The families of Jews imprisoned for attacking Arabs demonstrated Tuesday night outside President Shimon Peres’s home. The families want their loved ones to be released.
Among the demonstrators were the Dvir, Zeliger, Morag and Tessler families.
“Jewish nationalist prisoners are not afforded the wholesale releases granted to cursed terrorists, who continue to be released all the time,” a statement from the families read. “[Jewish prisoners] do not merit visits from well-connected MKs,” they added – a reference to frequent visits with Fatah’s Marwan Barghouti and Hizbullah’s Samir Kuntar by Arab and left-wing MKs.
Protesters, some whose parents are incarcerated for attempting to carry out reprisal attacks on Arabs, carried emotional placards reading “Free my Father.”
Others held placards reading: “Release our brothers the Jewish prisoners and not the Arab murderers of our loved ones” and “free brothers, not enemies.”
A similar protest took place earlier Tuesday opposite the IDF’s Horon Army Base in Samaria during a visit by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the facility. That protest was joined by families of those murdered by Arab terrorism, including the Lieberman family from Elon Moreh. Hillel Lieberman was an unarmed Jewish man who was murdered in the first days of the Oslo War in 2000 as he walked toward the ransacked Joseph’s Tomb.
“On the day that marks one year since the death of the Jewish nationalist prisoner Asher Weissgan, who lost hope that he would ever be released during his lifetime, the same judges that sealed his fate delivered similar verdicts to the murderers of Minister Rechavam Ze’evi,” the groups states. “They know that their punishments will not be carried out, just like those of 430 cursed terrorists who were released today by the government of Israel, whose punishments will never be carried out.
“We, the families, call upon the public to act in every way to bring about the release of Jewish nationalist prisoners,” the group appeals.
The protests were organized by the families of Jewish ideological prisoners as well as the Honenu Legal Aid organization.