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 Posted by Aron on May 16 2004 (Sunday) : 12:19 AMGush Shalom (I presume Adam Keller) provides a detailed report about the Saturday night Peace Now rally in Tel Aviv which had 120,000-200,000 attendees. I attended an almost identical Peace Now rally around the same size, which took place around two years ago (right before I left Israel). At the time we bitterly joked that 100% of the people in Israel who thought like us, attended the rally. It's hard for me to tell if anything has changed on that score. I hope and pray there won't be a need for another one two years from now. The rally - enormous crowd, contradictions on the podium Saturday night, May 15, Rabin Square Tel-Aviv. For the first time in years, peaceminded Israelis were out on the street in force - not in an event masquerading as a memorial and apologizing for making political statements. Still, we were in an event with whose program (rather, an uneasy compromise between two different programs) we had fundamental disagreement. The huge square started filling long before the scheduled time, and by 8pm the crowd was spilling off into the adjacent streets. These people were motivated by two major events of the past two weeks: the so-called referendum, held by Sharon among the registered members of the Likud Party, which had the intolerable result that some fifty thousand people - less than one percent of the Israeli citizen body - decided a major national issue, and that the settlers and extreme right acquired an effective veto even over a partial and half-hearted withdrawal such as the one proposed by Sharon. Hard upon this came the shock of the unexpected blows suffered by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip. The army learned the hard way that invading Palestinian towns and refugee camps inside armoured vehicles does not always render the Israeli forces completely immune. The general public came up with the word "Lebanon", which for Israelis carries the same connotations as "Vietnam" for Americans. All in all, the planned rally was being treated as a major event even before it took place. The rightwingers who demanded that it be canceled out of "respect for the fallen soldiers", merely helped to publicize the event. While striving very hard to present a common front, and declare itself "the voice of the majority" the coalition of political parties and mainstream extraparliamentary groups which initiated the rally had a fundamental difference to cover up. Some accepted the basic framework of Sharon's "unilateral withdrawal from Gaza"; others advocated renewal of negotiations with the Palestinians touching upon the West Bank as well as Gaza, and aimed at achieving not only withdrawal but also peace. The compromise slogan eventually chosen: "Leave Gaza and Start Talking". Still, on the podium covered with this slogan, the difference immediately became evident with speakers contradicting each other. - Ami Ayalon, former Shabak head turned peacemaker: "I believe in the sincerety of Sharon. We must not treat the settlers as enemies. Settlements can only be evacuated by one who feels great pain and empathy." (This did not go well on the audience, and there were some angry mutterings.) - Tsali Reshef of Peace Now: "We have not the slightest trust in Sharon. We know that he wants to withdraw from Gaza in order to keep the West Bank. But just as he was forced to give up Gaza, we will force him to give up the West Bank. Ofra and Beth-El [near Ramallah] and Kedumim [near Nablus] will be evacuated just like the Gaza settlements! Yes, they will!" (applause). - Reserve General turned businessman Yom-Tov Samiya: "Our armed forces; bought a lot of time for the political echelon to make a plan, but they can't do it forever. I support Sharon's concept of limited withdrawal from Gaza and a small part of the West Bank; the alternative is headlong flight like from Lebanon, which will encourage terrorism." (He got a very scattered applause, quite a few people felt that such a person - who initiated the concept of destroying Rafah houses to widen the "security belt" - should not have been on the podium.) - Yosi Beilin, initiator of "Geneva" and head of the Meretz/Yachad Party: "Those who refuse peace have tried everything, targeted killings which are not always very targeted; re-invading the West Bank and Gaza; destroying fields and groves and houses - 1800 houses destroyed; burning the fact of defeat into the other side's consciousness and doing it again and again and again. The one thing which they did not try is to make peace. Those who say that there is no partner are those who don't want to talk!" (The biggest applause of the evening.) - Amir Peretz, trade-union leader and head of the One People Party: "In 1977, the electorate toppled the Labor Party rule, and brought the Likud to power; but they did not do it in order to help the Greater Israel ideology; they did it because they felt second-class citizens. But the money did not go to the slums; it went all to the settlements. We should end the cruel occupation, we should disengage from Gaza, but that is not all; we should re-engage with Israeli society, with the values of humanity and social justice." - And of course, the inevitable Labor Party leader, Shimon Peres: "There had been very much talk of a Unity Government [no mention of his own eagerness to become once more Foreign Minister!]. But what is needed is a Unity Policy. We are not here a demonstration of the left. We are a demonstration of the majority. The government represents only a minority." - And then, a surprise speaker: "My name is Eliezer Bidu, I live in the settlement of Omarim, south of Hebron. I went there fourteen years ago because I was promised 'quality of life' for my family. What a quality of life! A few months ago our car was shot at. A bullet passed near the head of my baby son. I can't sleep at night, I want to get out of there. Not to live guarded by soldiers day and night, on disputed land among neighbors who hate me. I want to live in the real Israel, and I am not the only one." All this time, the radical groups who have been excluded from the podium, were busy among the enormous crowd, adding the points which none of the speakers made. On the day before the rally, organizers announced that signs advocating refusal will be banned - but in practice nobody stopped Courage to Refuse and Yesh Gvul from holding up "It will not end if you don't refuse!", while the Refuser Parents Forum collected a considerable number of signatures in support of the six imprisoned refusers. We ourselves were busy distributing Gush Shalom leaflets: "It should be said in clear words: Arafat is the partner; an agreement without his signature has no value; he is the only one who can convince his people to a compromise." And people were flocking around the Gush Shalom stall, taking up the "Truth Against Truth" brochure (now alo available in English!) as well as last-minute stickers "Destruction of Rafah - War Crime" and "Philadelphia Route - a Death Trap." The whole spectrum of moderate and radical groups were there with stalls and stickers: Women's Peace Coalition, the Geneva Initiative, the Communist Youth, the Ayalon-Nusseibeh plan, the Labor Youth, Ta'ayush, Yachad Youth, Socialist Workers League, MachsomWatch, the Working and Studying Youth, Chadash, the Anarchists ("two states for two people is two states too many"). The newly-founded "Shuvi" women were collecting signatures on their petition for withdrawal from Gaza (reportedly they already flooded the email of the PM's office). The "Daber" initiative told about collecting testimonies of soldiers who had served in the territories, while "All for Peace" are initiating a peace radio, to begin with through the internet. And there was a forest of signs, official and unofficial; printed and hand-made: Evacuating settlements is choosing for life Get out of ALL the territories The Likud is disengaged from the people - Elections Now! Stop the Apartheid Wall The Likud is Against Peace and Against the Poor There is a partner Life is cheap - settlements are expensive Right or Left? History will prove that we were RIGHT to have LEFT [this one originally English] We buried our sons - save those still alive The life of our sons is more important than the settlements Dear settlers, come back home. A man in a wheelchair was wheeling himself energetically through the crowd, on his chest a sign: "More money for the handicapped - less for the territories. How long will we get 1201 shekels (appr. $250) per month? A young Yachad supporter collected signatures against the plan of the Tel-Aviv municipality to turn the Rabin Square into a parking lot. "If you don't sign, where will you demonstrate next year?" For photos and what the press wrote: Ha'artetz Ha'aretz Hebrew Jeusalem Post Ma'ariv Ma'ariv Hebrew < | >
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"Entre los individuos, como entre las naciones, el respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz -- Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace" -Benito Juárez
"It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it." -Eleanor Roosevelt "Let them call me a rebel and welcome. I feel no concern from it. But should I suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul" -Thomas Paine | |
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A report on the Rally in Tel Aviv
