http://indymedia.org.il
Pressure From Bush And Public Protests Forced Sharon's HandMonday 30 Sep 2002
author: Hans Lebrecht, Kibbutz Beit-Oren (hlebr@trendline.co.il)
summary
No doubt, the sudden turn-around of Sharon and his army commanders of releasing Arafat to breath some air (hardly much more for the time being), was the result of an unprecedented pressure from the Bush people in Washington, who could not risk an interference with their impudent own war designs against Iraq.
Unprecedentend Pressure From Bush And Public Protests Forced Sharon To Let Arafat Breath
by Hans Lebrecht, Kibbutz Beit-Oren
September 30, 2002
Sunday, 4 p.m., Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and his close compatriots who had been jailed together with him for the last ten days in his two-room office in the almost completely destroyed Muqata’a building, left the building smilingly, beaming over his whole face and raising his right hand making the well-known “V” sign. The Israeli occupation forces had withdrawn from the vicinity of the building and almost all of the city Ramallah, withdrawing their tanks and other heavy equipment. A crowd of Palestinian residents, some of them holding rifles and other weapons, run around the still surrounding barbed wire curls and, lifting Arafat on their shoulders welcomed him as a victorious hero. Among those, who left the Muqata’a building together with Arafat as free men had been also all of those about 20 persons, whom the Israeli demanded to be handed over to them as >>suspected terrorist leaders<<.
Later in the day, before evening dusk, some Israeli tanks and troops returned to several parts of Ramallah, albeit not to the vicinity of the Muqata’a, and tried to impose another curfew. But many of the townsfolk did not care and festive victory celebrating crowds filled the main streets. This time, the Israelis did not risk to shoot and disperse the crowd.
No doubt, the sudden turn-around of Sharon and his army commanders of releasing Arafat to breath some air (hardly much more for the time being), was the result of an unprecedented pressure from the Bush people in Washington, who could not risk an interference with their impudent own war designs against Iraq. Sharon’s own war against Arafat was too dangerous for the anyway almost >>operation impossible<< to win the Arab world, with the exception of the few stools in Kuwait and one or two of the Gulf Emirates, for their aggression against Iraq. But, no less, Sharon and his gang were pressed by the rapid growing pressure of public opinion the world over, the U.S. and England included, as well as in Israel itself.
Mass Peace and anti-War activities in Palestine
Last weekend, during which in Israel the last days of the national and religious Jewish feast of the Tabernacles (Succoth) had been celebrated, saw protest and anti-war rallies in numbers and size like nothing near them for the last few years.
Saturday (Sept. 28), the second anniversary of the provocative >>visit<< of the then pretender to the throne and veteran war criminal, Ariel Sharon, on the Haram-a-Sharif (for traditional Jews the >>Temple Mount<<), which has become through the last 14 centuries the third holiest site for Muslim believers around the Globe. As will be remembered, this Sharon >>visit<<, and the following sharp shooting police interference against peacefully demonstrating Muslim Palestinians, killing 11, was the last straw which incited the second Intifada (Arabic for >>uprising<<), the Palestinian fight for national liberation and independent statehood.
In most towns and villages in the occupied Palestinian territories, in Nablus, Jenin, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Gaza. and many others, huge crowds took to the streets, spiting the curfew, imposed by the occupation forces. They demonstrated their determination to fight until victory for their liberation from Israeli occupation and colonialist oppression, for their national rights to self-determination and independence. At the same time, these demonstrations, which had been spontaneously united followers of Arafat’s Fatah and Tanzim and the Hamas fundamentalist, carrying ever so much pictures of Abu-Amr (Arafat), showed that the prestige of their President, which was quite low a few weeks ago, has been restored almost to its former height, thanks to his practical incarceration at the Muqata’a by Sharon and is army. USA and Israeli flags were as well as effigies of Bush and Sharon were burned.
…and in Israel
On the same day, the second anniversary of the murderous police onslaught upon peacefully solidarity with their attacked Palestinian brothers and sisters expressing Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, was commemorated too in Israel. Then, under the rule of then Labor Prime Minister Ehud Barak and his Police (and Foreign) Minister, the allegedly >>dovish<< Shlomo Ben-Ami, 13 Arab Palestinians had been shot dead and more then one hundred wounded. The official commission of inquiry into these police atrocities, perpetrated in Nazareth, Umm-el-Fahm and other localities in Israel, hearing witnesses and deliberating for more than 18 months by now, has not yet finished its job.
