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What I’ve Been Up To Lately
- RT @NewIsraelFund: "Kulani im Keren! We are with the horn!" ...Add a horn your profile: http://ow.ly/158us 9 hrs ago
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NYC Middle East Peace Rally recap
Photo by Eli Valley
As you can tell from the photos, today’s rally was a modest success by general protest standards, and yet it was a great success for something whipped together in 3 days without any institutional support.
All in all about 40 people turned out to brave the cold and an onslaught of fiery invective from some pro-Israel demonstrators who couldn’t quite grasp how we could be against the killing on both sides. It was a hard day but spirits stayed high and we outlasted our detractors, overpowering their angry epithets with Hebrew and Arabic songs of peace, and opening up a few of them to possibilities beyond continuing violence.
We also got a fair amount of attention from local, national, and Jewish community press and we’re hoping to see our voice enter the debate on this issue in print and on television over the next few days. Please keep an eye out for articles mentioning our event and share them with us. If you have any photos or videos to share, we encourage you to do so as well.
Thank you so much to everyone who attended and also to those who helped get the word out! We’ll let you know about any future demonstrations which, b’ezrat hashem/inshallah/God willing won’t be necessary should a ceasefire come soon.
[UPDATE] Photos now working.
Tags: gaza, israel, palestine, protest
You should have gone to see the pro-Palestinian rally in Times Square like I did. The difference between the two rallies couldn’t have been more stark.
Thanks again, Dan. How do I access the photos? I keep getting a message saying that I don’t have permission to go to the Flicker page.
Pics are private…
What was the response from the ANSWER-niks at the Pro-Palestinian rally?
Clarification: I meant that I didn’t have permission to view the pics. They should be set as public.
Sorry I couldn’t find you guys today. From whatever cattle pen we were in I could see a sign across 2nd Ave (not too big) with a peace symbol. Trying to get into it a bit I said to no one in particular:
“איכס!! מישהו שם רוצה שלום!! איזה מנוולים”
“Ewwww!! Someone there wants peace!! What evil disgusting contemptible people!!”
Seemed to turn a few heads . . .
Dan and everyone else did a great job. I felt like I was with my real community. I hope fate brings us all together again.
My highlight: the woman who confronted us with a sign reading: ‘there are no innocent civilians in Gaza’
Hello,
Thanks to all who showed up today at the rally. It was truly wonderful. We felt very happy to be part of this union. I also have some nice pix and video clips if anyone is interested. I can also put them on youtube.com . They are shortbut they capture the sould of the rally.
We must continue to work together to win the peace for all.
Remember, the first rallies against the Vietnam War started witha crowd smaller than this. It took years to build the momentum and public outcry against the war. Relatively speaking, we are at a very good point historically, even though it seems bad. The public does not want war- anywhere- . We must come together and come from the shadows. I say, we should have this weekly until this war is over. Thank you for organizing this.
If it takes 8 years Israel will have definitely destroyed hamas by then, but in fact I think they need only couple of weeks, so carry on.
After the Israel rally I walked over to the pro-Hamas rally (there were about 20 of us annoying them a bit). “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” That’s the message. No peace, no 2-state solution, no co-existence. I have viewed 4-5 of these rallies in the last couple of years and that’s always the message. Like he said, totally different tone from the Israel rally.
Anyway, here’s some good news about the West Bank.
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatla.....estine.php
Salam Fayyad is one of my heroes. Secular US-trained economist, worked at the World Bank, came home to help make Palestine a real country. Among other things he single-handedly installed a legit bank and made Arafat write out checks to his minions instead of them carrying bags of cash around. Sounds silly but a major cultural shift and necessary for a real economy. He and Hanan Ashrawi also ran for prez against Hamas and Fatah and got 1% of the vote, but he seems to be a good influence on the WB.
I enjoyed viewing your photos and reading your story about the protests.
I think that people are so brainwashed with fear-mongering propaganda that they have forgotten how to love and trust.
