About 50 Winnipeggers gathered outside the Asper Jewish Community Centre in Winnipeg, Jan. 8, to to call for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Inside, one of a number of cross-Canada pro-Israel rallies was being held.
The vigil was organized by Peace Alliance Winnipeg and the Winnipeg chapters of the Canada Palestine Support Network and Canadian Muslims for Palestine.
“Our intention is to bear silent witness to the suffering of the Palestinian people that has resulted from the Israeli invasion and the economic and military blockade that preceded the invasion,” said Bassam Hozaima, a spokesperson for the groups, in a news release issued yesterday. He added: “We are pleased that the Federal Government has announced $4 million in humanitarian aid, but it must do much more. A ceasefire is essential and Canada can play a constructive role, especially if it chooses to recognize Hamas as the democratically elected government of the people of Gaza.”
Peace Alliance Winnipeg, the Canada Palestine Support Network (Winnipeg Chapter) and Canadian Muslims for Palestine will hold a rally at the Federal Building on Saturday, at 2:00 p.m., to call on the Federal Government to work actively for a ceasefire and for peace in the Middle East. Rallies will be held at the Federal Building every Saturday at 2:00 p.m. until further notice.
The vigil ended with the reading of two poems. (For streaming audio, click on the red arrow.)
A Bridge Of Peace*
by Ada Aharoni
“They shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and
none shall make them afraid” (Micah, 4. 4)
My Palestinian sister,
Daughter of Abraham, like me,
Let us build a sturdy bridge
From your olive world to mine,
From my orange world to yours,
Above the boiling pain
Of acid rain prejudice –
And hold human hands high
Full of free stars
Of twinkling peace
My Palestinian sister, daughter of Abraham,
I do not want to be your oppressor
You do not want to be my oppressor,
Or your jailer
Or my jailer,
We do not want to make each other afraid
Under our vines
And under our fig trees
Blossoming on a silvered horizon
Above the bruising and the bleeding
Of poisoned gases and scuds.
So, my Palestinian sister,
Let us build a bridge of
Jasmine understanding
Where each shall sit with her baby
Under her vine and under her fig tree –
And none shall make them afraid
AND NONE SHALL MAKE THEM AFRAID.
*English version of “My Palestinian Sister”
Operation Infiltration
by Mahmoud Darwish
Today, the twenty sixth of July, twenty one murdered/martyred in Gaza, among them two newborns, were able to bypass the military checkpoints and the barbed wires . . . and they snuck into the news hour. They did not make a comment, because pain fell from them before they could reach the word. And they did not state their names that are so poor and ordinary. And they did not raise their arms in victory sign to the camera, since the camera was crammed with more thrilling images. War is excitement, a series where the new episode obliterates the previous one, a massacre copying another. And when death becomes daily it becomes ordinary and the murdered become numbers, and death routine, the temperature not higher than thirty degrees Celsius. Routine causes boredom. And boredom distances the viewer from the screen, and prohibits the correspondent from doing his work. And when the viewers become fewer, the commercials dry up and the image industry goes bust. Not to mention the sites in Gaza have become familiar, their connotation weakened: a leaden sky over narrow alleys in camps that don’t overlook the sea. No hill there, no natural scenes to please the viewer. Everything is ordinary. Murder is ordinary and the funeral is ordinary and the streets are ashen. But what is extraordinary today: twenty one murdered/martyred were able to courageously infiltrate, without the help of informants, the evening news.