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July 20, 2001/Tamuz 29, 5761, Vol. 53, No.41
Doves stunned by Palestinian outburst
JESSICA STEINBERG
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - It was a fairly restrained group of left-wing demonstrators outside the Prime Minister's Jerusalem residence on the evening of July 12, holding up boldly printed signs and chanting slogans, with occasional supportive honks from cars driving past the busy intersection.
"Powell: Mitchell Now or Never," read the Peace Now demonstrators' signs, beseeching the U.S. secretary of state to successfully moderate negotiations during his visit.
Across the street, the tight core of right wingers parked a truck holding dummy oil barrels representing America's interest in retaining Arab oil interests. They also had signs that read, "Arafat's Ceasefire is Killing Us," and "Arafat Must Be Defeated."
"Anger is the best trigger," said Galia Golan, the spokesperson for Peace Now, which had about 70 protestors. "The right wing has that."
The past nine months of the Al-Aksa Intifada have been a time of reevaluation for many of Israel's peacenik groups. The more moderate groups have grown disillusioned with Palestinian violence and the physical, emotional and political toll it is wreaking on Israelis.
The radicals, however, are finding it hard to restrain from saying, "I told you so," having warned for years that Israeli "occupation" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip inevitably would lead to an explosion.
"We don't feel that something unexpected happened, we warned the government about this possibility," said Adam Keller, spokesman for Gush Shalom, a peace group that identifies with the Palestinian struggle - except for the "right" of Palestinian refugees to return to their former homes in Israel.
"The Palestinians want a state with borders from pre-1967, and the Israelis were trying to swindle them out of it," Keller said.
When the intifada began at the end of last September, groups like Peace Now and their cohorts to the left were out in full force, protesting Israel's actions against its Arab citizens and Palestinian neighbors.
Peace Now participated in Arab demonstrations, while Rabbis for Human Rights, an organization dedicated to protecting Palestinian human rights, helped Arab farmers harvest what was left of their olive crops and dismantle roadblocks.
Gush Shalom turned the heat up on its boycott of Israeli goods made in the West Bank, while Women in Black, a worldwide feminist movement, continued its weekly Friday vigils attended by Jewish and Arab women.
But as Palestinian violence intensified toward suicide bombings and sniper attacks, Peace Now - which was established by army reservists frustrated by the decades-old conflict with the Palestinians - found its worldview undercut.
Peace Now rejects violence - as do most of the peace organizations - and found itself stunned by the Palestinian outburst.
Thousands of supporters abandoned the peace camp after concluding that the Palestinians weren't serious about reconciliation with Israel, but others concluded that former Prime Minister Ehud Barak's peace offers at Camp David last summer - and in subsequent negotiations - weren't as generous as they had believed.
The recently released Mitchell Report, however, which sets out guidelines for moving away from violence and back toward diplomacy, has given Peace Now a basis to advocate a return to the negotiating table.
"The point now is to revive the peace negotiations because everything is negotiable," Golan told JTA. "As much as the Israeli public is disillusioned, it still wants an agreement and it supports taking down the settlements and a two-state solution."
Peace Now hasn't had a major demonstration since the intifada began in late September. Golan characterized the recent gathering outside the prime minister's home as a cross between a vigil and a demonstration. With the Mitchell Report and the consequent cease-fire plan mediated by CIA Director George Tenet - but never implemented - Peace Now is again concentrating on holding a full demonstration.
But the days of gathering hundreds of thousands of demonstrators under Peace Now's relatively moderate banner are long over, according to Keller.
"Peace Now can't do a big demonstration in Rabin Square anymore," he said. "They've had a downturn in numbers, and they're having intensive fights over this crisis and how to deal with it."
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