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Israelis protest Obama's settlement freeze policy (photos attached)
At least one thousand Israelis came to Jerusalem earlier this week to protest Obama's settlement freeze policy and the arrival of Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who arrived in Israel on Sunday. The protestors, which organizers said numbered 2000 and local press put at 1000, stood at Paris Square, near Prime Minister Netanyahu's official residence and then marched to the American Consulate. "Yes to Israel's independence, no to American dictates" stated Hebrew language signs, with flyers reading: "Israel is a sovereign independent state; we will not allow life in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to be frozen". Signs in English said simply: Let My People Grow, referring to the almost half a million Israelis who reside in the eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as well as Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank, all of whose rights to build are being challenged by the Obama administration. Marchers rythmically chanted, "Mitchell go home".
The demonstration came just days after Independent Media Research and Analysis (IMRA) published a surprising poll by a prestigious polling company, Maagar Mochot, according to which Israelis regard settling Judea and Samaria as almost as important as the heavily subsidized national enterprise of settling the Negev and Galilee. http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=44698. A huge majority (71:20) of Israelis also agreed with a tongue-in-cheek proposition presented by the poll, according to which Palestinians should be made to freeze settlement in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) if Jews were forced to do so. The poll also found that Israelis strongly prefer Palestinian autonomy over Palestinian statehood -- which is the concept strongly promoted by the Obama administration.
Not a few well known rightist Israelis publicly boycotted the protest which they said was too tame. "I'm willing to remind Netanyahu to be Israel's Prime Minister, not Obama's poodle," snapped Batya Medad, a well known Israeli blogger. "America would cut out the pressure if we sent them packing. The American government has enough trouble with a sinking economy, health care issues and Iraq." Yair Mendelson from Herzlia, one of the cities that would be adversely affected if a rogue Palestinian state is established, told his email list that such demonstrations are "sterile", "useless" and "deceptive". The main issue, said Mendelson, was the "lies alleging illegality of the settlement enterprise", without which "the Americans would be unable to justify intefering in the legal, sovereign affairs of another state". Mendelsohn recommended to his distribution list that rather than demonstrating, Israelis and committed American Jews should work together to "restore liberty" to the national home of the Jewish people.
Rightist Knesset Members addressing the crowd included the chairperson of the Knesset's influential Law and Constitution Committe, MK David Rotem, who told the Israeli Bar Association's journal last month that razing of outposts for political reasons constituted discrimination against settlers. "It's time America realized we are surrounded by enemies here," Rotem announced tonight. Another Knesset Member, former Chief Medical Officer of the IDF Prof. Aryeh Eldad, said that half a million Jews were being de-humanized by settlement freeze proposals. The chairman of the National Union, the only rightist party not in Netanyahu's coalition, MK Yaakov Katz, told the crowd that as a Cohen, having a priestly perogative to bless the people according to ancient Jewish tradition, he wishes to bestow a blessing of another child in the upcoming year, on all families in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. "This is our answer to Obama's cruel proposals," Katz, a disabled military hero who leans heavily on a cane, told the emotional crowd.
SUGGESTION FROM US4ISRAEL: Please ask your religious leader whether he or she is comfortable with the United States's attitude "freezing" communities numbering almost half a million Jews and let us know what s/he responds. Also, please contact your favorite radio show or newspaper about this matter, perhaps they will be willing to publish at least a Letter to Editor.
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