Strong doses of compassion and forgiveness are in order. I am really heartened to see the strong call for a cease-fire. I truly hope that this momentum, which seems to have carried over from 8 years of Bush Administration tyranny, keeps up and that people keep pushing for change at every level of government and society.
Israel is going to have a hard time rectifying their actions this time. Too many people just aren’t buying the party line. It’s about time.
i was happy to see this, and sorry not to be in new york for it.
i’ve been wearing my keffiyeh around since this disaster started, but there’s no way in hell i’m going to some hamas-apologist, swastika-on-the-israeli-flag-holding, “genocide”-saying pro-palestine protest. and there’s equally no way in hell i’m going to some israel “solidarity” rally full of robotic apparatchiks who would probably accept literally any justification given by any israeli government for any action it ever took.
so, good for you.
Their rallies vs our rallies. Compare and contrast.
http://cnnwire.blogs.cnn.com/2.....ian-rally/
Also, posted on a list tonight by a friend of the victim:
“After walking home from the 42 Street & 7th Avenue Pro-Israel rally, I watched the Muslim rally participants march up 8th Avenue closely controlled by many NYC police to keep them moving along. Even so, it appeared that many of the young men and women were eyeing the bystanders on the sidewalk in threatening ways almost challenging someone to disagree with their Death to Israel and God Bless Hitler chants.
I went back to my apartment where I met my boyfriend who had also just returned from the second Pro Israel rally on 39th Street & 7th Avenue. We walked outside the building and across a major midtown avenue on the West Side to buy some groceries. He was still carrying the Israeli flag and we were both wearing baseball caps with the American flag and USA on the brims. A large number of Muslims were milling around since it seems that their rally had reached its end point and was dispersing. Six Muslim men were being photographed with posters with the words, “Praise Hamas and Hezbollah, Reopen the Ovens” and were taking photos of themselves and their posters. Seeing us with the Israel flag, they began screaming, ” You’re assholes, Kill the Jews, We are going to kill you, This is OUR country,” etc.
We went into the corner deli and they began banging on the window and stood outside in a very threatening mob waiting for us to leave. I heard one man say, “She is a female” – very observant. I don’t know what this was suppose to signal to his fellow terrorists. When we left the deli a mob of the original Muslims and others who joined them came up to us screaming death to the Jews, and one man around 19/20 years old ran up and with force and hatred threw an egg into my friend’s eye. This may not seem like much but I am sure the intent was for the egg shells to be lodged in his eye. The egg was not thrown from afar against his coat but was thrown like a rock would be – to inflict as much harm as possible. The assailant then grabbed our Israeli flag, threw it to the ground, and was spitting on it and wiping his feet on it. When we asked a traffic cop to make an arrest, the assailant ran away down the block but the traffic agent did not answer us nor did he call 911. He passively stood by doing NOTHING.
Two people standing on the street took photos of our attack and said they would email us with the photos to identity the criminals. We then walked back across the street to our building and were followed by a pack of Muslims – about 8 or 10 – who continued to threaten, mock and scream at us. They seemed surprised at our ferocious counter verbal attack. However, they came right within 6 inches of us saying they would kill us. One of the men was about to attack me when my boyfriend saw the assault about to begin and said, “If you touch her, I swear I’ll kill you.” At that point the original traffic control cop came over and a second traffic agent joined him and forced the crowd to disperse. They asked us to go into the apartment building lobby which we did.
We immediately called the police and asked to make a police report. Two NYC policemen came to the apartment about an hour later hour and took the information. They were very courteous and said they will file the report and a detective is to contact us tomorrow. They apologized for taking so long to come by but explained that there were many incidents of a similar nature that were taking place as the Muslim rally broke up. They also shared that 2 NYC police officers had been attacked at the rally and that the Muslims are ‘out of control.’ …”
If you read the news item at the top, it was 7 police officers. This type of incident has occurred many times during the last 2 wks of pro-Palestinian/Hamas/etc rallies, here and in Europe. Let’s zoom out to view the past decade, starting with Intifada II – how many violent attacks on Jews by roving gangs spun off from rageful rallies? Hundreds. Is it ok to make brownshirt comparisons yet? Dig up a few examples of Israeli settler riots if you want but you know the comparisons are absurd.
