmm. , They weren't, no, by the way, they weren't trying to bring in gaza's to, sorry. They weren't trying to bring in Yes. They were trying

Malcolm Collins: to open the border

Simone Collins: to bring in aid. To bring in aid.

Malcolm Collins: Like, if you look at the majority of the Egyptian population for the way, and we'll get to this in a second, they actually support gaza Egypt. Out of all Arab countries, if you're looking at the base population, they wanted the highest supports for the Palestinian people.

It'd be a win for the government to give them aid. The government is intentionally not giving them aid. You need to ask. When you see walls this big and you see a government risking this level of dis disruption from its own people, a government that has no love for Israel, what are they trying to do to whatever's on the other side of that wall?

Like what is the goal of the Egyptian government and why? And I think that that, that this is something that other people just like aren't asking. They're like, oh, they just don't care. Or they're just playing it safe, or they just know they have an intention, or it's that they genuinely believes that they'll get through.

But I think it might be, as I've said before, that they have an intention from what I know from you know, mus, you know, elite level, sort of Muslim people who I've talked with about this. And their perceptions on for the region the best , end state for this conflict.

Simone Collins: So are you saying the, the, the, the genocide call is not coming from Israel so much as it's coming from like all neighboring countries?

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Oh God.

Malcolm Collins: The leadership of all neighboring countries,

Simone Collins: right? Yeah. Not necessarily the people because

Malcolm Collins: I mean like

Simone Collins: are nice, like

Malcolm Collins: Jordan for example. Like their, their king had goms tried to assassinate him. You think he doesn't have like, worry about that?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like maybe some concern.

Malcolm Collins: And we, we'll go into like all the neighboring countries, but the leaders of neighboring countries have either been killed or tried to be killed by Gazen rebellions.

Hmm. They're, they're not doing this outta nowhere. It's, it's not out of like hatred for the gazen. It's out of what's happened before. And, and so, these giant fences, this terror that. That apparently Egypt has around this is not, and, and I would say it's not unwarranted. I, I might have distaste for the way that they're forcing Israel into this position.

And I, and obviously I ran as the one who instigated all of this, right? You know, by, by funding this, by funding Hamas, by training them, by well them and what was it, Qatar, we have our video on how Qatar is actually the biggest like dollar funder for Hamas. And also the biggest dollar funder for our university system out in terms of foreign institutions.

If you, have you ever asked yourself why Claudine Gay said the thing she said about Jews, she's the one who runs Harvard, that she wasn't sure if it was a human rights violation for people to say that the Jews needed to be eradicated. Whoopsie that seems like a controversial saying to say to to Congress.

Is there somebody she might have been trying to appease more than Congress? Oh, her number one donor. Good job. Because it's also Hamas'.

Simone Collins: Oh, goodness gracious.

Malcolm Collins: But anyway some critics wondered what did these foreigners think would happen when they reached Rafa? Would the gate simply swing open?

Organizers insist that they were not naive. One activist told the ap, we do not expect to be allowed into Gaza, acknowledging they might only hold a protest at the checkpoint. Nonetheless, this strategy banked on moral spectacle. If thousandths march, perhaps Egypt to leadership, which officially synthesizes with God.

Again, I said they officially synthesize, so why no aid?

Mm-hmm.

Would relent or world opinion would force a breakthrough in hindsight, this gamble on goodwill that ignored some of the hard reality of regional geopolitics as the marchers would soon discover. So, again, i i, I note here for me, the biggest thing on the ground for anyone who's like, Malcolm, you're exaggerating, I mentioned this above, but just like, seriously, seriously, seriously.

I want people to think about this. You are exaggerating how scared the other governments in this region are, or how much they fear the people of Gaza. As a cultural group look at these fortifications. I, I don't think I've seen fortifications this intense standing on any border on earth. These dwarf, what I saw on the North Korean to South Korean border these dwarf what I saw.

Now, those, that's a heavily mined area, so it's not really comparable. Okay? But the, this, there is just these dwarf, the Berlin Wall, for example. This is, this is a clearly put up, and it's not like the, the fortifications on the Israeli border, which were actually fairly modest compared to the ones on the Egyptian border.

