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Articles on Peace Now / Left-Wing Jerusalem Rally 5-15-10

Rally 5-15-10 320x265.jpgJerusalem Post: "Thousands join left-wing J'lem rally"

by Abe Selig

National Left, Peace Now groups call for "an end to the occupation."

Under the banner "Zionists are not settlers!" thousands of people demonstrated near Zion Square in Jerusalem on Saturday night to voice their disapproval of government policy and declare their support for a "Jewish state, for the Jewish people, with clear and recognized borders."


(Ha'aretz: "Israeli leftists: Zionism and Judaism are not in line with settlements"  and YNET: "Leftist rally: Zionists don't settle" follow the Jerusalem Post article)

The demonstration, organized by the National Left (Smol Leumi) movement, Peace Now and Ofek (the Meretz faction at the Hebrew University), lasted for nearly an hour and featured brief remarks from each of the movements' representatives.

"We're calling for an end to the occupation - with or without an agreement!" Eldad Yaniv, Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak's former bureau chief and one of the National Left movement's founders, told the cheering crowd.

"We're calling for a Jewish state, for the Jewish people with clear and recognized borders!" he said. "Not a Jewish state built on settlements and discrimination!"

Yaniv's fledgling political movement aims to rebuild the Left from the ground up, encourage Zionism among the left wing, and serve as an umbrella for parties to the left of Kadima in the next election.

"We have been working for months to wake up the Zionist Left in Israel," Yaniv told The Jerusalem Post last week. "We have held parlor meetings across the country three or four times a week, and now we have decided to return to the streets with Israeli flags and say that Zionists aren't settlers, and that the time has come to end the occupation and build a society that can be a light unto the nations."

The participants - police estimated the crowd at 2,000; organizers put that number closer to 5,000 - chanted slogans enthusiastically and cheered the speakers on.

"We are here tonight to reclaim the Zionism of Ben-Gurion," one participant, Tzachi, from Tel Aviv, told the Post. "We're tired of Zionism being associated with the right wing only, and we came out tonight, to Jerusalem, the capital, to let our voices be heard."

While buses brought scores of demonstrators from Tel Aviv and other locations across the country, a large contingent of Jerusalemites turned out for the protest as well.

"Living in this city, working or studying here, you can really feel that there are segments of the population that are trying to hijack the political process and shut out anyone who doesn't fit their mold," downtown resident Alon Zehavi told the Post.

"I felt it quite strongly while watching the Jerusalem Day parade last Wednesday," he continued. "All I could see were yeshiva students and settlers, dancing and cheering their way toward the Old City. The crowd was so homogeneous.

"And as someone who sees his future here in this city and in this country, it was important to me to come down here tonight and make my voice heard. Because I am left-wing, because I am a Zionist, and because it's important to me that [Israel] remain a Jewish, democratic state," Zehavi said.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=175653

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Ha'aretz: "Israeli leftists: Zionism and Judaism are not in line with settlements"

 
Thousands of left-wing protesters rallied in Jerusalem to call for immediate dismantlement of West Bank settlements, including in East Jerusalem.

By Jonathan Lis and Chaim Levinson

Zion Square in Jerusalem stood empty on Saturday night. The plaza, normally symbolic of the protest of the extreme right, was to be the site of planned protest by a group of left-wing organizations including Peace Now, the Geneva Initiative and the National Left. But two weeks ago, Channel 24's new glass-walled studio opened in the concourse, and the demonstration was moved to a nearby site adjoining the Russian Compound.

The protest took place under the umbrella of the National Left, founded by lawyer Eldad Yaniv and playwright Shmuel Hasfari. Israeli flags flew, the speakers proclaimed their Zionism and the event wound up with the singing of the national anthem, 'Hatikva." The protesters - 1,000 of them according to police and 2,000 according to the organizers - called for the immediate dismantlement of West Bank settlements, including in East Jerusalem.

"We want to get out of the West Bank because we are Zionists," said Gadi Taub, one of the speakers. The Right isn't the nationalist camp, it's a bi-nationalist camp. The center of our Zionism isn't land but human liberty."