So I can see eventually negotiating with the Fayyad admin on the West Bank, if things are truly going as Goldberg says (and it’s always 1 step forward 1 step back), but Hamas & friends?
mobius, let’s be real.
in political terms, there’s not much to choose from between the elected israeli government and the equally-legitimately-elected hamas administration in gaza: they’re both right-wing nationalists whose tenuous popular support is based on a mixture of social-service programs and religious-right ideology.
however, in terms of their actions, an attempt, like your event, to cast them as equivalent is at best callously out of touch with what’s actually happening in the world, at worst an expression of the most banal prejudice available to jews.
to equate the rocket attacks on southern israel with the past two weeks of unilateral war is to declare that one jewish life is worth that of 47 non-jews. 47 so far, that is – the value of jewish lives is steadily rising. according to the israel project, 19 israeli jews were killed in the seven years of highly ineffective rocket and mortar attacks between 11/24/2001 and 12/28/2008 (i’m not differentiating between civilans and active-duty military). since the beginning of the khurbn gaza, the BBC reports that 900 or so palestinians have been killed by the israeli military (a death toll rapidly approaching twice the total number of israelis killed by palestinians since 2000). there is simply no ethical way to equate the two.
unless, that is, you accept either the assumption, as promoted by rav kook and others, that jewish lives are worth more than those of goyim, or the philosophical pacifist position that no violence of any kind is ever justifiable. in which case you must be prepared to condemn every jewish partisan who took up arms in warsaw, lodz, vilna, and the other ghettos of europe, along with nelson mandela, john brown, harriet ross tubman, emiliano zapata, sholom schwartzbard, and thousands of others whose struggles for justice have not had the luxury of distance from danger.
in terms of equivalency, it might be worth pointing out that according to beterem, the israeli center for child safety & health, as many israeli childen died from bicycle accidents alone each year from 1998-2000 as the total number of people killed in the worst year of rocket attacks (2005). does that mean that livni bombing schwinn would be justifiable? sure, if you accept the equivalency argument that the israeli government’s spokespeople have been making, and which “peace not justice” events like this one support.
Hey Dan! Glad to see you blogging again, and helping articulate a public stand, even tho I disagree with you. Most of the ‘peace’ camp does NOT truly respect the right of Israelis to live without rockets, from what I can tell, whereas you maintain a nuanced point of view that DOES see that right as real and absolute (I think and hope that’s what you’re saying, when you dialogue with the other protesters.)
I don’t see a viable future for Gazans, or Israelis in the south of Israel under any of the commonly discussed outcomes. Hamas is clear and absolute about their terms and conditions– no israel, no respect, no end to ‘resistance’, no matter the cost to their people. We need to face that reality. Anyone who believes in peace should be against Hamas both for what they do to Israelis and what they do to Palestinians.
I think the only way out is for Egypt to invade and ‘rescue’ Palestinians from the Israeli onslaught. This would restore some Arab pride but defeat extreme, reject-Israel Islamism. Such an event couldn’t happen without Israel implicitly allowing it. Only Egypt has the position and strength and Arab identity to impose civil order on Gaza. Israel can’t, the PA/Fatah can’t, America can’t, Europe can’t, the UN won’t.
The only possible outcome of Hamas staying in power is forever war, with ceasefires only guaranteeing escalation for each next round. I recognize that Egypt is a police state dictatorship, but Egypt is a stable country with a large and viable economy and position in world trade. Gazans should have total freedom of movement to work and live anywhere in Egypt.
Is there any other idea that actually offers hope for a practical and livable future for Gazans and an end to violence against Israel? I’m all ears, but I think this is the direction things need to go.
