Saturday Demonstration in Tel Aviv

To all of you who are in Israel this Saturday July 22nd. there will be an anti war demonstration at Rabin Square in Tel-Aviv at 18:30.

A letter to Jamal

Jamal,

I read your writings and obviously you are a free thinker, humanitarian and above all have a great sense of humor

So I will ask you just 4 this, Do you really want to be united and together?

Every war, they’ve asked us to be united and together.

“Sorry can not discuss peace because of IRAQ throwing missiles at us – WE must be together”
“Sorry we can not do it because Hezbollah will see it as a weakeness”
“Sorry we can not do it because of Sep 11”
"Sorry … Afghanistan … bin laden .."
"Sorry … IRAQ … killing …"
"Sorry … Iran … atomic .."

You get the picture.

During most of the 90s’ we had the following winner:
“Sorry we can not do leave the territories because of Lebanon”
“Sorry you can not leave Lebanon because of the territories”
LOL:) I swear it was like this. But since you can not think when together… you can not protest … and you can not change …

I’ll bet you in the next 2-3 years it will not be possible because we have to come together because of the Hezbollah might …. and Hamas ... for sure ...

Man, I read your blog, and I ask from you:

Hate me as much as you want, I know I hate the f..g HA for throwing bombs at me, I doubt I would love the f..g IDF for throwing 100 times more.

But as much as you hate please do just one thing: Please do not be together.

Yours

Gig

We keep killing the children

In the desert of hate
In the land of the dying
We've been walking together

I've been crying for me
You've been crying for you
And the desert just smiled and drank all our tears

In the desert of hate
In the land of the dying
We keep killing the children
As you keep crying for you
And I keep all my tears just for me

1000s demonstration

Was there,

With the 1000s demonstration, felt historical, made me feel good, taking a stand.

Not sure there were a thousand people (more like 700), but it was surprisingly large (considering the anger levels in the Israeli public), and more important we got positive responses from people in the street (except for the police, who looked like they would rather smash our treacherous left winged face than guard us).

I was carried a sign saying:

“Stop the killing in Haifa, Beirut and Gaza.”

A lot of people who were walking by stopped to read the sign and you could see that they thought about it and were considering it. It was a good start.

Other people were holding signs like “bush and Olmert are killers”, you can imagine people did not appreciate them as much :), as much as it might be truth, As nearly everybody in the middle east was a killer, is a killer or is becoming one as we speak, I find it pointless to point the finger at one of the sides.

I think this is a good lesson for any of you demonstrating around the world in the next week. Please do not poke at people, anyone of us who has taken a unilateral side is as much an asshole as Mr. Bush, Or Olmert, or Nasarallah, or Mishal or Me:).

You can check this blog for more info about the demonstration.
On the Face


There will be another demonstration on Saturday at 18:30, it will probably be bigger, any day this "war keeps going on, more and more people just realize the futility of it. I keep helping this trend by talking few friends a day out of this madness.

Peace to you all

Gig

Welcome friends

Hello, Salem, Shalom, Namaste,...

This is my 1st blog, ever, just couldn't shut up anymore, hope it will make a difference.

This blog is dedicated to all the Lebanese bloggers out there, especially lebanesebloggers.

I want to thank you bloggers for clearing my mind from the fog of war, without your humor, and humanity, I might have still supported this stupid war.

Yes, shamefully admitted, 2 days into the war I was still convinced that if we kick hard enough, the Lebanese government would finally get it's act together and remove the Hezbollah and their rockets form our borders, and the rest of the blah blah blah ... provided by the Israeli government and media.

Since then I read in the Lebanese blogs (my favorite past time the last week). And could see the shift from a week ago when the blogs were against Hezbollah and understood Israeli position; some actually were pro-Israelis. A week later, most hate us, and want HA to kick our asses. I've learnt a lot about Lebanon, about March 14, about a fledgling democracy, about ethnic division, about the fear of civil war.

The only metaphor I am left with for the “war” is of beating a raped woman on the pretext that she cheated on you. It is an ugly metaphor, but reality is uglier still.

I am still angry with the Hezbollah, as by attacking us the last 6 years after we left Lebanon they gave every right wing Israeli demagogue the perfect rhetoric answer on why we should never leave Gaza and since the Hamas is now busy playing Hezbollah B with the sending rockets at civilians it ruins years of effort convincing the Israeli public opinion to retreat to the 67 border and the removal of the settlements in the process. The option of having daily rockets thrown at Tel-Aviv is simply shadowing everything achieved so far.

Let’s stop this war together

Gig