[1] Adam Keller's report on the Tel-Aviv demonstration

The setting was familiar. We have done this many times before, in moments of crisis when the need for a mass protest was evident: gathering in front of the Tel-Aviv Cinematheque, with contingents arriving by bus from all over the country; marching in our thousands down the wide Ibn Gvirol Street; a living forest of colorful banners and placards and hand-painted signs, Jews and Arabs together with slogans chanted alternately in both languages and occasionally in English; reaching the Museum Plaza for a prolonged rally, with speakers addressing the crowd from the steps of the Public Library (as always, the allocation of speaking slots had been accompanied by some undignified infighting between the various participating groups...)

Still, tonight was also different and new: never before had Israeli peace activists found themselves so much an
integrated part of a world-wide movement of protest; never before did our particular concerns, in this miserable torn country, mesh so closely with the anxiety and alarm and anger of so many people in so many countries around the world. Somebody had taken the initiative of producing an Israeli version of the "No War" sticker, familiar from CNN reports of the protests in Europe and the US; it was avidly taken up and placed on clothes together with Gush Shalom's Two Flags or the competing emblems of the Hadash and Balad parties. The veteran slogan "Shalom Ken - Kibush Lo"
(Peace Yes - Occupation No") needed only a slight change in order to be transformed into an anti-Bush chant. And demonstrators accustomed to sending Sharon to the Hague War Crimes Tribunal tonight consigned Bush to the same destination with the same cadence. "Bush, Blair and Sharon are the true axis of evil" was an improvised new slogan, chanted as the banner "Israelis and Palestinians
oppose the war" was unfurled.
It was not just a slogan. Underlying the cheerfulness and some ribaldry was a deep anxiety about what this country
may face in the coming months if Bush does launch his attack. Daily the papers fill with dire predictions of deadly Iraqi missiles landing in spite of all the official reassurances of "a low probability", or of a new upsurge of suicide bombings, more terrible than ever, starting concurrently with the attack upon Bagdad. And a worry widespread in this evening's crowd, is that in such circumstances Sharon would find a pretext and opportunity to carry out his barely-secret true agenda: mass
expulsion of Palestinians and destruction of their leadership.

"What plans are already prepared in meticulous detail at some headquarters, just waiting for Bush to provide the smoke screen for their implementation? How many trees are already slated for uprooting? How many houses are to be
demolished? How many people have already been placed under a secret sentence of expulsion or death?" cried Haim Hanegbi of Gush Shalom.

"The darkness is fast approaching, threatening to engulf us all" said the feminist writer Rela Mazali, on behalf of the Women's Peace Coalition - part of "An open letter to a friend who did not come to this event", addressing the very many Israelis who share our abhorrence of the coming war and whom we nevertheless failed to bring to our "too radical" or "too Arab" event.

Indeed, some of the Tel-Avivians seemed a bit alienated when long speeches in Arabic followed each other from the podium - the kind of feelings usually preserved for the Arab participants in Israeli events... Haneen Zuabi and Aida Toma, two young and fiery women spoke Arabic while representing respectively Balad and Hadash, giving only a summary in Hebrew.

Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi, old and respected Palestinian statesman, addressed the rally in surprisingly strong and confident words of solidarity, in Arabic and English, by phone from beleaguered Gaza.

There was much cheering when Yesh Gvul speaker Dan Tamir, a reserve captain and refuser of service in the occupied
territories, read a letter written this morning by the young refusniks incarcerated at Military Prison 4 and calling upon American and British soldiers to follow on the path of refusing service in oppressive and aggressive warfare.

Azmi Bdeir of Ta'ayush, who moderated the event concluded:
"This coming war which looms over us is not a natural disaster. It is man-made. Human beings planned it, human beings intend to carry it out. Human beings can also stop it.
We, among very many people all over the world".

[2] Concluding communique of the organizers

Over 3,000 Israelis Demonstrated Today Against the War on Iraq in Partnership with a Palestinian Demonstration in Ramallah and Over 600 Demonstrations Worldwide


Today, Saturday February 15th, over 3,000 Jews and Arabs demonstrated against the war on Iraq in Tel Aviv Museum’s square. The demonstration was held in partnership with a Palestinian demonstration held in the center of
Ramallah and simultaneously with over 600 demonstrations worldwide.

