This past week, peace organizations marked the 31st (!) anniversary of Israel’s occupation, and the 16th (!) anniversary of the war with Lebanon. How long can rational people keep up this irrational and self-destructive policy? Far longer than anyone imagined, it seems.
Here’s a run-down of some recent peace – and anti-peace – activities in Israel.
Women’s Peace Vigils
Last Friday (June 5), a joint vigil of women’s peace activists dressed in black commemorated the 31st anniversary of Israel’s occupation. Women in Black, Bat Shalom, and Mothers and Women for Peace joined hands at our traditional “vigil plaza” in Jerusalem with the combined signs of our movements: Stop the Occupation; Two States for Two Nations; Jerusalem – the Capital of Two States; and We Have No Spare Children for War. That last one really gets me. On Saturday (June 6), the Four Mothers movement held a mass rally in Tel-Aviv demanding that Israel withdraw from Lebanon. Withdrawing from Lebanon will happen before the occupation is over, in my opinion.
Yesh Gvul
Yesh Gvul is an organization of men who refuse to do army service in the occupied territories – a powerful statement in Israel, where the army is a sacred cow. On Friday (June 5), Yesh Gvul organized a busload of activists to visit an Israeli army base in the territories to distribute printed material noting that every individual can make a choice about army service. They didn’t get far. The army stopped the bus shortly after it left Jerusalem – near the Efrat settlement. Several members of the group were detained, while several border policemen boarded the bus and forced the driver to turn back to Jerusalem. The border patrol did not have to use guns; they isolated the driver from the men in the back, and told him that he would have his driving license revoked if he disobeyed their orders. At the Jerusalem city limits, the border patrol got off the bus, and their accompanying jeep released the men who had been detained.
Confiscation of Arab Homes
The pastoral Palestinian village of Silwan at the edge of Jerusalem was again the site of extremist settlers who repeated their pattern of home-grabbing. At 3 in the morning this past Monday (June 8), a group of settlers broke down the doors of 3 more homes in this quiet village, throwing out the entire contents, and claiming the homes for their own. The awful part is that the settlers have legal documents to protect them – documents acquired in shady deals with shady Palestinians who collude with them to swindle the owners out of their homes. (These purchases are financed by Irving Moskowitz, who made his money from bingo parlors that milk the poor in California.) Peace Now arrived on the scene at the crack of dawn, and women of Bat Shalom joined them later in the morning with signs saying “Brutality Sanctioned by Law” and “Netanyahu is Poisoning the Peace”. Although the border patrol prevented us from paying a solidarity visit to the Palestinian families, the settlers entered and left at will. It was infuriating. Faisal Husseini, Minister for Jerusalem of the Palestinian National Authority, who had arrived at 3 in the morning, needed stitches in the head because of a rock thrown at him by settlers. His comment: “The real injured party here is the peace process.”
More Palestinian Homes Destroyed
A report from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions: No fewer than 17 Bedouin families were made homeless last week when Israeli authorities destroyed their property – again. This was the second time these families had their homes destroyed. After the first time, Palestinian authorities had provided tents and basic needs, but this time the Israeli border patrol returned and carefully bulldozed everything… taking care to get the food stores for the sheep and families and the water tanks. Is this not a monstrous act? How dare this country behave like this in my name!! Or in yours, if you are Jewish. Or human.