[Jewish] Israeli peace protest

[Beth Deal]

Shalom-
Thought I'd send along the below email about
peace protests and actions in Israel. A local
Women in Black group stood outside of the
Northampton Court House every Friday around noon
last semester. I don't know if they still do or
if they are connected to the original Israeli
group. 

On another note, anyone interested in having an
organizational meeting for this semester? And
remember anone can post to this list by sending
an email to jewish at lists.hampshire.edu.

--Beth Deal


Friends,
The week has been rife with violence on both
sides, leading to increased fear and anger among
Israelis, who see neither peace nor security
emerging from our prime minister's aggressive
policies.

The letter by 53 reserve officers and soldiers 
saying that they refuse to serve in the occupied
territories has swung  openthe door to criticism
-- >of them and of the policies that drove them
to this measure, as well. More and more Israelis
are beginning to question  the occupation -- its
viability and morality.  The shameful face of
Israel's behavior was dramatically brought home
to Israelis by a long news item on TV that
>captured some of the inhumane behavior of  our 
soldiers at checkpoints through which
Palestinians must pass.  It  was  therefore not
surprising that a poll commissioned by Israel's
state-sponsored radio station reports that 50% of
Israelis believe that government policy in the
territories is
morally problematic (reported in Hebrew at
http://bet.iba.org.il/15009.htm).

Cracks in the national consensus arebecoming more
and more visible. Additional evidence comes from
the ever-widening  circles of the Israeli peace
movement and its supporters:

REFUSAL TO SERVE - HEATING UP
A full week later, the soldiers who refused to
serve are still all overthe media in Israel, as
are their admirers and detractors.  An
incredibleone-third of Israelis, according to the
previous  poll, express support for them. 
Conscious of the terrible damage this is > having
on the will to serve in the territories, the army
launched  an  all-out offensive -- they demoted
the officers, stripped them of command posts, and
launched a poster and petition campaign "It's a
privilege to  serve in the army...". Mofaz, the
most openly right-wing chief of  staff in
Israel's history, publicly accused the soldiers
of being a  front for  a political party. This
effort to smear an authentic, grassroots effort
with unfounded allegations only illustrates the
severity of he blow to the army, and its sense of
urgency about containing the  damage.  (For
details and public reactions to them -- some in
English, some barely printable -- see the
soldiers' website http://www.seruv.org and add a
few of your own.)

Three support groups for the soldiers have sprung
 up:  Disabled army >veterans are organizing one.
 Yesh Gvul is preparing an ad that will say,
"Mofaz is soft on those who commit [war]  crimes,
but bullies those who protest them".  And,
finally, several "wives of  reserve soldiers"
have begun a petition that says in part, "We are
not willing to be pawns of a government of
occupation and oppression, which corrupts the
values of our loved ones and our nation...while
our families pay the price."  They haveno website
yet, but can be reached at
wifemil at hotmail.com.

An unexpectedly warm defense of these soldiers
came last night from Ami Ayalon, former head of
Israel's Security Services (and ex-Navy admiral),
who responded in an interview on the main TV 
news  of the week, "As far as I'm concerned, too
few soldiers are refusing such orders.  For
example, [an order] to shoot an unarmed youth is
a blatantly illegal order.  I am very worried by
the number of Palestinian children shot in the
past year."

What an enormous relief to read and hear this
kind of talk, after so many months of denial! 
Even if the soldiers are  unable to garner many
more signatures for ads, their efforts have
already had enormous positive impact.

WOMEN IN BLACK AND OTHERS
Vigils of Women in Black and others are growing
all over Israel.  We had100 at the Jerusalem
vigil today, up from 60-70 in previous weeks. 
Though the absolute numbers are small, this may
actually reflect an across-the-board 50% increase
in Israelis who are fed up with the situation. 
There are now 18 regular anti-occupation vigils
throughout Israel, about half of them Women in
Black.

The Women in Black vigil in Jerusalem was like a
carnival yesterday, witha small, but very loud,
group of extreme right wingers chanting in our
faces, "No Arabs, no terrorism".  Just two days
ago, this slogan was ruled "incitement" and
therefore illegal by Israel's Attorney General. 
When we >asked the police to arrest the shouters
for incitement, they switched to"No left-wingers,
no terrorism", claiming this was legal.  The
policebehaved in their usual manner:  Afraid to
deal with the out-of-control right, they told the
women not to "provoke" them, which made us laugh
and take over an even larger area of the vigil
square, so that everybody --police, fascists, and
not-so-innocent bystanders -- could see our signs
more clearly.

