gelatik
24.05.02, 23:33
Young Israelis Dance in Protest Against Occupation of Palestinian Territories
TEL AVIV, May 24 - In a fresh twist for Israel's peace movement, thousands of
young people put on their dancing trainers in Tel Aviv Thursday night to
protest against the occupation of Palestinian territories.
The dance party at the plaza of the city's art museum drew more than 3,000
people, mostly over-twenty who want a peace between Israel and the
Palestinians, but find the usual slogan-shouting protests too boring,
organizers told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
"For many people in Israel, having a left-wing agenda is really not cool. It's
supposedly one of the most naive things people can think," said one of the
protestors, 25-year-old Aviad.
Like many of the others dancing around him, the musician said he had refused to
serve in the army because of the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
Strip, which has sparked the 20-month Palestinian Intifada.
"There's nothing strange here except there's a war going on a few kilometers
away from here," he told AFP.
The protestors danced for several hours to thumping techno music played from a
DJ booth on a stage beside two large video screens which showed spliced images
of the occupation and violent children's cartoons.
Many wore the outlandish or revealing outfits which have become standard at
raves around the world. Several protestors dressed in mock army uniforms walked
on stilts and fired water pistols at the sweating dancers.
A macabre "Miss Israel" paraded through the crowd with a "bouquet" of flowers,
a plastic gun and a stump of a mannequin's leg painted with fake blood, said
AFP.
Miss Israel, Yamit Har-Noy, wore a controversial dress in the National Costume
show for Miss Universe delegates at Bellas Artes in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Tuesday, May 21, showing a map of Israel on the front and the Israeli flag in
the back, in a flagrant rejection of the West Bank and Gaza Strip as the
territories of a future Palestinian state.
Har-Noy’s dress, which ran counter to U.S. President George W. Bush’s demand
for a Palestinian state and came as a disappointment for the young Israeli
peace protestors, reflected the hardline Likud Party’s Central Committee’s
rejection of establishing a Palestinian state in the re-occupied West Bank and
Gaza Strip.
About halfway into the protest in Tel Aviv, a minute of silence was held in
memory of the more than 2,000 people, the overwhelming majority Palestinians,
who were killed since the outbreak of the second Intifada.
"Young people are fed up with politics. This experiment was trying to bring
politics [into their lives] through the back door," said Dima, a 30-year-old
graduate student.
"The rave idea brought many people here today who are not identified with
activism, to bring in clubbers and ecstasy eaters," he said.
Scores of police were deployed in the area to protect demonstrators from
attacks by Jewish extremists, said AFP.
Both the organizers and protestors also said they hoped the protest would add
momentum to the peace movement, which had been flagging after a wave of deadly
Israeli offensives in the Palestinian territories and an ensuing wave of
Palestinian martyr bombings.
Left-wing groups made a strong comeback earlier this month after the occupation
army's Operation Defensive Shield in the West Bank which marked its largest
military offensive since the 1967 war.
More than 60,000 demonstrators turned out in Tel Aviv earlier this month for
the largest peace rally to protest Israeli the deadly Israeli offensives
against Palestinians in the West Bank and the massacre of the Jenin refugee
camp.
"Israel has many people who are involved [in the peace movement], but as more
time passes they become apathetic. You go to protests and it's very serious and
heavy and maybe this is a chance to bring a little light into it," said Andrew
Lanezos, a 29-year-old doctoral student in anthropology.
"The hope is that more and more people might join parties and realize there's
more to life than killing and fighting," he said
