On Monday, May 15, 2005 thousands of young Israeli men and women, protesting the planned racist expulsion of the Jews of Gush Katif and demanding that the plan be decided on democratically by a vote blocked the nation?s highways. In response the police arrested an incredible 500 people.
Almost a month later dozens still rot in jail for ?perpetrating this grave crime?. They are now being threatened with long prison terms. What kind of regime hands out such ruthless and brutal punishments for such light misdemeanors?
Blocking roads to protest government policy is common in Israel. Dozens of such blockings have taken place all over the country in the past decade alone. In none of these cases have the demonstrators been jailed and charged with perpetrating a crime. On October 26, 1998 the Jerusalem Post noted in an editorial how common road blockings have become in Israel and the government?s passive response:
striking university students? have learned from other sectors of society that the only way to get your way is through strikes and confrontations with the police. Successive governments have taught this lesson over and over again by giving in to the striker, a practice that ups the ante by closing intersections and forcing police intervention.
The brutal and sadistic punishments handed out by the police and courts to the Gush Katif demonstrators are unprecedented. In the recent road blocking the police have put children as young as 12 years old and women the age of grandmothers in jail for weeks for daring to demand democracy and human rights. What kind of government jails children!?!
Other groups who have blocked roads have not been punished at all. Why is it that when a secular student, lesbian/homosexual or leftwing activist blocks a road they are let off with a slap on the wrist and when right wing religious demonstrators do the same thing they are subject to weeks in jail, huge fines and guilty verdicts? Discrimination in all its forms is despicable. People should not be persecuted for their religious and political beliefs. There should be one law for secular and religious alike.
The inhumane treatment dealt to rightwing demonstrators becomes even more absurd when contrasted with the lenient way the Sharon government is treating Arab terrorists. Last week the Sharon government released another 400 Arab terrorists who had not served out their sentences. This was the second installment of an Israeli promise of three months ago to release 900 such terrorists. The first 500 were freed in February.
Of the 400 prisoners to be released:
* 76 carried out shooting attacks
* 53 planted or threw bombs
* 41 were arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails and firebombs
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has also instructed Justice Minister Tzipi Livni to prepare, in a later stage, for the release of prisoners with "blood on their hands" - despite earlier commitments to the contrary. These would include terrorist murderers. What kind of government lets free dangerous terrorists and jails mere demonstrators!?!
Below is a short list compiled from the Jerusalem Post archives of only a small fraction of the road blockings that have occurred in the country in the past few years. In none of the cases were protestors jailed or prosecuted for their actions.
On October 30, 1994 angry residents of Shlomi and striking municipal workers blocked the northern road in protest over what they described as the government's neglect of the Western Galilee township. Demonstrators set fire to tires and on several occasions tried to form human chains across the northern road outside the entrance to Shlomi. Police broke up the demonstrations each time protesters tried to block the road with tires or their own bodies, but without having to resort to undue force. No one was arrested.
On July 4, 1996 scores of angry poultry farmers blocked the Rosh Pina-Kiryat Shmona road at the Koah junction, burning tires and letting dozens of chickens loose, to protest the plight of the industry in the North. Police at the scene did not interfere and the demonstration eventually dispersed, after the protesters were promised the government would consider their complaints.
On May 23, 1998 a homosexual and lesbian festival in Tel Aviv held to raise money to fight AIDS turned violent on Friday evening, when several hundred participants blocked Rehov Hayarkon for some 90 minutes. For an hour, police did not interfere, even though traffic was blocked.
Three demonstrators were arrested and released after questioning. One person was lightly injured when he tried to drive through the crowd and was attacked by pedestrians. Several thousand people participated in the event, which was organized by the Association of Homosexuals, Lesbians, and Bisexuals in Israel.
They then started to disperse the crowd, and several reacted by kicking patrol cars. Festival organizer Shezif later called Tel Aviv police chief Cmdr. Shlomo Aharonishki and thanked him for the moderate response by police, despite the blocked road.
On June 21, 1998 hundreds of demonstrators took to the Tel Aviv- Jerusalem highway near Mevasseret Zion yesterday morning, burning tires and blocking traffic, in a mass protest against the government's decision to annex territory west of the capital. Eight protesters were arrested but later released, even though one policeman sustained a broken hand.
On September 11, 2000 scores of truckers and workers from the Kinneret Quarry in Lower Galilee blocked the main road between the Hamovil and Golani junctions yesterday to protest plans to close the quarry. Most of the workers are Arabs from nearby villages, who charged that the closure would rob them of their livelihoods in a area where jobs are scarce.
