Major Peace Demonstration in Israel on May 11
an article by Robin

A major peace demonstration took place in Israel on May 11. I learned about it on the morning of May 12 by surfing the Internet where there was a front page headline and photo on the Internet site of Le Monde, the most important French newspaper. Here are excerpts that I have translated from the French.

"More than 60,000 pacifists demonstrated for peace on the streets of Tel-Aviv Saturday evening, May 11, at the call of the organization Peace Now and a coalition of writers and political figures. There were 60,000 according to the police and 100,000 according to the organizers, demonstrating for peace and against the occupation of Palestinian territory. It was the most important peace demonstration in Israel since the beginning of the Intifada [the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation] at the end of September 2000, and according to the organizers, the largest since 1982."

Among the speakers were Yossi Sarid, chief of the Parliamentary opposition and Yossi Beilin, former minister of the Labor Party, as well as Choukri Khatib, representing Israeli Arabs, writer Amos Oz, actor Doudou Topaze and singer Yaffa Yarkoni.

No mention was made of the demonstration on the NBC, Fox News or CNN Europe Edition Internet pages on the morning or afternoon of May 12, while as for BBC news and CNN USA edition, the news was only available if you read to the end of stories with headlines about the Israeli military. Although I did not do an exhaustive search of other newspapers around the world, I did find an article about the demonstration prominently displayed by the Jordan Times, using the same Agence France Presse dispatch as that used by Le Monde. The Jordan Times also carried another article on the succeeding day with assessments by prominent Israeli peace advocates on the importance of the demonstration.

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The Israeli peace movement
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People like Amos Oz are very encouraging as well as strong speakers because of their experiences.  When people who have actually participated and experienced war speak out, their voices are so much more powerful because they have witnessed it first hand.  "Knowledge is power" truly applies to these advocates.

This report was posted on May 31, 2002. The moderator is Helen.

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