# Saturday, Dec. 27: Here they were again -- the "first nighters", those who are ready to get out and demonstrate against a new war in its first hours, when war propaganda pours out of all the media.
Only a few hours after the murderous attack on the Gaza Strip, more than a thousand men and women were gathered in front of the Ministry of Defense in Tel-Aviv. Supporters of "Gush Shalom" and the "Women's Coalition for Peace" and "Anarchists Against the Wall" and the Hadash Communists and quite a few defying any clear classification.
"Barak, Barak, Hey Hey Hey -- How many kids did you kill today?" chanted protesters, accompanied by drums, and "Meretz, Meretz, for your shame -- backing up war again! -- the later directed at the Meretz Party's declaration of support for an assault on Gaza (there were some dissident Meretz members in the crowd).
The police, apparently afraid that the protesters would storm the tall building from which the Minister and the Army High Command were conducting the war, took special precautions, elite police commandos backed by mounted police, and police reserves hidden in side streets.
At the beginning of the demonstration, some police confronted the crowd with loaded and pointed guns. "Do you intend to bring the war to Tel Aviv? Am I a good target?" called out a curly-haired teenage girl wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. A bit sheepishly, the tough-looking riot policeman lowered his gun. [www.gush-shalom.org]
Humanitarian aid boat rammed
# Tuesday, Dec. 30: In the second part of 2008, several humanitarian aid boats organized by the California-based Free Gaza Movement managed to get from Cyprus to Gaza, bearing cosmopolitan complements of activists, determined to break the siege: Americans, Europeans, Palestinians and other Arabs, as well as some Israelis.
Before the outbreak of the Gaza fighting, the Israeli Navy gunboats cruising off the Gaza shore were instructed not to molest such ships -- evidently, since the diplomatic and propaganda price of molesting them was considered prohibitive. No less than five boats did successfully get through.
However, the outbreak of the Gaza fighting changed things. The government was anyway faced with an enormous lot of adverse international publicity, and did not mind a bit more. Also, lawyers in the government service advised the Defence Minster to publish an official decree proclaiming a Naval Blockade of Gaza. This could -- at least by some contentious theories of International Law -- make legal the stopping on the High Seas of vessels bound for Gaza. (Several precedents for such acts exist, mainly dated from the time when the British Empire ruled the waves and made rather free use of its naval might).
The Dignity, latest of the Free Gaza boats, had been preparing in Cyprus before the outbreak of war -- with 3.5 tonnes of Cypriot medical supplies, and fifteen passengers from eleven countries -- including doctors and journalists intending to stay on in Gaza. Among them were Cynthia McKinney, former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia, Dr. Elena Theoharous, surgeon and Member of the Cypriot Parliament, and Sami El-Haj -- former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, and present head of the human rights section at Al-Jazeera Television. The captain was Denis Healey, of Portsmouth, England -- with a 45-year experience in sailing small boats.
On Dec. 30 they set out to the now constantly bombed Gaza, knowing that the risk was much greater than on previous voyages. Long before they could near the coast of Gaza, Israeli Naval gunboats appeared -- making a terse radio order to stop and turn back, as this was "a closed military zone." Captain Healey refused, stating that these were international waters and that his vessel was engaged on a lawful, humanitarian mission.
"I heard the most almighty three bangs. I thought we were going to die" Doctor David Alpin later told. Supporters on shore could clearly hear the repeated shooting of live rounds around the Dignity, until mobile phone contact was suddenly cut off.
After hours of great anxiety, contact was resumed and it turned out that The Dignity had been rammed, causing considerable damage but no casualties. She managed to limp to the port of Tyre in Lebanon -- where her arrival was warmly greeted by a fleet of local fishing boats.
The Israeli Naval communiquŽ stated tersely that "physical contact had been made with a vessel trying to violate the blockade of Gaza, which was thereby dissuaded from so doing." [freegaza.org, bbc.co.uk]
Anarchists block entrance to Air Force base
# Friday, Jan. 2: Twenty-one members of "Anarchists Against the Wall" were arrested in the early morning after blocking the entrance to the Air Force base at Sde Dov in North Tel Aviv.
The protestors, wearing white masks and covered in fake blood, lay on the ground and played dead. They said that they had been told to by police to stop blocking the road and go to the sidewalk -- and that though they complied, they were nevertheless detained.
