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Thousands protest Gaza evacuation plan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-13 09:04
Tens of thousands of Jewish settlers and their backers demonstrated in
Jerusalem on Sunday against Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to evacuate all
settlements from Gaza and four West Bank enclaves in a rally held against a
backdrop of assassination threats and warnings of civil war.
The withdrawal plan has upset the Israeli political scene since it was
announced last year, turning Sharon's backers into opponents and detractors into
supporters. Skeptical Palestinians believe the whole plan is a trick to annex
large parts of the West Bank to Israel.
Israeli settlers
and supporters sing and hold torches at the end of a torchlight march, in
downtown Jerusalem, Sunday, September 12,
2004.[AP] |
The demonstrators filled downtown Jerusalem, shutting down much of the city,
to protest the planned pullout.
Most of those filling downtown were Orthodox Jews, many of them teenage girls
in long skirts or youths wearing knit skullcaps. A huge banner behind the stage
set the theme: "Disengagement tears the people apart." Many waved blue-and-white
Israeli flags.
Organizers pledged to prevent incitement to violence, but there were also
some ominous signs.
A demonstrator
carries a poster with the picture of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
saying " The Dictator - I'm indifferent to everyone !" during a rally to
protest against his Gaza pullout plan in Jerusalem September 12, 2004.
[Reuters] |
One placard warned that the head
of Sharon's disengagement committee would "not be forgiven." Another showed a
picture of Sharon under the words, "The Dictator."
Another sign said, "A time to love, a time to hate," quoting the biblical
Book of Ecclessiastes.
After the demonstration, hundreds of participants, many holding candles,
marched to a square near Sharon's official residence, where they called on the
prime minister to resign. The rally dispersed peacefully.
At a Cabinet meeting Sunday morning, Sharon warned of statements of "grave
incitement" that were "directing toward a civil war."
A general view of
the concrete wall, part of Israel's controversial security barrier which
separates the West Bank city of Abu Dis from Jerusalem September 12, 2004.
[Reuters] |
"There are not enough voices being
heard among the Cabinet on this subject," Sharon complained.
The issue of incitement has been especially sensitive in Israel since the
November 4, 1995, assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by an
ultra-nationalist Jew opposed to Rabin's policy favoring territorial concessions
to the Palestinians in exchange for peace. Some Israeli commentators have
compared the current atmosphere to the vitriolic period preceding Rabin's death.
Mainstream settler leaders rejected Sharon's statement as an attempt to paint
all of them with the extremist brush.
"We are completely against violence or threats of violence," Settlers Council
spokesman Josh Hasten said. "These blanket statements unjustly put an entire
group into a category."
Israel's minority Orthodox Jews revere the West Bank as part of the biblical
Jewish homeland.
"This is the land of Israel, not the land of Ishmael," ancestor of Islam,
said Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a spiritual leader of the settlers, to cheers from the
crowd.
Polls show that the large secular Jewish majority favors steps to distance
Israel from the Palestinians, including an exit from Gaza and removal of some
West Bank settlements.
Opposition to Sharon's plan comes from his traditional constituency. For
decades, Sharon was the prime mover behind creation and expansion of Jewish
settlements.
During Sunday's demonstration, organizers showed a series of video clips from
recent years in which Sharon spoke in favor of settlements and against giving up
territory to the Palestinians.
His change of heart has shocked supporters and left traditional opponents
skeptical. In the months that have followed his first pronouncement at the end
of last year, Sharon has tried to persuade both sides of his sincerity —
convincing many that he has abandoned his former ideology of giving up little or
no territory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Sharon has explained that the Jewish presence in Gaza has become untenable,
with about 8,000 Jews in 21 settlements living along 1.3 million Palestinians.
Sharon said pulling out of Gaza would help Israel solidify its hold on parts
of the West Bank where most of the 240,000 settlers live and would pre-empt
international peace initiatives he feels would be unfavorable to Israel.
Sharon refuses to coordinate the pullout with Palestinian officials, charging
that Yasser Arafat's administration is responsible for four years of violence.
Palestinians counter that Israeli military moves lead to violence, and they
believe that Sharon's plan amounts to a West Bank land grab to prevent them from
forming a state.
Sharon's domestic opposition is just as formidable. Twice he has lost
internal Likud Party votes on his plan by wide margins, but he insists he will
carry it out regardless.
Last week, a group of prominent Israeli hard-liners published a call to
Israeli soldiers to disobey orders to carry out the withdrawal.
On Friday, settler leaders said Sharon had no mandate to carry out the
withdrawal, calling the plan a "Nazi act" and warning it could lead to civil
war.
"When you feel the winds, many feel the prime minister has crossed all the
lines and is no longer seen as legitimate," Eran Sternberg, a spokesman for Gaza
Strip settlers, said Sunday. "This prepares the ground for
violence."
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