Adding to the ruckus was a religious man blowing
a ram's horn, traditionalJewish instrument for
momentous events -- blowing "at" us, not "with"
us.But only 50 feet away the honor of Orthodox
Jewry was upheld by the "OzVeShalom/Netivot
Shalom" peace movement,making their own proposal
forcompromise:  "We'll give up settlements, if
you give up the law ofreturn."  And a block away
from all this was a group of university students
with a simpler message: "Get out of the 
territories now!!!"

Although the police threw down obstacles to
prevent our mass rally from happening tonight,
they will not prevent us from holding it this
coming Saturday night (Feb. 9).  To give you some
notion of the wall-to-wall coalition sponsoring
it, here's the list so far:
Bat Shalom
Coalition of Women for Peace
Du Siach
Gush Shalom
The Campus Is Not Silent, Tel-Aviv University
Israeli Committtee Against House Demolitions
Kvisa Sh'hora: Lesbians and Gay Men Against the
Occupation)
Left Forum, Haifa University
Meretz Youth
MachsomWatch
Monitoring Committee of the Arab Population of
Israel
NELED
New Profile
Noga
TANDI
Ta'ayush
WILPF
Women and Mothers for Peace (formerly Four
Mothers)
Women in Black
Yesh Gvul.

The only major group missing is Peace Now, 
apparently because our statements about "war
crimes" and "refusal to serve" are beyond what
they are willing to say at this stage.  On
Tuesday, they plan to launch their >own "Leave
the territories" campaign.  And none of this
mentions the ongoing human rights work carried
out by B'Tselem, HaMoked Hotline, Physicians for
Human Rights, and some of the  abovementioned
organizations. And just I finished writing that
sentence, I had a call from a woman in the
northern Galilee area of Israel, saying a large
group there wants to organize for protest; how do
they begin.  The circle is widening.

THE THREAT OF PEACE
Our government, of course, digs in even deeper
when faced with the uglythreat of peace
initiatives.  Just one illustration:  Permission
to enter Ramallah was denied to Knesset Speaker
Avrum Burg, who was planning to bring a message
of peace to the Palestinian parliament.  I have
no objection to the trip, said Mr. Sharon, but
the Security Services said no.

Finally, a word about Wafa Idris, the 28 year-old
 woman who exploded herself and more than a
hundred Israelis on the main street of Jerusalem
this week.  Just before she detonated the bomb,
Wafa entered a shoe store, looked around,
motioned away a saleslady,  walked out of the
store, and then ... boom.  Why didn't she do it
in the store?  Did she decide that too few people
were inside to make it worthwhile?  Or was she
unable to pull the cord, having met the eye of
another human being?  All killing is horrifying,
terrorism even more appalling. 
The question we should be asking is: Why would
anyone become a terrorist, especially a woman, a
paramedic, trained to save lives?  What could
drive such a person to extremes?  Appalling and
unjustified as her behavior was, the question has
an answer, and we must face it.

Gila Svirsky
Jerusalem

ADDENDUM:
Since sending the above this morning, [Saturday,
February 2], other dramatic peace actions have
happened in Israel today. Peace Now held two
large protests this evening, one in Jerusalem and
one in Tel Aviv.

Ta'ayush, with the Coalition of Women for Peace
as co-sponsor, had a dramatic action this
morning*, as 300 Israeli Jews and Arabs walked
all the way from the Kalandia checkpoint into
Ramallah, after soldiers refused to let their
buses through.

And some Israelis just raised their own quiet
voices -- they made home-made "End the
Occupation" signs and went to stand along a
highway near their homes...and people actually
stopped to join them.  Something good is
happening in Israel at last.

> > >Gila
> > >
> > >Ha'aretz Hebrew report:
> >
>
>http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=124966&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0
> > >
> > >Ha'aretz English report:
> >
>
>http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=124945&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0
> > >
> > >*******************************
> > >Coalition of Women for a Just Peace:
> > >http://www.coalitionofwomen4peace.org



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