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Thousands Of Israeli Pacifists Demonstrate In Tel Aviv
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Orthodox
Jews demonstrate in New York against Israeli policies.
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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, Feb. 18 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Thousands of Israeli pacifists demonstrated in Tel Aviv late Sunday at a rally aimed at putting pressure on right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Demonstrators, mostly militants from left-wing parties and the Israeli pacifist group Peace Now, assembled in the city's Rabin Square, named after assassinated prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and marched on the Tel Aviv museum, chanting slogans calling for an end to the bloodshed. Peace Now estimated the crowd to have numbered around 15,000 people.
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)'s political commissioner for Jerusalem, Sari Nusseibeh, who is considered a moderate, took part in the rally. "The path to peace is through the return of the refugees to the state of Palestine and the return of the settlers to the state of Israel," said Nusseibeh, appointed by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to the important Jerusalem job in October 2001.
Nusseibeh has drawn criticism from Palestinian conservatives for saying the right of return of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel, which they fled in 1948 when Israel was created, should be waived.
Instead, he proposes they should move to an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza, but that Jewish settlers living on occupied land seized in the 1967 Six Day War should return to Israel.
Turning to Nusseibeh, the leader of Israel's opposition left-wing Meretz party, Yossi Sarid said: "We have come to break the circle of bloodshed. We are calling on you to tell your people that Israel is not only the country of Ariel Sharon and [Defense Minister] Binyamin Ben Eliezer."
"We were very close to peace, and it is still possible to achieve it," Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister and one of the architects of the 1993 Oslo peace accords said.
Meanwhile, Neturei Karta, a group of orthodox Jews, which was originally founded in Jerusalem, said on their website that nearly 20,000 Orthodox Jews demonstrated Tuesday, February 12, in front of the Israeli Consulate in New York City.
The demonstrations, the site said, was organized by the Central Rabbinical Congress of U.S.A. and Canada, to voice their opposition to the existence of the state of Israel, their suppression of religion and brutal treatment of religious people.
The demonstrators carried posters some of which: "'Israel' dos not represent world Jewry", "Rabbinical leaders fought Zionism since its inception", "Zionism stole the name of Jews", "True Jews will never recognize Israel", "Zionist ideology opposes the Creator" and "We are against 'Israel' because we are Jews".
Neturei-Karta is the Aramaic term for ‘Guardians of the City’. The name was given to a group of Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem who refuse to recognize the existence or authority of Israel and make a point of publicly demonstrating their position and the position of the Torah and what they call the "authentic unadulterated Judaism."
The group was founded in Jerusalem, Palestine in 1938, splitting off from Agudas Yisroel. Agudas Yisroel was established 87 years ago for the purpose of fighting Zionism, but later joined it.
"Neturei Karta oppose the so-called "State of Israel" not because it operates secularly, but because the entire concept of a sovereign Jewish state is contrary to Jewish Law.
"The true Jews remain faithful to Jewish belief and are not contaminated with Zionism,” the group says on its website. “The true Jews are against dispossessing the Arabs of their land and homes. According to the Torah, the land should be returned to them."
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