Killing civilians is not a just means of pursuing political recourse, either morally or legally, no matter which party does the killing. One need not equate occupied and occupier nor deny one’s privilege or responsibility in order to renounce the murder of civilian parties. No civilian is so culpable for his or her government’s crimes so as to be deserving of a brutal death. Let alone that such a view is implicit acquiescence to the murder of one’s fellow, the belief that Palestinians have no other means to effectively resist the occupation not only limits and demeans the Palestinian people, it diminishes the potential of human ingenuity.
Dan and all…
Thank you so much for organizing this peaceful protest in such short notice. It was an incredible thing to participate in and I really enjoyed meeting everyone that was braving the cold weather! : ) I’ve been catching up on the coverage and so sad to hear about the clash against random innocent people and the NYPD police officers. There is so much rage and hatred but I truly believe that there is a better way to release it than through more rage and hatred. Call me an internal optimist. Yesterday a fellow Jew and Israeli told me that I needed to “wake up” b/c I was “dreaming”. Well, I don’t believe that and like someone else mentioned, yes the Vietnam peaceful protests started very small and grew. Any movement of change is like that; it happened with the Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Women’s Right, Disabled Rights, Native American Rights, etc, etc….a small group of people who hoped, prayed, and believed that PEACE is truly possible and that there is a better solution to end all the hatred and violence.
Like seeds planted in soil, we will grow…
…bit by bit, row by row..
…going to make this garden grow….
Peace be with us all,
Sara Silverstein
the woman with the little purple t-shirt peace signs and blonde hair
PS Thanks for posting such fab pics, looking forward to seeing the videos of us singing, that was truly inspiring!!! : )
It is not all quiet in the West Bank, as Goldberg says. Israel has been firing live ammunition at unarmed protesters to impede their demonstrations.
I find it fascinating that I made it well into the third paragraph of rozele’s comment before I realized she was not a mainstream Zionist castigating Mobius for equating rocket attacks aimed at civilians to Israel’s anti-terrorism-with-collateral damage, but a more-or-less mainstream anti-Zionist castigating Mobius for ignoring the disparity in the death tolls.
I suppose this betrays something about my own prejudices, but it also says a lot about how the two sides are so darn stuck in an endless game of King of the Morality Hill that I can’t even distinguish their rhetoric.
As I’ve said before, I’m still not convinced that an imposed ceasefire is the right answer to the current situation. But I still strongly support Mobius’s efforts–not to equate the two sides’ actions or the results of them, but to point out that we all need to get past the rhetoric and posturing and focus on taking real steps to actually pursue peace. Because peace, not moral high ground, should be the goal.
amidst all the madness and just sheer nastiness of the last few weeks, reading this article was almost like finding a place of refuge, even, something like a hope. i only wish i could have gone up to nyc to participate. thank you so much for organizing this.
My husband and I marched at the pro-Gaza Rally Sunday with our 4 year old and our 1.5 year old baby. I am not Palestinian, in fact I am latina and he’s Greek. The news has grossly underplayed the number of people at the pro-Gaza. It was huge. I am sure about 2 thousand people or more were there. We did not feel it was unsafe in any way and I did not hear any odd chants. What I did hear was, “Free Palestine”, “stop killing our children”, “stop killing our women”, “Viva Chavez”. The only time I felt uneasy was when a person (who I later noticed had an israeli flag rolled under their arm) yells at my husband, “are you teaching your son that jews are infidels!”. Being buddhists we had no idea what craziness he was yelling. All my husband manages to say was, “no”. But in general there were lots of young men, women with kids in strollers who smiled at us with our 2 kids and families.
This issue will not end unless we go down to the roots. OCCUPATION. Inhumane, unfair, horrible OCCUPATION….
Check out my blog at
http://www.MiriamsArtJournal.Blogspot.com
Wordsofpeace.org will give you free a DVD and booklet about it. I have known it since ‘ 73. It is a feeling that made me interested. Thanks Byam ps Dignity – Peace – Prosperity Tprf.org And Peace is Possible by Andrea Cagan at The Mighty River Press. Excellent bio. about The Life and Message of Prem Rawat. 400 pgs. and 90 pictures of the most important things in life and the last 50 yrs. of events.