Nino Abashidze, a journalist, said: "The time has come to choose: A state without settlements, or settlement without a state."

Mousi Raz, a former Knesset member, described the gathering as "the biggest left-wing protest in West Jerusalem in the last decade". Later, from the podium, Raz offered praise for demonstrators arrested on Friday in Sheikh Jarrah, a disputed neighborhood beyond the Green Line in the eastern half of the city, being held only meters away in the Russian Compound police station.

Yariv Oppenheimer, general secretary of Peace Now, said: "Any rational Israeli leader understands that evacuating the settlements is not Obama's problem, or Hillary Clinton's, but a matter of the Israeli national interest. It is the only way for Israel to pull itself out of international isolation."

Tzvia Greenfield, our Haredi Knesset member (Meretz), swept the crowd when she said, "Zionism cannot be subordination and land theft. Zionsim cannot be control over the weak. Judaism is not theft and conquering the weak. That is not Zionism. That is not Jewish."

Attorney Yaniv concluded the rally by saying, "We do not hate, we are crying over our beloved Israel." He added, "We must end the occupation with an agreement or without one, with a partner or without one, and establish a society here that sets an example."

Members of Israel's right wing rushed to call the protest a resounding failure. A spokesman for the Yesha settlement council said, "The failure of the 'National Left' protest, with the angry handful of protesters who arrived at the square - despite a performance by singer Achinoam Nini and free beer - proves once again that most of the nation understands that settlers are Zionists overall. The failure reverberates even more after more than 10,000 people participated in celebrations on Wednesday marking the reunification of Jerusalem."

MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) also derided the left, especially Peace Now's Oppenheimer.

"The anti-Zionist left cloaks itself in the Israeli flag in order to cover its nakedness," said Ben-Ari, "but the public won't forget that Oppenheimer and his friends in recent months attended protests in which they denigrated the Israeli flag and waved flags of the PLO."

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/israeli-leftists-zionism-and-judaism-are-not-in-line-with-settlements-1.290677?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.216%2C2.218%2C

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YNET: "Leftist rally: Zionists don't settle"


Some 2,000 protestors urge government to quit territories to safeguard state

by Attila Somfalvi 

Some 2,000 people from across the nation took part in a leftist demonstration near Jerusalem's Zion Square Saturday evening.

The rally, organized by members of the so-called "Zionist leftist camp," was held under the banner: "Zionists don't settle."

The demonstration was organized by the National Left movement, Peace Now, the Geneva Initiative, Meretz, the Ofek student cell from Hebrew University, and Labor Party activists. Many of the participants held up Israeli flags during the rally.

The protestors were faced by a few rightist activists holding signs reading: "Jerusalem - only for Jews."

Speaking at the event, Dr. Gadi Taub said: "We need to make sure that the national argument and the human rights argument won't contradict each other. Both arguments lead to a departure from the territories."

"Being Zionist means getting out of the territories and not ruling over another people," he said. "The national camp is not the Right. The Right is the bi-national camp."

Taub added that the protestors' brand of Zionism was not about land, but rather, about the liberation of people.

"This is Ben-Gurion's vision and Herzl's vision," he said. "If we won't quit the territories, we shall lose Zionism's achievement - a Jewish and democratic state."

Singer Achinoam Nini, who performed at the rally, addressed the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, saying that "today, 15 years after that terrible murder, we take our fate into our own hands."

"We choose constant dialogue until peace is reached. Jerusalem needs to be a city of peace - one capital for two nations," she said.

However, some of the protestors at the event were unimpressed by the statements and declarations made by the speakers.

"Until tonight, I supported this move and helped in organizing the protest. However, we made a mistake. I have a problem with the harsh messages against the settlers and the settlement enterprise," Labor Party Jerusalem City Councilor Hilik Bar said. "Instead of taking the Left to the center and even to the centre-Right, they're taking us back to the delusional Left."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3889855,00.html