[GushShalom] Trampling on the wall at Sharon's doorstep

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - www.gush-shalom.org/

Febr. 23, Jerusalem

Trampling on the wall at Sharon's doorstep

"The wall around the Gaza Strip works!" I hear people say. "But do you 
know how many thousands died in Gaza in the past years, and that the 
army needs a whole division there? Do you want to make of the West 
Bank a bigger Gaza, imprisoning two million people behind walls and 
barbed wire, leaving them bitter and without hope? How many divisions 
will that require?" exclaimed Oren Medicks, who spoke for Gush Shalom. 

Meir  Margalit of the Committee Against House Demolition had spoken 
before him on this cold Monday evening during the demonstration in front 
of the Prime Minister's Residence: "On this day of the funerals after the 
suicide bombing of yesterday which happened more or less around the 
corner from here, I call upon the inhabitant of the house before we stand: 
Mr Prime Minister, the wall does not stop terrorism. It invigorates it. For 
every stopped terrorist the wall is creating twelve new ones."

Opposite the makeshift podium, a replica of the Wall was erected - and 
during the speeches demonstrators were busily covering it with graffiti: 
Wall is War / The Wall = No Peace = No Security = More Hatred / The 
Wall, Prison for Palestinians - Ghetto for Israelis.

"The Sharon-Netanyahu government is creating walls of poverty and 
misery - to finance the walls of concrete" - Sigal Haroush, on behalf of the 
Democratic Oriental Rainbow.

A religious note,  from Yael Nechoushtan, Rabbis for Human Rights.
"Know you not the heart of the stranger? Were you not a stranger in 
Egypt? - This is what we read this week in the Synagogue. And what do 
we see when we go to the Wall? Palestinian farmers waiting to be allowed 
to go through a gate so they can cultivate their land - one day just the 
humiliation and waiting; another day the gate remaining closed, leaving 
them nothing but to go home and leave the land untilled."

"The struggle against the Wall and against the occupation is becoming 
more and more a common struggle of Israelis and Palestinians. In many 
demonstrations we see Israeli activists standing by our side and we very 
much appreciate it," said Fadwah Haddad of the Palestinian Committee 
Against The Wall in East Jerusalem.

Shai Gorski of Ta'ayush added: "In many places today, Israelis have joined 
with Palestinians in protesting against the Wall: outside the US Consulate 
in East-Jerusalem; in Abu-Dis, where no less than hundred Israelis came in 
working hours to protest the 8-meter high Wall cutting this town in two; at 
Budrus village, where the olive groves are dally destroyed by bulldozers; 
at Dir el-Rasun near Tulkarem, and also at villages in the Bethlehem 
District. Nearly everywhere it ended the same way: the army using 
violence and tear gas to disperse the rallies."

Moderator Hulud Badawi called upon participants to show up tomorrow at 
half past eight at the Tel-Aviv Court where 14 Anarchists Against Fences 
are to be remanded in custody, after having blocked the street in front the 
Tel-Aviv Defence Ministry. She also mentioned the five refusers spending 
another year behind bars, who were this morning transferred to a civilian 
prison, as well as the woman refuser Laura Milo who yesterday joined the 
new series of imprisoned refusers - it seems that the gloves are off also for 
the female refusniks. 

"And now, let's teach Sharon and his ministers and generals what to do 
with Apartheid Walls" cried Badawi. Hundreds of participants turned to 
the cardboard Wall gleefully tearing it into pieces. "With the real Wall it 
won't be that easy, but fall it will, like the Berlin Wall! And now please help 
clear up the mess" were the words with which Badawi ended the rally.

photos:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/actions/jeruwall_eng.html
http://www.gush-shalom.org/actions/jeruwall_heb.html

The petition against the wall initiated by the anti-Wall Coalition and 
signed by 1000 - as appearing in the Monday papers: 
http://www.gader.org/downloads/petition_heb.pdf

Gush Shalom also placed a separate special ad at the occasion of the start 
of proceedings in The Hague:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/media/pics/ad_heb.gif
http://www.gush-shalom.org/media/pics/ad_eng.gif

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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")
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