The defendant, Avraham Levkovitz of Elon Moreh, was part of a scheme to bring two old cars to a busy highway and set them afire. The objective was to bring highway traffic to a halt, thus bringing the protest against the looming expulsion plan into the public eye.
In the end, the scheme never got off the ground, because of a glitch in one of their cars. The police then arrested them.
The incident in question occurred on May 3 of this year, in the midst of a public debate regarding the value and permissibility of civil disobedience in the campaign against the Disengagement. Just the week before Levkovitz was arrested, MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in Gush Katif and said, "We will close down the country! ... I want to see civil disobedience. The day is near when those who are not arrested [in the course of this struggle] will see it as a badge of shame." He later elaborated on Arutz-7, saying, "Regular citizens who see a road on which trucks will travel to expel the Jews, should sit there and block it, and not take part in any way in this destruction... It's actually the obligation of an MK to arouse the public that may have fallen asleep a little, and to tell them what is allowed and what is forbidden - and to emphasize that it must be without violence..."
The judge, Zechariah Caspi of the Tel Aviv District Court, described the act in question as "severe and grave, reflecting a violent and anti-democratic approach that wishes to undermine accepted government procedures and disrupt them by force."
Caspi said that he had taken into account several mitigating considerations in his sentencing: the defendant's minor role in the plan (in which two others were more heavily involved), the influence of those others upon him, the fact that the scheme did not get carried out, and the fact that he agreed to a plea bargain and saved time for the court. Despite this, Judge Caspi handed down a sentence that was a month longer than the Prosecution had even asked for.
Levkovitz's lawyer , Yossi Sillberberg, said he plans to appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court. "The Court apparently did not place enough weight on the fact that we need to mend the society's tears and splits following the Disengagement. In addition, the defendant has no past criminal history, he cooperated with the police, he is a high-quality person, and was about to be accepted to medical school."
"The sentence is totally out of proportion," said Elon Moreh leader Benny Katzover. "It proves how much the legal system is one-sidedly and unfairly enlisted on behalf of future disengagement plans, and their ramifications. I hope that the Supreme Court, when hearing the appeal, will not be stained by the same phenomena."
In the end, the scheme never got off the ground, because of a glitch in one of their cars. The police then arrested them.
The incident in question occurred on May 3 of this year, in the midst of a public debate regarding the value and permissibility of civil disobedience in the campaign against the Disengagement. Just the week before Levkovitz was arrested, MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) addressed a crowd of tens of thousands in Gush Katif and said, "We will close down the country! ... I want to see civil disobedience. The day is near when those who are not arrested [in the course of this struggle] will see it as a badge of shame." He later elaborated on Arutz-7, saying, "Regular citizens who see a road on which trucks will travel to expel the Jews, should sit there and block it, and not take part in any way in this destruction... It's actually the obligation of an MK to arouse the public that may have fallen asleep a little, and to tell them what is allowed and what is forbidden - and to emphasize that it must be without violence..."
The judge, Zechariah Caspi of the Tel Aviv District Court, described the act in question as "severe and grave, reflecting a violent and anti-democratic approach that wishes to undermine accepted government procedures and disrupt them by force."
Caspi said that he had taken into account several mitigating considerations in his sentencing: the defendant's minor role in the plan (in which two others were more heavily involved), the influence of those others upon him, the fact that the scheme did not get carried out, and the fact that he agreed to a plea bargain and saved time for the court. Despite this, Judge Caspi handed down a sentence that was a month longer than the Prosecution had even asked for.
Levkovitz's lawyer , Yossi Sillberberg, said he plans to appeal the sentence to the Supreme Court. "The Court apparently did not place enough weight on the fact that we need to mend the society's tears and splits following the Disengagement. In addition, the defendant has no past criminal history, he cooperated with the police, he is a high-quality person, and was about to be accepted to medical school."
"The sentence is totally out of proportion," said Elon Moreh leader Benny Katzover. "It proves how much the legal system is one-sidedly and unfairly enlisted on behalf of future disengagement plans, and their ramifications. I hope that the Supreme Court, when hearing the appeal, will not be stained by the same phenomena."