The protesters were joined by several Arab MKs, including Abdel Malik Dahamshe (United Arab List), who charged that the police used unnecessary force to disperse them. More than 100 trucks were involved in the demonstration, as were scores of workers and sympathizers. Three protesters were arrested, but were later released.
On January 3, 2004 250 leftwing activists, including many from ?Anarchists Against the Wall?, arrived at a roadblock and blocked Road 5. Judea and Samaria Police detained 26 anti- security fence activists, including three foreigners, who tried to pass through the Oranit roadblock near Elkana in Samaria, intending to protest at Deir Balut. Towards evening, all were released from custody after agreeing to stay away from Samaria from for two weeks.
When University students blocked roads all over Israel demanding lower tuition fees not only were they not punished but the government caved in to their demands. On, October 28, 1998 in Tel Aviv, students blocked Einstein Street outside Tel Aviv University and later during a large demonstration at the Glilot Junction. At the university, students burned tires. Protesters in cars staged a "funeral" on the Ayalon Highway and other roads, snarling traffic.
In downtown Jerusalem, seven protesting students were arrested when they tried to block traffic on Jaffa Road. Some 300 students took part in the demonstration, which was held without a permit.After gathering on Ben-Yehuda Street, the students sat down in the center of Zion Square, chanting slogans and waving protest signs.
In Haifa students blocked Merkaz Horev near the Technion, some carrying a coffin marked "higher education." Demonstrations were also held at Bar Ilan University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Students also blocked Glilot Junction.
Meanwhile, the Knesset Finance and Education committees demanded that the Finance Ministry present proposals by next week for helping the students to reduce their tuition load. "I will not be able to face the public pressure if we don't bring the students a real answer from the Treasury," Finance Committee Chairman Avraham Ravitz said.
The courts themselves have slammed the police and government for indicting (leftist) protesters who block roads. Oct. 17, 2004 Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court Judge Muki Landman harshly criticized the government prosecution regarding a decision to press charges against 11 left-wing activists who blocked a road opposite the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv in an anti-security fence demonstration in February, 2004.
The activists were charged with unruliness and of preventing a police officer from carrying out his job by violently resisting attempts by the police to evacuate them from the road they were blocking.
"The state needs to know when to hold back," Landman told the state prosecutor, adding that the youths who sat on the road opposite the Defense Ministry and refused to be evacuated were involved in an "active protest" and that their actions should not necessarily draw criminal charges.
"The states should not run and file an indictment in cases of protest," he said. "If I am sitting on the road and they come to evacuate me and I fight back, I am not sure that filing an indictment is the right thing to do."
Landman added that the indictments against the demonstrators are out of the ordinary. Despite the criticism, the prosecution repeatedly claimed that the activists had assaulted police officers who had tried to break up their protest.
The government has even been more lenient when strikes have endangered human lives. In 2002 the nation?s doctors held a four month(!) strike. Tens of thousands of operations and hundreds of thousands of visits to hospital outpatient clinics and diagnostic institutes were canceled, delaying treatment for people who can't afford private care and causing public hospitals tens of millions of shekels in deficits.
It is not clear how many lives were lost as a result of the action. Needless to say, no doctor was jailed for withholding medical services.
General, geriatric, psychiatric, and rehabilitation hospitals were run on a reduced Shabbat schedule with outpatient clinics and diagnostic institutes closed and only a minimum number of doctors on the wards. According to the Jerusalem Post the strike paralyzed the public health system for over 120 days.
Diagnostic institutes were intermittently shut down, causing delays in diagnosis and treatment of tumors. While the doctors' strike was ongoing, no elective surgery was performed in the public hospitals and surgical day hospitals were closed.
During the strike the association of deans from the country's four medical schools issued a warning of irreversible and disastrous results resulting from the extended strike. The deans demanded that all sides reach an immediate solution because the strike threatens to cause severe damage to patients and the public health system.
"It's impossible to wait any longer; we are speaking of great suffering and [the endangerment of lives], which are priceless." The Israel Cancer Association also urgently called for the prime minister to take an active role in ending the strike.
In a previous doctor?s strike Health Minister Shlomo Benizri warned that the strike was killing people. "If people don't wake up here, in the end the state will have to pay a price in lives and also money," he said.
Benizri said someone who needs an operation to his leg that is in an advanced stage of decay had his surgery postponed, and his condition worsened. In another case, a person needed heart surgery, but there was no doctor, and he had a stroke. In spite of the danger caused by the strike not one doctor was prosecuted.
