On protests inside of Israel, with analysis and reports from Rela Mazali, Rebecca Vilkomerson, Gush Shalom and Tom Pessah
From Rela Mazali:
Israeli news "farteiched und farbessered"
To read the English internet version of Haaretz of January 4th, you wouldn't know that some ten thousand marchers had protested their government's policy and attack on Gaza the night before in Tel Aviv or that earlier that day, many tens of thousands (some estimates have quoted 70 to 100 thousand), Jews and Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, marched their protest through the Arab town of Sakhnin in the Galilee. They're not part of the reality constructed by Haaretz's English website. On January 4th, one headline—topping an item picked up from Associated Press read: "Protesters across Europe urge Israel to end attacks on Gaza Strip" with no mention of domestic protests. Haaretz, mind you, is the newspaper often cited as a central example of Israel's relatively critical and truthful media.
Though the Hebrew website published items on both the above protests above, Haaretz's report on the Tel Aviv march was headlined: "Hundreds demonstrated throughout the country in protest …". The article actually says that, "thousands participated in a protest march … in Tel Aviv" and that "tens of thousands of demonstraters" protested in Sakhnin (my translation), but the dismissive "hundreds" of the headline might well convince you to skip such insignificant details. Today, one day later, as I'm writing this analysis, the Hebrew website of Haaretz no longer features even this headline; it can only be accessed via the archive and the item itself is only available for purchase.
A powerful "die-in" staged on Friday, January 3rd, by about 20 activists, at the entrance to an air force base situated in the posh northern Tel Aviv quarter known as "Tochnit Lamed" (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpeC7P-2LfU), hasn't been reported on to date by Haaretz in English, though the English version of Ynet carried an item on it (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3649206,00.html). In Monday's print version in Hebrew Haaretz included a "box" briefly reporting on this action, which is absent from both the Hebrew and English websites.
This is just a quick and superficial survey of how reality is filtered, "farteiched und farbessered" (abridged and improved, as a Yiddish adapter is reputed to have claimed of his rendering of Shakespeare) by Israeli media, in translation to English.
From Rebecca Vilkomerson:
The arrest and aftermath of the 19 activists from Anarchists Against the Wall who did a "die in" at Tel Aviv's air force base, was extraordinary. There is a video of the arrest (in hebrew) and it clearly shows them being ordered to move to the sidewalk, doing so, and then being arrested anyway (see video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpeC7P-2LfU). They were held for an un-precedented three days before being charged, and in the meantime activists' homes have been entered, computers have been taken, and even additional arrests have been made by the police. The Anarchists have been one of the most effective groups working against the Occupation, and my sense is that the state is taking this opportunity to both to try to deter others from civil disobedience as well as try to do damage to the group, under cover of the invasion and less outcry on invasions of civil liberties in a "democracy." It is also important to note that there are reports that numerous Palestinian Israelis have
been arrested from their homes as well since the invasion began, but there has been no focus (at least in the English or Hebrew press) on these actions whatsoever.
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Gush Shalom report on Saturday night's demonstration:
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1231029668
At the same time as Ehud Barak was ordering the army to start the bloody ground offensive against Gaza, some ten thousand protesters from all over Israel marched in Tel-Aviv in a massive demonstration against the war. All four lanes of Ibn Gvirol St., one of the city's main throughfares, were packed full of demonstrators who marched the two kiolometres from the Rabin Square to the Cinemateque, chanting and waving banners all the way.
"One does not build an election campaign over the dead bodies of children!" shouted the protesters in Hebrew rhymes. "Orphans and widows are not election propaganda!", "Olmert, Livni and Barak – war is no game!"' "All cabinet ministers are war criminals!!" Barak, Barak, don't worry – we shall meet you in The Hague!", "Enough, enough – speak with Hamas!"
The written posters were similar. Some of them paraphrased Barak's election slogans: "Barak is not friendly, he is a murderer!" (The original Barak slogan says: "Barak is not friendly, he is a leader!") Also: "No to the Election War, 2009!" and "The six-Knesset-seat war!" – an allusion to the polls which showed that in the first days of the war Barak's Labor Party has gained six prospective seats.
The demonstration took place after a fight with the police, which tried to prevent or at least limit it, arguing that they would not be able to stop right-wing rioters from attacking it. Among other things, the police demanded that the organizers undertake to prevent the hoisting of Palestinian flags. The organizers petitioned the High Court of Justice, which decided that the Palestinian flag is legal and ordered the police to protect the demonstration from rioters,
The demonstration was decided upon by Gush Shalom and 20 other peace organizations, including the Women's Coalition for Peace, Anarchists Against the Wall, Hadash, the Alternative Information Center and New Profile. Meretz and Peace Now did not participate officially, but many of their members showed up. Some thousand Arab citizens from the north arrived in 20 buses straight from the big demonstration of the Arab public which had taken place in Sakhnin.
The organizers themselves were surprised by the large number of protesters. "A week after the start of Lebanon War II, we succeeded in mobilizing only 1000 demonstrators against it. The fact that today there came 10,000 proves that the opposition to the war is much stronger this time. If Barak goes on with his plans, public opinion may completely turn against the war in a few days."
The giant Gush Shalom banner said in Hebrew, Arabic and English: "Stop Killing! Stop the Siege! Stop the occupation!" The slogan of the demonstration called for the end of the blockade and an immediate cease-fire.
