Drawing from not only the far left this time, but also the occasional center left politician looking for a few additional voters. Oddly enough, all of the article’s photos are cropped too narrowly to allow estimation of the size of the audience seated in the auditorium, but we are intended to assume that at least 2,000 attended... which is not impressive. At least while seated in velvet stadium seats they won’t be rioting in the streets and attacking the soldiers and police on duty, like they usually do.
Israel’s beleaguered peace camp gathered for a two-day convention in Jerusalem from Thursday to Friday, uniting around the shared goals of a hostages-for-ceasefire deal and negotiated end to the Israel-Paleostinian conflict.The gathering came to a head Friday morning as thousands of peaceniks packed an auditorium in the city’s International Convention Center to hear speeches from politicians, bereaved families and left-wing activists.
Organized by a broad coalition of left-wing and shared society groups, the "People’s Peace Summit" was the second conference of its kind held since the Hamas
..the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
-led October 7 onslaught.
This year’s event attracted a broader swath of participants than its forerunner in Tel Aviv last summer. Amid rising despair over the hostages’ fate as Israel enters its 19th month of war, some center-leaning opposition figures took to the stage alongside seasoned members of the Israeli left.
Politicians of international renown also partook in the conference, with French President Emmanuel Macron expressing his support for the gathering in a pre-recorded address, as well as Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
He went on to call the two-state solution the "only possibility for peace and security for all," noting that La Belle France in June will co-chair a conference to this end alongside Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula, largely made up of sand and oil rigs. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual haj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Formerly dictatorial and steeped in Olde Tyme Religion, deferring to Salafist holy men on all issues, it has now done a 180 and is making a serious effort to modernize, so as not to be left in the sand by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The holy men have been shoved to the background and the nation is now still dictatorial but somewhat rational. That doesn't make them trustworthy, but it's a start...A two-state arrangement, he added, must be based on three prerequisites — the release of hostages, disarmament of Hamas and reform of the Paleostinian Authority.
Abbas, who spoke not long after Macron, also called for a two-state solution with East Jerusalem as the capital of a prospective Paleostinian state.
The aging PA leader’s former negotiating partner, former prime minister Ehud Olmert, sat in the auditorium’s front row, and later addressed a smaller panel at the heels of the main speaker lineup.
Olmert touted a new plan that he and former PA foreign affairs minister Nasser al-Kidwa had drawn up for a two-state solution.
The ex-premier called for an interim security force to ensure that Hamas does not return to power, and a new administration linked to the Paleostinian Authority that can rebuild Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
without any involvement of the terror group.
"We must pull out from Gaza," Olmert said during the panel. "Gaza is Paleostinian and not Israeli. It needs to be part of a Paleostinian state."
’PEACE THE BEST GUARANTOR OF SECURITY’
The wider ideological spread of this year’s conference meant that some speakers met opposition from the crowd, as did National Unity MK Alon Schuster.
"I believe that the first job of the State of Israel is to protect the security of its citizens in any place, at any time," said Schuster. "At the same time, we must strengthen the political, economic and moral basis for our existence in the Middle East by signing peace agreements... Peace is the best guarantor of security."
When mentioning his party chairman Benny Gantz, Schuster was met by a wave of boos from the crowd.
"I am diverging from the written remarks to beg you, pursuers of peace, do not omit [anyone] from the peace and democracy camp, even those who don’t agree with everything you say," the politician urged.
As he walked off stage, some called on him to invoke a two-state solution, which he neglected to explicitly mention in his speech.
While this year’s confab featured a few new faces, many of the keynote speakers remained the same, such as Labor MKs Gilad Kariv and Naama Lazimi, who ascended to the stage as a pair. Taking turns talking, the two denounced not just the ongoing war but the government’s "de facto annexation" in the West Bank.
"Under the auspices of this war, the annexation machine in the West Bank is grinding on at a dizzying and
Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh, who was also at last year’s event, gave an impassioned speech to loud applause from the audience. He began with an anecdote about a mother and her three children who are chased down by a pack of hungry wolves.
"Out of despair and her survival instinct, the mother throws her eldest son — maybe the wolves will be satisfied with him — but their hunger only intensifies. She throws her second son, then the third, and in the end when she alone remains, the wolves devour her," Odeh recounted. "This is is exactly how fascism
works. It pursues the opposition, and the opposition, frightened, rushes to sacrifice us all."
Odeh likened the panicked mother to the anti-Netanyahu opposition, which he claimed gave up on peace with the Paleostinians, and soon after, on partnership with Arab Israeli leadership.
"I want to put before you a crucial proposition — the historic role of Arab citizens. Without us, it is possible to build a dictatorship, but without us, it is impossible to build a democracy," he said.
"Even during this excruciating and bloody war, Jews and Arabs — you all — continued to have faith in each other and believed that only together we can win," he continued, invoking the well-known wartime slogan.