The religious and right wing protestors are no longer willing to be treated like second class citizens. No longer will we allow the Sharon government to violate our rights and treat us like garbage. We are people not animals and we demanded equality before the law!
Almost a month later dozens still rot in jail for ?perpetrating this grave crime?. They are now being threatened with long prison terms. What kind of regime hands out such ruthless and brutal punishments for such light misdemeanors?
Blocking roads to protest government policy is common in Israel. Dozens of such blockings have taken place all over the country in the past decade alone. In none of these cases have the demonstrators been jailed and charged with perpetrating a crime. On October 26, 1998 the Jerusalem Post noted in an editorial how common road blockings have become in Israel and the government?s passive response:
striking university students? have learned from other sectors of society that the only way to get your way is through strikes and confrontations with the police. Successive governments have taught this lesson over and over again by giving in to the striker, a practice that ups the ante by closing intersections and forcing police intervention.
The brutal and sadistic punishments handed out by the police and courts to the Gush Katif demonstrators are unprecedented. In the recent road blocking the police have put children as young as 12 years old and women the age of grandmothers in jail for weeks for daring to demand democracy and human rights. What kind of government jails children!?!
Other groups who have blocked roads have not been punished at all. Why is it that when a secular student, lesbian/homosexual or leftwing activist blocks a road they are let off with a slap on the wrist and when right wing religious demonstrators do the same thing they are subject to weeks in jail, huge fines and guilty verdicts? Discrimination in all its forms is despicable. People should not be persecuted for their religious and political beliefs. There should be one law for secular and religious alike.
The inhumane treatment dealt to rightwing demonstrators becomes even more absurd when contrasted with the lenient way the Sharon government is treating Arab terrorists. Last week the Sharon government released another 400 Arab terrorists who had not served out their sentences. This was the second installment of an Israeli promise of three months ago to release 900 such terrorists. The first 500 were freed in February.
Of the 400 prisoners to be released:
* 76 carried out shooting attacks
* 53 planted or threw bombs
* 41 were arrested for throwing Molotov cocktails and firebombs
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has also instructed Justice Minister Tzipi Livni to prepare, in a later stage, for the release of prisoners with "blood on their hands" - despite earlier commitments to the contrary. These would include terrorist murderers. What kind of government lets free dangerous terrorists and jails mere demonstrators!?!
Below is a short list compiled from the Jerusalem Post archives of only a small fraction of the road blockings that have occurred in the country in the past few years. In none of the cases were protestors jailed or prosecuted for their actions.
On October 30, 1994 angry residents of Shlomi and striking municipal workers blocked the northern road in protest over what they described as the government's neglect of the Western Galilee township. Demonstrators set fire to tires and on several occasions tried to form human chains across the northern road outside the entrance to Shlomi. Police broke up the demonstrations each time protesters tried to block the road with tires or their own bodies, but without having to resort to undue force. No one was arrested.
On July 4, 1996 scores of angry poultry farmers blocked the Rosh Pina-Kiryat Shmona road at the Koah junction, burning tires and letting dozens of chickens loose, to protest the plight of the industry in the North. Police at the scene did not interfere and the demonstration eventually dispersed, after the protesters were promised the government would consider their complaints.
On May 23, 1998 a homosexual and lesbian festival in Tel Aviv held to raise money to fight AIDS turned violent on Friday evening, when several hundred participants blocked Rehov Hayarkon for some 90 minutes. For an hour, police did not interfere, even though traffic was blocked.
Three demonstrators were arrested and released after questioning. One person was lightly injured when he tried to drive through the crowd and was attacked by pedestrians. Several thousand people participated in the event, which was organized by the Association of Homosexuals, Lesbians, and Bisexuals in Israel.
They then started to disperse the crowd, and several reacted by kicking patrol cars. Festival organizer Shezif later called Tel Aviv police chief Cmdr. Shlomo Aharonishki and thanked him for the moderate response by police, despite the blocked road.
On June 21, 1998 hundreds of demonstrators took to the Tel Aviv- Jerusalem highway near Mevasseret Zion yesterday morning, burning tires and blocking traffic, in a mass protest against the government's decision to annex territory west of the capital. Eight protesters were arrested but later released, even though one policeman sustained a broken hand.
On September 11, 2000 scores of truckers and workers from the Kinneret Quarry in Lower Galilee blocked the main road between the Hamovil and Golani junctions yesterday to protest plans to close the quarry. Most of the workers are Arabs from nearby villages, who charged that the closure would rob them of their livelihoods in a area where jobs are scarce.