Ayala, one of the protestors, said that the protest was meant to "show the pilots the results of what they are doing in Gaza. From thousands of feet in the air, a pilot who aims and presses a button can ignore, forget, or be unable to fathom that at that moment he killed innocent people. We came here to remind them of this." [Ofri Ilani, Ha'aretz] www.awalls.org
10 000 march in Tel-Aviv. The war intensifies
# Saturday, Jan. 3: Until the previous morning, there was some doubt if the march would take place. Police tried to prevent or at least hamper it, especially demanding that organizers forbid the hoisting of Palestinian flags, since -- so the police stated -- this might cause angry reactions which police would not be able to stop.
An appeal was hastily lodged by Adv. Michel Sfard, and the judges ruled that there was nothing illegal in Palestinian flags and that it was the police's duty to protect peaceable demonstrators from violent attacks.
So, the march began more or less on schedule, with Tel Avivians arriving by foot and contingents coming in by bus from all over the country -- 20 buses with Arab Israelis coming straight from the mass rally at Sakhnin, earlier in the day. Police (with visible reluctance) kept the handful of extreme nationalists, screaming "Traitors! Traitors!" away from the rendezvous point.
At the Defence Ministry, Barak and his generals were putting the finishing touches on the ground offensive to be launched within a few hours. Less than a kilometer away, the wide Ibn Gvirol Street was packed by no less than ten thousand protesters from all over the country, marching the two kilometers from the Rabin Square to the CinematŠque, chanting and waving banners all the way.
"One does not build an election campaign over the dead bodies of children!" (In Hebrew this rhymes). "Orphans and widows are not election propaganda!" / "Olmert, Livni and Barak -- war is no game!" / "All cabinet ministers are war criminals!!" / "Barak, Barak, don't worry -- we shall meet you in The Hague!" / "Enough, enough -- speak with Hamas!"
Posters mimicked Labour's election slogan "Barak may not be cuddly -- but he is a real leader!" -- with "leader" replaced by "murderer." Other signs referred to "The six-Knesset-seat war!" an allusion to polls indicating that in the first days of the war Barak's Labor Party has gained six prospective seats (which in fact failed to materialize in the real elections, a month later).
During the march, the police performed fairly their task of preventing the extreme rightist efforts to disrupt the event. A thick police prevented anything worse than an occasional exchange of mutual verbal abuse. However, when the anti-protesters started to disperse, in accordance with the agreement with the police, the police cordon unaccountably disappeared, enabling violent rightists to charged forward, encircling and harassing the last group of the anti-war protesters.
The great Gush Shalom banner -- reading in Hebrew, Arabic and English: "Stop Killing! Stop the Siege! Stop the Occupation!" was saved at considerable risk from being seized and torn up, and demonstrators found refuge inside the CinemathŠque building, besieged and threatened by the rioters outside. It took the police unaccountably long to come back and finally disperse them, despite its commanders having -- as they had stated to the media -- "brought large forces into Tel Aviv to prevent any disturbance.
Uri Avnery used the time inside the CinemathŠque to talk with several similarly besieged foreign journalists, telling them: "At the end of this war, no Israeli general will be able to set foot on European soil without fear of being arrested, on war crimes charges. Let it be on record that I warned them now, when many of their planned crimes had not yet been committed." [AK]
Arab-Jewish Protest in Jaffa
# Tuesday, Jan. 6: The candlelight vigil and rally in the heart of Jaffa's Arab quarter was scheduled for the evening of January 6, without knowing that on this day the army would shell the UN school in Jebaliyah Refugee Camp, where inhabitants had been specifically told they could find a safe refuge. More than forty of them paid with their lives for trusting to this promise -- whole families being wiped out in a single second, by a single shell.
Two hours after this news came out, several hundreds of shaken Arab Israeli citizens gathered in the park at Yephet Street, answering the call of local organizations (the Reut-Sadaka youth and the Jaffa List which contested the recent Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal elections). Groups of Jewish protesters came to join them from Tel Aviv.
"Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies!" read several signs and banners in Hebrew and Arabic -- "Our answer to all the horrors." As on earlier protests, the chants accusing Barak of killing children were very common.
"How many kids did he kill since we started chanting this slogan? How many more will he kill tomorrow and the day after tomorrow? Murderer! Dirty murderer! I wish he were here, so that I could spit in his dirty smiling face! Dirty murderer, Barak, you are just a dirty murderer! Shame on you, shame, shame, shame!" cried, in mixed Hebrew and Arabic, an old woman wearing traditional Muslim clothing -- to the loud cheering of Tel Avivian students.
Arab protesters turned their anger also on the leaders of the Arab countries, accused of collaborating with the Israeli onslaught on Gaza. One recurring slogan was "[Egyptian President] Mubarak is an agent of the United States and Israel."
