Jewish and Arab protesters call for peace

by Hans Lebrecht

It's been a long time since Tel Aviv has seen such a large mass rally for 
peace and against the Sharon Government's war crimes policy as the one the 
evening of February 9.

The plaza across the street from the Defence Ministry was filled to 
capacity by nearly 15,000 Jewish and Arab Palestinian protesters. Some 28 
peace organisations called the rally, with the main slogan, The Occupation 
is Killing Us All.

Among the initiators were Gush Shalom, the Women's Coalition for Peace, the 
Monitor Committee of the Arab community, the Yesh Gvul organisation of army 
reservists who refuse service in the occupied territories, the Campus 
Student Association and the Jewish-Palestinian Ta'ayush ("In Common") 
solidarity organisation for the occupied territories.

Uri Avneri of Gush Shalom opened the rally by reading a message from 
besieged Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, which was greeted by 
tumultuous applause from the crowd.

Avneri then observed that in the past, Gush Shalom had emphasized that the 
occupation creates war crimes. "Now", he said, "after a year of Sharon's 
rule, we must state that the occupation itself is a war crime."

Avneri pointed out that in the extremely dangerous current situation that 
threatens a major bloodbath in the region, "the unity of all the peace 
forces, the working together of all Israelis and Arab Palestinians is of 
utmost importance to fight this common danger."

Mayor Shawqi Hatib, chair of the Monitor Committee of the Arab-Palestinian 
population of Israel, emphasised that the one million Arab minority 
population of Israel, like their Jewish compatriots, condemn all terror and 
bloodshed, no matter who perpetrates it.

Arab Israelis are struggling, together with Jewish forces for peace and 
democracy, to replace the Sharon regime with a democratic government 
promoting a real and just peace policy and respect for the Arab people's 
rights.

The most impressive feature of the rally was the active contribution by 
officers and soldiers refusing to serve in the occupied territories.

Major(res.) Yishai Rosen-Tzwi, an initiator of the open letter by 53 
officers to war minister Ben-Eliezer refusing to serve in the occupied 
territories (later published as a newspaper ad), said over 200 reserve 
officers and soldiers had added their names to the letter.

"While doing your duty in the occupied territories, you are confronted with 
masses of people sunk by Israel's rulers in deep misery and daily 
humiliation", Rosen-Tzwi said.

"And then you get orders to push thesepeople still deeper into misery, not 
to let them lead a normal life." He added, "A decent person with a human 
conscience cannot execute such inhuman and criminal orders."

Former Education Minister Shulamit Aloni opened her speech by citing a poem 
written by popular national writer and poet Nathan Alterman 54 years ago 
during the War of Independence.

It denounced the massacres of Palestinians perpetrated by Israeli forces at 
that time. Today, she said, Army Chief of Staff Mofaz would denounce 
Alterman as an anti-Israeli left extremist.

She emphasised that Sharon and his collaborators, including Mofaz, "are 
radically contravening fundamental traditions by policies that arouse 
indignation of any decent person.

They torment the indigenous Palestinian people by military terror, to 
deprive them of their very existence as human beings, to evict them from 
their land, owned and tilled by their ancestor for many generations."

Aloni warned that war criminals tried after earlier wars could not hide 
behind the excuse of "following superiors' orders".

Aloni, for many years head of the Peace Now movement, also criticized Peace 
Now's refusal to join in the rally and emphasised the urgent need for unity 
of all Israeli peace movements in order to defeat the Sharon Government.

Though Peace Now did not join in sponsoring the Saturday rally, a number of 
its supporters were in the crowd, and rally organisers called on everyone 
present to join in Peace Now's rally scheduled for the following week.

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People's Weekly World paper of Communist Party, USA