I think because the Israelis were fairly complacent about this, partially and they wanted to look like good guys. So they didn't actually put them in a cage. Whereas the other neighbors are like, no, no, no, no. This is a cage. This is a cage, like the Tyrannosaurus cage in Jurassic Park. Like if you were trying to judge the dangerousness of the dinosaur, we have tyrannosaurus level cage here.

Simone Collins: So in other words, this utter failure of the march on Gaza, the Fyre Festival of Protests could have been. Avoided if the 4,000 plus people who decided to join thought a little bit more about what the leadership of surrounding nations felt about more porous borders with Gaza?

Malcolm Collins: No. I think they knew what they felt.

I think that they thought they

Simone Collins: still went for clout. They just thought that it would be easier.

Malcolm Collins: No, what they thought because they had gotten use to the way the United States handles protests,

Simone Collins: uhhuh,

Malcolm Collins: that their protests or UK handles protests or Norway handles protests, that their protests would be handled like the protests in those countries.

Mm. Or at the very most, like the protests in LA and the United States. Right.

Simone Collins: He mainly sort of like, I guess Greta Thunberg made them more smart. Approach

Malcolm Collins: by choosing, by getting, by getting, by getting caught by the Israelis.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And they gave her

Malcolm Collins: sandwiches and they, they kept them safe. They met her and kept her, and she couldn't even think when they're like, what horrors did you undergo?

And she's like, I don't even want to talk about it. Well, yeah, of course she wants to talk about it.

Simone Collins: Well, no, no, no. I mean, she, she emphasized that nothing, and this is the, the, the, the talking point of everyone who's being interviewed is what they're experiencing comes nothing close to what those in Gaza are experiencing.

I don't disagree. But. She, I mean the, the primary indignity that she suffered was that they were stopped from doing this. She really didn't have anything else she could say.

Malcolm Collins: The she's ignoring is, she was sailing into an Egyptian set up beforehand, exclusion zone. And the Egyptians would have the, the Israelis literally saved her from what happened to these other protestors.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Honestly. Yeah. She was so lucky. She was so lucky. They, she was so lucky

Malcolm Collins: that the Israelis went out and saved her. Yeah. Actually she didn't

Simone Collins: have a complaint about them, was that they were, they were not allowed to leave the boat after the, the, the, the,

Malcolm Collins: the that she wouldn't even watch the videos of what happened on the day was so like gross to me, like willfully keeping yourself ignorant.

She, I mean, she must have watched hundreds of videos of atrocities on the other side, but she wouldn't watch a single video of what was happening to the hostages.

Simone Collins: Oh, on October 7th. Yeah. I thought she did

Malcolm Collins: watch. She didn't watch. No, she refused to watch any of them. She has no idea. Like apparently she's never seen any videos of what happened on October 7th, and she tediously, refuses to watch any That's because she considers them propaganda.

It's not odd. It's leftist, leftist. See, one side is evil, one side is good. Don't, don't blur your mind with the gray morality or anything like that. You know, don't, you know, bother yourself with what's currently happening to the hostages.

Mm-hmm.

Anyway is rival arrival in Cairo. So we're gonna go to the timeline now.

The international activists began landing in Cairo around June 11th to 12th, 2025, and immediately ran into resistance. Egyptian authorities had gotten wind to the plans and launched a preemptive crackdown. Dozens of known activists were detained upon arrival at Cairo Airport. Questions and put on the neck flights out.

Okay. Over two days at least 73 foreign nationals were summarily deported to Istanbul on Turkish airline flights. And by June 12th, Egyptian security had compiled lists of March participants at local hotels, plane codes. Officers showed up at hotels in Cairo, interrogated guests, and even confiscated their phones.

According to organizers, by June 13th, groups estimated over 200 activists from the us Europe, and North Africa had been detained or questioned in Egypt, was up to 100 more waiting deportation. The Egyptian government gave it no official welcome to the global March. No kidding. Instead it quietly instructed airlines that between June 12th and 16th, all inbound Cairo passengers must hold return tickets to facilitate expelling unwanted visitors.

