Israeli Groups Condemn Government's Violence: Demonstrations in Tel-Aviv, Ashdod, Meretz and Hadash

Israeli Groups Condemn Government's Violence
May 31, 2010

Gush Shalom, one of a number of grassrootes Israeli organization for peace with security and human rights for all, issued the following press release today following the violent and deadly assault by Israeli troops against the humanitarian aid ships:

Gush Shalom
PRESS RELEASE
MAY 31, 2010

A GOVERNMENT OF PYROMANICS SETS FIRE TO THE REGION

Uri Avnery: "This night a crime was perpetrated in the middle of the
sea, by order of the government of Israel and the IDF Command

"Only a crazy government that has lost all restraint and all
connection to reality could something like that - consider ships
carrying humanitarian aid and peace activists from around the world as
an enemy and send massive military force to international waters to
attack them, shoot and kill.

"No one in the world will believe the lies and excuses which the
government and army spokesmen come up with," said former Knesset
member Uri Avnery of the Gush Shalom movement. Gush Shalom activists
together with activists of other organizations demonstrated on this
very day in Ashdod, Tel-Aviv, Haifa and Jerusalem.

This is a day of disgrace to the State of Israel, a day of anxiety in
which we discover that our future was entrusted to a bunch of
trigger-happy people without any responsibility. This day is a day of
disgrace and madness and stupidity without limit, the day the Israeli
government took care to blacken the name of the country in the world,
adding convincing evidence of aggressiveness and brutality to Israel's
already bad international image, discouraging and distancing the few
remaining friends.

It is time to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip, which causes severe
suffering to its residents. Today the Israeli government ripped the
mask of its face with its own hands and exposed the fact that Israel
did not "disengage" from Gaza. Real disengagement from the area does
not go together with blocking the access to it or sending soldiers to
shoot and kill and wound those who try to get there.

The State of Israel promised in the Oslo Accords 17 years ago to
enable and encourage the establishment of a deep water port in Gaza,
through which Palestinians could import and export freely to develop
their economy. It's time to realize this commitment and open the Port
of Gaza. Only after the Gaza port will be open to free and undisturbed
movement, just like the Ashdod and Haifa ports, will Israel really
have disengaged from the Gaza Strip. Until then, the world will
continue - and rightly so - to consider the Gaza Strip under Israeli
occupation and the State of Israel as responsible for the fate of the
people living there.

http://beforeitsnews.com/story/70/515/Israeli_Groups_Condemn_Governments_Violence.html

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“Security cannot be built - On the corpses of protesters!
May 31, 2010

31.5.10 - More than 2000 people, old and young, gathered opposite the Ministry of Defense in Tel-Aviv in a spontaneous demonstration of anger and protest, after soldiers of the “most elite units” of the IDF were sent to attack the Peace Flotilla that was on its way to Gaza. The number of killed and injured from among the peace activists on the boats proved that the aim of the action was to frighten and deter anyone who would undertake to break the blockade in future.

The demonstration was remarkable for the wide spectrum of activists who were urged by the sights of the night to take part. Side by side with Gush Shalom activists were members of Peace Now, people from Meretz and Hadash, the Women’s Coalition and anarchists. All called in unison: “Security cannot be built / on the corpses of protesters!”

A large force of police and Border Guard officers was deployed to guard the ministry, obviously out of fear that the protesters might try to storm the building. However, there was no violence, except for a few arrests.

Some dozens of the protesters came to the Defense Ministry straight from Ashdod, where they had been demonstrating at the gates of the harbor while the attack was still under way.

“The blockade imposed on 1.8 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, men, woman and children, is inhuman, immoral and illegal, and must be broken!” a Gush Shalom activist told the many media people who covered the demonstration. “There is no doubt that after this flotilla, more will come, and that the dimensions of the action will grow, until the leaders of Israel realize that the blockade is hurting Israel much more than Hamas.”









http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/events/1275385769/

:sarcasm: