Demonstrating in the lions' den
Adam Keller
Report of the June 10 demo near the house of chief-of-staff Dan Halutz
June 10, 2006. Thirty-nine years ago, this date marked the conclusion of what euphoric Israelis at the time considered the swiftest and greatest victory in their history. At noon on that day ceasefire was declared, and in the afternoon the bulldozers already went to work on the first in the long long series of "accomplished facts" - razing to the ground the entire Mughrabi Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem, so as to make place for the Wailing Wall Plaza.
Four decades later, the occupation and its oppression are still very much with us, and the particular horror on the beach of Gaza once again drove hundreds of us into the streets on short notice to cry out in anger and outrage. Usually on such occasions, we find ourselves facing the closed gates of the Defence Ministry compound and the indifferent stares of a soldier or two on a boring weekend guard duty. It has become a bit of a ritual, and we all welcomed the idea of the Anarchists to do something a bit original - namely, go after Chief of Staff Dan Halutz at his own home at Tzahala.
The affluent Tel-Aviv suburb where we were going has its name derived from Tzahal - IDF. It was built in the 1950's as the prestigious place of residence for serving and retired military officers and their families, the most well-known of its original inhabitants being the late Moshe Dayan.
Until now, demonstations have not been very frequent among these neat houses and well-manicured lawns. Certainly no processions of angry young people full of moral indgnation, waving militant banners and fists in the air and ceaselessly shouting at the top of their voices: "Dan Halutz, Child Murderer - Get out of the Territories!"; "Peretz, Peretz - After Murder Apology is not Enough!"; "T'was no Mistake nor Error - Occupation Kills!"; "All Ministers War Criminals!"; Halutz to the Hague, Peretz to the Hague!"; "Blood on your hands, blood on your hands!"; "A brave Minister of Defence drops bombs on children!"; "Pilots rape, and murder too!" (referring to a recent horrific story of sexual abuse at an Air Force base); "Occupation is Terror - the Refuser is the Hero!"; "Gunners and Pilots - Refuse to be Murderers!".
The flustered police were mainly concerned to stop this tide short of the chief general home. Their cordon managed to block the procession two streets before the target, in the midst of a well-appointed playground, equipped with everything needed for the hours of happy play which is the due of all chidren. This quite accidental setting made all the more poignant the spreading of colour photos of the torn amd bleeding children, yesterday there in Gaza.
"Peretz, Halutz, hey hey hey, How many kids did you kill today" went on the chant again and again. "Ooops, another light blow on the wing" read a banner, refering to what Halutz had said following an earlier day of bloodshed in Gaza, and the Gush Shalom two-flag signs made their appearance. A merry-go-round became a highly improvised podium for the recently elected Hadash Knesset Member Dov Hanin, veteran human rights lawyer and environmental activist:
"We are all dazed and shocked about something which was in fact highly predictable. The writing was on the wall all the time! When you constantly shoot artillery shells into the most densely populated area in the world, sooner or later you are going to hit somebody. And this is not the first time, either!
An apology won't do. Two weeks ago, there were civilians killed, and the army issued an apology and went on shelling. Then a week ago - another killing and another apology. And this morning - another apology...
Amir Peretz, you can't just go on betraying your voters. Not so long ago - in fact, abut two months ago - you were talking quite differently. You talked of a different kind of politics, politics of civil society and social responsibility. Then you took over the Defence Ministry from Shaul Mofaz, that quintessential general, and you continue his policies to the dot. No, not exactly - you have already broken Mofaz' record for the largest number of civilians killed in the shortest time..."
Chanting: "Peretz - Resign! "Peretz - Resign!"
Hanin: "Not only he, this entire government should resign. What happened yesterday is not just a military matter. It is a political matter. It has everything to do with what Olmert is saying and doing: Not caring about the Palestinian referendum, dismissing out of hand the Palestinian Prisoners' Document which is to be voted on in that referendum, not wanting to hold any negotiations with the Palestinians, ignoring any chance to have such negotations, actively torpedoing any such chance when it shows its face...
What we must demand is very simple: make an all out effort to reach cease-fire with the Palestinians. No artillery shells, no Qassam rockets, no killing on either side, no hostile act of any kind. An immediate cease-fire on the way to full-scale negotations! (Applause.)
And let me give one final reminder to everybody concerned, in the political as well as the military echelon: the world has changed in the last decades of the Twentieth Century. There are new kinds of accountability which did not exist before. People who thought they could act with impunity found their mistake - in the dock at the International War Crimes Court in The Hague!"
Following the speech the demonstrators backed out of the playground. Daring young activists led a procession through the streets, calling out: "Tzahala residents, there is a murderer in the neighborhood!"/ "Peace - Yes, Occupation - No!" while trying to get to Halutz's house by circrurioutos ways.
At the corner of the IDF Street and the Strategists' Street - a confrontation with police blocking the way and shouting demonstrators spilling over into side streets ( named for generals of the past). For unclear reasons the police picked on Uri Weltmann, a lad wearing the red t-shirt of the Communist Youth, and dragged him away with far more than the "reasonable force" which the law prescribes. But they did not have enough manpower to break up the entire procession.
After some more turning back and forth and some playing of cat and mouth in the neat side streets, the police was outwitted and the demonstrators streamed at last into Halutz's street (called, exceptionally for this environment, for a long gone entertainer who never wore a uniform). We got as close as two houses away from his home, and though many people were weary, the calls "War criminal! "War criminal!" were audible to a much greater distance.
It was about this time that a journalist present discovered the identity of a young black-haired woman, who had made no effort to draw attention to herself: Dana Olmert, the Prime Minister's daughter and a long-time refuser and activist in Machsom Watch. Her views are not a secret (in fact, the extreme-right tried to use them in the elections, without much succes). She would have prefered to demonstrate as herself rather than her father's daughter. The media had other preferences, Yediot Aharonot placing her photo on its front page with the caption "Demonstrating against Papa".
But the sign she was carrying got into the front page, too: "Stop Murdering Civilians!".