Women strugglers wrote that we shouldn’t walk around the city with a “Looking at Occupation in the Eye”-shirt before our demonstration. It’s dangerous, they wrote, and in general – don’t walk around alone.
We walked not alone, dressed normally, from the corner of Usishkin-KKL Streets to the Cats Square. The streets echoed with unclear cries, bits of music sounded among the houses, groups of white-dressed boys crossed the junctions. The city was preparing to explode. In Independence Park, birds chirped in the green calm, waiting for what was about to happen.
Then Zion Square exploded with music of youngsters of all sectors. Yes. Beneath that famous balcony. Thousands of young men jumped ecstatically opposite the stage, and the girls stood and watched. All the energies of sexuality and unifying hatred, tough one-up-manship, everything exploded, moved, sweated, screamed. Tassels waved in the wind and the girls giggled. Jerusalem Day in its faithful tradition warmed up its engines before entering the Muslim Quarter.
The protest against the March of Flags was allotted some area opposite the new Tolerance Museum. The square was well-fenced and policemen were stationed around it. The young, excited crowd moved towards the ancient walls in parallel streets, but at times we were faced by a gang intoxicated with its power, and some youngsters tried to climb the fence. The police blocked and distanced them. After all, we were not Palestinians, merely two hundred lefties who have not yet seen the light…
We stood and shouted at the cool wind, the only grace on that unholy day. We were acquainted directly with all the evil that has taken Israel hostage, the youth of the occupation cities, children who grew up in “legal” and illegal colonies, swarmed over Jerusalem and conquered it, east and west, again and again.
As we intended to leave the counter-protest corral, my girlfriends caught the edges of my t-shirt. Change shirts before you go out on the streets, they warned.
In conquered Jerusalem I had to hide my identity, so as not to be beaten up by a too-enthusiastic young Jew. I disguised myself as a “normal” woman just crossing the street. The same way my grandfather’s sisters did when the Nazis took over their town.
Many girls got together on King George Street at the foot of a Hassidic entertainment stage, waiting noisily for the boys to vent their anger at the Muslim Quarter. None of them spilled his sperm in vain on that Jerusalem Day.
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