The universalist impulse in Jewish and Arab life continues to be shut out of our press in favor of the parochial. You wouldn't know it, but on Saturday, over 1000 Israelis--Israeli Jews and Palestinians--led a convoy of cars from Tel Aviv to the wall at Gaza to bring food and supplies to try and relieve the suffering of the Gazans. Across the wall in Gaza, there was a protest by the Arabs there. A spectacular event. Here are pictures of the relief convoy...
And here is part of a thrilled report from former Californian Rebecca Vilkomerson, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, now living in Tel Aviv:
Each speaker spoke either only one language or each in turn (that is, the palestinians could repeat themselves in hebrew, the hebrew speakers spoke only hebrew) so we in the crowd were responding to different statements at different times. i can't say that there was exactly a feeling of unity there, but there was a sense of joint purpose... it was a joint jewish-palestinian rally--both jewish/palestinian israeli and the gazan rally that was happening on the other side of the border (though unfortunately too far away for us to see them),and while it was exciting and moving to be in that joint space, it wasn't exactly together. the arabic speakers chanted in arabic, the hebrew speakers in hebrew, and there was very little joint chanting. Dr. Eyad Sarraj, the founder o the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, was leading the palestinian side of the protest, we heard him by holding a cell phone on speaker up to the microphone. he spoke in english, and he spoke of the rally as a historic day. he said he was so proud of all of us that we were there, together, and he said that any time blood is spilled, in gaza, in sderot, or anywhere, it is an affront to humanity. he spoke so beautifully, and his deep sense of humanity came through so strongly, and especially to think of his ability to be that generous of spirit while in a state of siege and disaster all around, made tears come to my eyes, and i noticed that i wasn't the only one. to think that anyone could say there is no non-violent movement in Palestine!
Could the lack of coverage of joint action possibly relate to the success of the anti-Vietnam war movement in getting coverage in the sixties and also to the inability of the anti-Iraq movement to get much traction in the media?
It looks rather like a conscious decision in the US media.
After all Laura Leff makes a good case in Buried by the Times, that Sulzberger managed to skew all US coverage of the mass murders of Jews during WW2 out of the front and editorial pages to the least read back pages of the newspapers.
Thanks for alerting us to this. Not even Jewish Voice for Peace got this story out so early – I have yet to hear from them on the topic, and they usually send out emails rapidly.
I blogged it with a couple of extra links, including Eyad Sarraj's Boston Globe op ed.
the best source of info on local demonstrations in Israel is the Israeli peace bloc, Gush Shalom:
http://gush-shalom.org/
I had read (I think at Counterpunch) that this demo was going to occur. But Phil's essay is the first post-event report that I've seen. Well done!
The symbolism of the Israeli and Palestinian groups being separated by a militarized border, and talking past each other in different languages, is (sadly) perfect. Neither group is allowed to cross the border to the other side.
Great scoop of this story and this comment is on the point:
"The symbolism of the Israeli and Palestinian groups being separated by a militarized border, and talking past each other in different languages, is (sadly) perfect. Neither group is allowed to cross the border to the other side."
Hillary referred to "the fence" when alluding to the high wall in the occupied terrortories. When you build a wall that high, talk of "sitting on the fence" is made absurd.