"I saw an employee of the Egyptian Embassy walking around here a few minutes ago. That's very good. I hope he reports to his bosses, I hope this will be reported straight to Cairo!" said one of the organizers. [AK]
War discourse on the street
# Wednesday, Jan. 7: One vigil -- an example out of the daily grind of demonstrating and protesting, on squares, parks and junctions. Some hundred people gathered on a boulevard in the heart of Tel Aviv, at the King George Street corner. (Here, the Women in Black are standing weekly for more than twenty years). Traffic is passing on three sides. The signs: "Stop the carnage!" "Stop Killing, start talking!" "The Ministers are war criminals!" "Cease Fire Now -- for the sake of Gaza and Sderot!"
"Shame on you, to have such signs when our boys are fighting the terrorists!" burst out a bypassing woman. "Shame on YOU, for supporting dirty massacre and war crimes!" answers vehemently a woman demonstrator. "Shame on you!" "Shame on YOU!" the futile dialogue continues for several minutes, until the present police pounce and forcibly pull the two of them apart.
Towards the scheduled end of the vigil, the rain starts, and gets heavier and heavier. The morning had been clear and most of us had not brought umbrellas or raincoats. "At least the mud will slow down the soldiers and tanks in Gaza" mutters an old man with the sign "Thou shalt not kill!"
It seems that exactly because of the rain, we have stayed an extra twenty minutes more than planned -- though the passing cars now had their windows closed and steamed over, and there were no passers by on foot. Though nobody stated it aloud, many quixotically felt that getting ourselves thoroughly soaked was the least we could do when Gazans had to suffer so much worse things.
Finally, the vigil ended and participants disappeared along the King George Street. King George Street -- a name left over from the time, still in living memory of some of the older participants, when this city was ruled by an alien occupying force and when foreign soldiers were patrolling these streets and imposing curfews on unruly inhabitants.
At that time, it was the people of Tel Aviv who thoroughly detested the occupying troops and admired the "terrorists" fighting them. [AK]
The Gaza Refusal Manifesto
# Thursday, Jan. 8: "We are soldiers and officers of the IDF, to whom the security and future are dear. We understand that the attack in Gaza intensifies the conflict, will bring additional long years of missiles upon growing circles of the Israeli population, and brings terrible disasters upon the peoples in Israel and Palestine alike. We understand that revenge is not security and that the IDF operation in Gaza perpetuates the conflict -- and certainly does not help its solution.
In light of the above, we hereby declare that we will not take part in the campaign of destruction in Gaza."
The Courage to Refuse Movement had been founded in 2002, by reservists such sickened and disgusted by what they had seen (and took part in) during the army's efforts to put down the Second Intifada.
After several years of inaction, they were prodded back into action by the beginning of the "Cast Lead" war -- and specifically, the calling up of an increasing number of reservists, massed at the Gaza Strip borders.
Slogans included "Revenge is not security", "Refuse to take part in the campaign of bloodshed", "No to the killing of civilians -- in Gaza and Sderot", "Barak creates terror in Gaza", "Refuse to fight in Gaza" (this Hebrew slogan can also be translated as "Refuse to fight against Gaza"), "Refuse to destroy Gaza and Sderot", "The destruction of Gaza produces terror", "Courage to talk -- not to kill."
Some of placards had the national Star of David inscribed beside the slogan -- which is far from the rule in other anti-war protests. Even so, the call upon soldiers to refuse orders made it a radical confrontation with the prevailing warlike atmosphere.
Some reservist refusers did get detained and served prison terms -- among them Asaf Oppenheimer, brother of Peace Now leader Yariv Oppenheimer (who was far from pleased). Courage to Refuse organizer Noam Livneh himself got a call up order which he refused to obey -- his refusal being ignored by the military authorities until the very last days of the war when he was suddenly set on by military police, demonstratively handcuffed (which is usually not done to refusers) and spent some unpleasant time in a cell. [AK]
'As Zionists we call -- Stop the war!'
# Saturday, Jan. 10: "We have assembled to call on the government to think twice before expanding the Gaza operation. We are here because we care about the IDF soldiers," said Peace Now chief Yariv Oppenheimer to a crowd of a about a thousand Peace Now Meretz Party activists, gathered opposite the Defense Ministry compound.
Oppenheimer was referring to increased media rumors of an impending "Third Phase" in the war, which would be aimed at altogether conquering the Gaza Strip and eliminating the Hamas-led Palestinian government and which commentators estimated would entail far more bloodshed than seen so far.
"This demonstration includes many true Zionists, who care deeply for their country. Our Zionism does not make us crave blood and war -- not in the least!"
