INTERNATIONAL

The following is from a report issued by Gush Shalom,

the Israeli "peace bloc."

EAST JERUSALEM - In these tense, violent and dangerous times, it was a moment of hope: 300 demonstrators, Israelis and Palestinians, standing together in protest of the occupation of Orient House and the other Palestinian institutions in and around Jerusalem.

The Aug. 14 demonstration went without police violence - a far from negligible achievement considering the extreme brutality which the police used in the previous four days against anybody who dared protest the occupation of Orient House: Palestinians, internationals and Israelis alike.

When Gush Shalom and the Women's Coalition for Peace called for a protest demonstration, senior police officers phoned the organizers forbidding the action and making dire threats against anybody who approached the Orient House. Later the police yielded and started to haggle on terms. They wanted the demonstration as far from the Orient House as possible; we, of course, wanted it as near as we could get.

Contact with the police was entrusted to Jerusalem City Councilor Meir Margalit, who has some experience in negotiating with them.

Everything was coordinated with the Orient House people themselves - who seem to have reorganized within a remarkably short time, even with their premises occupied and many of their papers confiscated. They made clear their wish to keep the demonstration peaceful and avoid repetition of the violent scenes which had become so common in the past days.

A major issue was the police insistence that no Palestinian flags be raised. The Palestinian national flag had been more or less tolerated by the Jerusalem police since the Oslo peace accords; now, they have gotten clear instructions to confiscate any such flag they see. Organizers rejected out of hand the police demand: "We are no auxiliary police. We will not prevent Palestinians from raising their own flag in their own city."

Chanting "Peace Yes - Occupation No!" and "Hands off the Orient House!" the demonstrators surged into the Nablus Road - a forest of banners borne by Israelis of the Women's Coalition and Gush Shalom and a whole spectrum of smaller contingents; Palestinians of various political affiliations and social classes, from dignitaries in neat clothes to young boys; the internationals - Americans, Italians, French, Canadians, Danes - who had borne much of the brunt of protests in the previous days. At the head marched Knesset Members Issam Mahul of Hadash, Taleb A-Sana of the United Arab List and the dissident Laborite KM Yossi Katz, together with such religious dignitaries as Akrama Sabri, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the Anglican Bishop Riah Abu-El-Asal.

Big posters with the photo of the late Feisal Husseini, founder of Orient House, were suspended from the walls of buildings. Despite their original threats, the police studiously ignored the plastic Palestinian flags carried by many of the boys. A stream of East Jerusalem Palestinians, feeling more secure than on the previous days, marched up the Nablus Road and joined us.

First to address the crowd was the young Abd El-Kader Husseini who spoke movingly of peace and coexistence and Jerusalem as the capital of two states and vowed to continue on the way of Feisal Husseini, his illustrious father. Then the Knesset Members, Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom and Gila Svirsky of the Women's Coalition spoke.

At this moment none of us can predict where we will be a week from now, and what new lunacies or crimes we will be protesting. Sharon has taken off his mask, revealing the Man of War he had always been.

On Aug. 15 a large Israeli military force invaded the Palestinian town of Jenin, destroying the local police station, and departing - due to heavy Palestinian resistance, or simply "because their task was finished on schedule" as the Israeli spokesman insists.

The next day a similar invasion was planned for the town of Beit Jala, averted at the last moment by American pressure and dissension within the Sharon Cabinet itself. But the tanks are still there, poised on the edge of Beit Jala and its neighbors Bethlehem and Beit Sahur. Many of the courageous young internationals who were in the Orient House protests are there tonight, volunteering to act as a "Human Shield"

The struggle ahead of us is going to be long and hard still, and there will be many difficult moments. But those who were there yesterday, on the Nablus Road overlooking Orient House, came out a little bit strengthened.