Rally Draws 55,000 by Yossi Fraenkel May 7, 2002 An incredible 55,000 party-goers painted Trafalgar Square blue and white on Bank Holiday Monday in Britain’s greatest ever show of support for Israel. Jews and Christians, secular and religious, they came from all corners of Britain, and even from abroad to show their solidarity with the Israeli people and to sing songs of peace. By train, car, bus and more than 380 coaches, travelers crammed into the main square and flooded out onto the Charing Cross Road, as the number of participants comfortably exceeded the 25,000 figure originally touted by the event’s organisers. On a specially erected stage, carrying the words "Yes to peace, no to terror," former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu compared Britain's fight against Nazism with Israel's current battle against Palestinian terror. During an impassioned 40-minute address, the right-winger insisted Yassar Arafat's regime had to be dismantled if peace is to have a chance. Netanyahu, flanked on stage by three armed guards, said: "The people of Britain know the road to peace with Germany did not go through Hitler, or around Hitler, but over Hitler. Likewise the people of Israel know the path towards peace with Palestine does not go through Arafat, around Arafat, but over Arafat and without Arafat." Paying tribute to the unerring support of British Jewry and the people of this country, he said Israel would continue to fight to "win" - and said the only question now was whether the other governments of the democratic world joined that battle. Although the loudest cheers of the two-hour spectacle were reserved for the former prime minister, other prominent figures to address the jubilant crowd included influential Labour MP Peter Mandelson and his political rival, deputy Tory leader, Michael Ancram MP. Chief Rabbi Professor Jonathan Sacks and former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami also spoke, while the Bishop of Oxford Richard Harris spoke on behalf of Britain's Christian community. The most moving moment of the rally, the first such event in this country since 1983, was an address by Sharon Evans, the mother of a 19-year-old Israeli who defied doctors to survive a Jerusalem suicide bomb last year. Struggling to fight back the tears, she recalled how she had made a pledge to tell the world about the reality of life during the intifada. A survivor of several concentration camps recited the kaddish prayer, before a thousand white doves were released into the London sky. A minute's silence was immaculately observed, apart from chanting from around 200 anti-Israel protestors who had gathered from 11am opposite Trafalgar Square. But despite doomsday predictions about security at such a huge gathering, the police and Community Security Trust are claiming that the day passed without major disturbances. A CST spokesman told Yossi: "Today went very smoothly and all the long hours of preparation paid off. People who predicted there would be violence were shown to be nothing but scare-mongerers. The participants were secured more than adequately by the police and CST." In excess of 500 CST volunteers and around 1000 Metropolitan police officers patrolled the occasion. Nevertheless, there were 13 arrests in all, including eight from the pro-Israel gathering. Officers are also awaiting a statement from a pro-Palestinian rabbi who sustained a nose bleed and grazes to his cheek following an incident of actual bodily harm.