Update 6:50PM: Jerusalem Post reports that so far, only 30,000 people are standing in the chain. And in other bad news, PLO Arab terrorists have fired rockets at Nisanit, the place from where the chain demo began.
Update 6:55PM: And beware of left-wing radicals dressed in traditional Arab kafia head ornaments and pointing toy machineguns.
Update 9:20PM: Estimates of the number of people who attended the protest range from 130,000 to 200,000. I was stuck in traffic at around 8:00PM as protesters were still making their ways home.
Today, opponents of Ariel Sharon’s disengagement plan will form a human chain from the northern Gaza community of Nisanit to Jerusalem. Organizers are expecting upward of 100,000 people.
My gut feeling is that the government is expecting a strong show of opposition to the disengagement plan, and has thus begun a campaign of demonization against settlers. For instance, consider this story from today.
Likud MK Ehud Yatom, who as a former Shin Bet official was one of the commanders of the operation to seize the members of the “Jewish Underground” terror group, said Sunday that the group was “very close” to carrying out a planned multiple bombing against Muslim holy sites on the Temple Mount in 1984.
Yatom was responding to a statement by Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi, who confirmed Saturday that the security establishment had identified rising intent among current right-wing extremists to carry out a Temple Mount attack to derail Israel’s planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Security sources have said possible actions included an attempt to crash a drone packed with explosives on the Temple Mount, or a manned suicide attack with a light aircraft during mass Muslim worship on the Mount. Other possibilities include an attempt by right-wing extremists to assassinate a prominent Temple Mount Muslim leader, perhaps from the Waqf Islamic trust.
To me, this story smells of ulterior motive. You have to ask why are these government ministers speaking of right-wing threats now, including one from twenty years ago. Furthermore, I can categorically state that there is no way that any religious right-wing Jew would ever fly a plane into the Temple Mount. Such an act is in absolute contravention of Jewish law, and would find no supporter amongst the religious establishment.
These allegations are extremely serious, and you would expect that the government would have some intelligence information to substantiate these claims. However, this is not the case at all.
Hangebi added that while there was no intelligence information pointing to specific suspects who are planning an attack, there were “worrying indications” that such plans were “not just theoretical.”
And here is a story from last week, in which the head of the Shin Bet warned of the danger of “extremist settlers”.
A group of extremist settlers “hoping for the murder” of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon could move into “an active phase” of operations against the prime minister, Shin Bet director Avi Dichter warned on Tuesday.
The Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, has issued a cluster of such warnings in recent weeks, spurring both increased security around the prime minister and accusations of slander by the settlers.
In a briefing to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Dichter estimated the number of radical settlers at between 150 and 200 and noted that the few dozen hardcore ringleaders are based mostly in the West Bank.
The Shin Bet, which operates a “Jewish Division” tasked with clamping down on Jewish Israeli terror cells, has identified most of the suspects but lacks the hard evidence necessary to detain them.
Dichter based his conclusions on a “gut feeling” that the more radical settler elements are conspiring against Sharon, who has transformed himself from the godfather of the settlements into the primary force pushing a unilateral separation from the Palestinians.
So the situation is that because of “worrying indications” and a “gut feeling,” the Government and Shin Bet conclude that settlers may fly a plane into the Temple Mount or assassinate the Prime Minister.
Now don’t misunderstand me. If the Government has any evidence, or strong leads, they must act. I am 100% against any terrorist attacks, whether they be emanating from Islamic terrorists or Jewish ones. My point, however, is that I suspect that these charges are politically motivated, and are designed to counteract a perceived groundswell of opinion against the Prime Minister’s disengagement plan.
I could be wrong – it has happened in the past. Just call this my “gut feeling.”
