Israeli Soldiers Threaten Interfaith Freedom March in Palestine

IDF forces allow a non-violent peaceful event to eventually continue.

Photos courtesy: frankromano363.blogspot.com

(SALEM, Ore.) - Author Frank Romano, an attorney and peace activist who was recently featured in a Salem-News.com interview about his book, "Storm Over Morocco", contacted us with an update about a scheduled Interfaith peace march that he led through Palestine, in a region occupied by Israeli Defense Forces.

He said, "For the second Freedom March, we marched after evening prayers from the front of the Abraham Mosque/Synagogue to zone H2, on Wednesday, August 26th, at around 9:30 p.m. Palestinians joined us as they left the Mosque."

But Israeli soldiers stopped and questioned the group twice, he says.

Frank Romano says he was reciting Jewish prayers (part of Shema) as well as Muslim and Christian ones, and he informed the soldiers this was a non-violent, interfaith freedom march for all people, including for the soldiers.

"I suggested to them when peace comes, they can all go home," Romano said.

The IDF soldiers asked for ID, "and then threatened to take our poster and loud speaker away. We, however, vigorously articulated our rights to Free Speech."

Israeli soldiers have been increasingly their attacks against protesters in Occupied Palestine. The protesters are people whose land has been seized by Israeli settlers as they build walls and apartments on the land that historically belonged to the Palestinians.

Last week an Al Jazeera reporter, Jacky Rowland, was attacked by Israeli soldiers who fired tear gas canisters directly at her as she reported live on the air. She and a number of other journalists were covering the peaceful Palestinian protest that initially came under attack. This is every day business in Bilin and other cities on the West Bank, and also in other occupied parts of Palestine. (see: Israeli Military Fires on Media Crew in West Bank (VIDEO) Forward by Tim King Salem-News.com)

For the Interfaith Freedom March, the outcome was better.

Romano said, "The soldiers, thank God, listened and were convinced that it was a non-violent event and dedicated to a peaceful, loving march in the light of one Supreme Being...... So we marched onwards. As many as 50 people joined us along the way, men, women and children. It was magical!!"

We'll keep you updated on Frank's attempts to share the word of Interfaith peace in Palestine and Israel.

Also see: Interfaith Marches in Bethlehem Deliver Message of Peace - Tim King Salem-News.com

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Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com