More than 25,000 people are expected to gather tomorrow in New York City’s Central Park to oppose “creation of a Palestinian terror state.”
Arutz Sheva, the Israeli news service, said participants are requested to bring a road map to rip up, symbolizing rejection of the U.S.-backed “road map” to peace.
Organizer Joe Frager told WorldNetDaily he did not make that request – mainly due to clean-up considerations – but strongly opposes the peace plan authored by the “Quartet” of the U.S., European Union, United Nations and Russia, calling it a “road map to oblivion.”
Organizers of the annual Israel Day Concert, which began 10 years ago to protest the Oslo Accords, say this year’s event is dedicated to urging President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to “say no to a PLO terror state.”
“It’s ironic that 10 years ago the main featured speaker was Sharon,” Frager said. “Obviously we haven’t moved from our position. It remains very clear; we do not want one inch of the land of Israel surrendered.”
Last Sunday, Sharon’s cabinet conditionally approved the road map 12-7, with four abstentions.
The road map is a phased plan that requires the Palestinian Authority in the first stage to implement administrative reforms and fight terror. The plan calls eventually for a Palestinian state followed by a final-status agreement addressing issues such as borders, Jerusalem and refugees.
Sharon spoke at the New York event at a time when the Oslo process posed the possibility of dividing Jerusalem. Frager, who says he has a tape of the speech, remembers Sharon calling for a “jihad for Jerusalem,” insisting it not be divided.
“We are still protecting Jerusalem,” said Frager, who serves as chairman of the Jerusalem Reclamation Project, an organization devoted to keeping the city united under Israeli authority.
Sunday’s event, according to Frager, has been “devoted to a complete Israel, an Israel that is not divided up into pieces and that retains the biblical promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob that this land belongs to the Jewish people for eternity.”
“That’s where everything begins and everything ends,” he said.
Judea and Samaria, the area under the Palestinian Authority known as the West Bank, is the most “biblically significant” area for Jews, said Frager, a well-known physician and leader in New York’s Jewish community.
“It’s the area our forefathers walked upon, and it’s this area that seems to be the one surrendered most readily,” he said.
Yuli Edelstein, a member of the Israeli Knesset who voted against the road map, will be the featured speaker this year.
The event, organized by the Israel Concert in The Park Committee and the National Council of Young Israel, runs from 3-6 p.m. at Central Park’s East Meadow.
Frager said his estimate of attendance is based on last year’s crowd of approximately 25,000.
Related story:
Israel OK’d ‘road map’ with ‘reservations’
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