Speaking about the stark disparity between the police’s treatment of haredi protests and "Kaplan" protests-this time in Haifa-Eti Tsabari, a resident of the Ahuza neighborhood in Haifa, told Israel National News - Arutz Sheva, in an interview about the protest she initiated and organized against a "Kaplan" protest that took place without police authorization at Horev Center, on the roadway, while blocking traffic.
“For more than three and a half years now, a very central artery in the Ahuza neighborhood has been closed every Saturday night," she says against the backdrop of the events in Haifa. “It starts at six in the evening-during the summer it’s still Shabbat. They begin marching from the auditorium along the main thoroughfare, block it, and reach the Horev Center, a junction that channels traffic from many directions. All the routes from different directions are blocked for three hours, which recently has been shortened to an hour and a half." During this time, she says, residents are trapped in their homes, and it even reaches the point of blocking the traffic route to Carmel Hospital.
Until now, these protests by opponents of the government were held with police approval. “A month ago we’d had enough. We said we couldn’t take it anymore and asked the police and the municipality to stop it. The mayor gave an order to stop it, but after two days he backed down, apparently out of fear of the "Kaplan protesters," and everything returned to the way it was. They received approval. We turned to the police, who initially accommodated us and said they would no longer allow marching as a procession and would permit blocking only one route. We said we would stand opposite them and would not allow even that blockage, but it never occurred to us that there would be lawlessness on the other routes as well. We didn’t believe that the police, who prevent us from even stepping onto the roadway, would allow them to march as a procession."
Tsabari goes on to say that the demonstrators called on supporters from all over the country to come to Haifa. “They arrived in large numbers and walked on the road, blocked the entrance to the hospital, sat on the roadway, and the police pushed us onto the sidewalk." When neighborhood residents approached the officers and their commanders and asked why the law was not being enforced against the demonstrators, the response was, she quotes, “We’ve lost control and now it’s dangerous to push them back, so we’ll deal with it tomorrow."
Among other things, Tsabari says that some of the demonstrators were holding pitchforks, which are considered cold weapons. When one of the pitchfork carriers confronted her on Saturday night and was asked why he was holding pitchforks, his reply was, “To uproot stray weeds…"
By contrast, Tsabari says, it is shocking to see footage of the police’s treatment of haredi demonstrators in Jerusalem, where they are beaten with batons to prevent them from blocking traffic routes. “They sent me to see the footage in which a police officer strikes a young haredi man with a baton. I couldn’t watch it. I cried. It’s simply horrifying," she says, also noting the police’s indifference in the face of displays staged by "Kaplan protesters": “Last week they put on a display of Netanyahu in orange prisoner’s clothes with a hanging noose, showing that they killed him and that he’s dead on the ground, and no one says a word. No one tells them anything. They’re allowed to do whatever they want in the public space."
Tsabari further reports that, at the residents’ request, a meeting was scheduled with the Haifa District police commander, Eyal Shahar, but at noon the meeting was canceled because “he has urgent police matters and cannot meet with us," Tsabari says.