Seven students plan to file charges against the police for illegally detaining them and using unnecessary force while ripping down the students signs against Peace Now at a memorial rally for Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin last week. The Makor Rishon Hebrew newspaper reported that the students from Im Titzu [If you will it] said police beat and choked them at the rally.
The students held signs stating "If you will it, the incitement can stop" and "Enough with Peace Now incitement." The signs were torn down during the arrests. Police responded that they did not use excess force and that the detentions were legal.
They did not explain why the signs were destroyed while Peace Now banners remained intact. Student Erez Tadmor said the police charged them with "disturbing the peace" and that he and his colleagues heard over the police radio that orders to remove them came from the district police commander.
"We did this in protest of the incitement against the right" Ronen Shuval told Makor Rishon. "We tried to stand in front of the stage."
Leading Kadima, Labor and Mertz party officials addressed the rally and charged elements of the national religious movement with incitement. Several comments warning that another assassination of a political leader by nationalists is at hand were based on comments to the Cabinet by Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) director Yuval Diskin. He said that there is evidence of a planned attack in order to disrupt the talks with the Palestinian Authority on a new Arab state within Israel's current borders.
The Hebrew daily Ma'ariv later reported that part of the basis for the "evidence" was a survey among the national religious that asked how many people would be willing to use a weapon against political leaders.