Encouragement at anti-war demo, and the reality of the day
after
by Gush Shalom (the Israeli Peace Bloc)
The day after 10,000 Israelis demonstrated at the initiative of Peace Now
against war, marching with torches and shouting anti-occupation slogans in
the center of Tel-Aviv from the Rabin Square to the Defence Ministry. One
couldn't avoid feeling uplifted by the fact that we are no longer totally
isolated - we the few hundred who have been swimming against the current for
nearly a whole year. The big camp is beginning to wake up from its coma and
to judge from the speeches and the reactions of the crowd, at least a few
lessons seem to have been learned during the months of silence: that there
can be no peace with settlements; that the 1967 border must be the basis for
the two-state solution. It really means something to hear from Yossi Sarid,
opposition leader but most of all barometer of the not-so-sure doves, that
he no longer trusts the army spokesman. That he stopped believing the daily
army communiques giving the official versions about why there had again to
be Palestinians killed, "targeted" or "unintended." Also,
Nurit Peled, who got the floor as bereaved mother got standing ovations when
she called Palestinian bereaved parents her "brethren" while making
it very clear that the settlers could not count on any feelings of solidarity
from her side; she also defended the Conscientious Objectors whose right to
refuse is still non-existent in Israel. It was a pleasure to distribute there
the Gush Shalom "generous offers" flyer, many people asking a second
one for a friend or a colleague, and to see in the course of that evening
our two-flags sticker displayed on more and more t-shirts.
But on this same August 5, the day after that reinvigorating experience,
there was very much very bad news about what is actually going on. We don't
have to tell you about ongoing exchanges of fire, on the nightly destruction
from the air of a Palestinian police office in the Gaza Strip, about the Palestinian's
drive-by shooting spray in the middle of the day in Tel-Aviv - very close
to the place of yesterday's rally - or about another hi-tech killing this
afternoon by the Israeli Air Force's helicopter squad, in Tulkarm; it was
broadcast by all the networks.
We conclude with forwarding you something about a much less widely published
ongoing phenomenon - which we just now received from Palestine Media Center
-PMC (pr@palestine-pmc.com).
(...) According to Palestinian official sources, Israeli occupation forces
have razed and burned 3,669,000 square meters of planted land since late September
2000. They have also uprooted and burned 26,570 olive trees.
In its latest acts of aggression against Palestinian fields and crops, Israeli
occupation forces burned and razed a number of fields in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory.
In the Nablus District on August 4, Israeli occupation forces burned more
than 200 olive trees planted on the road connecting the Ziwata and Ejinsia
villages.
Eyewitnesses reported that the Israeli occupation forces prohibited civil
defense crews from extinguishing the burning trees.
In Jericho, a large number of Israeli occupation forces, supported by military
bulldozers, razed 20 dunums of banana farmland. The owner of the farm said
that Israeli occupation forces razed his land under the pretext that Palestinian
gunmen supposedly used it for cover in the past.
The Palestinian farmer refuted the Israeli allegations, stressing that his
farm lies 2 km away from the main road, making the allegation that gunmen
used it for opening fire absolutely preposterous. He told reporters that this
was the second time his farm had been razed, adding, “Last time, the
(Israeli) soldiers razed 30 dunums of my farmland using the same excuse”.
The Emergency Committee of the Jericho Governerate evaluated the farmer’s
losses at 360.000 NIS (New Israeli shekels).
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/
