An opinion piece in Israel's most popular news website, Ynet, compares protests against the Disengagement to illegal activities by Adolf Hitler during the Weimar Republic era, and draws a parallel between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's call for a pardoning of the protesters and the decision by German Chancellor von Papen to pardon five Nazis who murdered a communist on the eve of Hitler's rise to power.

The op-ed, signed by Gilad Natan, a Ph.D student at Tel Aviv University's School of History, laments the fact that right-wing Disengagement protesters were not shot when they blocked roads in the same way that Arab rioters were shot in 2000 [when they joined the enemy attack on Israel, burning cars, firing guns and trying to lynch motorists - ed.].  Natan notes that the Weimar Republic of Germany was lenient towards right-wing crimes, and cites the example of Adolf Hitler's light sentence after the failed 1923 putsch in Bavaria.

Last Thursday, the Jerusalem District Court decided that Nadia Matar, co-chairwoman of Women in Green, will face charges of insulting a public servant after calling Disengagement Authority (Sela) head Yonaton Bassi “a modern-day version of the Judenrat,” the Jewish councils appointed by the Nazis to lead the Jews during the Holocaust.

Ynet is owned by Yediot Acharonot, Israel's largest daily newspaper.