Police arrested a number of Gush Emunim activists last night after they tried unsuccessfully to block President Carter’s motorcade en route to a State dinner in the President’s honor at the Knesset. Gush leader Harrnan Poral was among the detainees. The demonstrators tried to set up a barrier on the main road to downtown Jerusalem. One of them lunged at the President’s limousine and was pulled back by border police. The police used force to disperse the others.
Several hundred members of the Peace Now movement stood by, apparently intending to move against the Gush if the police failed to do so. Mean-while, 21 Gush leaders who were rounded up by police earlier to prevent a threatened anti-Carter demonstration in the heart of the capital, went on a hunger strike in their jail cells. They claimed they had not broken the law and that their detention was illegal. Likud MK Moshe Shamir presented an urgent motion in the Knesset protesting the police action.
The preventive arrests were prompted by an announcement by the Gush last week that they would demonstrate against Carter and try to disrupt his visit. Some Gush tried to close the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road Saturday to block. Carter’s motorcade from Ben Gurion Airport from entering the city. Gush leaders denounced the arrests as “brutal behavior” on the part of the government and prompted the many outbursts in the Knesset by Likud MK Geula Cohen during Premier Menachem Begin’s address: Taking the Premier to task for jailing them, she emotionally called on him to order their release.
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