Sixteen Knesset Members have begun an initiative for an across-the-board cancellation of all Disengagement-protest-related indictments.



The MKs, including six from the ruling Kadima Party, call on the government to follow Menachem Begin's example, and work for "national unity and conciliation." They want the hundreds of youths who protested against the Disengagement two years ago, and who now face criminal indictments, to be granted across-the-board clemency.



The MKs involved in the effort are:

  • Ben-Sasson, Dotan, Hasson, Shneller, Noked, and Elkin (Kadima),
  • Ariel, Eldad, Elon, Eitam, Gabbai, and Levi (NU/NRP),
  • Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu),
  • Gafni (UTJ),
  • and Edelstein and Rivlin (Likud).

The MKs met on Tuesday in the Knesset, together with legal experts: Attorney Adi Keidar, who worked throughout 2005 and much of 2006 to defend many youths charged with anti-expulsion protest crimes; well-known defense attorney Yoram Sheftel; and Orit Strook, head of the Yesha Civil Rights association. Parents of some of the youths were also present.



The meeting was called in light of the news that after a long period in which it appeared that the cases were being passively dropped, some youths had suddenly been summoned for court dates early next month.



MK Yitzchak Levy said, "After the evacuation of Sinai and the destruction of the Yamit communities in 1982, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered the closure of all the criminal files that had been opened against withdrawal opponents. He realized that what was needed was national conciliation and mending the societal rips. The same is true now."



The Kfar Darom Libel

Among the youths who are being charged are dozens who were at Kfar Darom on the day it was destroyed. They greeted the evacuating forces from behind barbed wire atop the synagogue roof, and employed many measures to prevent their forcible removal - among them, pushing away, with sticks, crane-lifted cages into which the policemen hoped to force them in and down.



The boys were also widely accused of spraying acid at the forces - a claim that was often repeated and believed in the days following the expulsion, but which has never been proven. In fact, after a thorough police investigation, police finally said in early 2006 that no evidence of the acid or lye had been found. Over 100 indictments had already been handed down by then.

Many of the youths were accused of nothing specific, but merely of being there. "As part of that crowd from which caustic soda was thrown on security forces," some of the indictments read, "the accused supported, by his presence, the acts of violence.'"

Rabbi Chaim Retig, whose son is among those accused at Kfar Darom, said that the religious-Zionist public must adopt this issue and fight for it: "The secular establishment has decided to prosecute our youths, even though they know that they are not criminals... Shai Nitzan [of the State Prosecution] promised that they would treat them like the student demonstrators, but this promise has not been kept.  This is not a private matter, but rather a question of whether we allow them to do to us whatever they want."



The MKs sent a letter to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz requesting that the indictments be withdrawn. Other courses of action are being considered, including gathering Knesset Members' signatures on a petition.