Saturday
Evening, November 12, 2005, Tel Aviv - 100,000 gather at the
annual Rabin official memorial ceremony for Yitzhak Rabin.
The rally as described by Barry Chamish...
Stage one - We handed out the flyers to the tens of thousands
of rally goers coming at us up Ibn Gvirol Street. Most took
mine and read them. Three threw them back in my face. And one
called the police to stop us. Fortunately for us, Attorney Dov
Even-Or had arranged a city permit to be there and he was nearby
to scare the cops away. We were free.
Stage two - When the traffic thinned out and the proceedings
began we began parading. We proudly walked with my sign, two
of the men brought their own signs and I was wearing my shirt.
It was too crowded to get to the front of the gathering but
we found our perfect spot, under the screen where the ceremony
was being projected. Facing several thousand rally-goers we
stood firm and proud.
Then Shimon Peres began his speech and I took out a horn to
blast his words away. I was politely warned that this went too
far and desisted. Another in our group
but a hundred yards away, David Rutstein, apparently didn't
take the warnings and was manhandled to the ground by the police
and arrested.
When the despicable Bill Clinton began his speech, I booed long
and loud. This led to a ruckus. We were surrounded by a pretty
angry crowd and lots of cameras. The star of this moment was
a tiny Haredi lady named Reena, who stood her ground like a
tiger.
After that, we were followed by the cameras wherever we went.
When the rally ended, we stood on the raised traffic island
as the proudest group in Tel Aviv and let 50,000 passers-by
see our message.
We brought the truth to the lion's den and the negative cost
was low. Twice the sign was ripped from our hands, and twice
we fought to get it back.
