(All photos by yours truly)

Like my fellow blogger Yuval Ben Ami, I too was at the march and I too was cheered by the warm, familial, and above all confident atmosphere. But there was one moment that took my breath away. One of the key human rights issues today in Israel is that of the African asylum seekers; even those that make it past Egypt’s shoot-to-kill border patrol policy and avoid detention, are left hanging in limbo for months if not years, as Israel considers their application for official refugee status while entangling them in a hopeless web of bureaucracy and bullying.

There has been a massive undertaking in favor of refugees by Israeli citizens honest enough to remember their parents and grandparents often came into Israel just like that – sneaking over the border, fleeing death and destruction in their home countries. But until yesterday, Israelis have never seen the refugees march together, as a coherent, unapologetic group, not merely speaking their claim not in the slums and the periphery where they have been pushed, but chanting it on one of Israel’s most affluent shopping streets. I stand incredulous as it takes them a whole two and a half minutes to march past:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McJvfGa5uE8[/youtube]

Later, at the square, New Israel Fund president Naomi Chazan solemnly reminds us of progressive victories over the past year, scaffolding a wide-scope progressive front even as she speaks:

And Dr Itzik Saporta, who runs veteran alternative comment site The Sting, really lets if fly:

But the sudden rain clears the square three minutes flat, and you only need to cross the road to see how democracy is treated in Israel outside the rally:

With the flip side showing just where the country’s going to:

But still, we’ve seen we’re many, we’ve seen we’re confident, and we’ll keep on keeping on – because letting go and giving in is inconceivable.