In his own speech Meretz chair Haim Oron acknowledged that he and his party had supported the war at its inception. "We had called for a brief though powerful air strike, as a direct response to the shooting of missiles, and said that its objective should be to reach a ceasefire as early and as quickly as possible in order to achieve calm. The continuation of the war and the bloodshed is terrible and completely unnecessary. The time has come for a truce. We call upon the government to put an end to the killing, with no further delay!"
At the edge of the rally, there was a small scuffle when Peace Now organizers objected to Hadash activists raising a sign calling Defence Minister Barak "A murderer." [Ofri Ilani, Ha'aretz]
Aid Convoy to Gaza blocked -- and unblocked
# Jan. 16: Since the beginning of the Gaza assault, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) have been sending dispatches of much-needed aid to the hospitals of the Gaza Strip, purchased from the donations of hundreds of individuals and organizations, both locally and worldwide. Four such convoys had gone through with little publicity, accompanied only by a few PHR personnel.
Faced with alarming reports of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, PHR decided to take an action outside its normal practice. Namely, to call upon the organization's grassroots supporters to gather and accompany the fifth convoy of medical supplies up to the Kerem Shalom Crossing. There, on the very border of the Strip, a demonstration was to be held -- calling upon the government to cease fire, to stop the killing of civilians, to stop the targeting of medical teams and aid convoys, and to stop preventing the evacuation of the wounded.
On the morning of Jan. 16, sympathizers boarded buses at Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Taybeh, and Beersheba -- to whom were added several private cars from villages in southern Israel, themselves living under rocket attacks. Altogether there were more than 300 participants.
At 10am, a peremptory call from the Chief of Police at Sderot: "You are not authorized to hold this demonstration, period. The police and army are preparing to meet you."
The three buses form Tel Aviv and the one from Jerusalem were stopped more than 20 kilometers from the Gaza border. The police used a method commonly met on the West Bank -- now imported to Israeli sovereign territory. The bus doors were locked preventing activists from getting out (some ten did manage to get out and continue southwards by other means) and the drivers' licenses confiscated -- to be returned only when they went all the way back under police escort.
The buses from Taybeh and the South did manage to get further, as far as the Yad Mordechai Junction -- just north of the Gaza Strip border. There, police caught up with them, sternly forbade them to continue but accepting the fait accompli of their congregating at the parking lot -- where they were further reinforced by activists arriving in private cars.
In phone consultations it was decided to hold two improvised demonstrations simultaneously, calling for a ceasefire, and protesting the use of brute force against civilians. 200 stood outside the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, the other hundred at Yad Mordechai. Participants at Yad Mordechai were constantly warned that they were breaking the law by holding an "illegal gathering" and putting themselves at risk from missiles -- to which they answered "The people in Gaza are at far greater risk -- we are doing this to end the risk on both sides."
About an hour later the supply convoy -- two trucks, bearing ICU beds, ICU equipment and supplies, medical equipment for operating rooms, and consumables -- was allowed to get through, all the supplies, to a value of about 500,000 US dollars, getting to the Gaza hospitals. [www.phr.org.il]
'In election campaign the graveyards won.'
# Saturday Jan. 17: The third Saturday of the war. The cabinet in session at Jerusalem, to discuss the cease-fire proposals -- but the killing still going on.
The Etzel Museum on the Tel-Aviv seashore commemorates Menachem Begin's paramilitaries who in 1948 conquered Jaffa. This was the rendezvous where some 3000 protesters gathered. The protest march was to go through the south of Tel-Aviv up to the Jaffa park that had seen daily protests. A drizzle, the sound of drums and a large police force accompanied them all along the way.
"Barak, Barak, Minister of Defense / You will not buy power with blood", "In the election campaign / the graveyards won", "Enough is enough / Talk with Hamas" -- chanted the protesters, demanding an immediate cessation of the war, the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, the opening of the crossings between Gaza and the outside world and dialogue with Hamas. Compared with earlier marches, there were less organized groups of parties and movements and more unaffiliated demonstrators, such as the two neatly dressed grey-haired women together holding a big hand-written sign: "Olmert, enough is enough!"
Among the protesters were several groups coming from the Negev areas exposed to the Qassam rockets -- residents of Beersheba as well as students of the Sapir College near Sderot, who had organized a student anti-war groups in spite of considerable harassment from the administration.
As the march entered the narrow streets of Jaffa, street lamps were suddenly cut off, leaving the marchers in almost complete darkness except for the searchlight of the police helicopters cruising overhead.
There was also an almost complete media blackout. Israeli radio did report a far smaller right-wing demonstration in a different location while completely ignoring the Jaffa march.
"Is this the last protest of this damned war?" asked a young Tel Avivian at dispersal point. "Inshallah!" (If God wills it) answered his Arab companion.
