Demonstrators Scuffle at Mideast Peace Rally

Dramatizing a widening conflict among American Jews, heckling, scattered arguments and shoving matches broke out between members of a coalition in support of a peace plan for the Israeli-occupied territories and opposing counter-demonstrators who showed up at a rally in Beverly Hills on Sunday.

Sponsored by Friends of Peace Now, an American support group for a leftist Israeli peace movement, the rally brought about 400 people to Roxbury Park to hear Yael Dayan, daughter of the late Israeli Gen. Moshe Dayan; feminist leader Betty Friedan; Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, and actor Richard Dreyfuss extol negotiations between Israel and its Arab neighbors to end the continuing unrest on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Israel obtained the territories in the “Six Day War” against Jordan and Egypt in 1967.

Crowded Around Stage

The counter-demonstrators, an array of about 200 people--including Orthodox Jews and militant Jewish Defense League members--at first walked a circle around the rally crowd, and later crowded around the stage, calling the speakers “traitors” and “Nazis.”

Transplanted Israelis now living in Southern California were represented in both groups.

Dreyfuss, who seemed to draw the loudest and angriest shouts, strained hard to be heard over the constant shouts of opponents.

“I was raised in the temple and the Jewish community to see the difference between right and wrong,” the Academy Award-winning actor said.

“If he (Dreyfuss) would spill some of his blood like me and my brothers, then he would have a right to speak out like this,” countered Bobby Frankel, a veteran of the 1956 Sinai campaign. “We’re against people who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Police Escort

Dreyfuss was later escorted from the rally by Beverly Hills police officers.

“We all want democracy and we want occupation. We cannot be occupiers and democratic,” Dayan said.

“You are Israel. We are you and we are one,” she told the crowd, adding that it was her right to speak out about what she believed in.

“I think the Palestinians who lived in what was their home have a right to live there again,” said Jerry Perry of Los Angeles, who supports the auspices of Peace Now.

Alan Rockman of Upland said he believes that the politics of Peace Now is causing a greater rift in American Jewry.

“I think we all believe in peace. But there is a difference between peace and suicide and Peace Now is advocating suicide,” Rockman said of the group’s proposal of land concessions.

At the rally’s end, several small scuffles between demonstrators and counter-demonstrators broke out on the well-manicured lawns of the Beverly Hills park.

Police said there were no injuries or arrests.

“If you love the Arabs so much, go live with them,” one man said.

Richard Eshman, director of the Los Angeles Peace Now chapter, said the rally would not have been possible if it were not for the help of many mainstream Jews in the city.

“Look around . . . we’re not talking about people who don’t have anything to do on a Sunday,” Eshman said.

The rally took place on the eve of a visit to the United States by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. President Reagan is scheduled to meet with Shamir on Wednesday to discuss initiatives to end the unrest that has been taking place in the occupied territories since Dec. 8.