Anti-Obama Rally in Jerusalem
by Hillel Fendel
and 
.(IsraelNN.com) For the first time in years, the nationalist camp will hold a large scale rally against United States policies vis-à-vis Israel.
The protest will be held in downtown Jerusalem, on Agron St. on Monday evening, and is being organized by the Residents Committees of Binyamin and Samaria, as well as the nationalist umbrella organization Mateh Maamatz, the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities, and Komemiyut.
Knesset Members and others representing various parties, including the Likud, will speak.
“Not since the days of [U.S. Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger has there been such a protest against American policies,” said MK Yaakov Katz (Ketzaleh), chairman of the National Union party. “The pressure that Barack Hussein Obama is exerting against us to simply stop growing and stop living will not work.”
The Obama administration has made it clear that Israel must stop building of all types throughout Judea and Samaria (Yesha), as well as in parts of Israel’s capital city that were liberated during the Six Day War of 1967.
In addition, hints have been dropped that American action against Iran depends on a cessation of Israeli construction in Yesha.
No fewer than four top American officials are visiting Israel this week, presumably bringing uniform diplomatic messages in the above spirit from President Obama. The four are special U.S. envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, who landed in Israel on Sunday after a short visit in Damascus; Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who arrived on Monday and has already met with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu; and National Security Advisor James Jones and White House Iranian affairs expert Dennis Ross who are scheduled to meet later in the week with Netanyahu.
The slogan for Monday’s demonstration, and the message to Obama and his envoys, is, "Yes to Israeli Independence, No to American Dictates!"
A torchlight walk will begin at 6:30 pm at Paris/Jonathan Pollard Square, near the Prime Minister's Office, and go down Agron St. towards the U.S. consulate.
MK Katz quoted the official figures released by the Central Bureau of Statistics today, indicating nearly 305,000 Israelis in Yesha, at a growth rate some three times higher than the rest of the country.
“If this is the official figure,” Katz said, “then we can assume that there are really close to 350,000 people, because of all those who have not changed their official addresses, and outposts, and the like. Together with the nearly 300,000 people in the new Jerusalem neighborhoods, this means that Barack Hussein Obama is telling well over 600,000 Jews that they must all stop having children and buildings and going to the store and sending their children to school and building roads and, in short, to stop growing. This is the type of decree that our worst enemies decreed against us, always accompanied by their Jewish advisors. But just as they did not succeed, the same will be with Obama.”
Land of Israel pioneers have begun their two-day blitz to establish 11 new settlement sites throughout Judea and Samaria. In at least one case – Netzer, in Gush Etzion – security forces arrived on the scene and rebuffed their attempt. Activists at the site said they would resume the building within a matter of hours.
Sign up to receive the Daily Israel Report by email (Free)
| ||||||
| ||||||
| ||||||
Settler rally: Obama racist; his regime will fall1,000 rightists protesting demand to halt settlement construction march towards US Consulate, call for Special Mideast envoy Mitchell to 'go home'; yeshiva head: Era when Jews were banned from living in different places has ended Efrat Weiss "(US President Barack) Obama is a racist," said Rabbi Eliezer Waldman, the head of the "Nir" yeshiva in the West Bank town of Kiryat Arba. Waldman was speaking during a mass rally held Monday evening at Jerusalem's Paris Square in protest of the American demand that Israel halt all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. About 1,000 settlers and right-wing activists, including Knesset members Uri Ariel, Michael Ben-Ari (both from the National Union party) and David Rotem (Yisrael Beiteinu), marched towards the US Consulate, carrying torches and calling for US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell to "go home." "How dare he (Obama) tell the Jews where they can or can't live? The era when Jews were banned from living in different places has ended," said Rabbi Waldman. "Obama beware. This insolence will bring about the downfall of the American leadership," he said. "Anyone who dares give an order to prevent Israeli life in Jerusalem or anywhere else in the Land of Israel is destined to fall."
'How dare he?' Rally in Jerusalem (Photo: Guy Asayag)
Yesha Council Director-General Pinchas Wallerstein said, "This week the American pressure reached new highs that are a shame to democratic societies. We are brought here by America's treatment of Israel as if it were a banana republic and its willingness to abandon us in order to gain the support of public opinion within the Islamic world." Yesha Council chairman Danny Dayan added, "We are here to call on the government to fend off US pressure to halt construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. Not one construction plan has been approved since the inception of (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's government, yet the bulldozers are being readied to raze outposts. "A government led by the Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas and Habayit Hayehudi cannot accept this. Netanyahu should follow in the footsteps of his predecessors– from David Ben-Gurion, who established Israel despite pressure from the US, to Levi Eshkol, who launched the Six Day War in the face of American pressure, and Menachem Begin, who bombed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in defiance of US demands," he said. | ||||||
