Israeli - Palestinian rally at A-Ram

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

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)
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