D do you see how like the US government needs to handle protesters this way? Just disappearing them, sending them back to where they're coming from?

Simone Collins: I do. Yeah. There's, now I'm thinking about the LA riots, you know, and how those have played out. And also how different people are covering them. So I hear on the All End podcast that the ice raids that taken place, that have taken place are being very misrepresented that they actually are going after criminal enterprises.

So, apparently for example, the, like some fashion business was, was rated, but it was like a, a, a money laundering front. No one's talking about that other like

Malcolm Collins: protestors complaining of even like human trafficking orgs where people were being rated and like,

Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah. And so that, like, I think people are given these very skewed reports on what's happening.

Well, it's not

Malcolm Collins: reports, it's, it's, they intentionally blind themselves to information on the other side, which is why I'm trying to give all the information on both sides here. I appreciate that. It's, it's that they, Greta thornberg it, they're saying I won't watch any video of the atrocities Hamas committed.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I mean, I was just watching Tyler Bender. A YouTuber who, who means left just talking like, almost like starting to cry as she was talking about how disturbed she was by the LA protests and what's going on with the ICE raids. And yeah. I'm just, I'm realizing how siloed we are with information that I'm here on one side being like, huh, like I, this is, this is a complicated situation.

You know, and, you know, people are being deported, but this is, this is what the majority of people voted for. And this is also completely in alignment with enforcing US laws. And on the other hand, she's, she has this perception that, I don't know, we're, we're entering some fascist dictatorship. And we just have, it's, it's just crazy how differently we, your reality.

And I'm glad that you are trying to look on both sides.

Malcolm Collins: We try to look at information from both sides, and they look at information from only one side.

Mm.

Which is why we're going through this today. I, I hope already dispelled the rumor that these people didn't know what was gonna happen at all. They, they miscalculated something.

And what they miscalculated is that they were going into an authoritarian dictatorship and they thought that they were going into a democracy. Right. So,

Simone Collins: I, I, if I'm to recap here, one, they expected to get social credit and clout for going out and being seen to have appeared in person for this epic protest.

Yeah. And two. Do, do you think? I, I don't think they actually expected to get any aid through. Right. They just expected to be like valiantly arrested and then sent back

Malcolm Collins: with them to maybe send some aid or like just pressure the Egyptian government? No, but they definitely did not expect this. Okay. They didn't expect to be and we're gonna continue with what happened to them.

Yeah. Systemically dismantled removed and disappeared back to their country of origin.

Mm-hmm.

Despite the dragnet, hundreds of marchers managed to enter Egypt and regroup On June 13th, they attempted to set out to Cairo towards Sinai by road as planned several brutes and Texas carrying activists, including a 50 person Irish delegation led by people before Profit TD Paul Murphy.

Simone Collins: Now this is the gay legislator from Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Departed for this US canal Highway. Murphy was initially optimistic upon landing. He posted nobody is being detained or deported. Pressure on the Egyptian government is clearly working. I love this optimism. This optimism was short-lived about 30 kilometers outside Cairo at a highway toll station near Islam.

La Egyptian police sprung a trap roadblocks and checkpoints abruptly halted the convoy officers in riot gear ordered all foreigners off the vehicles seizing passports and preventing anyone without any Egyptian ID from proceeding. Okay, approximately 40 activists from France, Spain, Canadian Canada, Turkey, and the United UK and beyond were herded off and held in the desert heat.

At this makeshift checkpoint. Sounds unpleasant. They're being held in the heat and not allowed to move. The marked organizers reported a statement, this fire

Simone Collins: festival of protests. My God.

Malcolm Collins: And you, you, if you see pictures of, then they have these horrible sunburns.

Simone Collins: Yes. Yes. I just keep seeing these, these images of sweaty very deeply uncomfortable looking people.

Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, th this was clearly meant to sort of torture them from Yeah. And keep in mind, this is something that and we'll get to this in a bit, while the Egyptian people overwhelmingly support Gaza they, it turns out, and the Egyptian government was right about this, they hate Westerners trying to impose themselves on Egyptian foreign policy word more Yeah.

