Thousands Of Jews And Arabs March In Tel Aviv For Peace, Coexistence

Protesters voiced support for the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and called on the government to take immediate action to reach peace with the Palestinians
By TOBIAS SIEGAL MAY 22, 2021

Thousands of Israelis marched in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening in a show of support for peace and coexistence between Jews and Arabs amid two long weeks of intense violent riots waging across the country.
Protesters also voiced support for the recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that came into effect early Friday, calling on the government to take immediate action to end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and to reach peace with the Palestinians.

The mass march was organized by the "Standing Together" and "Breaking the Silence" movements. It left Rabin Square in Tel Aviv and made its way toward Habima Square.
Speakers included well-known Israeli novelist and left-wing activist David Grossman, author Awdah Bishārāt, Joint List leader Ayman Odeh and MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz).
"I hear politicians and security officials speak about another round of fighting in a few months or years, while being blind to the 7 million Palestinians living between the [Jordan] river and the [Mediterranean] sea," Odeh said. "There are two peoples living here and both deserve the right for self-determination."

"These past few days have shown us how life in this country can look like - a nightmare," Zandberg added. "We don't want to start waiting for the next war, but to change direction toward peace - to live together in true partnership."

A similar protest took place last Saturday at Habima Square, which was one of several protests attended by Jews and Arabs across the country that called for peace and for coexistence amid the nationwide riots and the military operation in Gaza.
Jews and Arabs gathered daily during Operation Guardians of the Walls on bridges and intersections along the country and protested against the ongoing violence.
Also on Saturday, hundreds gathered outside the Prime Minister's Residence in Jerusalem, calling on Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu to resign and blaming him for the escalation in Gaza and claiming that he deliberately extended the operation for no reason but personal interest.

Earlier Saturday, about 200 people marched along the streets of the mixed city of Jaffa, voicing support for coexistence between Arabs and Jews while visiting small local businesses.
 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-thousands-rally-for-a-joint-future-after-gaza-fighting-jewish-arab-violence-1.9833802

Thousands Join Tel Aviv Rally for 'A Joint Future' After Israel-Gaza Fighting, Jewish-Arab Violence
Author David Grossman, political leaders and activists call on Israel to go beyond a cease-fire in Gaza, while hundreds also gather outside Prime Minister Netanyahu's residence in Jerusalem

May. 22, 2021

A pro-peace rally in central Tel Aviv on Saturday drew several thousand participants, calling for Jewish-Arab partnership and urging Israel to work toward resolving its decades-long conflict with the Palestinians, which flared up over the past two weeks with deadly fighting in the Gaza Strip.

Author David Grossman told the crowd at Habima Square: "We, Israelis, still refuse to realize the time is over in which our power can force a reality that's convenient for us and only for us, for our needs and interests."

Ayman Odeh, leader of the three-way Arab-majority Joint List, said in his speech that "War is only good for the warlords… for Benjamin Netanyahu, but it's bad for both peoples. There are civilians in Gaza and there are civilians in Israel, and we have to keep them out of the circle of terror."

Open gallery view
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Author David Grossman addresses the peace rally, this eveningCredit: Ofer Vaknin
Odeh called for "a joint future for us all," a sentiment seconded by another politician who spoke at the rally, Meretz's Tamar Zandberg.

Zandberg said at the rally: “It’s no coincidence that the violence broke out just when we began to feel that maybe Jews and Arabs can cooperate in politics too. Some people wanted to sabotage this vision, they wanted to continue sowing hatred and incitement and violence. But this evening and here, we are telling them – enough, no. Now too we can and must establish a different government in Israel that will not encourage hatred, will not incite, will not separate Jews and Arabs."

Members of the groups Standing Together and Breaking the Silence, which organized the rally, also spoke. Sally Abed, of Standing Together, said: “As a Palestinian citizen of Israel I refuse to go back to the routine of institutionalized discrimination, of police violence and political arrests, of limited citizenship. I refuse to go back to the routine in which on a train I’m afraid to answer a phone call from my mother in Arabic. Arabic is my language and it is one of the languages in this place, and I’m not willing to go back to a routine in which people are afraid to speak it.”

Ariel Bernstein, of Breaking the Silence, who served as a combat soldier in the reconnaissance unit of the Nahal Brigade, said: "For the past seven years since we lay in the sand dunes outside of Beit Hanun, and our leaders did nothing to move ahead a diplomatic solution. Seven years in which we’ve been offered nothing but despair, while we’ve been sold the illusion of normalcy. They demand that we bury our head in the sand and think that the current situation is fine and normal. But there is nothing normal about a military dictatorship, a suffocating blockade and apartheid in the territories."

To end the chaos in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, establish a Palestinian state
Israelis tell him to go to Gaza, Palestinians call him a collaborator: The life of a stateless Jerusalem reporter As mediators work to firm up Israel-Gaza truce, IDF pushes for harsher policy Last Saturday night, a similar rally was held in Habima Square, which was part of the wave of demonstrations calling for coexistence and reconciliation held during the Gaza operation. Throughout the operation, rallies against violence and hatred were held in city squares, junctions and bridges all over the country.

Hundreds of people also gathered in protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu near the prime minister’s official residence in Jerusalem.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/dispel-the-darkness-thousands-of-jews-and-arabs-rally-for-coexistence/
 

Dispel the darkness: Thousands of Jews, Arabs rally for coexistence in Tel Aviv
Demonstration, which also calls for two-state solution, comes after violent riots in mixed cities and Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza By SIMONA WEINGLASS

Israelis protest for calm and coexistence between Israeli Jews and Arabs in at HaBima square in Tel Aviv on May 22, 2021 (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Israelis protest for calm and coexistence between Israeli Jews and Arabs in at HaBima square in Tel Aviv on May 22, 2021 (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Thousands of people demonstrated in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night, calling for Jewish and Arab coexistence and a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The rally followed the 11-day conflict between Israel and terror groups in the Gaza Strip, which sparked violent riots in Jewish-Arab cities within Israel, including communities long seen as models of coexistence. At least two Israelis were killed in the riots and several others were seriously injured by the mob violence.

