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Assemblyman Dov Hikind at Ben-Gurion Airport. (AP)
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners March 16, 2005 |
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A group of 40 Americans, led by a New York State Assemblyman, are in Israel in a show of solidarity with Jewish settlers living in Gaza, who are facing eviction.
The group is protesting the planned evacuation of the 21 Jewish settlements in Gaza as part of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement plan, scheduled for this summer. Under the plan Israel will pull out of the Gaza Strip and four small settlements in Samaria (on the "west bank" of the Jordan River).
"Why can't Jews and Palestinians live together if there is going to be peace," said the group leader, Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Democrat from Brooklyn. "Why should we throw Jews out of their homes? The only people who have thrown Jews out of their homes are the enemy," he said.
Hikind said this trip was the first of many in which thousands of U.S. Jews would come to Gaza to protest the pullout.
Tough greeting at passport control
Fifteen members of the group were detained upon reaching passport control. "The police questioned them and told them that the Gaza Strip is a closed military zone," said Ruth Lieberman, one of the people waiting to greet the group in Ben Gurion International Airport. Informed sources disputed that in fact Gaza is in fact closed to outsiders.
Assemblyman Hikind said that the police took the passports from some group members, and detained them for a half-hour. Helen Freeman, of Americans For a Safe Israel, wearing an orange shirt in soldidarity with Israeli residents in Gaza, described the welcome by the Israeli Police: "They said, 'You have to be detained. ' I said, 'That's a disgrace, why should I be detained?' And they said, 'Well, because of your shirt.'"
The group members were undeterred, Arutz Sheva reported. "These are people who are very dedicated to the Land of Israel," Hikind said, "and you see that they took off a whole week to come here on this solidarity trip. It was harassment, pure and simple. But they won't stop us. I'm working right now on plans to bring over another 1,000 people, all at once, to come to Gush Katif."
The group plans to be in the country for three days, meeting with Gaza residents and Israeli leaders. "We will to let the world know that not even Jews have the right to throw Jews out of their homes based on their religion," Hikind said.
Asked by reporters whether he supports breaking the law in protest, Hikind replied: "We are coming from a democracy. In the American tradition, we admire the right to civil disobedience. It's not called sedition or violence, but rather civil disobedience and that is what we are coming to be a part of."
The New York Post slammed Hikind for the protest trip. "Hikind's opposition to the Gaza pullback would be perfectly reasonable were it expressed at home. But by appearing in person, as part of a delegation, he's trying to interfere in the affairs of an independent sovereign nation -- not his own."
The AP contributed to this report.
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