A joint Palestinian Israeli petition was read at the demonstration calling: “No to the war against Iraq! End the Israeli occupation! For a life of just peace in the Middle East! We, Israelis and Palestinians, are opposed to this war. This is not a war for the sake of security or justice, but rather a war for power, hegemony, control and greed.
We are determined that security and freedom for the sake of all the people of the Middle East will not be achieved by war, violence and death.”

Speeches were held during the vigil by representatives of the Israeli organizations who coordinated and participated in the demonstration as well as by Heider Abdel Shafi, a
Palestinian peace activist from Gaza, who spoke by way of telephone from his home in Gaza.

Participating organizations include:
Balad, Gush Shalom, Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, Hadash, Yesh Gvul, Black Laundry, Mada, Taayush-Arab Jewish Partnership, The Alternative Information Center, Coalition of Women for Peace: Bat Shalom, Machsom Watch, Noga-Feminist Journal, Nalad, Women in Black, New Profile, Tandi, WILP and Fifth Mother.

For further information, please contact:
Ronni: 054-700640, 02-6241424, 02-6241159

[3] Jerusalem Post internet edition reporting the event

Protestors in Tel-Aviv join millions worldwide in anti-war demonstration

Matthew Gutman Feb. 15, 2003

As many 1500 people calling for the US to abort its planned attack on Iraq marched in Tel Aviv Saturday night joining for a rally at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art that was as much a protest against the Israeli government as it was against the putative American targeting of Iraq.

The demonstrators joined millions of anti-war protestors around the world in their efforts to pressure the American and British governments to halt plans for a war to unseat Saddam Hussein. "It isn't good for anyone that the US control the entire region. America's attempt at a new regional order,' will only cause instability and violence," MK Muhammed Barake chairman of the Hadash Party, explained to the Jerusalem Post during the rally.

The march was conducted peacefully, but under heavy police guard. The marchers gathered outside Tel Aviv's
Cinematheque where they waved the orange banners of Balad and the red flags of the communist Hadash party. They chanted anti-American and anti-Israeli [sic!] slogans to the well known rhythm of Israeli-Palestinian peace demonstrations. But the tone of some of the chants were hardly pacifistic: "Nassar taught us well, America is the head of the snake," chanted Balad activists in Arabic while waving a Palestinian flag.
Some of the protest leaders tried in vain to convince the activists to lower the Palestinian flag.
"Bush, Powell and Sharon, terrorists in power," went another one catchy slogan which rhymes in Hebrew. Other banners called for UN inspectors to investigate Israel's weapons of mass destruction, while others still focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Sharon is more dangerous than Saddam," read another popular banner.

Gush Shalom icon Uri Avnery told the Jerusalem Post that it is vital that Israel be part of the world-wide protests against the war. He warned that Israel would be blamed and held responsible if America gets bogged down in Iraq or too many civilians die.

The rally was coordinated with a similar rally in Ramallah.
"Your brothers in Ramallah, who were also protesting tonight, could not be here tonight because of the closure," said Azmi Bdeir of the Israeli and Arab run Ta'ayush Palestinian human rights group. The crowd which was comprised of about half Israeli Jews and half Israeli Arabs. "This is a war for oil and for the American exploitation of the entire world," stated one of the speakers, Haneen Zoabi, a Nazareth based communications teacher who came with hundreds of other Arab-Israelis from across the country to protest the war and the Israeli government. "[Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon will use this war to eliminate the Palestinian issue by installing a puppet Palestinian leader and even by transferring some
Palestinians."

The connection between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the war on Iraq was not clear to all the demonstrators. Helle Meister, 22, and Adrian Faftek, visiting Israel from Hamburg Germany joined the protest to identify with their friends who joined the hundreds of thousands of other Germans marching in Berlin Saturday. "But this is not a war against the Arabs," said Meister not identifying with some of the protester's message, "but a capitalist war, a war for oil, power and regional hegemony. There should be no connection to the elimination of the Palestinians."

Many Israeli bystanders looked at the protestors incredulously not exactly understanding what the protest's message.
Others, like Shlomo Yosef, who watched the procession from a nearby kiosk agreed with the basic message of the protests.
"I don't really understand why we are fighting this war.
What I do know is that when the scuds start landing here in Tel Aviv, no one is going to be happy."

Just outside the museum a half dozen Likud activists staged a ragtag counter-protest. "The extreme left has gone crazy and is supporting a murderer," their signs read.