Than they like Gaza. Okay. And so, these foreigners coming in there and whining and trying to force them, they just see this as cultural imperialism, which is exactly what it's, well, I could also see it

Simone Collins: being insulting of being like, yeah, I'm not cool with this. Why are you implying that I am. Being kind of insulting, like, can't do anything about this.

You yelling at me we're what we can

Malcolm Collins: given our circumstances. But the government apparently actually like ended up winning more popular support based on all of this. Gosh. Because the, the people were so happy was how the protesters were basically the deportation

Simone Collins: of sanctimonious Westerners.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

The de deportation and, and wow. So this is just been a win for the Egyptian government. Yeah, just a win for the Egyptian government. Just a total, because they also handled this very effectively

And in a way that really works for people who hate sanctimonious Westerners. And they've done a good job in terms of the play to keep out all of the Arabs who they also handled because they handled them before they got into Egypt. And we'll get to how they handled that in a second. Okay.

Confrontation on the highway as words spread that the march was blocked, tension spiked. Sun activists attempted to sit down, attempted a sit down protest on the road, refusing to turn back. Oh, that is so dumb. In Egypt. I You haven't been to Egypt drivers there. One of the craziest things for me in Egypt like if you talk about bad drivers, I've never seen any place or like insane drivers.

You could like do a, a turnoff from like a, a highway.

Simone Collins: Okay.

Malcolm Collins: And you'd have somebody drive the opposite way up the turnoff, like ski by you. What? Then just start going on the highway in the wrong direction. What? But yeah. Is there just no traffic enforcement in Egypt? I saw this happen in Egypt when I, I was like, how is this normal?

And I wanna say I saw it more than once when I was there, but I, I definitely remember seeing it at least once. And it was like, it reminded me of the Egypt baggage claim area where they scanned the bags. And it's so disorderly that people will, like, the machines regularly get like stuffed because people will try to stuff their bags next to other people's bags.

And so like the entrance will have like five bags shoved in it. 'cause nobody wants to wait and there's like no lines. Oh, but what I'm saying here is when you consider a culture like that and you think you're gonna sit on a road and they're not gonna be like. Carmageddon. They are, oh my, they're just gonna run you right over.

Oh, no, I, I mean, it shows a, I didn't study Egyptian culture before this. Especially if you're some sanctimonious, westerner, yeah. That just earns them, you know, free drinks for a year at the local pub. Not that they drink because Muslims hookah, I guess. Video. Whenever, whenever I go to Muslim country, they always do the the hookah thing.

Video footage described by participants shows a chaotic scene, protestors chanting and sitting on the asphalt as armed police surround them and water bottles and other objects flying towards the crowd. Allegedly it's thrown by government hired. Thugs mingled with security forces. So if you actually watch what happens, it's pretty clear that these are locals and not government thugs.

Yeah. I

Simone Collins: don't know why. Yeah. 'cause there there are, there's lots of footage of plain clothed people doing the, the more egregious harassment. You tried to do a sit

Malcolm Collins: down protest blocking roads in Egypt. Mm-hmm. They don't do that there.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Egyptian people are gonna throw things at you and it'll be a fun day because the police are gonna let 'em and, and there's a, oh

Simone Collins: yeah.

I guess that's the big difference is in the United States you'd be charged with assault and batteries. Oh no,

Malcolm Collins: no. The police are like, you go, like, there's videos of like little kids like coming out and trying to like whip the protestors having a blast.

Malcolm Collins: Because to them these people are just pure evil.

They are imperialism and colonialism. Made manifest because they don't do these types of protests in Egypt. This would never happen in Egypt. One because you're likely to just get run over. fortunately for these protesters the cops came before that. Right. But then once the cops are there, okay, well now you're open season for towns folk because they're angry that you're blocking their way to work.

Mm-hmm. And nobody's gonna stop them from throwing water bottles and whipping you. So now you're the town's local activity for the day. God. Wow. Egyptian officers did not hesitate to use force. Witnesses say riot police charged the demonstrators and the plane call agents to begin physically dragging activists into the buses to be shipped back to Cairo.

And I'll note here that one of the things that the right is getting wrong, if they think that the reason why the people of Egypt were mad about this, like the average people, the plainclothes people were mad about this, is because there isn't like this pan Muslim solidarity that these people didn't care about the people of Gaza.

