Barghouti To Talks Table, Not To Jail!

Gush Shalom

International release
July 14, 2003

"BARGHOUTI TO TALKS TABLE, NOT TO JAIL."

It was rather an unusual scene this morning in the Tel-Aviv District
Court, where the Barghouti trial was about to start.. We weren’t allowed
into the hall where the trial would take place, we, that is: some twenty
Gush Shalom activists of all ages and a more or less similar number of
cameras & journalists (not less frustrated!). We all were led to another
hall, on another flour where we would be able to follow the proceedings
on a video screen.

Soon, we decided to take from our pockets and unfold the papers,
prepared for the moment that Barghouti would be led in, with on each
the same slogan, printed and enlarged. The cameras happily turned
away from the video screen focusing on our papers: "BARGHOUTI TO
TALKS TABLE, NOT TO JAIL."

And, the journalists were also eager to follow us when we were violently
removed and "escorted" by guards all the way down (five stairs), while
chanting Release Barghouti, Release the Prisoners!" Uri Avnery, who was
among the "rioters" told journalists: "Release of prisoners
would create such an enormous good-will. And Barghouti who helped the
cease-fire come about - he could do so much more if he were out."

The guards had torn our signs but we had spare ones. What was not so good:
activist (and new historian) Teddy Katz got wounded in the turmoil and had
to be taken care of at the nearby Ichilov hospital.

Meanwhile our little action was broadcast on the radio, and reported on
the media internet versions. And via a phonecall to one of the Barghouti
lawyers, Adv. Shammai Leibowitz, we ourselves took care that the message got
there. Some Gush Shalom activists went immediately from the District Court
to the Military Court in Jaffa, where five anti-occupation draft refusers
were heard in their ongoing court martial.

The Barghouti trial itself took today a remarkable course, with the judges
confirming Barghouti’s criticism of the Attorney General (or, more correct,
"Chief Legal Adviser of the government") Elyakim Rubinstein. Rubinstein had
labelled Barghouti an "arch-terrorist" even before the end of the trial -
thereby predestining the trial and making it into a farce.