Sharon met with boos from anti-pullout protesters
Photo: AP
Settlers demonstrate against Gaza plan (archived photo)
Photo: Tsafrir Abayov
Sharon heckled at Bible quiz
Guards usher out teenagers who protest Gaza plan during Sharon's speech at Bible quiz in Jerusalem; Meanwhile, settlers march to fortify West Bank settlements
JERUSALEM - We'll take 'Angry Settlers' for 500, Alex.
A speech by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at an international Bible competition in Jerusalem was disrupted on Thursday when two teenage girls heckled him and waved a banner that carried a slogan that read “Jews don’t expel Jews”, in reference to his Gaza pullout plan.
Security men immediately ushered the two out of the room, where the World Bible Quiz was being held, during Israel’s 57th Independence Day. The YESHA settler council said it did not sponsor the protest but called it “legitimate, non-violent and inoffensive.”
“The protest was called for – it expresses the feeling among the people. We do not condemn what the girls did,” the organization said.
Meanwhile, a yeshiva student from Jerusalem won the Bible competition.
Settlers and many right-wingers oppose Sharon’s plan to dismantle all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four of 120 in the West Bank, claiming the land as their biblical birthright. The pullout is set to start this summer.
A group of settlers marched to West Bank enclaves slated for evacuation, although they said their act was not a protest, but rather meant to “prepare the ground for the ‘Day of Order,’" referring to the day when the army declares settlements Israel plans to leave closed military zones. A settler demonstration is also planned in Gaza.
Pamphlets distributed at an initiation ceremony and during Independence Day celebrations in Gaza called on Israelis to make their way to the territory to “stop Sharon’s plan in a democratic and non-violent way.”