No, they do. They just hate you more. Okay. Yeah. And they also knew that everything that you were trying is pointless. And so why not have fun ragging on imperialists right. Colors, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: We have had our passport. Yeah, sorry,

Simone Collins: I'm, I'm just saying that makes sense because everyone's kind of Right.

It's just that people didn't fully do their homework or I guess we have another issue of your theory of the left playing out, which is that people are going to make the most morally comfortable interpretation of a situation. So the most morally comfortable interpretation of how this protest is gonna play out is that, oh, well we know for a fact the Egyptian people, not the government maybe, but the people support Gaza and therefore the most morally comfortable interpretation of how they're going to behave is they will welcome us who also hold that opinion with open arms.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Instead of like. There is a possibility that these people may have a bias against us that we would even say could be slightly racist or nationalist.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, this is the type of phobic people get thrown from roofs, right? And they're like, well, come on, you don't actually hate our way of life that much more than even the Israeli.

Oh, you do? Oh no. But anyway, no, but there's this delusion, right? Like that they're on the same tide and they're not, they're useful idiots when there was in their own countries. When they come to these other countries, there's nothing but colonizers.

Simone Collins: So quote one, tourists. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We have had our passports confiscated and are being detained.

Murphy managed to post it with social media from the standoff, calling it a blatant crackdown on the great march to Gaza. What a sanctimonious turd. Within hours the highway was cleared. If protestors, many bruised and some in tears. As multiple busloads of detained marchers were escorted under guard back towards Cairo, one Dutch participant recounted some of his group were beaten up by the police coming back, battered, bruised, and broken.

Well, these are a developing country that's fascist under like military rules. Police, of course. You are so lucky you didn't go to an Egyptian prison. You lucky, lucky b*****d. Even as they were being driven away, some activists continued to plead with Egyptian officers. Where is your heart? One British woman shouted in a widely shared clip.

But to no avail. I mean, of course not you, you don't understand the situation on the ground and, and these sorts of, where is your heart? That is not how Muslims communicate this. They're like, that is not how they communicate their support of the gazen people. They're not like, oh, where is your heart?

They're like, Hey, we're in this together to kill the Jews. If you had gone out there and said, let's kill the Jews together, you would've found a very different response. You just forgot what their ultimate goal is. No, and I mean this very seriously. I think that really the protestors had started saying, a bunch of anti-Semitic stuff. They would've had a very different response. You

Simone Collins: really think so? Oh my

Malcolm Collins: gosh. In crime, where is your heart? If they started to be like, we need to the Jews, we need to get rid of them. We need to handle this. Some of the people in the crowd would be like, these people are speaking truth.

We might need to let them through. And it's because they haven't listened to why the average person in Egypt supports the Gazins. It's not for the reason they support the Gazins. Okay? It's not for the reason they support the cousins. Notable incidents. The clash at Islamia was marked by several dramatic moments.

Sky news footage showed Egyptian Ryan police manhandling protestors on the road, and Paul Murphy described how in the fray an American woman was in his group, was badly kicked and beaten. Her hijab turned off by police. Well, of, I mean, Egyptian agents also seized Murphy's phone midstream as he tried to document the scene.

His last message before the phone cut out said, violence got worse. After they seized my phone. They're taking a south than West towards Cairo for a time. Several dozen marchers, including Murphy, were held up in CTO on those buses as they were ferried back under guard to the capitol. This prompted diplomatic scrambling.

Ireland's embassy and others negotiated behind the scenes. And by the next day, June 14th, Egypt had released some detainees in Cairo rather than immediately deporting them, Murphy confirmed that he and a few others were back in a Cairo hotel by Saturday meeting shortly to decide next steps, he says, however, Egyptian authorities kept the pressure on activists reported plain clothes.

Police tailing them in Cairo, of course. And another roundup on Sunday 15th where some tried to quietly arrange to travel towards Sinai. Again, I love they're, they're trying to get past these police, but the we need police like this. We need police, like the police we have in Florida because we do have police like this in the us.

