The regular weekly Friday demonstration in Sheikh Jarrah got a bit pushy on Friday.
Eight people were arrested [YNet says “detained for questioning”]. Somehow, luckily for them, they were released later on Friday, instead of spending all of Shabbat and more in jail — as happened last winter.
photo by Daniel J. Sieradski via Didi Remez on Facebook
YNet reported that “The protestors attempted to enter the Simeon the Just [Shimon Hatzadik] compound, claiming a court had given them permission to do so, but were stopped by police and Border Guard officers. Activists who clashed with the police said the officers used violent means against them despite what they defined as a ‘passive protest’ … [F]ormer Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On (Meretz) told Ynet: ‘The police are shoving everyone. We stood on the pavements and they said our gathering was illegal. We had no one to talk to’. Author David Grossman and former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair attended the rally as well Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On (Meretz). According to eyewitnesses, Grossman was also pushed by the police”.
For months, protestors have been confined to an area across the street from the entrance to the Sheikh Jarrah area, according to a court decision [in late January?] which, for some months, ended most police action against the demonstrators.
This Friday, things apparently changed: YNet reported that one of the protestors, Shir Sternberg, said: “We have wanted to protest inside the neighborhood with the Palestinians for the past nine months. We have a court approval’. However, if there is a new court order, it was apparently not communicated to the Israeli Border Police and national police”.
This would not be unusual.
However, it’s not yet clear whether or not a new court order exists, or what restrictions it might contain. And, there are suggestions in the accounts posted by participants that they decidedy on their own in advance to try to move forward during the demonstration this past Friday.
UPDATE: There is even more reason to think there might not be a new court order: the entire court system in Israel was shut down for a strike for 2.5 weeks, and the strike ended only on 11 July…
In any case, “A police official told Ynet … that [esteemed author David] Grossman was one of the dozens of protesters who attempted to break through the barrier and enter the Jewish homes. According to the police, the officers ‘used reasonable force’ against the writer and pushed him to an area authorized for demonstrations in accordance with a court ruling”. This YNet report is published here.
Haaretz reported that “The clash erupted when demonstrators tried to make their way to the contested homes in the neighborhood. Gal-On and Grossman said that they were pushed aggressively by police officers. Gal-On said that ‘it was one of the more violent events. We wanted to enter the neighborhood, but the police brutality was unprecedented’. ‘They pushed, and I too got hit’, Gal-On went on to say. ‘They just kicked the young people who were lying on the ground’. Gal-On added that former attorney general Michael Ben-Yair pleaded with the police to calm the situation, but they were uncooperative”. This is reported here.
Max Blumenthal noted on his blog that this was “the most violent repression since the weekly demonstrations began … Though Sheikh Jarrah demonstrators have been arrested en masse in the past, the protest is often a mellow affair characterized by chanting, singing, and kibitzing among a few hundred Jewish Israeli leftists. However, this week the demonstrators demanded to enter the Simeon the Just compound that the police normally cordon off to everyone except settlers”. This is posted here.