More than 1000 demonstrators from all over the country gathered tonight in the capital to alert the Knesset not to sign the Camp David accords. They included settlers from the Rafah salient, Jordan Valley, members of the Greater Israel movement, Gush Emunim and other opponents.
The demonstrators reached Jerusalem in the early afternoon by means of a long parade of tractors and other agricultural transport vehicles. Before the long uphill march to the capital was started, one participant wryly noted, “We aren’t planning on stopping traffic, but tractors travel very slowly.”
However, if they were planning on causing traffic tie-ups in the capital they were soon disappointed. Police erected roadblocks at all entrances to the city and forbade the entrance of all heavy agricultural equipment, notably tractors and bulldozers. The 20 or so tractors that did manage to get in were quickly directed to the parking lot of the Binyanei Haooma convention hall, with more than 1000 demonstrators following.
The demonstrators arriving from the Rafah salient were ceremonially received with bread and salt, in order to differentiate and ridicule the welcoming given Premier Menachem Begin on his return from Camp David. A few instances of violence broke out between the demonstrators and police, with some protestors consequently taken into custody.
“Whoever says yes to the Americans today will be forced to say yes to them tomorrow over much greater demands,” Knesset member Yigael Cohen-Orgad told the assembled. “This is the danger in agreeing to remove settlements in the Rafah salient.”
At about 6 o’clock in the evening, the demonstrators began moving en masse to the Western Wall, where they intended to pray that the accords would not be agreed upon by the Knesset. En route, the 1000 persons caused considerable traffic disruptions. On Wednesday they plan to return to Jerusalem in order to continue their vigil this time outside the Knesset building, where the vote on the accords will be in process.
BEGIN TO RESIGN IF ACCORDS ARE REJECTED
Earlier in the day, members of the National Religious Party met with Begin to hear from him reports about the Camp David accords. The meeting, held in Jerusalem, lasted approximately one hour. While NRP members hoped to hear from the Premier that the implications of the accords are not as fateful as their Gush Emunim colleagues have made them out to be, the effect of such an attempt at pacifying the NRP members will not be clear until after the NRP faction and executive meeting tonight and the central committee meeting tomorrow.
“If the Knesset cancels the Camp David accords, I will go to the President and submit my resignation,” Begin repeated to the assembled NRP delegates. “This is not a threat, but rather a logical conclusion from the consequent situation.”
With Begin making it clear that he intends to enforce coalition discipline on the Knesset vote, which would ensure that La’am and NRP ministers vote for the government or resign, the NRP members did their best in gaining reassurances of some kind from the Premier.
Some of them pressed for the implementation of a referendum on the potential removal of settlements from the Rafah salient. To this, Begin replied. that the extended time factor involved made this unrealistic.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