They know what's up. I gotta post that video of the Florida Police Chief. Oh gosh, we got this just not in la you know, we need the LA police chief saying this stuff

Florida Cop: If you resist lawful orders, you're going to jail. Let me be very clear about that. If you block an intersection or a roadway in Brevard County, you are going to jail. If you flee arrest, you're gonna go to jail, tired, because we are gonna run you down and put you in jail. If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County, gathering around it, refusing to let the driver leave in our county, you're most likely gonna get run over and dragged across the street.

If you spit on us, you're going to the hospital and in jail, if you hit one of us, you're going to the hospital and jail and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs that we have here. If throw a brick, a fire bomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at because we will kill you graveyard dead.

We're not gonna play. This has got to stop.

Simone Collins: your family will be called for to pick up your remains. Yeah, big, beautiful dogs that man,

Malcolm Collins: that man Murphy was detained a second time on June 16th.

Along with others, according to his political party. By that point, it was clear that the March wouldn't ever reach Gaza. Egyptians crackdown had effectively dismantled the protest before it even left Egyptian soil. Now what happened to the Samad? The Lan convoy waved Palestinian flags from a bus as they journeyed through Libya towards Egypt.

This is June 10th, 2025. This North African caravan of around 1,500 activists. So they were smaller. But but still very large. Yeah, it's a lot of, again, this is a

Simone Collins: lot of people to actually do something that takes effort,

Malcolm Collins: leave the house. But it too was stopped short of the border the Tunisian, a convoy.

In the meantime, the parallel Lan Corvoy from North Africa also ran into obstacles. This convoy had grown to one south, to one south 500 people in a multi bus caravan. By the time it crossed Tunisia Libya after an en enthusiastic sendoff in Tunisia, where crowds wave Palestinian flags, enchanted solidarity slogans, samad traverse, libya's western regions with the intention to reach Egypt by June 15th.

But on June 12th, when the convoy reached the city Ofcy and Central Libya, it was barred from further travel by the authorities of the Eastern Libyan government general Thar's factions. Haar is an ally , of Egypt's government, and his forces informed the convoy that Egypt had denied them entry.

Mm-hmm. Therefore, you will not pass. As one organizer quoted local officials. The convoy was allowed to camp on the outskirts of Csit while awaiting quote unquote permission, but that approval never came. I love how they just wait them out and stuff like that. It's a perfect way to handle them, be like, you just need to wait for permission.

Just wait out there in the desert and we'll come and let you know. And if you Yeah, it's uniquely

Simone Collins: trolley. Yeah, they, they clearly like, 'cause they could have just sent them away. They could have just sent them away and they're like,

Malcolm Collins: but it's a great way to deescalate. Right? Like, it reminds me of the 30 rock.

Like the pilots always say, wait 30 minutes. You know, just, just wait a little bit and we'll back. By late June 12th to 13th, Samad leaders knew they were effectively stuck in Libya. We didn't cross 2000 kilometers, all for nothing. Mark one frustrated organizer shouted to the gathered crowd in ee. Yet in reality.

They had Egypt's security influence extended beyond its borders, enlisting Libyan allies to prevent mass Arab marchers from showing up at Egypt's doorstep. So I, I found this to be really fascinating as well. It was quite well played by Egypt because it would've been an issue optically if they had a bunch of Arab people there as well.

Yeah. Instead of what's been all over social media, it's a bunch of woke looking urban monoculture. I mean, I've never seen a perfect depiction of the urban monocultures and what these protestors look like. I look at them. So sort of

Simone Collins: also strategic in who they let get far and then essentially

Malcolm Collins: handled.

Yeah. These annoying Irish guys and the, you know, all these sanctimonious turds the ones

Simone Collins: that Yeah. Even Gaza, sympathetic Egyptians would say okay, I don't object.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, no significant group of activists ever made it to the border.

Simone Collins: Wow. So this just. Utterly failed, I guess, where you and I differ in the expectations of these groups as they were planning and coming out, and at least over $4,000, sorry, over 4,000.

