International day against the wall 08/11/03

About a thousand demonstrators - half of them Israelis,
half Palestinians - converged on Saturday morning on the East Jerusalem neighborhood Sawahra,
where a section of the "separation wall" is going to be built.
It will cut tens of thousands of Palestinian off from the world -
from schools, universities, hospitals, businesses, workplaces - and even from their cemetery.
The demonstration was organized by the Coalition Against the Wall,
a grouping of radical Israeli peace movements, including Ta'ayush, Gush Shalom,
the Women's Coalition for Peace and others.
It was a part of world-wide demonstration to commemorate the 14th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Beate Zilversmidt, speaking for Gush Shalom, pointed to the similarity between the two walls.
The demonstrators painted colorful graffitis on slabs of the wall, which are already there, such as
"A Wall Prevents Hands Meeting", "Enough of the Occupation" and many others.
Later in the day, the same organizations convened a mass meeting in Tel-Aviv's Cinematheque Square.
Some 2000 people attended.
Adam Keller, Gush Shalom spokesman accused Ariel Sharon of diverting the wall,
which was originally planned as a security measure along the Green Line,
into a political weapon to destroy any possibility of creating a Palestinian state.
Previous Gush Shalom actions.