[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Israeli - Palestinian rally at A-Ram

Sun Dec 14 14:44:44 CST 2003

>From: "Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)" <info at gush-shalom.org>
>Subject: Israeli - Palestinian rally at A-Ram
>Reply-To: info at gush-shalom.org
>Priority: normal
>X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at sweethome.co.il
>Sender: gush-shalom-intl-admin at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>To: gush-shalom-intl at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>X-Original-To: gush-shalom-intl at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>Delivered-to: gush-shalom-intl at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>X-BeenThere: gush-shalom-intl at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.13
>List-Help: 
><mailto:gush-shalom-intl-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org?subject=help>
>List-Post: <mailto:gush-shalom-intl at mailman.gush-shalom.org>
>List-Subscribe: 
><https://mailman.gush-shalom.org/mailman/listinfo/gush-shalom-intl>,
> 
>	<mailto:gush-shalom-intl-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org?subject=subscribe>
>List-Id: Gush Shalom's international supporter mailing list 
><gush-shalom-intl.mailman.gush-shalom.org>
>List-Unsubscribe: 
><https://mailman.gush-shalom.org/mailman/listinfo/gush-shalom-intl>,
> 
>	<mailto:gush-shalom-intl-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>List-Archive: <https://mailman.gush-shalom.org/pipermail/gush-shalom-intl/>
>Date: Sun, 14 Dec 2003 05:01:23 +0200
>X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.9 required=5.0
>	tests=BAYES_20,KNOWN_MAILING_LIST
>	version=2.54
>X-Spam-Level:
>X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.54 (1.174.2.17-2003-05-11-exp)
>
>GUSH SHALOM pob 3322, Tel-Aviv www.gush-shalom.org
>
>Before giving you this eye-witness account of today's protest action at A-
>Ram, we whould let you know that the verdict in the court martial of "The
>Five" will be finally read out this week - on Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 2.00 PM in
>the Jaffa Miltary Court (corner of Yefet and Shivtey Yisrael). An hour
>before, at 1.00 PM, a solidarity vigil will be held on the same spot. (Many
>of the young refusers, those who are not yet behind bars, were present
>today at A-Ram.)
>
>"The Wall must fall, must fall, must fall!"
>
>Dec. 13, 2003
>Once again, the organisers underestimated the number of people who
>would come to participate in a protest against the monstrous Wall which
>the Sharon government seems bent on erecting. After six buses were filled
>up, nearly two hundred more people arrived at the rendezvous point in the
>commercial center of the French Hill Neighborhood. Fortunately, the big
>Palestinian taxis of East Jerusalem - vans capable of taking nearly twenty
>passengers each - were happy to come at very short notice and take up
>the extra load. But still it did take time, and it was a matter of rather
>complicated logistics to keep the whole unwieldy column moving as a
>single convoy, through the circuitous road by-passing the big army
>checkpoint at the approaches of A-Ram.  Meanwhile, there were frantic
>calls from our Palestinian partners up ahead, asking us to hurry up and  
>telling that the hundreds of youths they had gathered together were
>chafing at the bit and eager to start.
>In fact, when we arrived at the designated starting point we found that the
>mass of Palestinians has ser out already. From some three hundred metres
>down the street there come the rhythmic thudding of a half-a-dozen giant
>drums, and the sound of chanting in which the word "Jidar" (Arabic for
>"Fence", similar to the Hebrew "Gader") was clearly discernable. We had
>to scramble out of the buses, grab the signs and banners ("The Wall is
>strangling A-Ram, the Wall is strangling all of us" and "No need of walls,
>we have a partner for peace") and hurry to catch up.
>The pundits who make self-satisfied statements about Israelis and
>Palestinians being "too alienated from each other to ever live together"
>and draw the conclusion that "a civilized divorce is the best which could
>be hoped for" should have seen the merging of these two groups. At one
>moment there were two distinct groups - some two thousand Palestinians
>forging ahead, five hundred Israelis quickly caching up with them. The
>next, the two flowed smoothly into each other and became a single mass,   
>above which flew in profusion and in no particular order Hebrew and
>Arabic and English signs and flags and the emblems of Israelis peace
>groups and Arab parties from Israel and the main factions of the
>Palestinian political spectrum all side by side, Gush Shalom and Fatah and
>Hadash and  Ta'ayush and Yesh Gvul and and the Israeli Women's
>Coalition and the Palestinian Islamists (only a few of them, but quite
>distinct) and KM Azmi Bishara's Balad Party (Bishara was there in person,
>as were his colleagues/rivals Muhammad Barake and Ahmad Tibi) and a
>sizeable block of the red flags of the Palestinian People's Party (former
>Communists) and among them a solitary flag of the Italian Communists,
>flown by a visiting delegation. And the Ecumenical Accompaniers of the
>World Churches have all gathered here from the various towns and
>villages where they fulfill various tasks, and people from the International
>Solidarity Movement and the Christian Peacemakers, and some of the
>Japanese who recently seem to crop up at virtually every peace
>demonstration...
>There was a considerable presence of  Palestinian women - young and old,
>some dressed in demure traditional clothes while others were clad in the
>latest of western fashions. Palestinian signs varied greatly, from enormous
>well-prepared printed banners bearing whole manifestos ("Yes to freedom
>of Education, Worship, Medical Treatment & Movement in Our City of
>Jerusalem, that the Apartheid Wall will block") to a "Fuck Sharon!" hastily
>scrawled on the back of packing carton and held aloft by a grinning boy.
>A group of girls were marching under a hand-drawn banner, "Break the
>Wall", with the letters on a white background drawn alternately in black,
>red or green - the Palestinian national colours. They were, it turned out,