We, they don't

Malcolm Collins: go too long

Simone Collins: like you thought they were gonna make it. I just, I really don't think they thought they were gonna make it. I think maybe they thought they'd be comfortably set away and honestly, if anything, that they would just go on a nice vacation from wherever they got deported. Like maybe taking off from the Istanbul Airport, which is such a good hub airport that, that's my assumption here.

You really don't think so,

Malcolm Collins: keep in mind how many times they tried to reorganize the protest over and over again. They were trailed, they were then arrested. They then, no matter how bad things got, they kept trying to reorganize this. Okay. Even though they knew they could end up in Egyptian prisons, which is a big deal.

Simone Collins: Oof. Okay, keep going then.

Malcolm Collins: Wow. A few Egyptians citizens, a few tried to show solidarity, but were quickly restrained. For example, a few Egyptian activists rallied outside of journalist syndicate in Cairo on June 12th to support the march. Okay. Only to face police.

Simone Collins: Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: And he hopes that quote unquote, the people would simply surge to Rafa was firmly quash by state power.

Okay. So accusations of treachery versus solidarity. The March's failure sparked a war of narratives. pro-Palestinian activists accused Egypt of betrayal given Egypt itself, portrays itself as Gaza's Lifeline Online. Hashtags like shame on you. Sissy trended in Arab activist circles condemning Egyptian regime for harassing those trying to feed Gaza.

They cited Egypt's complicity in the siege. For example, Egypt has often kept Rafa closed except for limited aid. Aligning with Israel's blockade one Algerian Marcher detained and Cairo Limited Arab bleeders pay lip service to the Palestinians, but crush anyone who actually tries to help. Why? Like, these people need to ask, why do they just, are they just meanies?

On the flip side, Egyptian state media defended the crackdown and painted the marchers as either naive or provocateurs. Some local commentators suggested that if the foreigners really wanted to help Gaza, they should protest in Tel Aviv or Washington, not Israel sorry, not Egypt. And, and that really would've aligned with the Egyptian people's view.

Like, why are you blocking our streets? Why are you disrupting our lives? And the leftists have gotten used to trying to protest the people who they think agrees with them more.

Hmm.

This has become a common thing where like, in the United States, the leftist Palestinian protestors often will much more frequently protest progressive politicians than protest conservative politicians.

They actually almost never protest conservative politicians. And I think that they tried to apply this to a global scale thinking, well, Egypt will be more sympathetic to us in Israel. Well, and that's just wrong that. Like patently shows a misunderstanding of the two country's stances. They would've found a much warmer reception in Israel.

This view, essentially take your protest to the right address, resonated with Egyptians who resented Western meddling. Even some ordinary, ordinary Egyptians supportive of Gaza in principle felt the march wrist spectacle that could have backfired by drawing Israeli ire or chaos to Egypt. Thus, the aftermath largely saw the Egyptian government come out on top.

And really all the activists did was reinforce the government's position that aid and, and traversal on the border should be extremely limited.

Hmm.

Inside Egypt, the government's firm response likely played well with regime's priorities. CC'S administration portrayed the event as proof of its vigilance.

There was no such significant backlash. So no backlash happened in Egypt. A fact that might surprise outsiders until one considers Egypt political climate under CEC, public protests are virtually outlawed, which is why they would've seen them as so upsetting and arrogant. Most Egyptians have been depoliticized or silenced under the fear of arrest.

And also, you know, when a government has this type of power, sometimes depoliticizing could be nice when you've had a lot of political violence over the last few decades which is, you know, what happened happened here. And if anything, sissy used this to burnish his strong man image showing he can stand up to foreign and pressure and maintain order.

So these people basically came in as like a. A face for like foreign pressure, even though no, like no foreign government was behind them. And it made him look like he was able to stand up to like the US and the UK and everything like that in a way that made him look good in front of his people. Like the, the broader urban monoculture.

These people sort of represented like the UN, for example, which they really do in terms of a, a, a viewpoint. Now I'll also note here that overall Egypt is very pro Gaza. 97% of Egyptians agreed that all Arab states should sever ize with Israel in protests of its actions in Gaza. Wow. And 96% believed Egypt should send more humanitarian aids to Palestinians.

