Jerusalem, Israel – A mass rally is to be held tonight in Tel Aviv’s central square in the wake of the report published by the investigation commission of the Israeli government’s mishandling of the summer 2006 war with Lebanon.

On Tuesday, representatives of the bodies, which make up the social coalition that is behind the rally, had a working meeting in the square.

“The state of Israel has sunk to a new low, the likes of which I, as a young man, cannot remember, but I am also not prepared to live with it,” said Yakir Segev, chairman of the Hebrew University Students Union.

The main slogan at the mass rally tomorrow will be: “Bunglers Go Home.” Posters with the slogan have already begun appearing all over the country, as well as on the Internet.

One of the leaders of the rally will be Motti Ashkenazi, who sparked the successful protest movement against the Golda Meir government after the failures of the Yom Kippur War in 1973.

“Within two and a half months, the prime minister and defense minister will not be in office,” Ashkenazi said Tuesday. “They will go. They have no choice. I am prepared to bet on it.”

The emcee at the rally will be the actress Osnat Vishinsky, whose son Lior, 20, was killed three years ago when the PLO detonated a bomb near an armored personnel carrier up on Philadelphi Road corridor between Gaza and Egypt.

The key song at the rally will be “We Deserve Better,” which is about the absence of leadership. It will be sung by Reut Hasson, 17, from Moshav Naama in the Jordan Valley. Her brother Guy was killed in the Second Lebanon War.

The rally organizers have not made a final decision on who will appear on the platform and which politicians will address the rally.

“I have received a great many requests from politicians in the coalition and the opposition, who want to appear and make speeches,” said Maj. Gen. (res.) Uzi Dayan, chairman of the Tafnit political movement, which did not receive enough votes in the 2006 elections to warrant a seat in the Knesset. “Before the rally, we will decide what to do in the best possible way, so that the aim – the resignation of the prime minister and the defense minister – will be achieved.”  

David Bedein can be reached at Media@actcom.co.il. His Web site is www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com

©The Bulletin 2007

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David Bedein
David Bedein
David Bedein is an MSW community organizer and an investigative journalist.   In 1987, Bedein established the Israel Resource News Agency at Beit Agron to accompany foreign journalists in their coverage of Israel, to balance the media lobbies established by the PLO and their allies.   Mr. Bedein has reported for news outlets such as CNN Radio, Makor Rishon, Philadelphia Inquirer, Los Angeles Times, BBC and The Jerusalem Post, For four years, Mr. Bedein acted as the Middle East correspondent for The Philadelphia Bulletin, writing 1,062 articles until the newspaper ceased operation in 2010. Bedein has covered breaking Middle East negotiations in Oslo, Ottawa, Shepherdstown, The Wye Plantation, Annapolis, Geneva, Nicosia, Washington, D.C., London, Bonn, and Vienna. Bedein has overseen investigative studies of the Palestinian Authority, the Expulsion Process from Gush Katif and Samaria, The Peres Center for Peace, Peace Now, The International Center for Economic Cooperation of Yossi Beilin, the ISM, Adalah, and the New Israel Fund.   Since 2005, Bedein has also served as Director of the Center for Near East Policy Research.   A focus of the center's investigations is The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). In that context, Bedein authored Roadblock to Peace: How the UN Perpetuates the Arab-Israeli Conflict - UNRWA Policies Reconsidered, which caps Bedein's 28 years of investigations of UNRWA. The Center for Near East Policy Research has been instrumental in reaching elected officials, decision makers and journalists, commissioning studies, reports, news stories and films. In 2009, the center began decided to produce short movies, in addition to monographs, to film every aspect of UNRWA education in a clear and cogent fashion.   The center has so far produced seven short documentary pieces n UNRWA which have received international acclaim and recognition, showing how which UNRWA promotes anti-Semitism and incitement to violence in their education'   In sum, Bedein has pioneered The UNRWA Reform Initiative, a strategy which calls for donor nations to insist on reasonable reforms of UNRWA. Bedein and his team of experts provide timely briefings to members to legislative bodies world wide, bringing the results of his investigations to donor nations, while demanding reforms based on transparency, refugee resettlement and the demand that terrorists be removed from the UNRWA schools and UNRWA payroll.   Bedein's work can be found at: www.IsraelBehindTheNews.com and www.cfnepr.com. A new site,unrwa-monitor.com, will be launched very soon.

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