Demo Against Israeli Failure in Lebanon - No Demo Against Israeli War Crimes
dai | 04.05.2007 14:33
There where no demonstrations on the streets of TelAviv to prevent the invasion and the aggressive war on Lebanon last summer. The high-lords of the many wars - Ehud Olmert, Amir Perez and the State terrorist Dan Halutz ( retired from his duties) went to war - with the quiet acceptance from the Israeli/Jews. Today Israeli/Jews are loudly demanding the resignation of "those responsible" for the failure of the aggression on Lebanon.
The rally is organized of protest groups formed after the failure of the aggression on Lebanon, the "Tafnit" movement headed by 'Uzi Dayan -it also includes families of Israeli state terrorists whom died "in action", reservists and student committees, among other groups such as the right-wing Yesha settlement council and the left-wing Meretz movement.
There has so far never been any opposing movement of dignity - in "Israel" against the occupation - or against Israeli hostile activities of neighboring countries for that matter. - Neither there has been large demonstrations against the occupation and the daily- many decades long aggression on the Palestinian people. - It is therefore correct to assume - that the Israeli criminal conduct is and has been widely accepted - unabated - maintaining its full force - with no decrease - on Palestine "Territories". - Also Israeli assaults over Lebanese border airspace and territorial waters can continue - because there is no present serious political attempts to put an end to the occupation - or to prevent violations of other countries sovereign borders. - There has never been and there will never be a sincere show of regret and remorse over Israeli criminal conduct- in the name of " security" - the Israeli/Jews believe they are above the law.
The Israeli so called "Peace movement" - or the Israeli Peace Now will probably not officially attend the rally today in Tel Aviv - and definitely not with a large presence - because there is no such large Israeli Peace movement existing - Israeli Peace Movement is dead. - Today's rally in TelAviv will be a political tactical mistake - because it will for sure prove to the world - that there is no strong resistance against the occupation of Palestine lands - neither there is a serious and great urge to quell Israeli hostilities towards other nations - or for a lasting peace in the Middle East.
dai
Additions
there were demonstrations in tel aviv against the war
07.05.2007 08:36
Whilst I agree with 'dai' that the current demonstrations were mainly the right calling for Olmert and Peretz's heads (Halutz resigned some months ago) for not winning the war, there were demonstrations by the radical Left against the attacks on Gaza and Lebanon last summer in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. One demonstration included up to 10,000 people with violent arrests and attacks on the peaceful protesters. It was even well covered in YNET (Israel's main daily newspaper Yediot Achronot) 
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3279792,00.html
If you want to know more about the anti-war/ anti-occupation struggle in Israel check out https://israel.indymedia.org/ or the Anarchists against the Wall website http://www.awalls.org/
You may be interested in Michel Warshawski's (one of the founders of anti-Zionist movement, Matzpen) article about why radical Israeli left activists should stay in Israel and not leave...
Israeli Activists and the Option to Leave: The Use and Misuse of its Representation Written by Michael Warschawski, the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
April 2007
Working in Israel for a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is not an easy job, to say the least. Israeli activists are embedded within the belly of the beast, and are permanently submitted to tremendous pressures: the pressures of the national consensus, the pressures of social (and sometimes) political repression, the pressures of despair and discouragement, and the pressure to lose hope and to leave.
This is why, throughout the last six decades, so many good activists have left the country. Who can blame them? Who knows what price each of these activists had to pay for their militancy? A personal price, a family price, a professional price. To swim against the stream is extremely exhausting and energy consuming, and one has the full right to decide to get out of the stormy and muddied waters. Some of my best friends, and even political teachers, decided to leave the country in the first years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, feeling that it was too difficult to confront a consensus of the whole society, including its liberal-left, with only a couple dozen individuals.
But others decided to stay and to fight. At the beginning in a total state of isolation, yet gradually with few additional hundreds, and then thousands, and then tens of thousands. Until we became—first in 1982 and then in 1988—part of a broader movement of hundreds of thousands, expressing the majority of Israeli public opinion. For those who decided to remain in the country, it was worthwhile and rewarding.
However, the political situation deteriorated once again in 2000, and, following the Camp David fiasco, a new consensus was created around the big lie of Ehud Barak. The “peace camp” was reduced, once again, to what Uri Avneri calls the “small wheel,” i.e. the more radical wing, without the “big wheel” represented by Peace Now and other pragmatic-peaceniks. Without the big wheel to push, the small one has a limited task: to protest and to express its solidarity with the victims of the Israeli wars and occupation.
Nevertheless, this small wheel did not desert the field of struggle against occupation and colonization, or, in July 2006, against the new aggression in Lebanon. Between 5,000 to 10,000 Israelis demonstrated regularly in the streets of Tel Aviv to say “no to occupation,” “no to the war!” They made a choice to stay and to continue to be active, in their country, in the belly of the beast. They should be respected for that.
Taking the case of former Israeli activists who have decided to leave the country out of despair or personal considerations as the example of what should be done is unacceptable. Indeed, it is a legitimate choice, but no more.
I don’t think it is accidental that a majority of those who are hailing the decisions of Ilan Pappe and the late Tanya Reinhart to leave the country, and presenting their decisions as the “only true revolutionary way to resist,” belong to the ultra-radical anti-Israeli current in the international movement, often close to and in collaboration with mere anti-Jewish and negationist (Judeocide-denial) groups. They use Ilan’s decision—of course, without his consent—to prove that the Israeli people are 100 percent bad, corrupt and don’t deserve to even exist on the face of earth.
Such an attitude is fundamentally in opposition to the one defended by most of the Palestinian national liberation movement activists, who have endlessly expressed how important it is for the Palestinians to have Israeli partners, even if, at certain times, these are no more than symbolic partners. They know that they will be the main losers if the Wall will be hermetically sealed between Arab and Jews, and the nightmare of a “clash of civilizations” will become a reality. The existence of Jews who are fighting with Muslims, of Israelis joining forces with Palestinians, is a hole—even if, in these difficult moments, only a symbolic one—in the fence which our enemies are building around the Palestinian people, a breach in the Wall meant to divide mankind between Judeo-Christian civilization and Muslim barbarism.
In that sense, it is not only an anti-Semitic position, but also a severely anti-Palestinian one.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3279792,00.html If you want to know more about the anti-war/ anti-occupation struggle in Israel check out
https://israel.indymedia.org/ or the Anarchists against the Wall website http://www.awalls.org/ You may be interested in Michel Warshawski's (one of the founders of anti-Zionist movement, Matzpen) article about why radical Israeli left activists should stay in Israel and not leave...
Israeli Activists and the Option to Leave: The Use and Misuse of its Representation Written by Michael Warschawski, the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
April 2007
Working in Israel for a just peace between the Palestinians and Israelis is not an easy job, to say the least. Israeli activists are embedded within the belly of the beast, and are permanently submitted to tremendous pressures: the pressures of the national consensus, the pressures of social (and sometimes) political repression, the pressures of despair and discouragement, and the pressure to lose hope and to leave.
This is why, throughout the last six decades, so many good activists have left the country. Who can blame them? Who knows what price each of these activists had to pay for their militancy? A personal price, a family price, a professional price. To swim against the stream is extremely exhausting and energy consuming, and one has the full right to decide to get out of the stormy and muddied waters. Some of my best friends, and even political teachers, decided to leave the country in the first years of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, feeling that it was too difficult to confront a consensus of the whole society, including its liberal-left, with only a couple dozen individuals.
But others decided to stay and to fight. At the beginning in a total state of isolation, yet gradually with few additional hundreds, and then thousands, and then tens of thousands. Until we became—first in 1982 and then in 1988—part of a broader movement of hundreds of thousands, expressing the majority of Israeli public opinion. For those who decided to remain in the country, it was worthwhile and rewarding.
However, the political situation deteriorated once again in 2000, and, following the Camp David fiasco, a new consensus was created around the big lie of Ehud Barak. The “peace camp” was reduced, once again, to what Uri Avneri calls the “small wheel,” i.e. the more radical wing, without the “big wheel” represented by Peace Now and other pragmatic-peaceniks. Without the big wheel to push, the small one has a limited task: to protest and to express its solidarity with the victims of the Israeli wars and occupation.
Nevertheless, this small wheel did not desert the field of struggle against occupation and colonization, or, in July 2006, against the new aggression in Lebanon. Between 5,000 to 10,000 Israelis demonstrated regularly in the streets of Tel Aviv to say “no to occupation,” “no to the war!” They made a choice to stay and to continue to be active, in their country, in the belly of the beast. They should be respected for that.
Taking the case of former Israeli activists who have decided to leave the country out of despair or personal considerations as the example of what should be done is unacceptable. Indeed, it is a legitimate choice, but no more.
I don’t think it is accidental that a majority of those who are hailing the decisions of Ilan Pappe and the late Tanya Reinhart to leave the country, and presenting their decisions as the “only true revolutionary way to resist,” belong to the ultra-radical anti-Israeli current in the international movement, often close to and in collaboration with mere anti-Jewish and negationist (Judeocide-denial) groups. They use Ilan’s decision—of course, without his consent—to prove that the Israeli people are 100 percent bad, corrupt and don’t deserve to even exist on the face of earth.
Such an attitude is fundamentally in opposition to the one defended by most of the Palestinian national liberation movement activists, who have endlessly expressed how important it is for the Palestinians to have Israeli partners, even if, at certain times, these are no more than symbolic partners. They know that they will be the main losers if the Wall will be hermetically sealed between Arab and Jews, and the nightmare of a “clash of civilizations” will become a reality. The existence of Jews who are fighting with Muslims, of Israelis joining forces with Palestinians, is a hole—even if, in these difficult moments, only a symbolic one—in the fence which our enemies are building around the Palestinian people, a breach in the Wall meant to divide mankind between Judeo-Christian civilization and Muslim barbarism.
In that sense, it is not only an anti-Semitic position, but also a severely anti-Palestinian one.
mikado