"The plan for [Thursday] was largely set. Mick had talked it over with
the “magnificent” French, the 300 or so marchers who were still
barricaded/imprisoned on the sidewalk outside their embassy but had
hopes of getting out. We would drift into Tahrir Square, the central
downtown Cairo intersection, at 9:30 the next morning, Dec. 31, the
day that we were supposed to be marching in Gaza alongside the
Palestinian civil society group that had invited us. We would pretend
to be just what the Egyptians wanted us to be—tourists– till 10
o’clock, and then the women leading the protest would give a sign,
unfurl a banner outside the Museum of Antiquities, and we were to
cloud together like bees, and start to march. The Egyptian security
forces would surely stop us, but we would take as much of the square
as we could and try to hold the space."

Full story:
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/01/the-reluctant-radical.html