>from "The Bridge Academy", an institute which stands to suffer a mortal
>blow from the Wall. "Half of us are from A-Ram here, the others from Beit
>Hanina across the highway. Until now we went back and forth without
>even thinking about it, but if they build the wall across the Highway we
>will not be able to meet each other again, and our school will lose half of
>its pupils...".
>The highway of which the 17-year old Tagrid spoke was the Jerusalem-
>Ramallah Highway. The government plans call for erecting the Separation
>Wall right in the middle of it, so as to create "a Palestinian lane" on one
>side and an Israeli one on the other, and in process completely cut off from
>each other the Palestinian neighborhoods on either side. And out route of
>march took us to that very highway. A specially-made cardboard replica of
>the government's planned Wall was straddling the center of the road, and
>to the side was a truck draped with Palestinian national flags and fitted out
>as a podium.   
>The rally begins. "This Wall, if we don't stop it, is about to create an
>Apartheid regime much worse than anything South Africa has ever
>known" said Catherine Rottenberg of Ta'ayush. "The Wall about to be
>built will separate a mother from from her child. It will divide between
>worker and workplace, between the pupil and school, and cut off the ill
>from the hospital and the dead from the cemetery. And the Wall will also
>cut off all of us, Israelis and Palestinians alike, cut us all of from the
>possibility of achieving a just peace".
>"We are sending a message from here to Mr. Sharon, the prime Minster of
>Israel"  called Sirhan Salaymeh, Mayor of A-Ram and decades-long
>interlocutor of Israeli peace activists. "Here is the message: we don't stand
>alone, Mr. Sharon, we the inhabitants of A-Ram whom you want to cut off
>and separate from out city of Jerusalem, we the Palestinian People which
>you plan to imprison in enclaves and bantustans. We stand together here,
>Palestinians and Israelis and internationals, together confronting your
>dirty scheme - and we will foil it! The Popular Committee Against the Wall
>represents the the whole range of social and political forces in A-Ram, and
>it is determined to maintain and extend the struggle in all possible ways".
>Then Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom: "Had the government built a fence or
>wall along Israel's legitimate border - the Green Line, the 1967 border - it
>would have acted within its rights, though I think even that would have
>been an enormous waste of resources: making peace and ending the
>occupation  would in my view put an end also to the suicide bombers'
>motivation, and mae a wall completely unnecessary. But as things stand,
>the Sharon Government arouses the enmity of the whole world by its
>relentless blind arrogance, by pushing forward the plans to build a Wall of
>Hatred which cuts into the Palestinians'  living flesh, makes their life into
>hell and steals their land piece by piece. This week,  the mad project of this
>Wall brought Israel to the dock at the International Court in the Hague, for
>the first time in the coutry's history. All of us, Israelis and 
>Palestinians, will
>continue paying a heavy price for this Wall, for the settlements and the
>occupation - but in the end the Wall will fall, as the Berlin Wall fell which
>also seemed impregnable, and the two peoples could live side by side in
>peace in prosperity".                 
>There were quite a few more speakers - many groups and factions had
>taken part in organizing the rally, and each had its own representative on
>the podium. The lively audience responded lively, with boos and catcalls
>whenever the Wall or Sharon its builder were mentioned. And then it 
>happened: the crowd anticipating what was intended as the dramatic
>climax of the rally, falling upon the mock cardboard Wall in the middle of
>the road, pulling it down and tearing it to pieces. It was started by the
>Palestinian youths, but their Israeli contemporaries were not slow in
>joining in, and the call "The Wall must fall, must fall, must fall!" 
>burst from
>a thousand throats.
>Everybody knew, of course, that with the real Wall it will be far more
>difficult and messy. And still, we all also felt that something of enduring
>importance was achieved today, there on the highway outside A-Ram.
>
>  For more information:
>Adam 056-709603, Irit 053-826631, Hulood 067-469738,
>Mayor Sirhan Salaymeh 067-2348808/02-2348808
>Gush Shalom/The Committee Against House Demolitions/The National
>Union of Arab Students/Hadash/Yesh Gvul/The Women's Coaltion for a
>Just Peace/Ta'ayush - Arab Jewish Partnership
>
>Petitions against the Wall:
>
>http://www.gader.org/Main/engPetition.asp (for
>Israelis)
>http://www.petitiononline.com/stw/petition.html
>(international petition)
>######################
>
>N.B.:
>On the Gush Shalom website links for:
>Articles and documents in German, French and
>Spanish
>
>In order to receive Gush Shalom's Hebrew-language
>press releases mail to:
>gush-shalom-heb-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>+ NB: write the word "subscribe" in the subject
>line.
>
>If you want to support Gush Shalom's activities
>you can
>send a cheque or cash, wrapped well in an extra
>piece
>of paper to:
>
>Gush Shalom
>pob 3322
>Tel-Aviv 61033
>Israel
>
>or ask us for charities in your country which
>receive
>donations on behalf of Gush Shalom
>
>Please, add your email address where to send our
>confirmation of receipt. More official receipts
>at
>request only.
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>If you got this forwarded and you want to
>subscribe, send mail to
>
>gush-shalom-intl-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>
>and write "subscribe" in the subject line.
>
>--
>
>To unsubscribe, send mail to
>
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>If you got this forwarded and you want to subscribe, send mail to
>
>gush-shalom-intl-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>
>and write "subscribe" in the subject line.
>
>--
>
>To unsubscribe, send mail to
>
>gush-shalom-intl-request at mailman.gush-shalom.org
>
>and write "unsubscribe" in the subject line.
>
>For assistance: info at gush-shalom.org

-- 

Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu