[GushShalom] Growing on-the-ground anti-Wall protest // 'Go to Gaza!'

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM  pob 3322, Tel-Aviv  61033 âåù ùìåí, ú.ã.,3322 úì àáéá 

[Being a bit late with the weekend reporting, we combine here the reports 
on the mass joint Israeli-Palestinian anti-wall demonstration in Abu Dis - 
with photos and explanation on the Gush Shalom website and the joint 
press release of the anti-wall coalition; you also find here the text of  'Go to 
Gaza', Avnery's witty and biting comment on  Sharon's latest ploy.]

# Mass rally against the Wall in Abu Dis - 07/02
-- English and Hebrew, photos with text - on the Gush website 
http://www.gush-shalom.org/actions/abudis_eng.html
http://www.gush-shalom.org/actions/abudis_heb.html

-- Summary on behalf of the anti-wall coalition for the international  press 

Forwarded by angela godfrey <anjie at netvision.net.il>

MASS RALLY AT ABU DIS

Over 3,000 Israeli and Palestinian demonstrators marched together 
yesterday in Abu Dis, in solidarity, to the concrete wall which does not 
mark any border, but instead creates a huge prison.
Participants, carrying flags and posters, marched 2 kms from Al Quds 
University to Ras Kubsa in Abu Dis. Marchers chanted: "Peace - yes! 
Fence - no!" holding signs stating "They are suffocating Jerusalem", 
"Jerusalem is Stronger than a Wall" and "No to a Ghetto". At the end of 
the march, a solidarity rally took place under the shadow of the Wall.

"This huge demonstration takes place on the evening of the Supreme 
Court hearings and those at the International Court of Justice in The 
Hague, proving there's no Israeli public consensus about the legality and 
morality of the Wall" said Ta'ayush ("Co-existence") activist, Dr. Neve 
Gordon. "Whoever today has seen the Wall at Abu Dis understands that 
it doesn't divide Jews from Arabs, but makes a huge prison dividing 
Palestinians from Palestinians."

Former Knesset member, Tamar Gozansky, addressed the rally: "This Wall 
isn't a barrier against terror, it's a barrier against peace. Sharon is a 
coward. One who is not a coward stretches out a hand in peace. One who 
fears, builds a wall. The two peoples want a land without walls, want to 
live side by side in two states."

Nihad Abu Ghosh spoke on behalf of Palestinian Jerusalem political 
organizations. According to him: "This Wall won't bring peace, and won't 
bring security. Participation of thousands of Israelis today proves that we 
can make peace together, but this Wall 
will create more hatred and more violence in the future. The Wall isn't marking a border 
but creating a prison. Dividing Palestinians from Palestinians and preventing us from 
getting to Jerusalem, but not providing any real barrier to suicide bombers. The 
Palestinian people will continue their struggle against the Wall, just as we are struggling 
against the Israeli Occupation."

Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom said "We stand at the foot of a monster and call on the 
Israeli public: "Don't say 'We didn't know!' Don't say 'We didn't see!' Don't say 'We 
didn't hear!' This monster Wall is torpedoing peace. To those building the Wall, we 
say: You talk of security but think about war. We demand a future without walls, a 
single future shared together by all of us."***

Itai Reeb, from the Yesh Gvul movement, spoke on behalf of those refusing to do 
military service. He said, "We have a duty to break down the eight awful metres of the 
Wall. They aren't going to succeed in imprisoning the Palestinians behind walls, or the 
refuseniks in prison. Displacement is an injustice; walls are not peace."

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committee said the 
struggle against the Wall must be taken up even more in the run-up to the Hague 
hearings. He described problems of sick people and emergency crews reaching 
hospitals in East Jerusalem and said treatment of 17,000 handicapped had been 
disrupted by the Wall.

Father Atallah Hanna, spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church, and Tayseer 
Althamimi, Chief Qadi of Jerusalem, spoke of blocked access to all religious sites in 
Jerusalem. Fatma Siva, a representative of women's organizations, spoke of hundreds of 
students who can no longer reach schools in East Jerusalem and students now having 
huge problems getting to Al Quds University.

The Coalition Against the Fence is organizing another huge rally on the day marking 
the commencement of the hearings at The Hague, 23.2.2004.

*** full text of  this speech - Hebrew & English translation - at the Gush site
							~~~~~

# Go to Gaza! - Uri Avnery 7.2.04

English
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article289.html

Hebrew:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/archives/article289_heb.html

Do you want to make the deal of a lifetime?
Go to Gaza!
The government has kindly laid on armored vehicles for this purpose. Once there, you 
can obtain the villa you have dreamt about all your life, with two floors and a green 
lawn, for next to nothing. The State is rich.
You can put up greenhouses and produce flowers or vegetables. Once upon a time you 
could engage Palestinian workers, who would work for a pittance. They had no 
alternative, because their land was taken away from them. Now this is too dangerous, so 
you will engage workers from Thailand, who get even less.
There are no legal problems, such as a minimum wage, annual vacations, dismissal 
indemnities or any of that nonsense. Israeli law does not apply. The prevailing law is a 
relic of the pre-1967 Egyptian occupation, and the conditions are Egyptian, too.
You can export your products to Europe. True, that has to be done discreetly, under 
false names, but it will get to the markets. The bureaucrats in Brussels will fume, 
because this violates the trade agreement between Israel and the European Union. Let 
them fume. Who cares? The main thing is getting your hands on those crisp Euro notes.
Of course, there is a security problem. You and the other 7000 settlers in the Gaza strip 
sit among a million Palestinians. You took away their essential land reserves and half of 
their water. So they don't like you. But never mind, the IDF will defend you - a whole 
battalion to defend a settlement of a few dozen families, a whole division for the Gaza 
Strip. Many soldiers. Many headquarters. Many armored vehicles. A lot of money. But 
the State pays.
If your settlement is too close to an Arab neighborhood and there is a problem, not to 
worry. The army will blow up all the nearby houses and "clean" the area. That will allow 
the settlement to expand, when the whole thing will repeat itself. The main thing is your 
security. And the money you make.
And that is only the beginning. If it really is decided to evacuate the settlements in the 
Gaza Strip, and if the decision is implemented (as you know, decision and 
implementation are two different things, not necessarily connected with each other), the 
real money will start rolling in. The State will pay you a lot just to leave quietly. That's 
how it was when Menachem Begin dismantled the settlements in Sinai. The settlers got 
a fortune. Some refused and declared that they would never, ever give up their homes. 
They got double and more. In the end, not a single settler refused to take the money.
Many of the Sinai evacuees took the money and settled in America or Australia. The 
clever ones went to the adjoining Gaza Strip and are looking forward to their second 
helping of compensation.
But in the meantime the settlers crowd the TV studios, roll their eyes to high heaven 
and proclaim that they are defending Askalon, defending Ashdod, defending Tel-Aviv, 
and that, therefore, the bankrupt state must invest more billions in the settlements. 
Because, after all, they are the Real Zionists. 
Dear settlers. Dear Zionism.
But is Ariel Sharon really serious about his "decision" to evacuate almost all the 
settlements in Gaza?
"Almost", because he wants to keep three settlements which are located near the 1967 
Green Line. This is a typical Israeli method: when we do, after much commotion, 
evacuate some territories, we always keep one little piece, so that the conflict goes on. 
But in the end we leave. When we evacuated all the vast area of Sinai, including the oil 
wells, the town of Yamit and the settlements, we refused to give up the tiny Taba 
beauty spot. The quarrel went on for a long time, and then we left. When we left 
Lebanon, we kept a Security Zone. When we left the Security Zone, after a few hundred 
more deaths, we kept the Shebaa Farms, where our soldiers are still being killed. Now, 
when Sharon promises to evacuate the settlements in the Gaza Strip, he wants to keep 
three settlements as souvenirs. 
(There was this person whose teeth were all rotten. He had them all taken out except for 
one, just to remind him how much it hurt.)
And so, for the umpteenth time, everyone is guessing: What is his intention? Is he 
really serious this time? Does he deserve all the (verbal) hugs and kisses of Shimon 
Peres? Is he, at long last, revealing himself as the Israeli de Gaulle?
Well, everyone knows it's spin. It is designed to draw attention away from the bribery 
affair, for which he was interrogated this week by high-ranking police officers. It is also 
designed to hint to the brand-new Attorney General that if he indicts Sharon, he will be 
sabotaging a historic step towards peace. It also serves to tell the President of the 
United States, on the eve of Sharon's planned visit to the White House, that Sharon is 
now ready to make a serious move, and that Bush must give him his blessing and some 
more billions of dollars (to pay the settlers off.)
But it is not only spin. This move suits Sharon's grand strategy. He is ready to sacrifice 
a finger to save the whole body. He is ready to give up Gaza, with its million unwanted 
Palestinians, and also a few isolated West Bank settlements, in order to get the 
Americans to agree to the annexation of most of the West Bank.
This is not a new strategy. David Ben-Gurion "gave up" 22% of Palestine in order to 
take over the other 78%, instead of the 55% allocated to us by the UN. Menahem Begin 
gave up the whole of Sinai in order to get Egypt out of the war and to concentrate on 
the takeover of the West Bank. Sharon is ready to "give up" all the Gaza Strip and 45% 
of the West Bank in order to annex 55% of the West Bank to Israel. 
That is supposed to be a "unilateral step" - without the agreement of the Palestinians, 
who will be enclosed in enclaves surrounded by walls and electrified fences. This is the 
idea Sharon is going to sell to Bush: See, I am evacuating settlements, both in the Gaza 
Strip and in the heart of the West Bank, in spite of the fact that it hurts me so very 
much. That is a huge step towards peace. Shimon Peres is kissing me (verbally, 
verbally!) But in order to execute such a daring political act, I need an official and public 
American endorsement. And you must promise me not to interfere when I annex the 
major part of the West Bank.
Of course, this will not bring peace. Nor will it bring security. It will bring a Hamas 
takeover of Gaza and the Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank. It will bring many more 
attacks in Israel and all over the world. It will bring a war without end.
But in the eyes of Sharon, this is the decisive stage in the realization of Zionism as he 
understands it. The State of Israel will comprise 90% of the land between the 
Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan. As for the other 10% - God is great. 


--
http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (òáøéú/Hebrew)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html (English)
http://www.gush-shalom.org/arabic/index.html (selected articles in Arabic)

with
\\photos of recent actions 
\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad 
\\the columns of Uri Avnery 
\\Gush Shalom's history & action chronicle  
\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
\\and a lot more

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