Left rallies in Tel Aviv against ‘apartheid,’ ‘transfer’ plan
True peace can only be achieved between the Israeli and Palestinian leadership and not between two leaders.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFRally against the Deal of the Century(photo credit: COURTESY PEACE NOW)
Left-wing politicians rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday night against the “Deal of the Century,” which they said is a plan for “transfer” and “apartheid.”“This isn’t a peace plan – it’s not even a plan,” Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg said. It’s a recipe for annexation, transfer, violence and apartheid, she told the activists who attended 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.Peace Now organized the event, which included a march and a rally.The Israeli Left opposes US President Donald Trump’s peace plan, in part because it calls for redrawing the map of sovereign Israel in such a way that the Arab-Israeli communities in the Triangle area would be excluded from the State of Israel and included in a Palestinian state.They are also against the plan because it allows for unilateral annexation and puts forward what they believe is a nonviable vision of a Palestinian state.Joint List MK Aida Touma-Sliman recalled watching the unveiling of the plan, which took place at the White House with Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin 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,” she said. “I was concerned about the realization of their brutal plan.”“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, the UK, one of the 15 UN Security Council member states, spoke out against any Israeli attempts to unilaterally annex portions of the West Bank.“Any such unilateral moves would be damaging to renewed efforts to restart peace negotiations and contrary to international law,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said. “Any changes to the status quo cannot be taken forward without an agreement negotiated by the parties themselves.”
