Last Sunday, the Ma’ariv daily did report “At least 15
children killed in the bombing of a mosque and a residential building at Gaza’s
Tufah Neighborhood.” It appeared even on the front page, but on the very bottom
- and in much smaller characters than the very warlike banner headline on the
top - referring the reader to a news item on p.6, where it was more cautiously
worded; the killing of 15 children was not presented as a fact, but as
something which “the Palestinians assert.” The whole gave the impression of a compromise
achieved after a power struggle between news editors.
Three days later, with the killing of the four boys playing soccer on the Gaza beach, there was no room for the ambiguity of “the Palestinians claim that…”. They were killed some two hundred meters from where the representatives of the international media are staying, and TV cameras sent the footage of the small blood-stained around the globe in real time.
And so, the four boys from the beach made it to the
Israeli banner headlines. Unnamed diplomatic sources in Jerusalem bewailed that the mishap of killing the boys
on the beach had undone the international credit which Israel amassed due to
Hamas rejecting the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. It was probably because of the
dead boys that Netanyahu felt obliged to accept the UN proposal for a five-hour
humanitarian pause in the bombing of Gaza.
We have decided to go to central Tel Aviv during that
pause, reasoning (correctly, as it turned out) that it minimized the risk of
being caught by the air raid siren while inside a bus. In the
bus we encountered the irritated passenger. About forty years old,
nothing special about him, he was seated in a back seat, quietly reading his
paper.Suddenly he got up, flung the paper violently halfway across the bus and
burst out shouting, addressing no one in particular: “The cheek of these Hamas
bastards! Making demands in exchange for agreeing to a ceasefire! Actually m
aking demands! The release of prisoners, the opening of border crossings, the
works! Damn them all to Hell! And
Netanyahu is sending people to Cairo to negotiate with them? What a disgrace!
No concessions, I say, no concessions to damn terrorists! Just send in the
tanks and smash them all to pulp, crush them, crush them!”
A family visit to Y., an old man who is more mainstream
than us – though still rather leftish as compared with the general Israeli
spectrum – did degenerate into political debate. “You want to go to this
reading of testimonies of soldiers from Gaza? What the hell for? Do you think
it will change anybody’s mind?” “No, probably it will not affect anyone who is
not convinced already. People nowadays close themselves off to facts which
don’t fit the opinion they already have”. “So why are you doing it? Just to
provoke people?” “It is not we who are doing it, Breaking the Silence are
organizing it. Soldiers’ testimonies are their thing”. “Nonsense! What is the
use of that? Nothing!”. “Sometimes there
are things which need to be said, whatever the outcome”. “That’s total
nonsense”. We parted on less than cordial terms.
In a small shop with a sign reading “Operation Protective
Edge – 50% discount” the radio was blaring into the sidewalk. A small crowd
gathered to hear the news bulletin. The news reader informed us in a rather
shaky voice that “Aside from the four children killed yesterday, there were
also four killed in bombings today – three on the roof of a residential
building and a three-year old in the bombing of another house”. Later on, we found that the three had been
playing on the roof as their parents did not realize that the humanitarian
pause was already over.
Two hours until the reading of the testimonies. We met
R., an old friend and fellow activist, at our accustomed place, Garcia’s Café
on the tree-lined Massarik Square. Chatted with her trying to ban the war from
our mind.
Walking along King George Street we passed two religious
women with hand-painted placards. One read “Let’s all cry out as loud as we
can: How long is it going to last?”. The other one had “Our Lord God, oh please send us the
Messiah right now!” Then turning to Habimah Square, where several hundred
people already gathered for the reading of the testimonies.
Just as we came, the testimony of a soldier who had taken
part in the 2009 invasion of Gaza was being read. “We were on the roof of a
house. We saw somebody walk towards us in the darkness, a light wobbling in his
hand. We wanted to fire a warning shot to make him stop, but this would have
given away our position. Finally he came very close, close enough that if he
were a suicide bomber he could have blown us up. Standing orders were to take
no chances, so we opened fire and killed him. We examined the body and found he
was an old man, unarmed, no threat whatsoever.”
“How many testimonies like this would come out of the
present round?” wondered R. From a bit off, the extreme-right
counter-demonstrators were shouting “Death to the Arabs! A Jew has a soul, an
Arab is a bastard!”. The Breaking the Silence had taken care to install
powerful loudspeakers, and the reading of the testimonies proceeded. The police did their job (more or less) and
there were only minor scuffles.
The siren did sound when we were waiting for the bus on
the way back, again on King Geroge Street. A long, long wailing sound, longer
then usual. We run into the nearby shop. It was quite big, we could get deep
in, far away from the glass of the front display window. Several minutes and we
could hear the dull explosion which means interception in the air, different
from the heavier sound of ground impact. (How quickly does one gain that
expertise!). Since we were in the shop anyway, we bought a small jar of
Yemenite hot sauce.
“Did you see how hysterical some of these people were,
how they started crying out in panic when the siren started? Don’t they know
that the chance of anything actually getting through the Iron Dome and falling exactly on their
heads is astronomically small? It is the people in Gaza who need to seriously
worry. Not us.” “Don’t contempt these Tel Aviv people. The danger now might be
small, but they get the taste of a less and less secure future. Israel is now
less safe than it was twenty years ago. How safe will it be twenty years from
now? Especially if the American Empire goes the way of the late British
Empire?” “So, what political conclusions will the people of Israel draw from
that?” “Each according to his or her taste. We say Israel should make peace and
get integrated in the region before it is too late. If it’s not too late
already. But others will say we have to dig in and increase the Israeli
military power and give not an inch”. “So, what shall we do?”. “As for me, I
will come to the demo on Saturday night and pick up the sign ‘Jews and Arabs
refuse to be enemies’. At least the specific Jews and the specific Arabs in the
demo mean it, completely”.