The protesters were joined by several Arab MKs, including Abdel Malik Dahamshe (United Arab List), who charged that the police used unnecessary force to disperse them. More than 100 trucks were involved in the demonstration, as were scores of workers and sympathizers. Three protesters were arrested, but were later released.
On January 3, 2004 250 leftwing activists, including many from ?Anarchists Against the Wall?, arrived at a roadblock and blocked Road 5. Judea and Samaria Police detained 26 anti- security fence activists, including three foreigners, who tried to pass through the Oranit roadblock near Elkana in Samaria, intending to protest at Deir Balut. Towards evening, all were released from custody after agreeing to stay away from Samaria from for two weeks.
When University students blocked roads all over Israel demanding lower tuition fees not only were they not punished but the government caved in to their demands. On, October 28, 1998 in Tel Aviv, students blocked Einstein Street outside Tel Aviv University and later during a large demonstration at the Glilot Junction. At the university, students burned tires. Protesters in cars staged a "funeral" on the Ayalon Highway and other roads, snarling traffic.
In downtown Jerusalem, seven protesting students were arrested when they tried to block traffic on Jaffa Road. Some 300 students took part in the demonstration, which was held without a permit.After gathering on Ben-Yehuda Street, the students sat down in the center of Zion Square, chanting slogans and waving protest signs.
In Haifa students blocked Merkaz Horev near the Technion, some carrying a coffin marked "higher education." Demonstrations were also held at Bar Ilan University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Students also blocked Glilot Junction.
Meanwhile, the Knesset Finance and Education committees demanded that the Finance Ministry present proposals by next week for helping the students to reduce their tuition load. "I will not be able to face the public pressure if we don't bring the students a real answer from the Treasury," Finance Committee Chairman Avraham Ravitz said.
The courts themselves have slammed the police and government for indicting (leftist) protesters who block roads. Oct. 17, 2004 Tel Aviv Magistrates' Court Judge Muki Landman harshly criticized the government prosecution regarding a decision to press charges against 11 left-wing activists who blocked a road opposite the Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv in an anti-security fence demonstration in February, 2004.
The activists were charged with unruliness and of preventing a police officer from carrying out his job by violently resisting attempts by the police to evacuate them from the road they were blocking.
"The state needs to know when to hold back," Landman told the state prosecutor, adding that the youths who sat on the road opposite the Defense Ministry and refused to be evacuated were involved in an "active protest" and that their actions should not necessarily draw criminal charges.
"The states should not run and file an indictment in cases of protest," he said. "If I am sitting on the road and they come to evacuate me and I fight back, I am not sure that filing an indictment is the right thing to do."
Landman added that the indictments against the demonstrators are out of the ordinary. Despite the criticism, the prosecution repeatedly claimed that the activists had assaulted police officers who had tried to break up their protest.
The government has even been more lenient when strikes have endangered human lives. In 2002 the nation?s doctors held a four month(!) strike. Tens of thousands of operations and hundreds of thousands of visits to hospital outpatient clinics and diagnostic institutes were canceled, delaying treatment for people who can't afford private care and causing public hospitals tens of millions of shekels in deficits.
It is not clear how many lives were lost as a result of the action. Needless to say, no doctor was jailed for withholding medical services.
General, geriatric, psychiatric, and rehabilitation hospitals were run on a reduced Shabbat schedule with outpatient clinics and diagnostic institutes closed and only a minimum number of doctors on the wards. According to the Jerusalem Post the strike paralyzed the public health system for over 120 days.
Diagnostic institutes were intermittently shut down, causing delays in diagnosis and treatment of tumors. While the doctors' strike was ongoing, no elective surgery was performed in the public hospitals and surgical day hospitals were closed.
During the strike the association of deans from the country's four medical schools issued a warning of irreversible and disastrous results resulting from the extended strike. The deans demanded that all sides reach an immediate solution because the strike threatens to cause severe damage to patients and the public health system.
"It's impossible to wait any longer; we are speaking of great suffering and [the endangerment of lives], which are priceless." The Israel Cancer Association also urgently called for the prime minister to take an active role in ending the strike.
In a previous doctor?s strike Health Minister Shlomo Benizri warned that the strike was killing people. "If people don't wake up here, in the end the state will have to pay a price in lives and also money," he said.
Benizri said someone who needs an operation to his leg that is in an advanced stage of decay had his surgery postponed, and his condition worsened. In another case, a person needed heart surgery, but there was no doctor, and he had a stroke. In spite of the danger caused by the strike not one doctor was prosecuted.
The religious and right wing protestors are no longer willing to be treated like second class citizens. No longer will we allow the Sharon government to violate our rights and treat us like garbage. We are people not animals and we demanded equality before the law!