Demonstration in Solidarity with Gaza in Jaffa
The first news started coming through around 11 o'clock: over 140 dead in the Gaza Strip. It started as a rumour. Slowly the numbers rise. It cannot be true can it? But it is true.Then it becomes clear: war crimes are being committed an hour's drive from Tel Aviv: The IAF is bombing the Gaza strip and its civilian population. Women and children are being murdered "in the name of peace". Barak has started his election campaign by showing "he's strong" and who cares if the innocent are killed.
From the Jaffa mosques the sound of the mourning prayer becomes clear over the loud festival music.
A girls choir of Palestinian and Jewish girls from Jaffa sings songs about peace, a Palestinian women's cooperative from the Occupied Territories sell their beautiful embroidery, not yet knowing what is going on elsewhere. Yet slowly the news spreads.
Many of us felt the festival should be stopped. How can we party when there is such a catastrophe in Gaza?From mouth to mouth and through SMS people started to turn up at the Yaffa office. Frustrated, angry, helpless.
Large white papers and big felt tip pens were used to create make-shift placards. More and more people turned up. In the area of GanTamar the shops closed one after the other, while the demo organised itself somehow. The police came, but were convinced we intend to keep it peaceful. They kept watching us from a distance and photographing us from the roof of a nearby building.
Yet elsewhere in Jaffa the party went on. And on. Peple eating and drinking, smiling and laughing, kids fighting over a candy or their turn to sit on Santa' s knee, what do they know?
Then the news came in there's one dead man and a few wounded in Netivot (in Israel) . The cycle of violence has opened up and who knows when it will close and at what cost. Rockets were fired at the Negev settlemens close to the Gaza strip.
More and more people came to the peaceful and quiet demo, in shock, sad. Many people from Jaffa have family in the Gaza strip. After all, in 1948 a large part of the Jaffa population were forced to flee to the Gaza strip.
Black flags were made out of makeshift materials, a young girl brought a Palestinian flag. Anger and shock at the sights broadcast by Al Jazeera. The crowd grew bigger and bigger, a minute of silence in memory of the dead. There are no words to describe the horror.
Will it ever stop?
More and more people came to the peaceful and quiet demo, in shock, sad. Many people from Jaffa have family in the Gaza strip. After all, in 1948 a large part of the Jaffa population were forced to flee to the Gaza strip.
Black flags were made out of makeshift materials, a young girl brought a Palestinian flag. Anger and shock at the sights broadcast by Al Jazeera. The crowd grew bigger and bigger, a minute of silence in memory of the dead. There are no words to describe the horror.
Will it ever stop?
Posts
9 comments:
Most of the Casualties Were Hamas.
http://www.israellycool.com/2008/12/27/israel-strikes-back/
This is why Israel has to attack.
http://imshin.net/?p=991
The Gazan Palestinians have been perpetrating daily war crimes against the civilian inhabitants of Israeli towns and villages in the South of Israel for years. Their weapons have been gradually becoming more powerful and the radius of their hits has been widening all the time. Instead of ceasing when Israel left the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2005, these war crimes have been increasing.
These daily attacks on Israeli civilians, that began again about a month or two ago, long before the official end of the ceasefire (mainly used by the Palestinians to improve their weapons), don’t make the international headlines even though they are increasingly deadly and are already targeting bigger and bigger population centers and rapidly creeping towards the center of the country.
The Israeli government is finally taking responsibility and acting against the perpetrator of these war crimes - the Palestinan Hamas government ruling the Gaza Strip.
Only 15 civilians died.
The rest really were bad guys.
http://www.cfxweb.net/civax/2008/12/28/out-of-230-dead-only-15-civillians/
Remember whoever is merciful to the cruel, will ultimately be cruel to the merciful.
All the protesters are doing is creating a wedge between them and the average Israeli citizen,
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3645241,00.html
They are not changing the average citizen's view on the military actions, but they are making the average citizen hate the them.
It's amusing how all these right-wingers suddenly turn up "from nowhere" in lefty blogs.
Looks like they're organizing it.
What is sad however, is their simplistic outlook on a complex situation.
They look only at the qassam's not at what led to the shooting of the qassam rockets.
Nor do they wish to understand what life in Gaza means nor the fact that bombing a largely civilian population is a crime of war.
Israel completely controls Gaza and has made life unbearable for the population for a VERY long time.
A true political solution is necessary for both Gaza and the West Bank. We all know it, but like to deny it.
Instead Barak wants to show that he's a strong man, it's election time after all. And the US is in a transition period and everybody in the western world is on holiday, so this is a "good time" to carry out a few actions and "who cares if there are 200+ dead and so many wounded". Well Steves and Jays, some people DO care.
Some people don't buy into the simplified view of "they shot rockets so now we shoot at them and our gun is much bigger".
I'm so frustrated i don't even feel like argumenting with these right wing Jays and Steves and whoever.
Their revolting bag of lies and over-simplifications remind me of other times.
It's good (but not good enough) that at least some people in this country stand up and protest.
And believe me, we're strong enough to hold up the mirror to you, even if you do not like what you see in it.
"bombing a largely civilian population is a crime of war. "
The allies bombed German cities all the time during WWII.
The Israeli Government had to respond to the qassam rockets. And the people of Israel, most of them rejoice that they finally did.
All the protesters do is reveal themselves as the traitors they are.
So now you are comparing the oppressed people of the Gaza strip to Nazis. That doesn't show a lot of historical perception nor understanding.
Other than that, under those circumstance i feel proud to be "traitor" . At least i'm not cooperating in war crimes.
Jay, friend, we should not exaggerate the threat of a Quassam, it is the Palestinian version of a Stalin Organ.
Nothing compared to the V1 and V2, constructed by Werner von Braun who at the end of World War 2 became a guest of the U.S.A.
Somebody ever told you what people were used to build the V-rockets.
sometimes I too despair. It looks like Satan has taken over the world.
Post a Comment