On the day of the protest, the extreme Right mobilized their forces in order to break up the demonstration by force. The police made a great effort to prevent riots, and the one-mile march from Rabin Square to Cinematheque Square proceeded relatively quietly. However, when the protesters started to disperse, in accordance with the agreement with the police, a large crowd of rightists started to attack them. The police, which till then had been keeping the two camps apart, disappeared from the scene. The rioters then encircled the last of the protesters, harassing them, pushing them about and at a certain point started to besiege the Cinematheque building, where some of the last protesters had found refuge. They tried to break into the building, threatening to "finish off" the protesters, but at the last moment some police arrived and protected the entrance. The rioters stayed around for a long time.
***
From Tom Pessah, Israeli activist and JPN reader:
(I am writing in English for the benefit of our friends outside Israel, to encourage them to continue speaking out to get the world to respond to this. I assume most of my Israeli friends can follow this).
There is a huge number of protests going on around the country. This blog http://mystical-politics.blogspot.com/2009/01/israeli-demonstrations-against-bombing.html mentions some. One of the most impressive was outside a base of the airforce, to remind pilots that they are actually killing people, not just bombing targets. In this protest 21 people were arrested, some of whom have been in jail for several days.
A significant development is that parts of the zionist left, such as Meretz and Peace Now, have joined the calls for an immediate halt to the war- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230456536477&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. Several thousands protested last night in Tel Aviv - http://things.co.il/, and thousands more demonsrated in Sakhnin earlier that day, in what is seen as the biggest protest in the Arab sector for many years. http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=29543
Not enough to stop the land invasion, but public opinion is turning in our direction.
The counter-protestors yesterday told us we had no right to an opinon, since we don't live in Sderot. It brought me great satisfaction to tell them of the petition by Sderot civilians against the war (thanks Sarah Anne for posting it on Jewish Peace News -http://jewishpeacenews.blogspot.com/2009/01/some-voices-of-dissent.html).
(I resolved not to let anyone silence me, and the next time someone tries to take my place in the queue at a bank or at a store, I will definitely scream "fifth column!!!! go to Gaza!!! traitor!!!!". Also, those who weren't at the rally missed the counter-protestors' inimitable rendering of HaTikvah, the Israeli national anthem, as some kind of soccer song, to which some us responded quite naturally by screaming stuff about the referee's mother. I guess you should have been there)
Yesterday I spoke with M., a 20-year old student at the Hebrew university, who is planning a vigil this week in her campus. This is her first semester ever. In Jaffa, Palestinian activists are undergoing serious intimidation, including being woken up at night by the police for trumped up charges, and then released without being accused of anything. In spite of this they are continually protesting: last week they set up a mourning site for the civlians who died in Gaza, on Saturday many of them came to demonstrate in Tel Aviv, and on Tuesday another protest is planned in Jaffa (יפת פינת הפגנה ביפו ביום שלישי - ארליך, שעה 6).
Here are some testimonies - http://www.alternativenews.org/news/english/freedom-of-speech-denied-to-palestinian-citizens-of-israel-20090101.html
Maybe remember this the next time someone tells you how lucky Arabs are to be citizens of Israel.
The police initially said that it would ban Saturday's demonstration if participants were to wave Palestinian flags, and it took a decision by the High Court to allow the protest to happen http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3649253,00.html. This is, of course, the "flag of the enemy", and Palestinian citizens of Israel are expected to proudly wave the Israeli flag with the Star of David, as an expression of their national identity.
I am constantly impressed by people's creativity: a party scheduled for Saturday was not cancelled because of the war, but it turned instead into a protest event, with drag kings dressing up as soldiers and parodying the fighting. A group of Jewish and Palestinian poets brought out a collection of anti-war poems (in Hebrew - you can download it here - http://notes.co.il/mati/51225.asp), and organized a reading outside the house of Barak, the Defense Minister, to emphasize his responsibility for the massive killings.http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052047.html - and these are only a few instances that I am aware of, mainly from my area (Tel Aviv).
The media is barely covering it, but as a Tel Avivian friend told me, she was hardly aware of the protests against the war until 10000 people passed by her house chanting slogans like (my favorite) - Arabs and Jews refuse to be enemies - ערבים, יהודים, מסרבים להיות אויבים . Since many Arabs bused into Tel Aviv to be present, this felt especially poignant.
Tom Segev wrote in his column this week that "On April 5, 1956, Israel bombed the marketplace in the center of Gaza City. Fifty civilians were killed in that attack, including women and children. Then foreign minister Moshe Sharett thought it was a "savage and stupid" operation. But David Ben-Gurion, the prime minister and defense minister, and Moshe Dayan, the Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, believed the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, sought to destroy Israel and therefore his regime must be toppled, via a defeat in a comprehensive war. Therefore, the ministers followed a policy designed to increase tension and escalation, to the brink of war". This was 52 years ago! http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1052024.html
whereas this market in Gaza was attacked last week - http://www.facebook.com/people/Tom-Pessah/1237509#/video/video.php?v=1037755058264&ref=nf
We can either continue to accept this logic, that killing hundreds of people will "teach them a lesson", or we can demand a complete change of policy - a real honest attempt to end the occupation in both Gaza and the West Bank, dismantling settlements instead of building new ones, allowing people access to health care, food, higher education, travel abroad and the right to choose their own government democratically just like everyone else. To all those who say "there is no choice" - why is killing 500 people, very few of whom were engaged in firing rockets, even considered a legitimate choice? where is this leading to? only to the death and wounding of more Palestinian and Israeli soldiers and civilians. Enough is enough. Get up, stand up.
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Jewish Peace News editors:
Joel Beinin
Racheli Gai
Rela Mazali
Sarah Anne Minkin
Judith Norman
Lincoln Shlensky
Rebecca Vilkomerson
Alistair Welchman
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