96% of people believe this, and yet they still lost popular support by doing American style protests.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Now as to why governments do not want to take in. Gazen refugees. Let's go over a few instances just looking at Egypt. 2008 Hamas LED breach at Rafa 202, 700 k crossed. That's a lot. Wow.

That's, so, it sounds like

Simone Collins: Egypt let them come through at that point because, Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: No, they blew up the giant walls. And they raced through like they, they had preplanned it. They let the people know we're blowing up the walls and then the people flooded in. If, if you can imagine, this would be like, you're right next to like.

A country that is, is known for violence or something like that. Like imagine we were right next to Haiti or something, except Haiti was giant. And somebody blew up the walls between us and Haiti and, you know, 200,000 to 700,000 came in. Or imagine like Joe Biden imported that many people. What I'm saying is like, it's not like culturally the Egyptians are like, these people are not like us.

And we don't wanna let them in. And, and so this is something that Egypt, it caused major issues. There were a lot of death tied to this. There were like, this is something that the Egyptian people would have remembered and not thought fondly of.

Simone Collins: Well, I mean if, if, and okay, a lot of people crossing the border.

You said, what did you say? 700,000? You didn't say 700.

Malcolm Collins: 700,000 to 200,000.

Simone Collins: That's crazy. Okay. So, obviously, you know, deporting them would take time and a lot of work, but presumably they were systematically deported. Right?

Malcolm Collins: I think a lot of them ended up staying, like forming. What often happens with Goins and we'll get into well we actually won't get into this today 'cause we just took in too much time, is when they move to other countries, they form ghettos where they become radicalized and then often attempt to attack the local governments.

Yeah, but wouldn't they

Simone Collins: try to take out those ghettos if indeed they are.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe, I mean, the current government in Egypt, Egypt is very effective. And I doubt many people would notice or care if the gazen ghettos were being taken out. So, 2014 to 2015, a few years later buffer zone expansion tunnels flooded.

Thousands of homes destroyed mass demolitions forced evictions. 31 soldiers killed a large residential displacement. 2023 to 2025 Gaza War. Medical evacuations, 2,200 wounded entered strict vetting humanitarian aid only. So this is like, from their perspective, we're strictly vetting who's coming in.

We're just gonna take in some wounded during the war. Now if you're looking at the various insurrections they caused, you have Jordan 1970 to 1971 attempted PLO led overthrow black. September 3000 to 5,000 people died. So this is 3000 to 5,000. Oh my gosh. Jordanian citizens died. And they attempted to assassinate the Monarch who let them in graciously giving them places to live, creating communities for them.

This is the way Gaza's act. Like there's a reason why other people aren't letting them in. There's a reason why these walls are giant. Lebanon, 1975 to 1990 civil War was Palestinian militias. Over a hundred thousand people died. PLO operated state was in a state, sparked a sectarian war, and tried to take over the Lebanese government.

So, over a hundred thousand people died because of their kindness to the Palestinian people trying to let them in or trying to give them a place to live.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that's one of those patterns of. Fool me once. Shame on me, fool. Oh, hold on.

Malcolm Collins: No, this, this more Syria. Oh, what? 2011 to 2018 Civil War Yakima Siege and insurgency.

3000 to 5,000 people. Palestinian faction split between regime and opposition. No. What was interesting about this one is it

the mainstream administration actually brought in Palestinian refugees to act as soldiers for them while some that were already in the country ended up splitting and going for

opposition faction. And this just sort of shows that even the faction is like, oh no, I need blood thirsty people to kill my enemies.

Where am I gonna find the random mobs? Oh, I'll just import a bunch of Palestinians to kill people. Which, which was the, the idea here. And it worked. Kuwait, 1991, mass expulsions and backlash hundreds of people died. PLO supported Saddam's invasion. Kuwait viewed it as betrayal. So in Kuwait when Saddam attacked the Palestinians who they had accepted into their country and treated its guests and got set up, immediately turned, traitor, incited with Saddam's regime again, oh my gosh.

Yeah, they're not exactly people you want in your country. Libya 1995 to 1996, mass expulsions, no uprising political ship under gii. It led to backlash. So they, they just pushed them out before there was a major issue. But the point being is that when you look at this, you're like, oh, this is