Rally for Gilad Shalit (archives)
Photo: Reuters
Time for action
Anat Meidan urges everyone to join Shalit protest outside prime minister’s residence
Aviva and Noam Shalit are fed up with being polite, understanding, and considerate citizens. Almost 1,000 days without their son are enough for them, and on Sunday they are taking action:
They erected a protest tent near the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem and are crying out in demand to free Gilad
from captivity.
They are standing there so that Ehud Olmert won’t dare forget his pledge even for a moment; so he won’t even think of the possibility of disregarding it; so he won’t cast aside Gilad’s face even for a brief moment. They want the word “help,” in Gilad’s handwriting, to be there before Olmert’s eyes constantly, when he wakes up in the morning and when he goes to bed at night.
They need to be there until their son is released, not to give up, not to break, and also no longer fall for empty promises.
The Shalit family and its struggle cannot be left to be managed alone in the Jerusalem cold. All of us must find an hour in our busy schedule, put aside the daily economic struggle, arrive at the tent, hug the suffering parents, and demand that the leaders do something. They must stop wasting time over the question of price and free Gilad Shalit.
Fed up with words
Even though it is a cliché, Gilad is the child of all of us and he needs to be here with us before it’s too late; otherwise, how will we bear the regret and sense of guilt later on?
When we arrive at the Shalit tent in Jerusalem en masse, our very presence will be a reminder of the obvious: Gilad was abducted while defending the State of Israel’s southern border, and the State now has to do everything in order to bring him back to his old life.
We are fed up with the words of leaders who have not produced any results; now is the time for actions. Voting with our feet is the little we can do. A large and demanding presence can change a reality that has been paralyzed for almost a thousand days now.
Even if Ehud Olmert believes that a protest of 20,000 people does not necessarily impress the other side, this is the little effort that any one of us can make - for the sake of Gilad Shalit, for our sake, to show we care, to show solidarity, and for the sake of life itself.
