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Parties, protests mark Israel's jubilee
Music, speeches and Al Gore speaking Hebrew
April 30, 1998
Web posted at: 7:16 p.m. EDT (2316 GMT)In this story:
- U.S., Israel trade praise
- No celebrations for Palestinians
- Peres: Israel needs Palestinian state
- Protests amid parties
- Dancers cancel performance
- Related stories and sites
JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Celebrating into a second night to mark their country's 50th birthday, Israelis on Thursday capped a day of picnics, parties and protests with a gala musical extravaganza called "Jubilee Chimes."
Earlier on Thursday under clear blue skies, Israelis swarmed into parks, beaches and picnic grounds to celebrate half a century of statehood.
Gore congratulates Israel on the achievement of its "dream" 
264K/23 sec. AIFF or WAV sound U.S. Vice President Al Gore and his wife, Tipper, were guests of honor at the nighttime gala held in a stadium at Jerusalem's Givat Ram University.
The event opened with music from the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Israeli Defense Forces Orchestra and was followed by speeches from Gore, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others.
Two hours of music and dance presentations followed, and the evening ended with a large fireworks display.
But the celebration was not without its divisions.
The country's premier dance group canceled its appearance at Thursday night's anniversary gala rather than bow to religious pressure to perform what was to have been a seminude number fully clothed.
And left- and right-wing activists shouted opposing slogans at a controversial Jewish housing project on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
Israeli defense forces orchestra salutes Netanyahu arrival U.S., Israel trade praise
In his speech at the gala show, Gore told the Israeli people, "You are one of the most vibrant democracies in history." He referred to their homeland as "an economic and military power, a wellspring of productivity and prosperity, of wisdom and humanity, a place of poetry and theater and learning."
Opening his remarks in Hebrew, the vice president told the crowd, "People of Israel, I beg your pardon. I don't speak Hebrew." His statement drew chuckles and applause.(
Speaking next, Netanyahu congratulated Gore for being "a great Hebrew speaker" and thanked the United States for being a partner in Israel's "quest for security and peace." (
Earlier on Thursday, Gore paid tribute to Israel's achievements, recalling how the Jewish state had risen like a phoenix from the ashes of the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews died.
Thursday's evening ceremonies are held at the stadium of Givat Ram University in Jerusalem "We stand with you. We support your dream," Gore said at a welcoming reception at Netanyahu's office.
No celebration for Palestinians
Gore, who will also visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt during his Mideast visit, was to hold further talks with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Friday and meet Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Saturday night.
Palestinians, who still aspire to create a state of their own on land Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, see Israel's creation as "al naqba" -- the "Great Catastrophe."
For them, the jubilee marks the flight of some 700,000 of their people from their towns and villages when Israel was born with the expiration of Britain's mandate to rule Palestine in May 1948.
Israel, fearing attack by Palestinian extremists, deployed additional police and soldiers throughout its cities for the festivities and barred Palestinians from entering the country from the West Bank and Gaza Strip until Saturday night.
Peres: Israel needs Palestinian state
Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres said Thursday that his country's survival depends on letting the Palestinians create their own homeland.
"To keep Israel as a Jewish state, we need a Palestinian state," the Nobel peace laureate told France Info radio in Paris. "Today we are 4.7 million Jews, 4 million Arabs. The choice is between a binational state -- or a binational tragedy, if you will -- and two states."
The former Labor prime minister said his country's 50th birthday was bittersweet because "we're divided at home." But Peres predicted Netanyahu will be forced to change his policy toward the peace process soon.
Protests amid parties
Fault lines within Israeli society were on clear display Thursday, particularly the rifts between religious and secular Jews and the political left and right.
At a hilltop on the outskirts of Jerusalem, right- and left-wing Israelis staged rival anniversary protests. A Jewish housing project proposed for the site -- known in Arabic as Jabal Abu Ghneim and in Hebrew as Har Homa -- helped spark the current peacemaking stalemate between the Jewish state and Palestinians.
About 2,000 Israelis laid a symbolic cornerstone at the site to pressure Netanyahu's right-wing coalition to speed up construction on the project. Israeli police kept them apart from a few hundred supporters of the "Peace Now" movement who had earlier daubed peace slogans along a wall at the site.
Many ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel do not recognize the 50th anniversary because they believe the creation of a Jewish state is a blasphemy before the coming of the Messiah.
In Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood, black flags were hung from the roof of one Jewish seminary and some residents fasted, while others tore Israeli flags from cars driving through.
Dancers cancel performance
Dancers from Israel's premier dance troupe walked out of the country's jubilee celebrations minutes before they were to go on, refusing to bow to demands that they perform fully clothed.
Religious leaders had demanded that the Batsheva Dance Troupe change a performance in which dancers strip down to their underwear during a song that mentions God.
The dance company's board of trustees earlier accepted a compromise mediated by President Ezer Weizman in which the dancers would have worn skin-colored body suits beneath their clothes.
But in the end, the dancers rejected the compromise.
As a symbolic protest, director Ohad Naharin resigned as director of the performance, saying he could not participate in the altered performance.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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