In the Negev desert, tens of thousands of Israeli Jews are surrounded by tens of thousands of Israeli policemen who, along with their government, are trying to intimidate, starve and, if necessary, beat them into submission. So far, it's not working.
In what police smugly called a "surprise," bus drivers taking demonstrators had their driver licenses revoked, with passengers forced to disembark and find alternative transport. A police spokesman said that from the moment the rally in the western Negev town to Netivot was defined as illegal, anyone assisting participant to attend was guilty of breaking the law. Legal commentators interviewed on the media could not recall a previous invocation of the legal statute or the prevention of busses from going to a rally.
Arutz Sheva reported that nearly 400 buses were stopped by police.
Yet tens of thousands of Israelis protesting the planned expulsion of Jews from Gaza managed to overcome police resistance to rally in Sderot -- some arriving by foot, hitchhiking and private cars.
After a tense late-night standoff that took more than two hours, security forces finally agreed to allow some 30,000 to 40,000 anti-disengagement demonstrators -- men, women and children -- to arrive at their planned resting place in the village of Kfar Maimon for the evening. The agreement was reached through negotiations between Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra, Karadi and heads of the Yesha council, which represents the settlers.
Ezra and Karadi had previously expressed confidence that settlement leaders would capitulate under the pressure and go home, but in the end it was the security chiefs who gave in to the determined marchers.
The only concession the settlers reportedly made was not to "surprise" the police and army by continuing without warning toward Gaza this evening. But the marchers and their organizers made no secret of the fact that, as planned, the Kissufim entrance to the Gush Katif settlement bloc was their destination, even though some 15,000 police and soldiers are arrayed to prevent them from doing so.
Many of the police and soldiers don't look happy about what they're doing. Many of them probably aren't. Despite my sympathy with the protesters, I feel badly for these young men and women (and their families and friends worrying for their safety) whose job, after all, is to keep order as order is defined by their government. It's their government that I blame, for putting them in this position in the first place.
For this we survived the pogroms and the camps and the swamps and the countless terror attacks? Never did I think I would live to see such a thing.