And now – the ground invasion in Gaza. R., was late last night
awakened by what she thought was a missile, but turned out to be the sound of a
helicopter - and she knew right away that there were Israeli casualties being
transported to the nearby hospital. One dead and three wounded up to now. The dead
soldier was identified as the 20-year old Sergeant Ethan Barak, killed in the
north Gaza Strip when his jeep was hit by a Hams anti-tank missile (or by
“friendly fire”). His former school principal spoke on the radio and said what
a swell guy Ethan Barak had been, and how greatly he was loved by schoolmates,
and how highly motivated he had been to join a combat unit in the army, a dream
which he duly fulfilled. “I know all this sounds like a cliché” apologized the
principal. Indeed, that is how it sounded.
Twenty-four Palestinians were also killed in the initial
stage of the ground invasion. Among them, it was noted in passing, a five-month
old baby, killed when his family home
was hit by tank fire. A baby who will remain nameless.
The occupation is killing all of us
Demonstration
Saturday, July 19, 2014
at 8:00 pm
Habima Square, Tel Aviv
It
is forbidden to shoot at civilian populations. It is forbidden and still it
happens. Both sides do it. Hamas shoots on the population of Israel. The IDF shoots
at the population of Gaza.
Two
equal sides? Far from it. The State of Israel has enormous military and economic
strength. With massive financial assistance from the United States, the State
of Israel built the "Iron Dome" system, a great technological achievement
which protects us. Therefore, the missile
attacks on Israeli cities are mostly a nuisance. The air raid alarms are irritating,
a bit disruptive to the routine of life, sometimes frightening – but not much
more.
Gazans
have no Iron Dome, no protection whatsoever against the death which falls down on
them from the air and the sea and the land. The State of Israel is pounding
Gaza, killing and killing and killing. True - The State of Israel has no
premeditated purpose of killing innocent civilians, women and men and the
elderly and children playing football on the beach. There is no premeditated
purpose – but there is a reality. The killing of unarmed civilians in Gaza is
going on, day by day and hour by hour. More than two hundred Palestinians have
been killed. A large part of them were unarmed civilians, dozens of them were
children. And it goes on.
"Why
are they shooting at us?" Wondered righteously the outgoing President of
Israel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. "Why did they not make of Gaza a
flourishing Singapore?". But Shimon Peres forgot to mention that the city
state of Singapore, whose population and size are comparable to those of the
Gaza Strip, has one of the largest ports in the world. There is no one to block
thousands of ships from all over world sailing in and out of that port,
maintain the flow of trade on which the wealth of Singapore is built. The
minuscule port of Gaza is closed and blockaded. The Israeli Navy is ever
vigilant to prevent even the smallest vessels from reaching it, and shoots at
Gazan fishing boats which venture more
than a few kilometers from shore.
Gaza
is a big prison for its residents, nearly two millions of them. The State of
Israel and its neighbor Egypt – with whom relationship has tightened
considerably since General Sisi seized power - cooperate in imposing the siege
on Gaza and holding its population effectively incarcerated, unable to come and go to the
outside world. Gazas live on a seashore. They can swim and play on the beach
(on days where lethal shots don’t come
at them out of the sea). But they can’t get on a boat and sail into the sea,
nor on a plane flying to any destination anywhere in the world. Also the land
crossings are almost completely closed. For years, millions of people are
locked up in the little, narrow and extremely crowded piece of land called the Gaza
Strip.
"We
imposed a siege on them because they are shooting at us," say the leaders
of Israel. (By the way, the siege on Gaza began long before Hamas took power
there). "We shoot because you impose a siege on us. We will not agree to a
cease-fire which does not include the lifting of the siege," say Gaza
residents this week (not all of them Hamas members).
There
is no point to a ceasefire which would simply restore the situation that
existed two weeks ago. The situation of two weeks ago was unbearable - a situation
of a tight siege over the Gaza Strip, causing suffering and economic suffocation
and extreme poverty for the majority of its inhabitants. The siege of Gaza has
spawned several rounds of conflict. Continuation of the siege is a sure recipe
for another round in a year or two.
Only
the lifting of the siege on Gaza, enabling its residents to come and go by land
and sea and air, export and import goods and develop their
economy, can open up for them a hope for the future. Only the lifting of the
siege can give a chance for peace and quiet on Israel's border with the Gaza
Strip.
On
Saturday night Gush Shalom will join with peace and human rights organizations in a protest against the cruel
and unnecessary war called "Operation Protective Edge". Last week, an earlier demonstration on the
same location was attacked by extreme right thugs. Organizers of the current
protest have taken precautions to make sure this is not repeated - and of
course, what happened will not deter us from expressing our position on an
issue vital to our future.
As
we were informed, demonstration marshals and
stewards will be present on the spot, and anyone intending to come should
follow their instructions regarding location, conduct of the demonstration and
its dispersal, and refrain from taking any violent action from our side.
Transportation from Jerusalem: Parking lot, Liberty Bell Park Registration: Connie 052-6375033 connie.hachbart@alternativenews.org
Transportation from Jerusalem: Parking lot, Liberty Bell Park Registration: Connie 052-6375033 connie.hachbart@alternativenews.org
