The roadway, Warburg Blvd. in the Kiryat Shmuel neighborhood of Haifa, has been closed on Sabbaths and Jewish holidays since 1973. A clause in the Haifa Municipality decision even states that the road will remain closed "forever." The neighborhood is, for the most part, a religious-Zionist one.
A study carried out by the Ministry of Transportation, however, has shown that there has been an increase in traffic accidents on the alternative route used by the Sabbath travelers. At the same time, the anti-religious Shinui Party says there has been an increase in non-religious residents in the area - and therefore initiated a campaign to open the road for Sabbath traffic.
The result of a three-year legal battle was, earlier this month, that the road would in fact be opened. Prime Minister Sharon, fearful of upsetting his hareidi-religious coalition partner United Torah Judaism, managed to delay the opening by a week - but this past Sabbath, it happened.
The religious public banded together and received police permission to hold a public prayer service on the road Friday evening, as the Sabbath began. An hour later, when the prayers ended, the worshipers refused to leave. Hundreds of policemen then began to forcibly push the worshipers away, while the latter sang and hooted. Police also used water cannons against them. Witnesses described the situation as "wild," "very difficult," and the like.
"The ease with which the police bring out such massive forces, as well as water cannons, merely in order to repress a public protest, is astonishing," said commentator Gidi Gov on Army Radio today.
The police arrested 24 people in the course of the demonstration.
Pro-Sabbath demonstrators said, "The holiness of swimming in the ocean is apparently more important to them than the holiness of the Sabbath." Regarding the rise in traffic accidents, a representative said, "There are accidents all over the country; maybe we should close down the whole country?"
MK Effie Eitam (Religious Zionist Renewal Party), who moved recently to Gush Katif, said he plans to spend the coming Sabbath in Kiryat Shmuel. "The government has opened a new front against the religious public," he said. "In addition to the disengagement from parts of the Land of Israel, it now wants to disengage from the country's Jewish identity."
MK Eli Yishai, head of the Shas Party, said, "If there is an increase in traffic accidents, it would be proper to invest whatever is needed in infrastructures and traffic safety teaching, and not to choose the easy way, trampling the sanctity of the Sabbath." He said that his party might submit a no-confidence motion on the issue.
MK Sha'ul Yahalom (National Religious Party) said, "The behavior of the government and the police strikes a deathblow at the fabric of religious-secular relations in the country. An agreement that was maintained for decades was destroyed in a one-sided decision, destroying the status quo and the residents' rest schedules."
Yahalom condemned the police's "violent behavior," and called upon the Transportation Ministry, the Haifa Municipality and the neighborhood secretariat to find a "mutually-agreeable solution in the spirit of tolerance, understanding and co-existence."