Let me not keep you in suspense. The Sharon government seems to be petrified of the Women in Green. Sounds ludicrous, doesn't it?



How else can it be explained that Israel's Minister of Public Security, Gideon Ezra, made a public pronouncement "that Nadia Matar must not be allowed to roam the streets"? This young mother of six children, a danger to public security?



How else can one explain that Nadia Matar, co-leader of Women in Green, was forced to report to police headquarters for interrogation on October 5, 2004? This interrogation lasted for more than two hours.



At the conclusion of the police interrogation, Nadia had to post three thousand shekels security that she would appear for further questioning when summoned.



In other words, the government is planning further political harassment of Nadia Matar and the Women in Green.



What then is Nadia Matar accused of?



Nadia faxed a letter to Sharon's Disengagement Director, Yonatan Bassi, noting "the chilling similarity" of a letter he planned to send to the people of Gush Katif, who are to be evacuated (transferred), to a letter written in 1942 by the Berlin Judenrat to the Jewish community. Both the Berlin Judenrat in 1942 and Yonatan Bassi in 2004 asked their co-religionists, in effect, to "leave quietly and in an orderly fashion."



Nadia further wrote in her letter "that Yonatan Bassi was a much worse version of the Judenrat, for during the Holocaust, this was forced upon the Jewish leaders by the Nazis. But today no one stands with a pistol to Bassi's head and forces him to cooperate with the deportation of the Jews of Gush Katif and Northern Samaria."



Nadia Matar is not the only one in Israel who harbors these feelings. The great majority of Israelis are of the same opinion.



Here are some prominent examples:



* Colonel Gadi Dorchler, a senior IDF reserve officer, still active in the Northern Command, and a member of the same religious Kibbutz (Sde Eliyahu) as Bassi, had this to say about his fellow Kibbutz member:



"His actions chillingly resemble the activities of the Jewish Judenrat who collaborated with the Nazis in order to complete a smooth and problem-free expulsion. I know this is an outrageous comparison and that he is a fellow member of my Kibbutz, but that's exactly how I feel about the contemptuous role he is carrying out."



The reserve colonel said that he had formulated the comparison to the Judenrat after noticing the reactions of the elders of the kibbutz, Holocaust survivors in their 80s and 90s, to the letters Bassi sent to settlers slated for evacuation.



"These Jews told me with tears in their eyes that they hadn't slept in three days after they had found out that their fellow kibbutz member is the one in charge of uprooting Jews from their Homeland."



* Rabbi Yosef Dayan said he prays for Sharon's death.



* Uri Elitzur, former Bureau Chief of the Prime Minister's Office, in an article in the BeSheva newspaper, called on the public to resist the evacuation of the settlements in Gush Katif and Northern Samaria, and said he understands people who use violence against security forces who come to "evacuate" them. (By the way, Ariel Sharon himself said about the same in 1974: "Such an order is illegal. Orders of this sort must not be carried out.")



* Knesset Member Effie Eitam, a former minister in the current government and a former combat brigadier-general: "Despite the warnings of the IDF officers and security leaders, the prime minister is leading Israeli citizens and soldiers into a death trap that is exacting a high price in blood."



* Ariel Sharon's former soldiers marched to protest "disengagement", and wrote him a letter on the matter. Boaz Dromi, one of the organizers, told the Jerusalem Post: "The main theme of our letter is that Sharon has taken an undemocratic turn... We are protesting that the prime minister does not have the right to take the votes that we cast for him and turn them upside down."



Extraordinary, isn't it? The above-mentioned Israelis are not criticized, but Nadia is "interrogated" at length by the police. In fact, Public Security Minister Gideon Ezra keeps insisting "that Nadia Matar should not be allowed to roam the streets."



Why is the government prosecuting, or rather persecuting, Nadia Matar and the Women in Green? Very simple: they want to silence us.



We are a very large movement of members and sympathizers from all over Israel. We have many members abroad as well. We have worked for eleven years, since the signing of the disastrous Oslo Accords, to prevent the ultimate crime against the Jewish People: the handing over to the enemy of the inheritance of our forefathers, which is our inheritance as well, promised to us by the G-d of Israel. No Jew is permitted to give this inheritance away. Such a crime will be correctly interpreted by the enemies as a victory for terror and will incite these Muslim enemies to continue their murders throughout the whole world.



The Sharon government is powerful, and will use all means, even undemocratic ones, to achieve its goal to evacuate the Jews from Biblical Gaza and Northern Samaria.



Nadia Matar and the Women in Green vow to continue to lead the fight against the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Holy Land. We further promise to continue to fight for democratic freedom of speech in Israel.



Permit me to say a few words in praise of my co-chair, Nadia Matar. She is a real Jewish heroine. The following is a quote from the introduction to Ben Hecht's book Perfidy, which might have been written about Nadia:



"Long before the British picked out the lion as a symbol of how brave they were, there was the Lion of Judea, who still crouches in Jewish hearts. Not all of them. Courage is a special thing in any people. I do not mean the courage to die. The Jews have had good training in that, better than most. But the courage to protest, to stand up against the fearful odds of authority -- there's a rarer quality, and a more mysterious one."



[Women in Green have retained counsel for Nadia to provide her with the proper defense against the trumped up charges being leveled against her. We desperately need your financial help.



Those living in the US who file income tax returns can make their IRS-approved donations to Women in Green by writing their check to the Central Fund for Israel, and sending it to the Central Fund for Israel, 980 Avenue of the Americas, 3rd Floor, New York, N.Y., 10018, writing on the lower left hand corner of that check that it is for Nadia Matar's legal defense. Donations can also be made by credit card by going to our website: http://www.womeningreen.org/ and sending same over the Internet in a safe and secure manner. Or checks can be sent directly to us in Jerusalem, made out to Women in Green, POB 7352 Jerusalem, 91072, Israel, indicating thereon that it is for Nadia Matar's legal defense.]