Leftists in Tel Aviv demonstrate against Trump peace plan

Peace Now and other extreme left-wing organizations brought out a few hundred supporters to the streets of Tel Aviv to support the Palestinian rejection of the proposal.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Some three hundred leftists protested in Tel Aviv Saturday night against the Trump peace proposal, under the slogan “Yes to peace, no to annexation.”

Marching from Dizengoff Square to Magen David Square, the demonstrators shouted among other slogans, “Jews and Arabs refuse to be enemies,” and “Annexation is a disaster, without peace there is no security.”

The speakers at the rally rejected the call for applying Israeli sovereignty to all the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria that the Trump plan allows, calling it a danger to peace and worse.

Ignoring the part of the plan that calls for a Palestinian state on 70 percent of Judea and Samaria, MK Tamar Zandberg (Labor-Gesher-Meretz) said, “Trump’s plan is not a peace plan. It’s not a plan at all. It’s ideas about annexation, transfer and is a sure recipe for violence and apartheid.”

The “transfer” she referred to is the proposal to attach part of the Arab-dominated section of the Galilee to an eventual Palestinian state, without removing anyone from their homes. The plan makes clear that this could only be done with the agreement of both sides. Many Arab Israeli citizens of the region have made it clear that they want to stay as part of Israel and ridiculed the idea.

“It wasn’t by chance that Trump called it a ‘deal,’” Zandberg went on.

“A peace plan is made between the Israeli leadership and the Palestinian leadership. You make a deal between someone who is undergoing an impeachment trial [Trump] and someone who is going to undergo a criminal trial [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu].”

“The plan is a provocation that is meant to force the Palestinians to reject it out of hand, to eternalize the conflict, not solve it,” said another speaker, author Yehoshua Sobol. He accused President Trump of publicizing the plan now just to help him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu get re-elected.

Joint List MK Aida Touma-Suleiman told the protesters, “This plan is not a peace plan. It’s a plan of degradation to destroy the ‘two-state solution’ …. I want to tell the Jewish citizens of Israel – wake up, because this plan is a plan that will destroy any democracy that is still left here.”

The demonstration was led by the extremist Peace Now organization, along with other left-wing groups such as Ir Amim and Breaking the Silence.

Peace Now