Over 250.000 protested in Tel Aviv (15.05.2004)
translation | 23.05.2004 18:25
Rabin - Square, Tel Aviv, Israel: Over 250.000 people gather for one of the biggest mass demonstration in Israel for a long time.
The organisers speak of about 400 000 demonstrators, the police of about 200 000.
One of the main organisers was Shalom Achshav (Peace Now).
Peace Now was founded in 1978 and the members come from different groups, with the main aim to put pressure on the israeli government by taking to the streets, so that the settlements get decreased and there is soon a permanent and equal peace between Israel and the arab neighbours.
Peace Now is persuing campaigns and actions with palestinians and arab isaraeli, whereby they understand themselves as a basis movement from below, as "grassroots", who are active in a direct dialogue with and by the people.
Also israeli anmarchists, israeli communists, workstruggle activists, trade unions and other left israeli youth groups participated at the demonstration.
http://www.peacenow.org.il/English.asp?Redirect=2
translation
Homepage:
http://germany.indymedia.org/2004/05/84109.shtml
Comments
Hide the following 3 comments
links to more peace protests
23.05.2004 19:33
fwd
When will you anti-semites learn?
23.05.2004 22:32
Makes me sick, why all the fuss about Israel?
Sim1
A more realistic description
24.05.2004 12:32
This wasn't a demo of "radicals" (the mariginalized left) but what is mainstream left in Israel. It is indeed the case that there are huge numbers of Israelis who are in favor of evacuating the settlers, demolishing the settlements, pulling out and allowing the Palestinians to form their own state and living in peace IF THEY CAN. In other words, they are concerned that the suffering of the Palestinians not be the result of their own (the Israelis) unjust actions but please note, that is NOT equivalent to concern that the Palestinians GET peace or even that they survive.
You deceive yoursleves if you imagine that the people in that demonstration were in favor of doing away with Israel, in favor of a "one state" solution. You deceive yourselves if you imagine that assuming the Israelis have pulled out, have allowed the Palestinians to "choose peace" but it doesn't work out that way -- too many within Palestinian society insisting on attacking Israel, that they will have the least qualms about shooting back.
Because many of us here keep raising the call for "more democracy" (and I agree that is a good thing) we ought to take a close look at an example society such as Israel so that we can at least understand the problems and attempt to devise coping mechanisms. This may be tough to swallow, but some of the Isralei actions we complain about are the result of "too much democracy". Their system of proportional representation with minimal threshhold (they just RAISED it to 2%) means every kook party gets seats in parliament. There simply is no incentive for party cohesion as long as splits don't threaten to reduce the fragments to below 2% and so parties divide all the time over personalities or minutae of ideology.
Of course splits cause bitterness and usually the fragments will refuse to work together. The result is that to form ANY government coaltion, a few of the "kook" parties must be included and rewarded with some crumbs. This has always been true in Israeli politics.
As of the moment, Sharon is in deep trouble. His coalition (hell, even is own party) doesn't support the withdrawal although the Israelis overall do. On the other hand, he doesn't have enough supprt IN government not to withdraw -- the Shinui party has given a time limit for him to get a withdrawal plan in place or THEY leave government (and he needs their votes). Talks are going on to see if he could get enough votes from parties not in government -- talks not going well at all (he has a corruption problem unrelated to the Palestinian situation).
The reality is that any final settlement is probably going to require a "national unity" government but it isn't clear how to bring that about. Those 250,000 people demonstrating? They are probably divided into 20 parties, 3-4 good sized ones, and they DON'T get along with each other.
Mike
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