ISRAEL: Large Tel Aviv rally calls for troop pullout

Tens of thousands rallied in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square on May 11 to
call for the withdrawal of Israeli soldiers from the Occupied Territories.

Police estimated the crowd at about 60,000, while organisers — Peace
Now — put the figure at above 150,000, calling it the biggest peace rally
since the beginning of the second intifada began in September 2000.

Opposition politicians and artists addressed a throng waving a sea of
banners saying “Leave the territories for the sake of Israel” and “Two
states for two peoples”. Some carried signs saying: “Get out of the territories
— and save the economy”, and “Conscientious objectors for the country”.

“The economic crisis is threatening the entire country. Only the settlements
and the government are big and fat... Withdraw from the settlements and
return to ourselves. The settlements are a burden; there is no concession
and no prize”, Meretz party MP Yossi Sarid told the crowd.

Peace Now leader Tzali Reshef told the protesters that foreign minister
Shimon Peres bears as much responsibility for the current situation as
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and called on the Labour Party to leave the
government.

[Abridged from the May 12 Jerusalem Post.]

From Green Left Weekly, May 22, 2002.

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From GLW issue 493