The major event of this Saturday was the central rally in Kufr-Manda near a memorial site for a resident of this mountainous Galilean village, who was killed on that day. The massive event was called for by the Monitor Committee of the Arab-Palestinian Minority in Israel, in which all the political parties and other social groupings active within the Arab population are united. Tens of thousands of Arab citizens arrived from all over the country. They marched in three huge columns from neighboring villages to the rally, waving a flood of red, green and black colored flags, as well as some Palestinian ones. Streamers and posters showed slogans of protests against the Sharon rule and >>Transfer<< designs of ethnic cleansing the whole of Palestine from the Palestinian people. Other slogans read >>Stop to the Muqata’a atrocity<<, >>Freedom for elected Palestinian President Arafat<<. More banners raised denounced the aggressive Bush war designs against Iraq, or called for negotiated just Israeli-Palestinian peace and equality of rights to the Arab minority In Israel. A high spot of this Kufr-Manda rally was, when three bus and car convoys, their headlines shining, with hundreds of Jewish democratic peace activists arrived from Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Haifa and other cities to join the rally. Leaders of the Monitor Committee, as well as several Knesseth deputies from the Hadash Front and the United Arab List, as well as some city mayors and heads of village councils took the floor to address the huge crowd. With enthusiastic applause and sung out slogans, the telephoned and by loudspeakers broadcast address on behalf of Yasser Arafat, read out by his Defense Minister Tawfiq Tirawi (remanded by Sharon and his crowd for alleged >>terrorism<<) was received. The address was phoned from within the Muqata’s at this time still under siege.
On the same Saturday evening, a huge public meeting under the same auspices had been held in the spacious Culture Hall of the Arab city Umm-el-Fahm in the central Triangle district. The public, which over-crowded the hall, had been addressed by leaders of the Arab public, Knesset members of the United Arab List, the city’s Mayor of the Islam Party and by Micha Vilner representing the Communist Forum.
Women on high Alert
September 25 and 26, the Women Coalition for a Peace opened a two-day Succoth event in and around a huge Succah Tabernacle tent. The site chosen for this impressive event was, like already the previous two year’s Succoth holidays, at an open space at the important traffic heavy Meggiddo highway exchange, in front of one of the largest prisons, in which at the moment about 1,200 Palestinians are detained. The crossing is a central spot in Israel, joining the south-north Tel-Aviv-Afula-northern Galilee intercity speed thoroughfare with the west-eastern highway route from Haifa to the northern occupied West Bank city Jenin, near the border crossing check-post. For hours, rows of women posted themselves along the highways with posters calling for a stop of anti-Arab racism and for just Israeli-Palestinian peace, for ending the terrorist slaughtering of civilians, women and kids on both sides, in Palestine by the Israeli occupation army, and in Israel by Palestinian fanatics. Within the huge Succah tent, decorated on all sides with slogans, among them also such which protested against the war designs of Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld and Co., symposia were held on subjects like >>Racism and Dehumanization<< (lectured by Dr. Anat Matar from the Tel-Aviv University), >>Racism and >home< under the threat of ethnic cleansing<<, or >>Occupation of Palestine and Racism: Avenues for Struggle<< (lectured by Prof. Cynthia Cockburn of the London University), and some others more. Among the audience deliberating on the subjects were united Arab and Jewish, Palestinian and Israeli women, who rallied in peace and close friendship with each other.
Youthful Refuseniks Fly Kites above Military Prison
Another of the many peace events was a three-day long Succah tent, set up across the Military Prison No. 6, at the highway crossing of the Tel-Aviv-Haifa chaussee and the Beit-Oren serpentine road up to the National Carmel Park. This Succah was set up by the >>Shministim<< (eighth grade) group of several hundred (17-18 year old) secondary school last grade students, who signed letters to the army command and PM, telling them, that, when called in October or next spring to their obligatory army service, they will refuse for reasons of conscience to serve in the occupied territories and rent their hands to the oppression of another people. Also in this tent, meetings and symposia were held with other youth groups, as well with a standing representation of the movement of the officers and men, who are refusing to serve in those areas. Among these present there were some who served already several jail terms for such a>>crime<<. In the prison across the road, at the moment two officers and six NCO’s and men are imprisoned for the >>crime<< of having a conscience.
An especially impressive event summed up this tent of the Shministim >>refuseniks<< on Saturday afternoon: Dozens of beautiful kites with slogans, such as >>The refuseniks express the conscience of the Israeli People<<, >>End terror oppression against Palestinians, Return to the negotiation table<< , >>Freedom for the jailed Conscientious Objectors<<, >>Peace solely with two states for both our Peoples<<, etc., were, borne by the easterly wind, were flying over the roofs of the barracks and the courtyards of the military prison. The jailed refuseniks stepped into a courtyard and waved with white bed sheets to thank for the solidarity action. It should be remarked that the kites had been built in common by Jewish and Arab youth groups of the >>Shministim<< and the (Israeli) Arab AMAL Working Youth Movement in Tel-Aviv-Jaffo, Haifa and Madjd-el-Krum. Groups of AMAL joined the Shministim acroos the Military prison, while flying those wonderful kites.
Moreover, the already traditionally held weekly Friday and Saturday evening vigils in Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv, Haifa and other Israeli towns, had been this last weekend held under the same paroles, like the mentioned mass events. Among the steady activists of these vigils, special mention should be made in honor of the steadfast activists of the >>Women in Black<<, >>Bat-Shalom<< and the >>Jewish-Arab Ta’ayush<< (who all three also had been among the main activists of the Meggiddo Succah tent), the Gush-Shalom and Haifa Peace Forum, which unites all peace movements in Town.
Many a commentator and analyst writing in the Sunday and Monday (Sept. 29 and 30) media publications mentioned, that this weekend of the largest masses embracing activities that surpassed all hitherto since many years, surely had their impact too, by forcing Sharon, besides the pressure from Washington, to retreat from the Muqata’a idiotism.