Chanting “This is all of our homes,” “We stand together without hatred and without fear,” and “The answer to the Right is Israel and Palestine,” the demonstrators marched from Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square to the Habima Theater Square. There, the crowd heard speeches from two of the organizers of the demonstration, Itamar Avnery and Sally Abed, as well as author David Grossman and Joint List leader Ayman Odeh.

Grossman lamented the recent war’s toll on children, Israeli and Palestinian.

“Allow me to dedicate my words this evening to the children of the Gaza border [communities in Israel] and to the children of Gaza,” he said.

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“We are the hostages of the various extremists. We sit with mouths agape and watch how human beings become targets, how mothers lie on top of their children on the street to protect them, how multistory buildings fall like a house of cards and whole families disappear in the blink of an eye,” said Grossman, whose son was killed in Second Lebanon War in 2006 during his military service.

Sally Abed and Itamar Avnery spoke at a Jewish-Arab coexistence rally in Tel Aviv on May 22, 2021 
Referring to the recent violence, Avnery, a Jewish Israeli, told the crowd to channel their feelings into activism.

“If the last two weeks were hard for you, if you felt despair, we are here to say, don’t despair, organize,” he said.

Sally Abed, who together with Avnery heads the organization “Omdim Beyachad” (We Stand Together), said Arabs and Jews should work together to create a more equal society.

“I am Sally, a Palestinian citizen of Israel. I refuse to return to the routine of institutional discrimination, of police violence and political arrests. I refuse to have second-class citizenship, and a racist government that is threatening all our lives for the benefit of an economic and settler elite. This government has no interest in serving our interests,” she said.

MK Ayman Odeh, chairman of the predominantly Arab Joint List party in the Knesset, said the rally gave him hope.

“People are speaking about the darkness that is descending on this country,” he said. “ I see light. I see a strong light. Jews and Arabs together will dispel the darkness. You are the light.”

Joint List leader Ayman Odeh speaks to reporters outside his home in Haifa on March 3, 2020. (Flash90)
Odeh said that he does not accept the idea that nationalism is a zero-sum game.

“We do not accept the dichotomy of nationalism. Our path forward is together. Jews and Arabs together… There are two nations here. Both of them have a right to self-determination. Both deserve peace and equality. We respect the national identity of the Jews and the national identity of the Arabs, we respect both nations. We have a path forward,” he said.

‘Things can be different’
“We came to the demonstration to hear different voices from what is in the media, to see people who think like us,” said Vanessa, an Arab Israeli citizen who lives in Tel Aviv with her partner Issa.

Both Vanessa, who runs a clothing store and Issa, an engineering student at Tel Aviv University, are originally from Jaffa and said were shocked at the way police treated Arab residents of the city in recent days.

A police patrol car on fire in the city of Lod, May 12, 2021. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)
“We felt really helpless in the last two weeks. It hurt us to see the police against us, even though we are Israeli citizens,” said Vanessa.

“In Tel Aviv the police treat us with kid gloves, but in Jaffa they had their guns cocked,” said Issa, describing the behavior of the police as unprecedented.

“I think they were given an order from above,” he said.

Both said their greatest hope is for peace.

“I want to live in the now, not in the past. I want to live with my neighbor because he is my neighbor now and not dwell on the fact that my grandfather fought with his grandfather,” Issa said.

Vanessa added, “I don’t believe in the occupation. We need to end it so we can truly have peace between Israel and Palestine, because we’re not going anywhere and they’re not going anywhere.”

Saheil Biab, 65, of Nazareth said the last two weeks left him shaken.

“I was afraid that all the progress we made over decades was finished, the dream of the common struggle of Jews and Arabs for peace, equality and justice,” said Biab, a former deputy mayor of Nazareth and former head of the Equality Department in the Histadrut Labor Union.

Saheil Biab, former deputy mayor of Nazareth, demonstrates for Jewish-Arab coexistence in Tel Aviv on May 22, 2021 (Simona Weinglass/Times of Israel)
“I was afraid that these fascist groups Lehava and Itamar Ben Gvir and La Familia would not let the two peoples coexist,” he said, referring to far-right Jewish activists involved in several of the violent riots.

Yonatan Hefetz, 36, a Jewish Israeli attended the demonstration with several friends who were alumni of the “Seeds of Peace” summer camp, which brings together Israeli and Arab teenagers at a camp in Maine.

He said he had been talking to friends in the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt over the last two weeks.

“We try to listen, there is a lot of anger. We try explain what is happening over here. I disagreed with some of the terms they were using like apartheid and ethnic cleansing. I think they’re using those words due to American influence. Those terms are coming from America.”

Jonathan Hefetz (r) and other alumni of the Seeds of Peace camp attend a demonstration for peaceful coexistence in Tel Aviv on May 22, 2021 (Simona Weinglass/Times of Israel)
Hefetz said that conversations with his Arab friends outside Israel have been emotionally loaded and that many of them are extremely angry.

“All these emotions, they cloud your rationality,” he said. “This is not about citizens, this is all political. It’s a fight between Hamas and a right-wing Israeli government. We came here to show solidarity and show that things can be different,” he said.
 

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