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!
