Guardian Palestinian, Israeli activists join for May Day Nazareth: Many thousands of Arab and Jewish working people and working youths marched here April 28 under a forest of red flags along the main thoroughfare, the Paulus VI Avenue, the largest Arab- inhabited city in Israel. @BY = by Hans Lebrecht This impressive demonstration was initiated by the communist-influenced Hadash Front, the Communist Party of Israel and the Communist Youth League. Other worker's parties and groups, among them the Communist Forum, the Alternative Worker's Line, the Oda'a-Workers' Center group, non-party leftactivists and others took part. The Mayor of Nazareth and leading member of Hadash, Ramez Jereissy, marched at the head of the demonstration with members of the Hadash leadership and its trade union section. On the many banners, posters and placards carried by the demonstrators were slogans calling for the unity of the working class in Israel, the creation of jobs for the unemployed, increases in the minimum wage and improvement of the living standards of working people. Demonstrators also called for the closure of the ever growing social gap between rich and poor, improvement of housing conditions for inhabitants of poverty- stricken neighbourhoods and so-called "developing� settlements in Israel. Other slogans called for the end of discrimination against Arab citizens in all parts of public life and the establishment of full equality between all Israeli citizens. There was also protest against last October's police onslaught, which resulted in 13 Arab citizens killed by lethal police shootings, with the demand that the police officers responsible for this crime be punished. One of the main demands by the demonstrators was the resignation of the reactionary peace-sabotaging Sharon-Peres-Ben-Eliezer Government. Protestors were also against the alignment of Israel with anti-labour imperialist policies and Israel's economic connection to the globalisation of transnational corporations. A call for just and lasting peace with Palestinian brothers and sisters, and solidarity with their struggle for liberation from Israeli occupation and oppression, was expressed on many banners, many adorned with Palestinian colours. On April 30, Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists held a common May Day demonstration. The contingents arrived, each from their side, at the Israeli border checkpoint near the A-Ram village, halfway between Jerusalem and the Palestinian city of Ramallah. Israeli police and border guards prevented the two groups from meeting, but they could not prevent them from calling solidarity greetings and peace slogans to each other. Another May Day demonstration, also organised by the Hadash front, was called for May 1. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
