Stop the Madness
Report by Adam Keller
A contingent of mostly young Jaffans duly came by, with neatly made placards in Arabic, Hebrew and English. We were still waiting for the Hadash Communists, who had their own vigil near the Ministry of Defense. Meanwhile, people were talking very animatedly about the Italian elections.. "Did you hear, Berlusconi is definitely out! One less bastard to worry about!" "But he might still come back, it was a very close result. I still remember how Sharon was forced to give up the Defense Ministry in 1983, and everybody thought he was finished."
Finally the Communists arrive, headed by the newly-elected Knesset Member Dov Kheinin - the advocate who ably defended the Five Refusers during their year-long court martial. We set out in a ragged long line towards the nearby sea shore. An activist takes a bit of cello-tape and attaches two Gush Shalom placards to his bicycle: "Stop the slaughter of children!" at the front, and at the back "No to artillery, no to Quassam rockets! Cease-fire Now!"
We walk northwards along the esplanade. The late afternoon sun, slowly sinking into the Mediterranean, is a pleasant and harmonious sight - so utterly at odds with the horrors out of Gaza. Youngsters burst out with "All the ministers are war criminals!" and "Olmert to the Hague!". It feels strange to insert the name of the acting PM where Sharon's name was chanted in so many previous protests. The long-haired youngsters have no doubt: "Olmert is no general, but he is responsible for what his generals are doing".
On the other sidewalk, a disheveled man shakes a fist at the procession: "Traitors, God damn you! I say, kill them all! Kill them all!" Other by-passers ignore him, and he soon falls silent.
At the US Embassy, with its tall radio masts towering above the seaside, the chanting shifts to English: "One, two, three, four - Occupation no more! Five, six, seven, eight - stop the killing, stop the hate!" and "George W. Bush, we know you - Your father was a terrorist too!"
For the French Embassy, a bit further on, a special sign had been prepared: "Et Tu, Europe?". "I expected nothing better from Bush and his gang, but the behavior of the Europeans is really outrageous" says the white-haired man who earlier spoke of Berlusconi.
Meanwhile, we watch the people in the fashionable seaside cafes which we pass one by one. There are few overt reactions, faces seem puzzled, not antipathetic. Did we get to at least some of them?