THOUSANDS OF ISRAELIS rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday night against the ‘deal of the century’, which they said was a plan for ‘transfer’ and ‘apartheid’.
‘This isn’t a peace plan – it’s not even a plan,’ said MK Tamar Zandberg (Meretz). It’s a recipe for annexation, transfer, violence and apartheid, she told the rally. ‘True peace can only be achieved between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership and not between two leaders, one who is facing impeachment and the other who is facing criminal charges’, Zandberg said.
Organisers from the Peace Now anti-settlement group said thousands marched in the demonstration at Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square, held under the banner of ‘Peace plan, not annexation deal’.
‘Annexation is a disaster, no peace, no security,’ protesters chanted, while holding up signs decrying Israel’s 52-year occupation of the West Bank and against ‘transfer’, referring to a part of the plan that opens up the possibility of drawing the border of a future Palestinian state to include many Arab towns.
The plan, unveiled last Tuesday, grants Israel control over Jerusalem as its ‘undivided’ capital, rules out the return of Palestinian refugees to Israeli territory and envisions all West Bank settlements coming under full Israeli sovereignty.
At the demonstration Knesset member, Aida Touma-Sliman (Joint List), recalled watching the unveiling of the plan at the White House, an event that included Trump and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.
‘When I saw Trump and Netanyahu present their plan in a room filled with the rich, filled with men, filled with settlers and almost no women and no Palestinians, a deep worry rose in my heart. I was concerned about the realisation of their brutal plan,’ Touma-Sliman said.
‘But when I see all of us here, I believe that together we can stop this plan. They have money, they have power, they have armies and all the instruments of control. But justice is on our side,’ Touma-Sliman said. ‘We have hope for a better future,’ she added.
On Friday, even Great Britain, one of the 15 UN Security Council member states, expressed its reservations and spoke out against any Israeli attempts to unilaterally annex portions of the West Bank.
British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that, ‘Any such unilateral moves would be damaging to renewed efforts to re-start peace negotiations and contrary to international law. Any changes to the status quo cannot be taken forward without an agreement negotiated by the parties themselves.’
However, it is in the USA that a big shock for Trump may be on the way. The latest polls show that Senator Bernie Sanders’ support is rising fast nationally ahead of today’s first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses.
Sanders is in a dead heat nationally with former Vice President Joe Biden, according to the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll released on Friday.
Of Democratic primary voters, 27 per cent said they support the Vermont senator, while Biden gained 26 per cent of the vote. The numbers show that Sanders’ support is rising fast.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (Democrat, Massachusetts) finished third with 15 per cent of the vote and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has also seen his numbers steadily climb, finished fourth with nine per cent of the vote.
The Iowa caucuses, today, will see Americans get to vote for who they want to see to be the Democratic Presidential nominee in November.
Sanders who supports the Palestinian struggle for their own state may well win in Iwoa and emerge as the favourite for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. If this is so he will seriously threaten Trump.
It is a disgrace that the UK trade unions are taking no action to support the oppressed people of Palestine.
Trade union members must force the TUC to support Palestine in action. It must be made to tell the Tory government that it must publicly dump the Trump deal and support the Palestinian state or else the TUC will organise a general strike to bring the Tories down and bring in a workers’ government that will support Palestine!
